After living in Vietnam quite a long time then crossing China, what struck me was that the little bit of countryside I saw in China seemed much poorer and dreary (despite being near the tourist hotspot of YangShuo) than the equivalent countryside across the border in Viet Nam.

Also, the fields in southernmost China were devoted to industrial sugar cane monoculture - a kind of large scale cultivation that implies proletarisation of the workers - whereas Vietnam still has, and seems to keep, small scale ( but extremely productive) rice cultivation.

China is very strongly redistributing wealth from the countryside to the big cities (Shanghai is already as modern and well-kept as your average western city ; a smaller city like Nanning, much less so...)

Also, comparing the systems of China and Vietnam (legally pretty much identically based on party rule), it seemed clear the "rule of the state" is not as strong-handed in Vietnam where the party must in some ways compose with civil society ; when the governement  tried to ban facebook it was unable to do so properly so that Vietnamese still use it ; many expropriations are refused by the occupiers of the land who are able to prevent them...

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères