“Trust facilitates business, but may also ruin it”: the hazardous facets of Sino-Vietnamese border trade

Abstract

This article focuses on the operational dynamic of informal small-scale trade in the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands as disclosed by local traders’ strategies of negotiation. It questions the impact of financial transaction practices – management of official fees and procedures related to payments – on the sustainability of cross-border trade. It engages with the notion of “trust” and stresses its significance in a space where the vagaries of trade policies challenge business rules, and contest the local power hierarchy. It argues that despite the principles underlying “trustful cooperation” being unevenly adhered to, traders manage to adjust to one another’s methods, revealing the nature of their tacit complicity in maintaining business logistics regardless of the limits imposed by national policies, institutional regulations and stereotypes.

Keywords:

• cross-border trade
• trust
• money transaction
• informal economy
• Sino-Vietnamese borderlands

Acknowledgements

This article has greatly benefitted from constructive comments received at the 4th Conference of the Asian Borderlands Research Network, Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong (December 2014) “Re-openings, Ruptures, and Relationships” (8--10th December, 2014). Special thanks go to the anonymous reviewers, and to my colleague Kirsten Endres for their valuable comments and suggestions on the earlier drafts. I am most grateful to the Institute of Cultural Studies (Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Hanoi) for their support, in particular to my research assistant Dinh My Linh for her patience, help and insights during fieldwork, and to all my Chinese and Vietnamese informants for their trust.

Notes

1. The Đong (VND) is the currency of Vietnam.

2. Van is Vietnamese but she resides in China (Dongxing), which allows her to open a Chinese bank account.