[irjustin]

mmmm these two things are very deeply linked in that politics creates trust and bad policy very easily removes global trust just like personal relationships (literally what we're seeing in the US).

i live in asia - indonesian vs vietnam foreign policy (despite problems in domestic policy) has shown how vast the difference in policy can generate foreign trust which lead to manufacturing which lead to a lot more money being brought to VN overall.

[pjc50]

I'd be very interested in hearing about that difference - Indonesia is a country of 281 million people (!) that's almost invisible on the world stage, while Vietnam is a manufacturing success despite being nominally Communist still.

[irjustin]

I'm far from an expert, but you can look at Sembcorp which was a joint effort by Singapore back in '96 with Vietnam to boost foreign manufacturing[0].

What's not really shown in the Wiki is that the VN government really protected and ensured smooth efforts for these projects. You can tell it worked because of how many follow on projects they did.

The counter is Sembcorp's Indo project[1] which is in the same wiki. At a conference I was lucky enough to listen to a Bain consultant who directly advised on these policies with the VN and ID government in the early 2000's, so a bit after they got going. The Indo government setup quite similar projects with Sembcorp as VN. The problems start because the project was setup with the "federal" government (country level), but local state government wanted their piece too and started "taxing" the raw materials coming in through their ports. Obviously this new tax wasn't part of the original program. Things like this, bribes, permits (more bribes), material blocking at ports (even more bribes), etc kept creating small but material roadblocks. Complaints to the central government were heard but not enough was done. Overtime, the foreign manufacturers got fed up dealing with local politics.

Bintan today is a shell of what it was expected to be in terms of its manufacturing powerhouse. It's mostly a resort town now for Singaporeans who want a weekend away.

VN has quite a bit of domestic problems in policy and corruption (they're rightfully working on it overall), but despite all that, it shows that you really can create foreign trust via policy that benefits the country greatly. Politics and trust very much go hand in hand.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sembcorp#Vietnam

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sembcorp#Indonesia