Any such comparisons between the reform programs in Vietnam and China also raisehistorical questions.To what extent are any similarities today a consequence ofsimilar historical traditions and mind-sets and predispositions that stretch backinto earlier centuries？To what extent do any present-day similarities reflectsimilar histories of Communist revolution in the two countries in earlier decades？
A New Departure
Although a relatively large corpus of previous writings has compared China andVietnam ，few of these books and articles have examined topics that are directlyrelevant to the questions posed here.In the face of this dearth of comparativestudies ，and in light of the significance of the parallel changes sweeping bothcountries ，we considered it important to initiate a comparative set of studiesthat would move well beyond what has previously been attempted.Yet an obstaclestood in the way：only a very few of the scholars around the world who specializein one of the two countries are equipped linguistically and otherwise to undertakeresearch on the other country.Through discussion ，an idea emerged among us thatto overcome this deficiency ，pairs composed of a China specialist and a Vietnamspecialist should collaborate on some of the topics.
At a workshop in August 1994sponsored by the East-West Center in Honolulu，three days of brain-storming sessions enabled the members of each team to delineatea framework for their topic.At that workshop it was decided，too，that to understandthe present reforms a paper would need to be added on the historical context，andto this end Alexander Woodside was invited to join the project as an historian whoconducts sophisticated research on both China and Vietnam.
Drafts were presented and discussed at a second workshop held at the AustralianNational University in August 1995.Afterward ，the authors redrafted their papersseveral times up through 1998in order to help shape a cohesive collection thattakes account of the fast-moving shifts in the two countries'reform programs.
Commonalities in China and Vietnam's Prior Experience
Vietnam and China both commenced their paths to economic reform from a broadlysimilar point of departure，in the obvious sense that they had previously adoptedfrom the Soviet Union a common Marxist-Leninist ideology and a Leninist politicalframework.They were，of course，akin to the socialist countries of Eastern Europein both this respect and（with the partial exception of Yugoslavia）in the factthat they maintained command economies.So，too，in the image of the Soviet Unionof the 1930s，both countries had sought to embark on programs of forced industrialization.And again like the countries of Eastern Europe，the two Asian socialist countrieshad shared in a rhetoric of nation-building and ？class struggleì。
But at the same time，China and Vietnam stood apart from the European socialistexperience.Both countries，as Woodside discusses in these pages ，shared longhistorical traditions of Confucianism ，of rulership and bureaucracy that wereunlike the historical traditions of the European socialist states.Both countriesalso shared a somewhat parallel experience of revolution this century that differedfrom the experience of any part of Europe.And after consolidating power，bothof their new Communist governments had adopted organizational patterns in the countrysidethat differed considerably from what held for Eastern Europe.In all of these importantways，Vietnam and China did hold to a distinctively？Asian socialist experienceì。