Author: CRT Admin

Professor Stephen B. Young, JD

Global Executive Director

The Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism

Political denunciations continue to spread, despite Directive No. 07 and even the Party leader’s public advocacy of intellectual openness. If this divisiveness is merely the spontaneous personal extremism of a few unsettled, reactionary, Vietnamese “Red Guards,” why have they been able to make one attach after another  without being restrained? Who is helping  them? Is there a mastermind with an agenda for Vietnam behind them? 

The Roman patriot Marcus Tullius Cicero taught us to always ask: “Cui bono?” – who benefits?

The Vietnamese people will not benefit from accusations and intimidation; they will not benefit from economic stagnation or for falling behind other countries in technology and AI

But who might benefit when the descendants of Lac Long Quan and Au Cu are subjected to a seemingly endless war of one against another?

One thousand years slaves to Chinese thieves

One hundred years under French domination

Twenty years this war day after day

Our Mothers’ legacy – a forest of dried bones

Our Mothers’ legacy – a mountainous graveyard

– Trinh Cong Son

1. When a Book Becomes a Battlefield

The denunciations starting with criticism of the book Conversations with Thanh (Chuyện với Thanh) have ceased to be a literary controversy. They have become a testing of the balance of power within Vietnam’s political system. Beginning with several passages in the book, the attacks quickly expanded to encompass the author, the publisher, newspapers, writers and artists, as well as those suspected of having sponsored or protected the work.

Yet another “literary inquisition” has been opened—following dozens of similar cases in this long-suffering country. But books themselves do not appear to be the ultimate target of the protests. No; something more profoundly Vietnamese is under attack.

After Conversations with Thanh, the investigation of deviations spread to older works, competing interpretations of history and even officially recognized literary institutions. Nguyễn Quang Thiều, President of the Vietnam Writers’ Association, also became a target. The debate was no longer about whether this or that work was good or bad, or which facts were correct or incorrect. Instead, the accusers wanted to know which side the author supported and who was “standing behind” him.

This is the commonplace strategy of every political denunciation campaign: instead of refuting an idea, one criminalizes the author’s motives; instead of discussing the truth, one tests his loyalty. It’s a simple-minded use of ad hominem arguments – arguments which can prove nothing but which use words just to separate one from another.

Gustave Le Bon observed that building a civilization requires creative minds, while destroying one needs only an agitated crowd. Such a crowd need not fully understand what it claims to defend. It needs only be given an enemy, a slogan and the conviction that it embodies righteousness.  This is the use of infantile emotions, not adult rationality.

Today’s Vietnamese “Red Guards” need neither red armbands nor copies of Mao’s Little Red Book. They use Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and politically guided forums. Yet their basic method remains unchanged from that Chinese precedent: remove a sentence from its context, attribute a political motive, invent a “traitor” and mobilize a crowd to execute that person’s reputation.

What is particularly striking is that this campaign has continued even after the Politburo issued Directive No. 07 to strengthen discipline, regulate public statements and curb manifestations of political arrogance within the system. One might have expected a Politburo directive would have been sufficient to make even the most extreme partisans retreat. Instead, the opposite appears to have occurred: new fronts in the denunciation campaign continue to be opened.

Who, then, has given Vietnam’s new “Red Guards” such confidence—and such arrogance?

2. When Even the Party Leader Is Being Muzzled

General Secretary and President Tô Lâm has repeatedly spoken of liberal education, science and technology, intellectual renewal and a new “era of national resurgence.” Yet while he speaks of openness, Vietnam’s intellectual space is being constricted. While he calls for renewal, works offering interpretations of history different from the official narrative are subjected to public denunciation.

This disobedience can no longer be dismissed as a handful of isolated . It suggests that there may be forces openly obstructing—or even muzzling—the messages of the Party’s own leader.

If the participants in these campaigns were merely a few hundred self-mobilized “red bulls”—Vietnamese slang for aggressive online ultra-nationalists—they would hardly be able to open one front after another, drawing in newspapers, mass organizations, and patronage networks  without encountering a decisive institutional response. It would be even harder to explain why Directive No. 07 has failed to halt this “red tide.”

