Brothers in Trouble: China-Vietnam Territorial Disputes and Their Bilateral Approach to Conflict Management

Abstract

In the post-World War II period, China and Vietnam have engaged in a number of territorial disputes between themselves. Despite different trajectories that the respective categories have taken, their management appears to reflect what can be termed as the “Sino-Vietnamese Way of conflict management.” This paper aims to identify the basic features of this type of conflict management from the standpoint of incompatibility management and, through comparison between the two categories of disputes (Gulf of Tonkin and South China Sea), find reasons for the different outcomes between them. Major findings of this study are: First, the mutual trust that had been forged through fraternity between the two ruling communist parties and their readiness for mutual accommodation as a result played a crucial role in the successful settlement of the first category of disputes. Second, three issues prevent the full functioning of the Sino-Vietnamese Way of conflict management in the second category of disputes, which are: the exposure of the management process to nationalistic sentiments of the public; the existence of several complicating factors; and the division between the pro-China and pro-U.S. factions within the Vietnamese leadership. Third, several mechanisms to manoeuvre around incompatibilities, prevent crisis and reduce tension have been developedto compensate for the detrimentalissuesand appear to have been working fairly well.