The efforts of the Vietnamese population to transform the economy could possibly be screwed by the state-sanctioned corruption.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/world/asia/07vietnam.html

They're trying to fight corruption with a committee that works directly under the communist party.. good luck with that

Vietnamese Communist Party = Corruption.

How do you suppose to fight corruption with corrupted people at the helm?

Maybe they should institute Nguyen Cao Ky style executions.

Nguyen Cao Ky was never a brainiac. The problems with these executions is that it is not likely that the powerful, high officials are the ones who are going to bite the bullet. At best, these executions will be looking like doing something without actually doing anything and at worst, they will cause a huge PR problem with the rest of the world: welcoming tourists and pumping bullets into people don't mix.

I like that approach.

The fact remains that all of us expect the Party to confront the issue of corruption head on - ordinary Vietnamese citizens, overseas Vietnamese, foreign investors, foreign donors, and international trade partners. Corruption can no longer be viewed as a parochial issue that is at worst a quality of life issue for Vietnamese: the eradication of corruption and the establishment of good governance mechanisms are inter-related and they are both national security priorities.

just because the commie are corrupt does the communist system stand for corruption.

You sure about that? China executes more people than the the rest of the world combined and I've never heard of their tourism industry suffering because of that.

Corruption hurts the economy, why not the government?

How does the PRC get away with it? I am sure it's a mix of information control, human rights orgs not paying attention, trade partners looking the other way, executions taking place well away from population centers that are crawling with journalists, etc.

Seriously, you think executions are bad for tourism? When criticized, they can always point to the U.S. and say "look what they do". Both China and the U.S. practice capital punishment and I've never heard of either nation's tourism industry suffering because of it. Vietnam still has the death penalty and people still visit. It didn't stop my dad or any of my friends relatives from going back to visit.

As long as they don't pick up a Joe Dirt from off the streets and use him as a scapegoat.