Who stands behind them? Who gives them direction, provides their platforms and guarantees their political safety? Why do they believe they have the authority to pass judgment on official institutions, senior cadres and established writers and artists? And why has a General Secretary and President who has accumulated power to a degree rarely seen in modern Vietnam been unable—or unwilling—to make them stop?

The very necessity of asking these questions suggests that Tô Lâm’s power is less than it appears.

He may control many offices, but that does not necessarily mean that he can master all the differing networks of power embedded within his regime. These networks of individuals have developed over many decades, incorporating members of the propaganda apparatus, military, police, mass organizations, politically connected businesses and foreign relationships, collegial networks which do not appear  on any official organization chart.

Nor can one exclude the possibility that Tô Lâm once sought to use conservative tendencies within the regime to eliminate rivals and consolidate his own power. Once released from their restraints, however, these factions may have developed a momentum of their own, eventually even seeking to limit even the agenda which the General Secretary claims as his own, adopted in order to bring the Vietnamese people into a ‘new era”.

3. Who Benefits When stilled waters are Stirred Up?

In every political crisis, the most important question is not merely who started it, but who benefits from it.

The Vietnamese people certainly do not. While society is drawn into bitter arguments over a sentence in a book, the problems affecting daily life are pushed out of the public debate: economic hardship, exhausted businesses, a stagnant property sector, unemployment, the deteriorating quality of education and healthcare, fines exceeding the financial capacity of many families and an administrative apparatus that, despite being streamlined, has in some places become even more burdensome.

Writers and artists do not benefit either. A society in which every author must wonder which sentence might be extracted and used as evidence against him cannot produce great works. If an artist cannot speak the truth, he can at least refuse to participate in telling lies. In an atmosphere of political denunciation, however, even silence can be interpreted as a political position.

In the long run, the regime itself does not benefit. When loyalty replaces competence, informing replaces criticism and the crowd replaces the rule of law, the system loses its ability to correct its own mistakes. The “bacteria” described by Le Bon as eating away at a civilization cannot infect a healthy organism; they flourish only after such a communal body has been weakened from within.

But an external power that wants Vietnam to remain unstable, incapable of meaningful reform and unable to build a new national consensus, would benefit enormously from divisiveness which Vietnamese would impose on themselves.

Such a power would not need to create every denunciation campaign directly. It would need only to exploit existing divisions, magnify fears and resentments, encourage those discomfited by change and encourage such factions to believe that each is rightly fighting to save the status quo which they esteem or which protects them.

A country consumed by fighting a “spiritualized” civil war will lack the intellectual capacity to look outward and towards the future. A nation that continues to argue over the victors and the vanquished of half a century ago will find it difficult to formulate a strategy for the next half-century. And a leadership forced constantly to contain internal conflicts will struggle to pursue a genuinely independent foreign policy.

There is no need to name that external power. One need only look at the compass and ask: Who has always preferred a Vietnam that does not collapse, but remains neither strong enough nor sufficiently united to escape its orbit?

Three historical events deserve attention.

First, according to my Father who was there as a senior American diplomat, in 1954 at the Geneva Conference on ending France’s colonial war in Indochina, the decision to divide Vietnam into two potentially warring states was proposed by Beijing and then accepted by Paris.

Second, according to my friends, colleagues of South Vietnamese Ambassador Nguyen Van Kieu in Taipei, in early 1975, as North Vietnamese troops were advancing south towards Saigon, Ambassador Kieu forward to his brother, South Vietnam’s President Nguyen Van Thieu a proposal from Beijing. Beijing promised that, if Thieu should terminate South Vietnam’s alliance with the United States, China would then come to the defense of South Vietnam  and oppose Hanoi’s invasion. Thieu refused the offer.

Third, also in 1975, on April 30, according to scholar George J. Veith, retired French Major General Paul Vanuxem met South Vietnamese President Dương Văn Minh at Independence Palace and urged him to hold out for at least another twenty-four hours, publicly break with the United States and seek Chinese protection. According to several witnesses present at the meeting, Vanuxem suggested that China would pressure Hanoi to accept a ceasefire and might intervene militarily.

