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。
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.
The Formation of Diplomatic Policy in New China and
COMPARING THE CHINESE AND VIETNAMESE REFORMS ：AN IN