ABSTRACT
For China, Vietnam occupies a place of particular strategic importance. Not only is it the unique exit to the sea for inner provinces such as Sichuan and Yunnan but also it is a buffer state that looks out on the maritime traffic of the South China Sea. At the crossroads of the two most important civilisations in Asia (the Indian and the Chinese), Vietnam received strong influences from these two civilisations long before the French colonisation. It is the only nation in Southeast Asia that was under strong and sustained Chinese influence for a long period of time (Singapore is an exception).
