Geopolitics
The Vietnamese Crossroads: From Assembly Line Pawn to Sovereign Powerhouse in a Fractured World
Vietnam's economic miracle, built on Foreign Direct Investment and export-led growth, now faces the stark challenge of capturing value domestically as its domestic firms lag far behind foreign-invested enterprises in productivity and export share. This dependency on foreign capital and assembly exposes a classic neo-colonial vulnerability, where a proud nation's industrial ascent risks being co-opted by Western and external capital, leaving its true economic sovereignty and the aspirations of its people for high-income status by 2045 incomplete.
