Comparing the Chinese and Vietnamese Reforms: An Introduction

Abstract

Close to a decade after the collapse of the Communist states in Eastern Europe and almost as many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Communist parties in China and Vietnam are not only surviving; they are firmly in the saddle and can look with some satisfaction to their recent records of economic performance. While their erstwhile European counterparts have succeeded in establishing new political institutions and systems of electoral politics and are eager to adopt a capitalist economic structure, almost all of them remain mired in economic difficulties: living standards are generally lower than in the 1980s, and the economies of several of them are in a shambles. Paradoxically, China and Vietnam, the two main Asian socialist countries ? without undergoing similar political upheavals and without openly admitting that they welcome capitalism (as opposed to welcoming foreign direct investments) ? have been enjoying a period of well-publicized economic boom which even the current Asian crisis has not, to date, seriously dented. China, in particular, with an industrial growth rate unrivalled in the world this past decade, has been touted as a successor to the so-called East Asian miracle economies. Vietnam's economy has similarly taken off, with impressive growth rates since the late 1980s. In certain significant respects, they can be regarded as a pair. Both countries, after all, have charted broadly parallel paths in their economies ?disbanding agricultural collectives in favour of family farming; moving away from the command economy and toward a market economy in their publiclyowned industrial sectors; allowing private enterprises to emerge in almost all areas of the economy; turning vigorously toward the world market and toward export-oriented industrial drives; and successfully opening their doors to investment by foreign firms. Politically, both countries have shifted quietly away from Marxist ideology and rhetoric; have witnessed a progressive retreat in the ambit of what their parties attempt to control; have shown tolerance for a limited degree of interest-group politics ? and yet at the same time, both countries persist in a Leninist structure of party dominance.