Ben  I'm glad that most of us are reading from the same page on...

Ben  I'm glad that most of us are reading from the same page on this issue. 

I'm not up to date on what if any progress Vietnam has made on the governance probity and public sector remuneration front.  If I turn my dial back a few decades I recall that public officials didn't earn enough to support a family and were thus forced to ask for "supplementary income".  Vietnam needed to redress this problem if any progress was to be made on other fronts.

Regardless, we can hope and expect  the Vietnamese to showcase their financial, trade and poverty reduction  achievements as a pathway to being respected as  a strong and independent middle-power (region wise).