This article challenges fashionable assumptions as to the universal applicability of economic rationalism and free market legal reforms. The author argues that Vietnam’s historical legacy of national liberation has given rise to a uniquely Vietnamese juropolitical ideological regime – Nha nuoc phap quyen. This, somewhat paradoxically, simultaneously causes the ‘failure’ of FDI reform by First World standards, while providing the post-colonial Vietnamese regime with its own internal yardstick for measuring ‘success’ – namely, the thwarting of further perceived attempts by foreigners to deprive Vietnam of national sovereignty.