In November 1991 the General Secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party Do Muoi and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Vietnam Vo Van Kiet visited Beijing at the invitation of Chinese Communist Party Secretary Jiang Zemin and Chinese Premier Li Peng, and a Joint Communiqué was signed on November 10 establishing normal relations between China and Vietnam, ending twelve years of hostility. In one sense this marked the re-establishment of relations, since China had been the first country to extend diplomatic recognition to Ho Chi Minh's government and had been its major supporter during its struggles against the French, the Saigon government, and the Americans. But neither China nor Vietnam viewed the normalization of 1991 as a return to the alliance of 1950–1975. Despite the fact that normalization concluded a decade of bitter hostility in which neither side had triumphed, admitted defeat, or apologized, the era of normalization was immediately accepted by the participants and by external observers as a robust and long-term relationship. Normalization was expected to be a new era of peaceful but not close relations, and from 1999 it has exceeded those expectations by moving from cautious normalization to more integrated normalcy. Why?

The shorter the question, the longer the answer. This book attempts to present a holistic view of China and Vietnam in their relationship, and this chapter is in part an introduction to the subject and in part a microcosm of the book.