After how many decades of going in the wrong direction ?
But given that the country made a major economic U-turn after an embarrassing experiment with Marxist style economics, if ever that is possible, of course there should be optimism.
Although respect have many forms, there are some forms of respect that is more desirable than others. China is respected externally and even envied in some measure because the Chinese government made efforts to make ordinary Chinese lives better. Then the Chinese government is respected internally because ordinary Chinese began to see how much their lives got better.
Better late than never, as the saying goes.
But even if the Vietnamese government saw the (economic) light and began the U-turn, we should never let the people forget how the communists misled the people, brutality in enforcement of a failed ideology, and general dickheadedness. We Viet-Kieus knows better. We have been to and some actually lived in both worlds. We should not let these brainwashed fools off the hook, here on the Internet or physically back in Viet Nam. Even passivity WILL be taken as tacit approval for what happened after 1975.