The country has just emerged from a scandal that exposed virulent corruption at the heart of the Communist party. There is a pressing need to reform state-owned enterprises – behemoths of inefficiency, patronage and powerful vested interests. The internet is awash with stories about arbitrary land grabs, prisoners of conscience and the antics of the party’s privileged offspring.

It sounds like China, but this is Vietnam, another one-party state where the economic and social aspirations of the people are bumping up noisily against a rigid and flawed political system.

Few in Vietnam would relish the comparison with China. Vietnam has a long history of antagonism towards its giant northern neighbour. Yet despite the vastly different scales (Vietnam has 90m people to China’s 1.3bn) and levels of development (income of $1,500 per capita against $6,000 in China), the comparisons are too compelling to ignore.