China has long been a major source of influence on the evolution of Vietnam as a modern state. This is well illustrated by some researchers’ analogy that likens China to a rooster, with Korea as its beak and Vietnam its legs. The analogy, while highlighting the strategic importance of Vietnam towards China's well-being, especially in terms of security, also implies that Vietnam has long been living under the weight of China. In other words, Vietnam is condemned to a “tyranny of geography” (Thayer 2002, p. 271), whereby it has no choice but to learn to share its destiny with China through every twist and turn of its history.

Factors Shaping Vietnam–China Relations

Vietnam has been so much influenced by China that any account of the country's history would be incomplete without referring to its relations with the northern neighbour. Vietnam came under Chinese suzerainty for more than 1,000 years, since the Han dynasty conquered and annexed the country in 111 BC until Vietnam gained its formal independence for the first time in AD 938. Since then until the encroachment of the West in the latter half of the nineteenth century, despite intermittent attempts by China to reoccupy Vietnam, the relationship between the two countries was characterized by the relatively stable coexistence of the two empires with the latter being part of the former's tributary system (see, for example, Woodside 1971). After gaining its independence from colonial powers in 1945, Vietnam seemed to be in a better position to deal with China, but again, the northern neighbour continued to exert tremendous impact on the country, both before and after it was unified under communist control.

The history of interactions between the two countries shows that their relationship has been heavily conditioned by three major factors. The first is the geographical proximity between the two countries. Living next to China brings Vietnam both good and bad fortune. Vietnam, as one of the most sinicized countries in Asia, has benefited from China's immense cultural wealth, which more or less shaped the country's development as a nation-state.