Veith also cites former South Vietnamese diplomat Nguyễn Xuân Phong, who claimed that Beijing’s proposed “muscle” would consist initially of two Chinese airborne divisions landing at Biên Hòa under the cover of a French-led international force. 

(“China and the Fall of South Vietnam: The Last Great Secret of the Vietnam War,” published by the Wilson Center’s History and Public Policy Program on February 9, 2022)

4. Two Faces of a Single Strategy

The unexplained sinking of the Vietnamese flagged boat Khôi Nguyên 18 near Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea offers a revealing example of a bifurcated strategy. 

In a humanitarian intervention, Chinese naval personnel rapidly rescued most of the Vietnamese crew. This service  demonstrated that China was truly a great power capable of reaching the scene most rapidly and maintaining a permanent presence around Fiery Cross Reef.

This display of “kindness” towards Vietnamese in distress contrasts with China’s conduct toward the Philippines: the use of water cannons, dangerous collisions, the obstruction of resupply missions and intimidation of Filipino fishermen. These two forms of conduct may appear inconsistent, but they might be two faces of a single strategy of projecting power to achieve political ends.

The Philippines openly aligns itself with the United States and protests China’s coercive behavior towards its territories in the South China Sea; it must therefore be disciplined by China. On the other hand, China bestows on Vietnam simultaneous applications of courtship and enticement, but also intimidation, because Beijing does not want to push Hanoi completely into Washington’s embrace.

One country is shown the price to be imposed for disobedience. The other is reminded of the supposed benefits of remaining subordinate to China’s influence.  In Vietnam’s case the proffered blandishments are made available to Vietnamese who might be tempted to take advantage of them.

5. Two Spearheads and an Invisible Hand

In the present conflict, the propaganda apparatus and some admirers of military leaders such as Lieutenant General Hoang Kien and Major General Nguyen Thanh Tuan have emerged as the two most visible spearheads promoting systemic destabilization in Vietnam

The propaganda apparatus claims a form of social capital – the authority to define orthodoxy: which account of history is correct, who qualifies as a patriot, which works are “deviant” and which ideas carry the danger of “self-evolution.” Elements of veterans’ organizations possess a different form of symbolic capital: moral credit for suffering the sacrifices of war and the political legitimacy that comes with victory.

When these two sources of cultural power combine, an innocuous literary debate can immediately be transformed into a political prosecution. The questions quickly become no longer wherein a work may be right or wrong, but to which faction does the author belongs, whether he has insulted the past, and who authorized the work to appear.

There is no public evidence proving that these forces are receiving direct instructions from abroad. But strategic influence does not necessarily operate through overt contractual commitments. It can travel abroad, carried by ties of ideological affinity, personal relationships, drawn in by factional interests and the instinct for self-preservation among those who fear losing their status if the country reforms.

The invisible hand behind the campaign need not control every piece on the chessboard of protests. It need only ensure that the competition works in its favor.

The propaganda apparatus defends its monopoly over truth. The ultra-nationalist groups defend an interpretation of history that sustains their political status. The “red bulls” discover a sense of power through denunciation. Political factions use literary inquisitions to identify and eliminate their opponents.

Their motives may differ, but the consequences converge: society is divided, reform is obstructed, Tô Lâm is kept in a state of continual political confrontation and Vietnam remains caged within an ideological orbit embracing some of its people but originating abroad.

6. One Directive No. 07 Is Still Not Enough

Directive No. 07 may regulate public statements, restore discipline and temporarily silence certain individuals. But an administrative directive cannot cure dysfunctions bred by the structure of power itself.

To end political arrogance of some over others, monopoly over what is true must first be abandoned. To prevent denunciation campaigns, the right to debate must be protected. To neutralize external influence, Vietnam must build transparent institutions in which no factional network can invoke patriotism to silence others.

