Is Vietnam on the Verge of Change?

Earlier this year on the sunny morning of April 30, several thousand members of the Communist Party of Vietnam, retired and current military personnel, and select foreign guests assembled in the center of Saigon to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Vietnam's political unification. In the run-up to the event, party organizers had pulled out all the stops. An extended holiday was announced. Television and print media bombarded their audiences with interpretations of the anniversary's meaning. Neighborhood loudspeakers across the country blared patriotic tunes and instructed households to display the nation's flag. The path traveled by Vietnam between 1975 and 2015 has been an arduous one. Postwar recovery was followed by years of isolation under conditions of acute poverty. 40 years since the Communists' complete liberation of the south from American imperialists, Vietnam has arrived at a momentous juncture in its social and political development. It is a country ripe with potential, but it creaks under the weight of an almost feudalistic political system.