In Ming China and Vietnam: Negotiating Borders in Early Modern Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Kathlene Baldanza explores the complex diplomatic exchanges between China and Vietnam from the 13th to the 17th centuries. Drawing on vast material of both Chinese and Vietnamese primary sources, Baldanza challenges conventional narratives that focus on Chinese aggression and Vietnamese resistance, instead highlighting Vietnam’s use of East Asian classical culture as an ideological threat to China.  As such, Sino-Viet relations, read through the seven interrelated biographies covered here, should be understood as a process of negotiation and compromise.

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