No 11, Issue 2       

Vietnam’s Strategy Towards China in the South China Sea from the Perspective OF Asymmetric Game

Rui Kai XUE

Pages: 51-70

Abstract

The decision-making of weak countries against powerful countries deserves in-depth discussion, especially the dynamic choice of weak countries’ strategies in the context of power gaps. In the real geopolitical game of the South China Sea, the asymmetry of interaction between Vietnam and China may become the normal state. This article develops Womack’s theory of asymmetric relations. By introducing the game matrix, a new framework of asymmetric relations containing power parameters is constructed to characterize the dynamic interaction of strategies between strong and weak countries. It is believed that the “fault line” of diplomatic attention caused by asymmetry of power is a variable of Vietnam’s diplomatic strategy against China in the South China Sea. Then the author collected official statements, incident comments, and ministerial interviews related to the ” Hai Yang Shi You 981″ crisis from the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, compiled them into the corpus, and captured the dynamic changes in Vietnam’s strategy based on operational code and text analysis, which could provide inspiration for the settlement of island and reef disputes in the South China Sea.

Keywords

Vietnam; China; Asymmetry; Power gap; South China Sea

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