CONFLICTOGENIC POTENTIAL OF ASYMMETRIC CHINESE-VIETNAM RELATIONS

The article analyzes the features of Sino-Vietnamese asymmetric relations with a powerful destructive potential. The focus is on the elements of the confrontation between China and Vietnam, which prevent the acceleration and expansion of the scope of strategic cooperation. It has been found that bilateral relations between China and Vietnam, although they are developing in the format of "comprehensive strategic cooperation and partnership", did not avoid a confrontation caused by territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Vietnam is experiencing serious discomfort from the strengthening of China’s aggressive regional policy, acquiring a systemic and clearly structured character. The key configurations and trajectories of Vietnam’s basic strategies aimed at containing China, which is trying to gradually reformat the space around it is borders, are explored. It has been established that Sino-Vietnamese relations are a combination of political, ideological and cultural contacts with a complex of contradictions. Despite the weakening of the role of ideological tenets, the Communist Parties of China and Vietnam are too close and control the most important vectors of development of bilateral relations. It was noted that despite the intensification of contradictions, Sino-Vietnamese relations are dynamically developing and evolving and their cooperation to a certain extent is based on the search for compromises, common points of contact between positions and mutually acceptable solutions.