The most dangerous hand is not necessarily one openly reaching in from outside. More dangerous is the hand that, out of public view, has found other hands inside the country willing to act on its behalf.

When that happens, an order to foment dissent does not need to cross a border; a campaign does not need to carry a foreign name; and Vietnamese citizens can still invoke patriotism while helping others keep their own country trapped forever in a stagnant waters.

It appears that one Directive No. 07 is still not enough.

But how many more directives will this nation need before it realizes that the problem lies not only with those stirring up a froth, but also with the stagnant pond that has long given them personal peace and prosperity?

And how much longer must this nation continue to suffer such damnation?

By Dr. Dinh Hoang Thang (Fellow, The Caux Round Table)

• In today’s maritime disputes, strategic advantage no longer belongs to the country with the stronger legal right. Increasingly, it belongs to the country maintaining the more timely and sustained presence at sea.

• Today major powers ask not only which partner a country chooses, but also  how efficiently that country operates according to credible standards—and so whether it is worthy of long-term strategic trust.

[Dr. Dinh Hoang Thang, a retired Ambassador and former senior official of the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry, has kindly agreed to support the Caux Round Table’s initiative to consider the implications of Vietnam’s evolving enhancements in economic developments, civic dialogue, and administrative reforms. Ambassador Thang’s insights and understanding of strategic contexts are remarkable and provide practical guidance for all interested in the future of Vietnam and of Vietnamese/American reciprocal relationships of mutual benefit.]

 Introduction

Rarely has the South China Sea witnessed such a rapid succession of developments within such a short period of time.

Without any right under international law, China has once again unilaterally imposed its annual fishing ban across a vast expanse of the South China Sea. Encounters between Chinese maritime forces and Vietnamese fishermen continue to occur. 

Second, the Vietnamese transport vessel Khoi Nguyen 18 sank near the Spratly Islands. 

Third, the nuclear-powered American aircraft carrier USS George Washington arrived in Da Nang following joint operations with Japan and the Philippines. 

Fourth, at almost the same time, Washington increased commercial pressure on Hanoi through higher tariffs and stricter scrutiny of supply chains.

At first glance, these appear to be unrelated events. Taken together, however, they reveal a broader strategic reality: security, sovereignty, and economics are no longer separate policy domains. They have become increasingly intertwined in shaping Vietnam’s strategic environment.

 I. ARE TENSIONS IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA JUST AD HOC AND INCIDENTAL OR IS COMPETION FOR MASTERY OF THOSE WATERS ENTERING A NEW STRATEGIC PHASE?

Viewed individually, each of the above developments might seem more or less accidental. Considered chronologically, however, they point to something more strategically significant. What is changing is not merely the frequency of incidents in the South China Sea, but the manner in which major powers are simultaneously employing military capabilities, economic leverage, and diplomatic influence to shape the strategic environment surrounding Vietnam.

Without open access to the entire South China Sea, what can Vietnam hope for in promoting its economy in the coming decades?

In the northern part of the South China Sea, China continues to enforce a unilateral fishing ban covering waters that Vietnam considers to fall within its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). 

A detailed 1794 British navigation map of the South China Sea shows no land feature in the sea with a Chinese name while other features and cities are shown with Malay, Vietnamese or English names.

In 1837, Father Jean Louis Taberd wrote in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal that Gia Long, Emperor of Dai Viet in 1816 “went with solemnity to plant his flag and take formal possession of [the Paracel Islands}, which is not likely any body will dispute with him”

(The journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Calcutta :Bishop’s College Press,1832-1936 v.6:pt.2=no.67-72 (1837): p. 745, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/123871)

Vietnam’s Fisheries Association has repeatedly protested these measures. Meanwhile, reports of Chinese maritime authorities confronting, expelling, assaulting, and confiscating fishing equipment from Vietnamese fishermen continue to emerge, reinforcing a persistent sense of insecurity among coastal communities that depend on these traditional fishing grounds for their livelihoods.

