Vietnam’s Participation In ASEAN Political-security Cooperation: Perspectives Of National Interest And State Identity

The dissertation intends to answer the following fundamental question:since its ASEAN membership in 1995, why Vietnam increasingly emphasizes and actively takes part in ASEAN political-security cooperation? At first the thesis by looking at how Vietnam has contributed to strengthen ASEAN cooperation in the domain of politics and security will depict its active participation. Next, the thesis focuses on its main argument. It will use an analytical framework composed of two interactive factors, namely national interest and state identity, to explore motivations behind the fact that Vietnam has been devoting itself more and more actively to the organization’s politics and security cooperation. That Vietnam manages to utilize those cooperation activities to archive its strategic interests is considered a fundamental driving force for the nation’s positive posture. At the same time, Vietnamese activity is also determined by another factor that is Vietnamese new state identity, namely an ASEAN member state. These two factors are interactive with each other. The new identity has provided Vietnam with many great benefits. Those interests in turn have further consolidated Vietnam’s state identity of an ASEAN member. The new state identity strengthened, again, has shown strong impact on the matter of how Vietnam treats its national interests. Vietnam has been playing a positive role in ASEAN political-security progress, simultaneously it has gained many great achievements. On the other hand, in this process, Vietnam also faces a series of its own hard issues. If only Vietnam can manage those well, it will increase cooperation efficiency in the future.