The China-Vietnam border is now experiencing a rapid modernization process. Due to both the Chinese and Vietnamese governments’ efforts to strengthen cross-border economic cooperation, Guangxi, as one border province, is becoming the new growth engine for regional economic development, owing to its cross-border trade and business with Vietnam, which has increased from 30 million USD in 1991 to 7 billion USD in 2004 (Fan & Liu, 2006). From the early 1990s, the re-opening of the China-Vietnam border, the rapid increase of cross-border trade has enabled Vietnam to finally exceed other foreign countries like the European Union, the USA, and Japan, becoming the key foreign-trading partner of Guangxi. Since 2001, Vietnam has consistently been the primary foreign-trading partner of Guangxi, and this trade has become increasingly important for the development of the border regions. Many new ports and trade points have been built up and opened for further cross-border cooperation. Between Guangxi and Vietnam, there are five first-class ports and seven second-class ports. Besides, there are twenty Border-Trade Zones and Points along the borderline (Fan & Liu, 2006). The previously remote and backward border areas have witnessed a rapid improvement of economy and infrastructure.

Accompanying this rapid modernization, the situation luan¹ (chaos) can also be easily observable at the border areas. Many reasons have contributed to it. First of all, crossing the border is relatively low-risk and low-cost. The border is easily penetrable and diverse means of border crossing can be found. Today, probably more than at any other time since the establishment of the PRC, people living close to the border continue to maintain contacts with their relatives and co-ethnics and move freely across the border, with or without a permit (Schoenberger & Turner, 2008). Second, the bianmaore (border-trade fever) has attracted a large population flow to the border areas for the opportunity they believe it presents. Grillot (2012b) points out that luan (chaos) is caused by the influx of people, particularly from the social margins, from everywhere. People’s continuing mobility further complicates the chaotic situation. Furthermore, the loopholes of bureaucratic systems and uneven implementation of state regulations on border control² have encouraged many risk-taking attitudes and activities. There are sometimes blurred lines between legality and illegality, and many illegal activities such as small-scale smuggling,³ informal border-crossing and unregistered cross-border marriage,⁴ are publicly observable. The corruption of border officials is also very common.⁵ As we spent more time on our fieldwork, we found people at the border areas were not only used to the unsystematic development there but also acted to maintain the somewhat chaotic situations. One informant commented that different groups of people had various survival skills, and the situations of luan (chaos) were able to satisfy the needs of many stakeholders who depended on the border for their livelihood and opportunities. Thus, there was an intricate balance between chaos and stability, and the ultimate goal was to zuandaqian (make (big) money). As local people vividly expressed it, “luanshi chu yingxiong” (The hero is made in a chaotic era).

The rapid socio-economic reconfigurations in both China and Vietnam have produced far-reaching impacts on the patterns of cross-border marriages and families (He, 2006; Le Bach, Bélanger, & Khuat, 2007; Zhang, 2012; Chan, 2013). China borders Vietnam at its Guangxi and Yunnan Provinces. Historically, cross-border marriage between border residents was quite common and lasting, even during wartime. Also, the central government did not interfere much with these marriages due to the remoteness and periphery of the border areas. From the 1990s onwards, following the growth of China and Vietnam’s economic cooperation and the normalization of diplomatic relations, the border province Guangxi has witnessed a new increase in cross-border marriages. According to the data from the Guangxi Public Security Department, unregistered Vietnamese brides in Guangxi alone have numbered over 40,000 (Luo, 2006, 2013; Luo & Long, 2007). Considering that those who are in registered marriages must be added, the number must be much underestimated (Luo, 2013). Both academia (Jin, 1995; Wang & Huang, 2007; Huang, Li, & Long, 2008; B. Li, 2008; Liu, 2013) and the media (e.g., Guangming News, 2006; Xinhua News, 2006, 2007) in China have shown a continuing obsession with unregistered cross-border marriages. Within these narratives, Vietnamese brides are constructed as “backward,” and “lacking knowledge” and as “ignorant” women, and they are often associated with many social problems like illegal migration, trafficking, cheating marriages, and so on. On the one hand, the economic collaboration and cross-border trade and business in the borderlands have achieved unprecedented success within a short period of time; on the other, there are frequent negative reports on unregistered cross-border marriages in China. It seems that cross-border marriages in the borderlands have not made the same amount of progress as regional economic development.