Against this backdrop, the sinking of Khoi Nguyen 18 near the Spratly Islands immediately attracted international attention. According to reporting by The New York Times, the vessel was supporting projects intended to strengthen Vietnam’s logistical presence in the Spratly archipelago. Vietnamese authorities have attributed the accident, at least preliminarily, to severe weather conditions. To date, no publicly available evidence justifies conclusions beyond those officially released.

Nevertheless, the fact that the incident occurred in close proximity to Chinese-controlled and heavily militarized features gives it significance extending well beyond that of an ordinary maritime accident.

Then, less than a week later, the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group entered the South China Sea after concluding joint operations with Japan and the Philippines before making a port call in Da Nang.

Taken together, these developments suggest that the South China Sea is entering a new strategic phase  where military competition, geopolitical influence, and competing visions of regional order intersect.

II. AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER AND A SUNKEN SHIP

The arrival of USS George Washington in Da Nang was far more than a routine naval port visit. 

Before calling at Vietnam, the carrier strike group had conducted joint operations with Japan and the Philippines across the Western Pacific and the South China Sea. The strategic messages from Washington in making this naval deployment was unmistakable: the United States intends to maintain a sustained military presence in the Indo-Pacific while strengthening its network of regional partners in support of freedom of navigation and a rules-based maritime order and that the United States looks favorably on Vietnam’s right and ability to contribute to the sustainability of that freedom under a rules-based international order

For Vietnam, receiving another U.S. aircraft carrier demonstrates Hanoi’s continued commitment to expanding defense cooperation with a wide range of partners within its long-standing foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, diversification, and multilateralization. 

More significant than the visit itself, however, is the strategic context in which it occurred—immediately following a series of heightened tensions in the South China Sea and amid intensifying strategic competition among the major powers.

If USS George Washington symbolizes power projected from outside the region, the sinking of Khoi Nguyen 18 points to a very different strategic reality. Today’s competition in the South China Sea is measured not only by the number of warships deployed or diplomatic statements issued, but increasingly by a country’s capacity – say China’s – to maintain a continuous and effective presence on the ground—or, more precisely, at sea.

(Consider the analogous situation in the Strait of Hormuz – Iran’s capacity to maintain a continuous threat to freedom of navigation through the Strait)

According to publicly available information, Khoi Nguyen 18 sank near Fiery Cross Reef, close to one of China’s largest military installations in the Spratly Islands. Chinese authorities reported that they had rescued most of the crew, while Vietnam publicly expressed appreciation for the rescue operation. From a humanitarian perspective, saving lives at sea is a universal obligation that deserves recognition regardless of sovereignty disputes or political differences.

Yet beyond this humanitarian dimension lies a broader geopolitical reality. China’s ability to reach the accident site more rapidly than any other actor reflects something far more significant than an efficient rescue capability. It reflects the extensive military infrastructure, logistical support, coast guard assets, and maritime forces that Beijing has built over the past decade on the artificial islands under its control. That unilaterally imposed permanent hegemonic presence has fundamentally altered the operational realities in large parts of the South China Sea.

The strategic lesson to be learned from these recent events, therefore, lies not in speculation about why the Vietnamese vessel sank. Rather, it lies in what the incident reveals about the evolving nature of maritime competition. In contemporary territorial disputes, strategic advantage belongs not only to the side with the stronger legal claims under international law, but increasingly to the side capable of maintaining the most persistent presence, responding the fastest to events, and exercising the greatest degree of practical control over contested waters.

In this sense, USS George Washington and Khoi Nguyen 18 inadvertently illustrate two dimensions of the same strategic picture. One reflects the growing involvement of external powers in preserving the regional balance of power. The other demonstrates that competition for effective presence is unfolding every day in the disputed waters themselves.

Facing these two dynamics, Vietnam must respond to a challenge that extends beyond defending its sovereignty. The more difficult task is to strengthen its own maritime presence while ensuring that isolated incidents do not become catalysts for wider strategic confrontation among the major powers.

