Vol 3, No 2 (2019)

This paper investigates the ambiguities of the Vietnam-China relations. The history of the relations between the two neighboring countries, two sister-countries since the official recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) by the Soviet Union in January 1950, has always been marked by a mixture of mistrust and usefulness among the Vietnamese elites. This article shows that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) continues to play a balanced diplomacy between the major powers in the interest of its elites concerned with maintaining their power. China and Vietnam are aware that the renewal of their security partnership will not avoid their disputes in the South China Sea. The modernization of the Vietnamese People’s Army (VPA) is intended to demonstrate to the Chinese its ability to inflict damage on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). But in the event of a conflict, Hanoi would only seek to push Beijing back to the status quo as quickly as possible. The SRV does not see itself as the flagship of a future anti-Chinese protest in Southeast Asia, regardless of the expectations of Tokyo or Washington. The Vietnam’s leaders know that they are limited in their actions, it is in this ambiguous area that the complexity of the Sino-Vietnamese relations is found since the normalization of relations between the two states in 1991. However, with its multidirectional diplomacy (state, provinces, communities), China is omnipresent in Vietnam, at all levels of its apparatus, and in all sectors. At this stage, alienating China, and its ASEAN partners, would represent a dangerous political choice that Vietnam is not ready to make. The SRV opts for dialogue and long time to manage the future of its relations with China.

The paper analyzes the scope of Vietnam’s contemporary migration potential and the factors shaping it. The main types of exit flows, their directions, pushing and attracting factors in the areas of departure and arrival of migrants are considered. The authors characterize labor and academic emigration as main types and economically developed countries of Asia, as well as the countries of the Persian Gulf, Europe, and North America as core directions. Particular attention is paid to the characteristics of Vietnamese migration to Russia at the present stage. The paper concludes that Russian labor market occupies extremely modest place in migration intentions of the Vietnamese and in various migration flows from Vietnam. In conclusion, some recommendations are offered on possible ways to improve Russian migration policy in order to strengthen ties with Vietnam.

The article discusses the events of January 1979 in Cambodia which led to the toppling of the Khmer Rouge and the establishment of a political regime loyal to Vietnam. The author shows that aggressive anti-Vietnamese policies pursued by the Khmer Rouge regime created an acute security threat for the neighboring country. The inability to settle bilateral relations peacefully compelled Vietnam to solve the problem by using force. The article considers both positive and negative consequences of the Vietnamese military invasion in Cambodia. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of ongoing intense debates among political elites about the role of the Vietnamese factor during that period of Cambodian history.

Language variation in general and phraseological variation in particular is a fundamental property of the language system, a way of its existence. The phenomenon of variation is universal, but in each language, and in Vietnamese in particular, variable relations have a number of specific features. The definition and classification of phraseological variants, the differentiation of phraseological variants and phraseological synonyms are extremely important for practical phraseology and lexicography. In analyzing the phraseological variation in the Vietnamese language, we used the methods of component analysis, definitional analysis, the method of continuous sampling, the descriptive method, the comparative method. Among the phraseological units of the Vietnamese language, the following types of phraseological variants were identified and analyzed: positional, lexical, quantitative, phonetic, etymological, mixed. Isolated cases of grammatical variants. The results of the study will be applied in practical phraseography - in compiling the Vietnamese-Russian phraseological dictionary, and can also be used in courses of theoretical phraseology and cultural studies and be of interest to all students of the Vietnamese language and culture of Vietnam.

The article reveals the contents of a scientific-practical seminar on the prospects for the development of Russian-Vietnamese relations at the present stage, held by the Center for Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The main conclusion of the experts is the recognition of the decline of the role of Russia in Vietnam and Southeast and East Asia as a whole.

The commentary highlights the prerequisites for concluding the Treaty on Principles of Friendly Relations between the Russian Federation and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1994 and reveals its basic meaning.

The article reviews a monograph by Grigory Lokshin, Yevgeny Kobelev and Vladimir Mazyrin “ASEAN Community in the Contemporary World” singling out that new aspects of Association community building efforts which have not been analyzed in the Russian publications before. The review highlights authors’ attempts to consider ASEAN Community in a broader macro-regional context.

The article is devoted to the activity of the researcher of the languages of small peoples of Vietnam I.V. Samarina and her contribution to the preservation of the culture of Vietnam.