As Chan (2013) points out, “while the stereotypical discourses and labeling of cross-border Vietnamese brides still exist, the reality today is that there is actually much variation” (p. 112). In doing our fieldwork, we found that the situation of luan (chaos) and the in-between characteristic of the borderlands had provided certain spaces for Vietnamese brides from different social backgrounds and circumstances, not just for the privileged groups. Accompanying luan (chaos), Vietnamese brides were able to search for varied chances as well to develop strategies to cope with their immediate realities. Some had even become involved in an unregistered marriage and enjoyed no Chinese hukou⁶ (household registration). In reality, we noticed that more and more Vietnamese brides had become passport holders and their stays in China could not be defined as illegal.⁷ Some brides did not want to lose their Vietnamese hukou by registering as Chinese citizens. For them, holding Vietnamese citizenship meant more choices, since with the expansion of cross-border markets and the intensified competition in China, there were also more Chinese citizens choosing to go to Vietnam for work and residency. Furthermore, many people we met at the borderlands mentioned that now Vietnam is very different from what it was ten or fifteen years before. Indeed, many policies in Vietnam have been more advanced than in China. For example, a Vietnamese passport enjoys more visa exemption rights than a Chinese one. In addition, according to the revised law in Vietnam, single women are able to register their children’s hukou (Luan, Rydstrom, & Burghoorn, 2008). All these new changes have impacts on China-Vietnam marriages and bring more benefits to Vietnamese brides but are seldom noticed and discussed by most Chinese scholars.

In our fieldwork, we found that the many Vietnamese women acquire a set of life skills and tactics and create a sense of self-security and empowerment not necessarily through applying for an officially or legally recognized citizenship in China. The modern citizenship systems are deeply gendered; in many official records, we can see that the majority of foreign brides achieve their legal citizenships in receiving countries only as dependents. For many Vietnamese brides in cross-border marriages with Chinese men, they also face a similar destiny in terms of their citizenship application in China. Even worse, some Chinese husbands may fail to provide enough sponsorship for their Vietnamese wives’ citizenship application. However, by taking advantage of border crossing and the identity ambiguity at the borderland (the space “in-between”), the Vietnamese brides have developed their transnational “cultural capital” and taken an active role in the citizenship-making processes. By taking advantage of rather than getting rid of their national markers in a cross-border marriage, they remake the context of the China-Vietnam border into a new “contact zone” (Sprenger, 2009). Through mobilizing their roles as daughters, wives, or mothers and depending on their intimate connections in “private” spheres, the Vietnamese brides acquire certain citizenship-like rights to resist the state’s regulations. Often, their efforts will not necessarily be officially or legally recognized in a male-centric and legally defined model of citizenship. In this paper, we borrow the concept of “maternal citizenship”⁸ to present this less formal and female-centric citizenship-making process and discuss how Vietnamese brides acquire social and cultural capital through taking advantage of their maternal identities as daughters, wives, and mothers and how they create senses of self-security and empowerment at the China-Vietnam border.

Citizenship has been central in many studies on cross-border marriage since it uncovers “the gender and race ideologies that underpin legislation on immigration, marriage and employment” (Lyons & Ford, 2008, p. 2). A masculine and developmentalist bias can be easily identified and recognized in the construction of modern citizenship. The problem with such a conception of citizenship is that “achievement of modernity has been portrayed … as a power struggle with the feminine” (Scott, 1995, p. 5). Within the “modern citizens: traditional women” framework, migrant women are constructed as “ethnic boundary markers” and “pre-modern others” (Lan, 2008a, 2008b) due to “their assumed natural place in the domestic life of the community through their roles as producers and reproducers, through childbirth and through the education of cultural indoctrination of children” (Williams, 2010, p. 23). Within a (male) modern model of citizenship system or in many official records, many migrant women can become citizens of the receiving countries only through the sponsorship of their husbands. As Thapan (2008) states, “While viewing women migrants as dependents, we may often ignore their individual economic contributions, and an analysis based solely on official figures would give an inadequate account of the actual migration flows pertaining to women” (p. 10).

