China and Vietnam: The politics of asymmetry

摘要

Brantly Womack has written a tour de force with the publication of China and Vietnam: The politics of asymmetry. Womack's purpose is to address a lacuna in the field of international relations by developing a theory of asymmetry to explain interactions between large powerful states and smaller weaker ones. Womack has constructed his theory from the bottom up by a detailed investigation of China-Vietnam relations from the pre-imperial period until 2006. Womack focuses his analysis on the structural aspects of the relationship and does not claim to present a full-blown historical account China and Vietnam is divided into two parts preceded by a general overview. Part one considers the basic structure of the relationship. Womack devotes two chapters, one each to China and Vietnam, presenting what he terms the basic parameters available to each state. In China's case these include: size, centricity and localism, resource sufficiency, the challenge of sustenance and history. In Vietnam's case its basic parameters include: geography, nationalism and cosmopolitism, resource imbalance, integration and diversity, and history. These two chapters provide the basis for chapter 4 that presents Womack's theory of asymmetry.