[kearnyirish2]

Besides the whole war issue, I would never go to any communist country simply because you really have no rights at all. While it was very sad to see that American student killed over in North Korea for stealing a poster, I was very surprised that any American could be stupid enough to visit RED CHINA as a tourist - never mind North Korea. You lose some of your legal protections any time you leave the US, but you lose far more in any communist country than you would in a civilized Western country.

That also must impact trade deals for these places; when the government is the ultimate authority in all things, the de facto owner of everything, you understand why the people send money out when possible and foreign companies, while happy to do business with totalitarian regimes, will never again invest in them as they would in countries with some semblance of due process, private property protections, etc..

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I worked in communist China for 7 months fall ‘76 to spring ‘78 in three extremely remote locations. I tell you, it is very disconcerting when they take away your passport. Getting arrested by the Red Guard was another worrisome experience. But it was the experience of a lifetime. At the time, there had only been 10,000 westerners in all of China since it was closed off after the 1949 communist revolution. I arrived two weeks after Mao had died and there was huge turmoil in the government.

[ThanhPhero]

Việt Nam is not North Korea. The Vietnamese Communists are not like the Norks or like the Russian reds or the East Germans. They determined way back in the 80s that Việt Nam had to get prosperous to avoid becoming a province of China. The Việt Communists, when they see that something doesn't work, they stop doing it. Those others double down. They got off the farm collectivization kick a bit slow but when they did starvation became rice exports in two years and the antipathy toward Capitalism went away. Việt Nam is, indeed. growing rich. If you want to really learn about Việt Nam I heartily recommend a series of lectures on Vietnamese History on You Tube by Professor Stephen Young of Minnesota U. He is one of the very few Americans who has understood Viêt Nam and its people. He, among other things was a minor diplomat in SEA as was his father and he married a Vietnamese woman and through her is related to some of the historical characters in the 30s and the 50s. He is fluent in the language and, for the benefit of FR readers, a rock solid American Conservative.