However, making women the repositories of tradition is not the whole story, since women can also, and simultaneously, be seen as embodying modernity. Many researchers have noticed that transnational women are often able to develop creative responses to state regulation (Ong, 1999; Abelmann & Kim, 2005; Amster, 2005; Amster & Lindquist, 2005; M. Kim, 2008; Lyons & Ford, 2008; Horstmann, 2009; Freeman, 2011), as well to practice certain levels of “maternal citizenships,” which is to say that women achieve social or cultural citizenship via motherhood (Abelmann & Kim, 2005; M. Kim, 2008, 2010, 2013). According to Abelmann and Kim (2005), maternal citizenship “suggests that a constellation of maternal efforts can produce a measure of value, self-worth, and citizenship or becoming a fully realized subject” (p. 102; also from Anagnost, 2000, p. 392). Furthermore, the constructs of maternal citizenship have transcended the state and national confines and “they highlight membership that exceeds legal status” (p. 102).

We borrow the concept of “maternal citizenship” in the study but extend the discussion beyond foreign brides’ mothering responsibility, since to sustain the lives of transnational families, these women’s contributions have gone far beyond the role of mother. Although reproductive ability acts as critical site for the citizenship experience of migrant women (M. Kim, 2013), their gendered roles as daughters, wives, and mothers are all integral parts of the formation of social and cultural citizenship. In a transnational context, the maternal efforts should include both women’s contributions as wives and mothers to the husbands’ families and as daughters to their maternal families. The reproductive contributions of foreign brides to the husbands’ family and host countries have been well recorded by many researchers (Piper & Roces, 2003; Suzuki, 2005; Sheu, 2007; Chen, 2008; Lan, 2008a, 2008b; H.-Z. Wang & Chang, 2009; Hsia, 2010; Williams, 2010). At the same time, researchers (Mills, 1999; Faier, 2007; Angeles & Sunanta, 2009; Lapanun, 2010) have also observed the continuing connections between married daughters and their maternal families, even many brides are in long distance from homes. To echo these studies, we consider foreign brides’ role as daughters, wives, and mothers all affect their practice of “maternal citizenship” and the formation of varied maternal alliances in cross-border marriages.

The China-Vietnam marriages have been situated in particular historical, cultural, and political-economic contexts, and some researchers (e.g., Grillot, 2012a, 2012b; Chan, 2013) have observed new models of transnational intimate alliances are forming at the border areas. Compared with long-distance transnational marriage migrants, Vietnamese brides at the border areas enjoy more conveniences to maintain and take advantage of their connections with maternal families and with Vietnam for more economic opportunities and a better sense of security, particularly for those who may not have legal status in China or who are involved in an unregistered marriage. The geographical proximity allows them to cross the border more frequently, thereby taking advantage of the possible resources from both sides of the border. Second, the situation of luan (chaos) in the borderlands means that they may be able to circumvent some restrictions on citizenship and supervision from the state. More importantly, the prosperity of border trades and the influx of population also bring more money-earning opportunities.

Under the circumstance of the China-Vietnam borderlands, Vietnamese brides have indicated their different strategies to deal with the state’s restriction on citizenship. By taking advantage of the particular context of the borderlands, Vietnamese brides can not only secure their very existences there but also transform their roles as daughters, wives and mothers into certain a kind of social and cultural capital and practice their maternal citizenship. As Pei, Ho, and Ng (2007) have argued, in understanding modern women, “we should look at how women create new syntheses of identity and strategies of being by making use of the personal and cultural resources available to them to fulfill their needs and aspirations” (p. 210). The borderlands thus provide us an alternative perspective from which to examine how Vietnamese brides form different maternal alliances and practice their maternal citizenship, a different feeling of being and belonging to women, which cannot be brought by legal citizenship (see Table below).

