"Trust facilitates business, but may also ruin it": the hazardous facets of Sino-Vietnamese border trade. Issue 2 (3rd May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Grillot, Caroline
• Is Part Of: Asian anthropology. Volume 15:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 169
• Page End: 185
• Publication Date: 2016-05-03
• Subjects: cross-border trade -- trust -- money transaction -- informal economy -- Sino-Vietnamese borderlands; Anthropology -- East Asia -- Periodicals; Anthropology -- Asia -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 301.09505
• DOI: 10.1080/1683478X.2016.1216281
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1683-478X

Abstract

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.