“Since the mid-1980s, through the Doi Moi reform period Vietnam has made a shift from a highly centralized command economy to a mixed economy that uses both directive and indicative planning through five-year plans.”

Vietnam has already shifted out of the communist styl e(goverment-managed-everything) since 1986 https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/vietnams-political-ec...

I always view the so-called communism in China and Vietnam is a modernization of Confucianism.

Once you introduce capitalism without proper checks on the bureaucracy, it takes on a life of its own as the newly created capitalist class begins to advocate for itself at the expense of the people and the bureaucrats begin to see themselves as the rightful heirs of private wealth. This is one analysis I read of what happened in China.

I'm not sure who to believe, but introducing elements of capitalism is on its face a dangerous move for the Vietnamese revolution. Honestly, I'm shocked that they've let it go so far they have a billionaire. I hope they have things actually under control because they fought and bled for decades to eject imperial influences from France and America and to ensure the people control their own fate.

I'm sure a politically active Vietnamese person would have a different take than me (and certainly a multitude of takes), given they understand their circumstances better than a dabbler foreigner like myself.

* I say existing because the Soviet Union briefly attained this, but the leadership shut down the workers councils (which many saw as a betrayal). So this idea isn't necessarily inimical to Marxism-Leninism, but in practice only a sparse number of examples have been realized.