Schlink argues that the minimum requirements for a liberal constitutional system are respect for the rule of law and an independent judiciary. Although a middle class has emerged in China and Vietnam, it is made up to a substantial degree of officials and employees from the state apparatus and state corporations. More a part of the state than its counterpart, it does not have the autonomy to push toward liberal democratic constitutionalism, nor an interest in doing so. Hopes that the triumph of capitalism, with its entrepreneurial and market freedoms, would go hand-in-hand with the victory of liberal democratic constitutionalism have been dashed. Only occasionally do the changes wrought to the economic basis by capitalism help constitutionalism to advance.