True, and North Korea current poverty is totally made by the international sanctions lead by the US. Vietnam is a great example that a communist country can open slowly if not bullied into a antagonistic position by the US.
Do not defend communism, man... you have too many history records to know it is a failure in all senses: poverty and lack of freedom.
For the record, China and Vietnam is not what I would call communist. That is more North Korea or Cuba. In Vietnam even foreigners can buy property already nowadays. I do not recall the exact conditions but I know people who did it. It is a capitalist system, actually. With a lot of control sometimes, but with market rules.
It is not about the sanctions. It is the system chosen. Everyone that has intellectual honesty knows that. There is a lot of literature about the problem of economic calculation in socialism systems proved by how russians did theirs, for example (black markets and copying countries budgets, the U.S. army compared to the russian one is an example of such a thing).
And do not make me started on the repression, that is the worst part. But all go hand in hand at the end.
Vietnam is developing, and I am glad it is. But what they are doing is not communism at all, do not sell us that. I have been living there for almost 10 years and I hope I can come back. It is a lovely country.
