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 economic performance.while their 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 shambles.paradoxically，china and vietnam，the two main asiansocialist countries ？without undergoing similar political upheavals and withoutopenly admitting that they welcome capitalism （as opposed to welcoming foreigndirect investments）？have been enjoying a period of well-publicized economic boomwhich even the current asian crisis has not ，to date，seriously dented.china，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 economies.vietnam's economy has similarly ？taken off ì，with impressive growth rates sincethe 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 ？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 firms.politically，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 socialist reformmodel.beyond the 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 country's 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 raisehistorical questions.to what 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 departure

　　although 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 posed here.in the 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 been attempted.yet an 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 other country.through discussion ，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 their topic.at that 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 1995.afterward ，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 countries'reform programs.

　　commonalities in china and vietnam's prior experience

　　vietnam and china both commenced their paths to economic reform from a broadlysimilar point of departure，in the obvious sense that they had previously adoptedfrom the soviet union a common marxist-leninist ideology and a leninist politicalframework.they were，of course，akin to the socialist countries of eastern europein both this respect and（with the partial exception of yugoslavia）in the factthat they maintained command economies.so，too，in the image of the soviet unionof the 1930s，both countries had sought to embark on programs of forced industrialization.and again like the countries of eastern europe，the two asian socialist countrieshad shared in a rhetoric of nation-building and ？class struggleì。wwW.11665.cOm

　　but at the same time，china and vietnam stood apart from the european socialistexperience.both countries，as woodside discusses in these pages ，shared longhistorical traditions of confucianism ，of rulership and bureaucracy that wereunlike the historical traditions of the european socialist states.both countriesalso shared a somewhat parallel experience of revolution this century that differedfrom the experience of any part of europe.and after consolidating power，bothof their new communist governments had adopted organizational patterns in the countrysidethat differed considerably from what held for eastern europe.in all of these importantways，vietnam and china did hold to a distinctively？asian socialist experienceì。

　　the persisting traditional intellectual and political legacies of both countrieshad ，of course，also been overlaid by the marxist ideology that arrived in vietnamand china in the second decade of this century.the young intellectuals who wereattracted to marxism were disturbed by the dominance of western power ，the humiliating ？backwardnessìthat had befallen their own lands ，and the poverty of most of theircompatriots.the new marxist-leninist credo taught them that through revolutionand the establishment of socialism，they would be able to leap-frog the capitalistwestern imperial states into a more advanced stage of history.this vision of renewednational pride through communist revolution became a beacon that was not extinguishedin many loyalists'minds until the 1970s or 1980s.

　　such an ideology could readily be turned to purposes of nation-building ，andthe communist parties of china and vietnam came to embody a nationalist thrust.they swept to power through long wars of liberation that enabled them to establisheffective governments-in-waiting long before they occupied the capital city andcould claim nationwide power.in all these respects ，their histories were unlikethe raft of east and central european countries that were occupied by the red armyat the close of world war ii.the two asian communist parties came to symbolizenational identity and thus enjoyed a status and source of legitimacy that in europewas comparatively weak.in a country like poland，it was the church，not the party，that became identified with patriotic pride.even in the soviet union ，which wasmore successful in building a nationalist identity for the party through its leadershipin the resistance to german invasion in world war ii，the non-russian nationalitieswithin the ussr continued to hold to their own separate loyalties and historicalsymbols ，and in the longer run these have proven stronger than the bonds thatparty rule tried to cement.and among the russian population，a great many peoplecontinued to harbour loyalty to a separate russian identity that came readily tothe fore when the soviet union broke apart in 1991.none of this applied to chinaand vietnam ，countries which，numerically，are overwhelmingly dominated by asingle ethnic group and whose communist parties could readily wrap themselves inthe national flag.this has provided the two asian parties with greater stayingpower ：they not only face far weaker potential challenges to party rule than inpoland or the ethnically-divided soviet union ，but also hold a far stronger confidencein their right and capacity to rule than was the case in much of eastern europe.

　　the wars of liberation in china and vietnam were，notably，rural-based revolutions，again quite unlike russia ，the fount of communist revolutions ，whose bolshevikrevolution resembled more an urban coup than a protracted revolutionary struggle.the new bolshevik government nurtured a suspicion of the rural areas and of thefarming population，and imposed collectivization almost as a war against the countryside.the regimes that were implanted elsewhere in eastern and central europe after worldwar ii generally followed their mentor's perception.this suspicion of the peasantwas entirely lacking in china and vietnam ，where，if anything，the villageswere perceived as bastions of support for the revolution.the leadership in bothcountries believed that they could introduce a far larger degree of administrativedecentralization in their countrysides，entrusting local rural party cadres toloyally pursue the national party line.

　　in addition ，the socialist era arrived in china and vietnam at a differentpoint of their economic development than in most of the warsaw bloc.even decadeslater ，at the point of the introduction of reforms in the early 1980s ，mostof the population in both asian countries lived in villages and farmed mainly byhand.this contrasted with a country like russia，where by the 1980s only a relativelysmall proportion of the workforce remained in the countryside ，and where the agriculturaleconomy was mechanized and bound almost as tightly into the central ？command economyìas industry was.in sharp contrast，chinese state employees never reached 20per cent of china's total workforce ，whereas in the ussr over 95per cent of theworkforce were essentially employed in the state sector.[1]almost all were coveredby the net of state public services ：not so in china and vietnam，where onlythe minority who lived in urban areas were covered and where local villages andrural families were responsible for their own welfare.all of these factors affectedthe prospects for a return to family farming.with a history of local rural economicinitiative and of self-reliance in welfare services ，and in circumstances wheresmall labour-intensive family farms could be viable ，the countrysides of the twoasian socialist states held similar distinct advantages over the former soviet unionand most of the other east european states.