Construction Of National Interests And Vietnamese Maritime Claims

In this article, I applied the "national interests theory of constructivism " to the analysis of the causes of Vietnamese maritime claims. Vietnamese maritime claims have been far different among different states at different times since the end of World Warâ…¡. Specifically, South Vietnam claimed the sovereignty of Spratlys and Paracels through asserting sovereignty and exploration over them; on the contrary, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) claimed that China has indisputable sovereignty over Spratlys and Paracels, and expressed the perspective at different times in different occasions; while Vietnam not only inherited South Vietnamese claims on Spratlys & Paracels but also enlarged its interests & rights on territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone, continental shelf etc. after its unification; Vietnam doesn't change its contents essentially but changed its claim forms to some extent in the post cold war era, for example, Vietnam solved the Tonkin Gulf problem through political talks, while Strengthened arms and waged a predatory exploitation in South China Sea, and even tried to make the dispute international in South China Sea. Through my analysis, I found that the main causes are international relations at the time, understandings of the ocean, the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea and the formulation of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. From Vietnamese maritime interests analysis I drew my conclusion that national interests are not set and static but changing under the influence of different factors at different times.