Roger Cohen wrote an interesting piece on the change that is coming to China and Vietnam, despite being officially one-party states and Communist to boot: "Peaceful Evolution Angst", New York Times, 2009-05-24.
Now that neither has any real threat of war with the West and has been incorporated into the community of nations, these governments have put more energy into the prosperity of their people and used less ideology to govern. For these states, "Communism is little more than the brand name given to power retention."
Power retention has become a bit more difficult because "Technology has taken the 'total' out of totalitarian." The governments may draw red lines around certain activities, but those red lines are very porous.
I've been wondering about the problem of North Korea. If China and Vietnam have become more open and less paranoid, what can we do to reduce the paranoia in North Korea? I hope we don't have to wait for a Moderate Party president to visit North Korea.
