The Behavior Logic Of Vietnam’s Hedging Strategy Towards China(1991-2019)

The core issue trying to be explored of this paper is the behavior logic of Vietnam’s hedging strategy towards China after the normalization of Sino-Vietnam relations.Why has Vietnam universally been using hedging strategy against China in more than two decades after the normalization of Sino-Vietnam relations,while the strength of its hedging strategy has been changing with different periods? It is found by research that the combined action of threat perception and external support influences the variation of strength of Vietnam’s hedging strategy against China at different stages.In the first stage,since Vietnam has a weak threat perception to China,and the external support,mainly from the US,is weak,Vietnam presents the characteristics of low-strength hedging against China;In the second stage,since Vietnam has a strong threat perception to China,and the external support,mainly from the US,is strong,Vietnam presents the characteristics of high-strength hedging against China;In the third stage,since Vietnam has a weak threat perception to China,and the external support,mainly from the US,is strong,Vietnam presents the characteristics of moderate-strength hedging against China,whose hedging intensity is higher than that in the first stage but lower than that in the second stage.This paper first analyzes the concept of "hedging strategy",elaborates the source,definition,content,classification,etc of the concept in detail,and then structures the analytical framework by means of the independent variable threat perception and external support.Finally,it investigates changes in threat perception,external support,and Vietnam’s hedging against China over three different periods,to verify the correctness of the analysis framework,well explaining the behavior logic of Vietnam’s hedging strategy.