Trouble and Strife in the South China Sea: Vietnam and China

A source of serious interstate tension between some members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China for much of the 1990s, territorial disputes in the South China Sea became less contentious in the early 2000s: A less assertive stance by China being a critical component in Beijing’s Southeast Asian “smile diplomacy,” a [...]

For Vietnam, defining effective public spending not easy

The government wants to call off ineffective public projects to fight inflation – if it can make up its mind what constitutes “ineffective.”

The Vietnamese government invests public money for non-economic reasons too often, Harvard University economist David Dapice says.
In an essay outlining strategies for the country’s socioeconomic development, Dapice says the government’s plan to spend [...]