With its expanding economy and ever-deeper international integration China is playing an increasingly significant role in the world affairs. Under such circumstances it is nearly impossible to foresee further international developments without understanding how China approaches the world and what shapes its behavior. How can we make sense of how China makes its foreign policy at a time of uncertainty and transformation? What is, and should be, China’s role and interest in addressing myriad complex global challenges? This course will explore the major issues in Chinese foreign policymaking with a particular focus on Vietnam and the U.S. as case studies.

This course brings together International Relations theory and real-world Vietnamese foreign policy decisions and outcomes. The primary goal is to give students conceptual and critical tools to understand and analyze how theories of international relations, Vietnamese foreign policy outcomes, and current political events fit together. The course pays attention to the application of international relations theories to the problems we study, and also takes an interest in policy issues facing decision-makers in Vietnam as well as those facing decision-makers in other countries who deal with Vietnam. It is designed to develop students’ capacity both to explain the foreign policy-making process in Vietnam, and to better understand the underlying patterns, logic, and implications of Vietnam’s foreign policy in the world at large.