COMPARING THE CHINESE AND VIETNAMESE REFORMS ：AN INTRODUCTION (上) Close to a decade after the collapse of the Communist states in Eastern Europeand almost as many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union ，the Communistparties in China and Vietnam are not only surviving ；they are firmly in the saddleand can look with some satisfaction to their recent records of economictheir erstwhile European counterparts have succeeded in establishing new politicalinstitutions and systems of electoral politics and are eager to adopt a capitalisteconomic structure，almost all of them remain mired in economic difficulties ：living standards are generally lower than in the 1980s，and the economies of severalof them are in a ，China and Vietnam，the two main Asiansocialist countries ？without undergoing similar political upheavals and withoutopenly admitting that they welcome capitalism ？have been enjoying a period of well-publicized economic boomwhich even the current Asian crisis has not ，to date，seriously ，in particular ，with an industrial growth rate unrivalled in the world this pastdecade，has been touted as a successor to the so-called East Asian miracle s economy has similarly ？taken off ，with impressive growth rates sincethe late 1980s.In certain significant respects ，they can be regarded as acountries，after all ，have charted broadly parallel paths in their economies ？disbandingagricultural collectives in favour of family farming；moving away from the commandeconomy and toward a market economy in their publicly-owned industrial sectors；allowing private enterprises to emerge in almost all areas of the economy ；turningvigorously toward the world market and toward export-oriented industrial drives；and successfully opening their doors to investment by foreign ，both countries have shifted quietly away from Marxist ideology and rhetoric ；havewitnessed 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 yetat the same time，both countries persist in a Leninist structure of party dominance.It is time to ask ，then ，whether there exists an Asian socialistthe broadest of generalities，to what extent and in what specificareas are China and Vietnam indeed following similar paths to modernization andsimilar reform agendas？Is there a common logic to their programs？In the politicalsphere，where political reforms have been announced in tandem with economic reforms，to what extent are the two party regimes reshaping the political systems and thebases of their political legitimacy in similar ways ？And，perhaps most importantly，within the broad similarities of what is occurring in China and Vietnam ，whatare the differences ？This last question takes on special salience in that it maypoint to newinsights about each countrys recent experience？insights that wouldnot be evident if a scholar were to focus only on one country.Any such comparisons between the reform programs in Vietnam and China also raisehistoricalwhat extent are any similarities today a consequence ofsimilar historical traditions and mind-sets and predispositions that stretch backinto earlier centuries？To what extent do any present-day similarities reflectsimilar histories of Communist revolution in the two countries in earlier decades？A New DepartureAlthough a relatively large corpus of previous writings has compared China andVietnam ，few of these books and articles have examined topics that are directlyrelevant to the questions posedthe face of this dearth of comparativestudies ，and in light of the significance of the parallel changes sweeping bothcountries ，we considered it important to initiate a comparative set of studiesthat would move well beyond what has previously beenan obstaclestood in the way：only a very few of the scholars around the world who specializein one of the two countries are equipped linguistically and otherwise to undertakeresearch on the otherdiscussion ，an idea emerged among us thatto overcome this deficiency ，pairs composed of a China specialist and a Vietnamspecialist should collaborate on some of the topics.At a workshop in August 1994sponsored by the East-West Center in Honolulu，three days of brain-storming sessions enabled the members of each team to delineatea framework for theirthat workshop it was decided，too，that to understandthe present reforms a paper would need to be added on the historical context，andto this end Alexander Woodside was invited to join the project as an historian whoconducts sophisticated research on both China and Vietnam.Drafts were presented and discussed at a second workshop held at the AustralianNational University in August，the authors redrafted their papersseveral times up through 1998in order to help shape a cohesive collection thattakes account of the fast-moving shifts in the two countriesreform programs.Commonalities in China and Vietnams Prior ExperienceVietnam and China