Borderland is an important context in our study. “Border towns have a particularly significant position in terms of migration and transition. People come, return, end up, exchange, pass by and/or settle in these places, irrespective of whether they originated from rural or urban regions or of the purpose of their initial projects” (Grillot, 2012b, p. 82). The specific modernization trajectory of the China-Vietnam border has provided a special case to understand modernity in the region. With the prosperity of border trade and the development of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), the Chinese and Vietnamese governments have cooperated to create certain special economic zones along the frontier. The model of “Border Economic Corridor” is coming into being to connect parallel villages, towns, and cities in respective countries through the border.

“Nanning–the Friendship Port–Hanoi”⁹ is one of the economic corridors where we carried out our fieldwork. As capital cities, Nanning and Hanoi are sites for major political and economic events¹⁰ and educational exchanges. More direct and active economic activities can be observed in the borderlands due to the establishment of Border Trade Zones and the busy transportation of transnational cargoes.

Many special policies for cross-border trade and businesses, tourism and communications are implemented along the economic corridors. Many BTZs (Border Trade Zones) and TRZs (Tax-Reservation Zones) have been built in the borderlands. The situations of “In-between-ness” (Bao, 2005; Lyons & Ford, 2008) or “liangguo yicheng”¹¹ (“Two countries, one city”) are quite apparent in these areas. Within the border zones, traders and businessmen from both countries are able to invest in and carry out economic activities directly, and cross-border mobility such as for tourism, education, marriage, and family visiting, is a very common practice there. However, the development of the borderlands is proceeding in an unsystematic manner and the administrations there are also very disorganized. Thus, it is difficult for us to use traditional definitions of the rural and the urban to address the demographic background of many informants. For example, some Border Trade Zones, although located in a rural area, have become very advanced and urbanized, and many residents there have in fact come from the cities; whereas some informants we met in the cities used to live in villages or small towns and later moved and settled in the big cities. More frequently, travelling often across the border or between the rural and the urban has been part of the life reality of many people living in these “in-between” spaces.

We carried out our fieldwork mainly in 2011 and 2012. Along the “Nanning–Friendship Port–Hanoi” Economic Corridor (see Picture below), Nanning and Hanoi were the main locations where we collected data on cross-border marriages. Another important research site was several Border Trade Zones and neighboring villages around the Friendship Port. The Border Trade Zones we visited used to be several of many villages along the border and later were developed into special economic areas. Usually, businessmen and tourists from different places in both Vietnam and China are easily identified at the Border Trade Zones. Many local people are working in these zones during the day and go back to their home in the nearby villages at night. Some from relatively faraway villages and towns will stay in the zones much longer and visit home during holidays. Beside these formal trade zones, there were also many informal open markets formed by border residents for daily-life and small-scale transactions.

Figure 1. 
Graphic Presentation of “Nanning-the Friendship Port-Hanoi” Geography¹²

Guided by a qualitative research design, we seek to understand how the Vietnamese women make sense of their cross-border marriage and mobility experiences, and how they construct their identities as “Vietnamese brides” and to create their life spaces at the borderlands. Altogether, 29 Vietnamese women in different types of cross-border relationships were interviewed and all of them had met or married their Chinese husbands after the re-opening of the border in 1991. Before the interviews, we introduced the research topic and purpose to the informants and obtained their consent for interview and audio recording. They were well informed that participation was totally voluntary and they were able to refuse to answer any question they did not wish to respond; also, the informants could choose to leave the research project whenever they wanted. The majority of informants lived and worked in China, and usually women moved to where the men lived. Therefore, even though we managed to collect relevant data in Vietnam as well as China, our meeting with the informants and visiting communities mostly occurred on the Chinese side. Although many of these women kept moving back and forth over the border before and after their marriages, about 3/4 of the informants spent more time in China during the interviews.

