Synopses & Reviews
In their three thousand years of interaction, China and Vietnam have been through a full range of relationships. Throughout all these fluctuations the one constant has been that China is always the larger power, and Vietnam the smaller. Yet China has rarely been able to dominate Vietnam, and the relationship is shaped by its asymmetry. The Sino-Vietnamese relationship provides the perfect ground for developing and exploring the effects of asymmetry on international relations. Womack develops his theory in conjunction with an original analysis of the interaction between China and Vietnam from the Bronze Age to the present.
Review
"Some countries are obviously stronger than others. Yet modern theories of international politics, deriving from Westphalian normative assumptions of sovereign equality, tend to overlook this fact, treating asymmetry as a form of abnormal, remediable imbalance. Brantly Womack, however, based on an up-to-date yet comprehensive overview of Sino-Vietnamese relations, develops a theory of international asymmetry with implications far transcending this case. His book will thus interest not only East Asian area specialists but all students of contemporary international affairs." Lowell Dittmer, University of California, Berkeley"The book sets out to make a contribution to International Relations theory by examining examples of asymmetry in the power relations between China and Vietnam. He shows that, with a different starting-point, asymmetry could lead to a stability and normalcy that goes against current IR theories about asymmetric relationships between nations. The book offers a valuable correction to some current notions about asymmetry, in particular the idea that it makes for instability and could not be the basis for normalcy. By his close analysis of a two thousand year relationship between China and Vietnam, the author not only shows that the relationship was relatively stable in the past but also explains why it seems to have found a particular normalcy of its own today. There is no comparable work at this level of sophistication. It will be vital reading for all political scientists, especially scholars of international relations, and most historians of Asia." Wang Gungwu, National University of Singapore"Relations between unequals define contemporary international politics, many of these relationships endure while Great Powers rise and fall, and mismanaged asymmetry has painful consequences for the strong as well as the weak. Largely ignored in the theoretical literature, relations between states of greatly different capabilities receive the attention it deserves in China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry. Brilliantly conceived and elegantly executed, this important amplification of structural realism is a fascinating dissection of a long and turbulent relationship as well." William S. Turley, Southern Illinois University
Synopsis
The value of asymmetry theory is demonstrated in the dynamics of the Sino-Vietnamese relationship.
About the Author
Brantly Womack is Professor of Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia, and has been named an honorary professor at Jilin University in Changchun and East China Normal University in Shanghai. He is the author of Foundations of Mao Zedong's Political Thought and Politics in China (with James Townsend), and the editor of a number of books, including Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1991). After receiving his BA Magna cum Laude in Politics and Philosophy from the University of Dallas in 1969, Womack began studying Chinese while on a Fulbright Scholarship in Philosophy to the University of Munich. He received his MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago, where Tang Tsou was his mentor. After post-doctoral studies at the Contemporary China Center of the University of California, Berkeley, he taught at Northern Illinois University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London before going to the University of Virginia. He has served as Director of the East Asia Center, Chair of the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, and Director of the University's International Activities Planning Commission. He has made frequent visits to China since 1978 and to Vietnam since 1985, and has published articles comparing their politics and exploring their relationship in World Politics, Government and Opposition, China Journal, Asian Survey, Pacific Affairs, and elsewhere. His articles on asymmetry in international relations have appeared in Journal of Strategic Studies, Journal of Contemporary China, and Pacific Affairs.
Table of Contents
1. General overview; Part I. Basic Structure: 2. The parameters of China's external posture; 3. Vietnam's basic parameters; 4. The politics of asymmetry; Part II. The Relational Dynamic: 5. From the beginnings to Vietnamese independence; 6. Unequal empires; 7. The brotherhood of oppression; 8. Lips and teeth: 1949-1975; 9. Illusions of victory: 1975-90; 10. From normalization to normalcy; 11. Change and structure in asymmetry.