ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the contradictions that the rapidly transforming Ho Chi Minh (H.C.M) City has faced in the process of socialist reform since the mid-1980s. It explains the historical background of the reform policy, and describes the change of H.C.M. City and a specific industrial area. The chapter discusses how the working class both deals with and resists the capitalist transition and foreign capital. Among the Viet Kieu, the ethnic Chinese have been expanding their business territories in the city in cooperation with relatives who have already regained the dominant commercial influence since the reform policy was initiated. The appearance of foreign capital in the first part of 1990s extraordinarily intensified the changes triggered by the reform policy. The important variable that has mitigated the political potential of the working class is Vietnam's "corporatist" political structure between state, trade union, management and the working class, considered by many as a source of political stability.
