• DOI:10.2307/3021200
• Corpus ID: 154326301

Sino-Vietnamese Relations and the Economy of Vietnam's Border Region

@article{Roper2000SinoVietnameseRA,
  title={Sino-Vietnamese Relations and the Economy of Vietnam's Border Region},
  author={Christopher Roper},
  journal={Asian Survey},
  year={2000},
  volume={40},
  pages={1019-1041},
  url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:154326301}
}

• C. Roper
• Published 1 November 2000
• Economics, Political Science, History
• Asian Survey

In 1991, China and Vietnam reestablished diplomatic ties 12 years after China's brief but extremely bloody "punitive" attack on its former comrade-in-arms. Prior to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam's (DRV) victory over the South in 1975, China had been Vietnam's largest benefactor, contributing $20 million of military and development aid to Hanoi. With the end of Vietnam's domestic conflict, China withdrew its economic aid, outraged that Hanoi appeared to be heading toward an alliance with… 

In 1991, China and Vietnam reestablished diplomatic ties 12 years after China's brief but extremely bloody "punitive" attack on its former comrade-in-arms. Prior to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam's (DRV) victory over the South in 1975, China had been Vietnam's largest benefactor, contributing $20 million of military and development aid to Hanoi. With the end of Vietnam's domestic conflict, China withdrew its economic aid, outraged that Hanoi appeared to be heading toward an alliance with the Soviet Union. Sino-Vietnamese relations rapidly deteriorated, culminating in the 1979 war. For the next decade, relations between the two countries remained icy, with China refusing to consider normalizing relations until Vietnam withdrew its military from Cambodia. By 1989, however, tensions were easing enough to allow unofficial border trade, and in 1991, with the Cambodian issue largely resolved, Vietnam and China, then two of the last few remaining socialist countries, again officially recognized each other's governments. Given the huge disparity in size between the two countries, one would expect Vietnam to be much more sensitive to changes in its relations with its northern neighbor than vice versa. This sensitivity should be evident in Vietnam' s economy. Conventional wisdom, based on classical and neoclassical trade theory, suggests that trade benefits the economies of all parties involved. The law of comparative advantage, upon which classical and neoclassical trade theories rest, claims that all parties gain absolutely from trade, even if one country holds only a comparative advantage in the production of