Among other comments regarding Vietnam, DR sez:
The East Asian transnationals have moved in, big-time -- but the dev state keeps them honest.
JG sez:
Although I am demi-quasi-semi knowledgable about matters Chinese, I don't know shit from shinola when it comes to VN. (Well, I do know that Deng Xiaoping helped to provoke the border conflict with VN in 1979 to consolidate his control over the Central Committee of the CCP.)
That being said, one bedrock principle of the developmental state concept is the relatively incorruptible stature of autonomous bureaucratic elites who "pick winners." That doesn't sound like the Vietnamese cadres to me. They have a worse reputation for kickbacks and other forms of venality than their rather notorious Chinese counterparts, yes? If so, that doesn't mean that VN is an unsuccessful developer according to mainstream standards (i.e. rapid GDP expansion of a relatively sustainable kind) but it does challenge the applicability of the developmental state concept to VN. Like the PRC, maybe VN enjoys fast growth in spite of (or because of !) corruption rather than due to high-minded dirgisme of technocratic elites.
Then again, why am I asking you? I rarely trust any of your gushing over developmental states ;)
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