“China” from the perspective of Vietnam from 1979 to the late 1990s : Studying from Sự thật về Việt Nam-Trung Quốc trong 30 năm qua and the academic writings after the end of the Cold War

Abstract

The historical research methodology was
employed to study “China” from the perspective of
Vietnam from 1979 to the late 1990s: studying from Sự
thật về Việt Nam-Trung Quốc trong 30 năm qua and
the academic writing after the end of the Cold War. The
messages from the contemporary document which was
Sự thật về Việt Nam-Trung Quốc trong 30 năm qua of
Vietnam published in 1979 and the writings of
Vietnamese academics after the end of the Cold War
were studied in order to investigate the Vietnamese
perspective on China from 1979 to the 1990s.
The results of the study revealed that the
author of Sự thật về Việt Nam-Trung Quốc trong 30 năm
qua was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam. This
book revealed the points of view of the Communist
Party of Vietnam and the Government of Vietnam on
China in two main areas. First, Vietnam considered that
China wanted to be the great power nation through the
strategy of “expanding the power over other nations”
(bánh trường đại dân tộc) and “Hegemony” (bá quyền
nước lớn). “Vietnam” was under this strategy of China.
Second, Vietnam considered China as “betrayer” (phản
bội) to Vietnam, which occurred three times. The first
time was during the Geneva Conference in 1954. The
second time was in 1954-1975, which was the period
that the Vietnamese people were fighting to liberate the
South Vietnam to combine the nation. The third time
was from May 1975 to present (1979) which was from
the period of national integration of Vietnam to the
border war of China and Vietnam in 1979. However,
when studying the writings of Vietnamese academics
after the Cold War, it is found that they presented
different attitudes to China, which were different from
those presented in Sự thật về Việt Nam-Trung Quốc
trong 30 năm qua. It focused on creating the
perception and the understanding of China in the sense
that “China was the supporter of Vietnam” throughout
the years 1954-1975.