[pjc50]

Rather like Afghanistan, you can prop up a government that has no real legitimacy outside the capital for as long as you're prepared to pay for it, but then it collapses.

I do not fully understand the backstory, but the Vienamese seem to have done OK out of the "Communist" victory. It's a very different place from North Korea.

Alternate counterfactual: is there a route through history where https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiphong_incident does not take place and a peaceful, unified Vietnam exists from the end of WW2 onwards?

[no_wizard]

>the Vienamese seem to have done OK out of the "Communist" victory

They have largely followed the Chinese model of economic development, via a policy of Đổi Mới[0][1] adopted in 1986 and has since continued with various reforms in the 1990s as well. This is persistent today in how Vietnamese economic policy is driven, as far as I can tell

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%90%E1%BB%95i_M%E1%BB%9Bi

[1]: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/rp2008-84.pdf