The research design went beyond the narrow focus on unregistered cross-border marriages and the “mono-site” ethnography that many Chinese researchers had done. We noticed that along the borderline, cross-border intimate encounters happened at various levels of “contact zones.” Although location has made some differences, but it does not tell the whole stories. Thus we travelled to different border cities, towns, trade zones, and villages to meet Vietnamese brides and tried to identify varied cross-border intimacies. We took note of any possible sources of information concerning the research topic and the travelling was often triggered by the new information we got during the interview process; then we followed these clues to different sites to collect data.

The situations of Vietnamese wives we met during the fieldwork also reflected the character of luan (chaos) in the borderlands. These women were involved in various types of cross-border relationships with Chinese men. Some registered their marriages but some did not; some lived in cities while others lived in villages; and some resided on the Chinese side and others on the Vietnamese side. Unlike the one-direction migration described by many Chinese scholars, frequent border crossing between the countries was not only a life reality but also the strategy for survival and development. We also noticed the diverse ways in which the informants in different locations adapted to or resisted formal changes in law and policy. No doubt existing geographic/regional divisions are set up for the purpose of official administration; however, increasing national and transnational mobility has further blurred the boundaries between different locations. Similarly, the mobility of Vietnamese women and Chinese men has been more and more bidirectional and circulated. The situations of Vietnamese brides also varied from case to case, even for those who lived in the same community.

Both China and Vietnam are countries that deny the holding of dual citizenship. Under this circumstance, the cross-border couples face concrete problems in dealing with the issue of citizenship. Noticeably, there are many cases of unregistered cross-border marriages existing in the borderlands (Li, 2007; Dang, 2010). Undeniably, the chaotic and ambiguous administration there creates the space for these unregistered marriages. At the same time, the space in-between has given much momentum for these women to practice their maternal powers rather than simply following the state’s control on citizenship. The exercise of maternal citizenship does not mean a reworking and subversion of official citizenship; rather, the informants acquire multiple or similar citizenship rights through various means such as by applying for a Vietnamese passport rather than Chinese hukou, by registering their children’s on the Vietnamese hokou, by making use of kinship connections, and by depending on the practice of local naturalization¹³ (Horstmann, 2009). In much of their daily life, the Vietnamese women’s practices of maternal citizenship have rendered the nation-state’s concept of modern citizenship narrow and absurd.

Contrary to the stereotypical view of Vietnamese brides as “backward,” “lacking knowledge,” and “ignorant” of state policies, they have shown much acumen in taking advantage of the in-between spaces they live in and showing their wisdom in dealing with complicated linguistic and cultural circumstances. In many ways, their surviving and developing trajectories in the borderlands have put the state’s dominant model and discourse of modernity in question, shedding light on women’s different ways to participating in development. Moreover, by taking advantage of the benefits of living in the space “in-between,” the Vietnamese brides have demonstrated how they “through modernization have exercised agency, attempting to negotiate and define themselves, often within and against hegemonic frameworks imposed from ‘above’” (Tanabe & Tokita-Tanabe, 2003, p. 13). Although their practices of maternal citizenship may be less recognized in a formal and official way, Vietnamese wives have announced and indicated their prominent existences in the borderlands.

Often, women’s roles and experiences as mothers and housewives are less recognized or given inadequate attention in a male-centred model of policy making. Indeed, women are excluded from the male model of modernity designs and projects. However, women do not need to resist the domination of men through abandoning their maternal identities. Their maternal identities can function like foreign passports “for creating new designs for living, new conceptions of womanhood, and new forms of relationship” (Ho, 2007, p. 263). Their integration into new environments, survival and livelihood, intimate experiences, social identification, and citizenship rights provide meaningful stories for us. The practices of maternal citizenship by Vietnamese brides are good examples to show how women in different locations negotiate changing patterns of personal life and win their recognition, self-esteem, and values through their maternal identities as daughters, wives, and mothers.