Finally: Real Progress on My Proposal!

I've surprised myself at how much progress I've made on my thesis proposal in the past week.

When I first attempted to write a proposal last fall, I was only able to get a rough draft of part II (The Research Problem) after three weeks and 17 revisions. On my second go-around this month, I've been able to complete part II and part III (Definition of Terms) in five revisions over five days.

Of course, the main difference between now and then is back in September I hadn't completed the main part of my research -- the NCNA searches in LexisNexis -- which resulted in lots of hand-wringing over the direction of my thesis and my hypotheses. Now, my research is complete and the direction is clear. I have my data, my secondary sources, and my hypotheses, now all I need to do is prepare a 20-page proposal detailing how I will combine them into a thesis.

Here are the key paragraphs in the current draft of my proposal (part II: Research Questions):

... Is there any other way to study Chinese attitudes toward Vietnam? Specifically, can an empirical methodology be applied, in order to better understand the priorities of China’s central government during this period? If so, what Vietnam-related issues will be seen as most important to China, and which countries or other international groups will China associate with these issues?

To answer these questions, my thesis will employ a computer-assisted text analysis of China’s official English-language wire service, the New China News Agency. I will measure, in aggregate, NCNA’s coverage – and, by extension, China’s interest in -- those Vietnam-related issues which China associated with other Indochinese countries, the two superpowers, and two prominent international bodies, the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. My aim is to provide an empirical basis for understanding China’s complex relationship with Vietnam as it involved these countries and organizations during the Deng era.

My hypothesis holds that of these countries and organizations, issues relating to Kampuchea dominated China’s views of Vietnam from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. My hypothesis also finds that the Soviet Union was not seen by China as a dominant factor in issues touching Vietnam or the Kampuchean conflict, with the exception of the first five years of the Deng period, and furthermore sharply faded as a concern of China’s in the last five years of the Deng period. My study confirms that, in China’s view, Vietnam receded in relevance to the Kampuchean conflict after Vietnam’s 1989 troop withdrawal from its neighbor, just as the United Nations came to be seen as an important player in Kampuchean conflict. Lastly, I hypothesize that China seldom viewed the United States, Laos, or ASEAN as important factors in issues involving Vietnam or the Kampuchean conflict during the Deng era.

Next steps are completing Part III of the proposal format (background) as well as two other parts on research methods and research limitations. I have to complete a tentative schedule and working bibliography. Lastly, I can decide on a tentative title, and then submit the whole package to my research advisor. I think I'll have a complete draft ready by the end of January.