Whereas in terms of political stability Vietnam was in better shape at the startof the reform process ，economically China was better off.China's rate of domesticsavings and its economic development were far higher.Chinese agricultural outputwas able to provide an expanding population with a subsistence livelihood whilea significant proportion of rural production was being mobilized by the state forindustrialization.Living conditions for a majority of Vietnamese villagers ，bycontrast，had fallen to low subsistence food levels；and the state had long beenunable to accumulate savings to invest much in industrialization.It would be fairto say that China adopted and authorized experiments with market reforms in orderto reinvigorate a stagnating economy，whereas Vietnam began reforms in an effortto pull the country back from the brink of a looming disaster.
To be sure，a considerable part of Vietnam's economic difficulties was directlyor indirectly a consequence of the country's having been at war virtually non-stopfrom 1945to 1975.An enormous amount of labour power ，capital，lives and resourceswere consumed by the wars ，leaving the country considerably poorer than it otherwisewould have been.Meanwhile，from 1953onward ，China had no major wars and wasable to invest some of its resources in social and economic infrastructure.Thefact that Vietnam wasdivided until 1975also meant that，unlike China ，the socialistplanned economic structure had never taken root in the south.Agricultural collectivization，for example ，was never fully implemented throughout the country.In fact，objectionsto the central leadership's effort to extend socialism southward helped to stimulatethe economic reforms.
Neither country made a wholesale，quick shift from a state planned economyto a market economy.There was no ？big bangìtransformation.[4]The process inboth has stretched over more than a decade，from about 1979into the 1990s.Thetentative ，experimental ，drawn-out nature of these transitions to a market economywas in keeping with the general orientation of policy makers and administratorsin both countries.Part of that process involved local initiatives that deviatedfrom the national economic plan and from central directives and policies，someof which were sanctioned by the central authorities ，while others were unauthorized.But ，as will be seen in this issue，even though both nations have experiencedsimilar reforms ，their sequencing has differed，with important implications.
The papers that follow help to identify both those aspects in which shifts arecountry-specific and those that are common to both countries as they attempt toreform their systems.But while a casual observer might jump to the conclusion thatwherever these reform programs are very similar Vietnam must be taking its leadfrom China's experience ，no author in this journal issue suggests that Vietnamhas followed consciously in China's footsteps except on minor points.William Turleyand Brantly Womack conclude from their two-city study that China's experience wasno more than？an important referent for Vietnamese policy makingì，and Anita Chanand Irene Ntrlund note that ，while both countries promulgated new labour legislationduring the same period，1992-94，they did so independently of each other.As Chinaand Vietnam navigate uncharted terrain in shifting toward a market-based economyunder Communist Party rule，they are moving in similar directions，but separately.It makes for illuminating comparisons.
[1]Fan Gang，？Facing the Next Stages of Incremental Reform：Successes andProblems in the Case of China ì，Structural Change in Contemporary China（Monographseries no.5），（Yokohama：Yokohama University International Cultures Department，1997），p.36.
[2]Rudra Sil ，？The Russian `Village in the City'and the Stalinist Systemof Enterprise Management：The Origins of Worker Alienation in Soviet State Socialismì，in Xiaobo Lu and Elizabeth J.Perry（eds ），Danwei ：The Changing ChineseWorkplace in Historical and Comparative Perspective （Armonk：M.E.Sharpe ，1997），p.131.
[3]Others have made this observation.See Georges Boudarel ，？Influences andIdiosyncracies in the Line and Practice of the Vietnam Communist Partyì，in WilliamS.Turley （ed.），Vietnamese Communism in Comparative Perspective（Boulder ：Westview Press，1980），pp.158-66；and Brantly Womack ，？Reform in Vietnam：Backwards Towards the Future ì，Government and Opposition，no.27（Spring 1992），p.185.
[4]Zuo Xiao Lei comes to a similar conclusion，though several particularsof this author's analysis are at odds with the contributors to The China Journal.Zuo Xiao Lei，？Development of an Open-Door Policy：Experiences of China and Vietnamì，Singapore Economic Review，vol.39，no.1（1994），pp.17-32.
COMPARING THE CHINESE AND VIETNAMESE REFORMS ：AN IN
“THE WOLF AT THE DOOR”：HOLLYWOOD AND THE FILM MAR