III. WASHINGTON’S DUAL MESSAGE

On the one hand, a focus on the visit of USS George Washington, might lead one to conclude that Washington is placing renewed emphasis on the military dimension of its relationship with Vietnam. Yet, on the other hand, when this deployment is considered alongside recent American policy developments in bilateral trade, a more comprehensive picture emerges. U.S. policy toward Vietnam is no longer operating on two separate tracks—security on one hand and economics on the other. Increasingly, the two have become integrated components of a single more comprehensive strategic framework.

From a security perspective, Washington’s message to officials in Hanoi and all other nations is relatively straightforward. As China continues to expand its military and maritime presence throughout the South China Sea, the United States seeks to demonstrate that it remains a decisive balancing power in the Indo-Pacific, with Freedom of navigation operations, expanded defense cooperation with Japan and the Philippines, and the port visit of USS George Washington, all reinforce Washington’s commitment to preserving a regional order based on international law, where both large and small states are entitled to exercise their lawful rights at sea.

At precisely the same time, however, the United States has been sending Hanoi a second—and arguably more consequential— bilateral message. Rather than focusing on naval deployments, this message concerns Vietnan’s domestic economic governance. Washington has intensified its scrutiny of Vietnamese exports through investigations into rules of origin, tariff circumvention, forced labor, and direct inspections of manufacturing facilities participating in global supply chains. Combined with recently announced tariff measures, these actions suggest that the United States is no longer evaluating Vietnam solely as a rapidly growing trading partner. Increasingly, it is assessing the comity, transparency, and credibility of Vietnam’s economic institutions.

At first glance, these two messages may appear contradictory. On the one hand, Washington is strengthening defense cooperation with Vietnam; on the other, it is imposing more self-interested economic conditionalities. However, In reality, they are mutually enforcing American national concerns – one military and the other economic.

The United States seeks a Vietnam that is sufficiently capable to contribute to a stable balance of power in Southeast Asia. At the same time, it also seeks a Vietnam that is sufficiently capable of meeting the standards regarded in Washington as essential for a long-term strategic partnership between the two peoples: transparent supply chains, compliance with international trade commitments, stronger regulatory governance, and reduced vulnerability to opaque production networks closely linked to China. In other words, Vietnam is being evaluated not only according to its geopolitical location and its regional responsibilities, but also according to the compatibility  of its development model with global standards today and with future advancements in the quality of goods and services, technologies, and openness of markets.

This more comprehensive American approach reflects an evolution in American strategic thinking. For many years, defense cooperation and economic cooperation were often treated as relatively separate policy domains. Today, that distinction is becoming increasingly blurred.  As Vietnam becomes more important to the United States – perhaps becoming A Comprehensive Strategic Partner, the country’s value to the United States will be judged not merely by the number of high-level exchanges or naval visits, but by its capacity to uphold predictable rules, safeguard the integrity of international commerce, ensure transparency in global supply chains, and adapt to the evolving norms governing the international economic system.

For Hanoi, therefore, the strategic test of national success extends well beyond skillfully balancing diplomatic relations among major powers. It increasingly depends upon Vietnam’s ability to undertake domestic reforms that correspond to an international environment undergoing profound transformation. In this context, diplomacy and institutional reform can no longer be viewed as separate agendas. A country’s international credibility is becoming inseparable from 1) the quality of its domestic governance as deployed in achieving excellent economic performance – and 2) from its capacity to translate international commitments into consistent national practice – to “walk its talk”.

Ultimately, in the twenty-first century, major powers are no longer asking only where a country stands on issues of the moment. They are also asking how well that country is governed, whether its institutions operate according to internationally credible standards, and whether it can be trusted as a reliable strategic partner over the long term.

Conclusion:

In his remarks ahead of the 33rd Diplomatic Conference, Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung reaffirmed the implementation of Politburo Resolution No. 06-NQ/TW, emphasizing that Vietnam’s external relations and international integration must advance in close coordination with the country’s internal development. This formulation raises an intriguing possibility. Might Vietnam eventually move beyond a diplomacy centered primarily on balancing external relationships toward what could be described as “timely diplomacy”—a diplomacy capable not merely of adapting to geopolitical change, but of recognizing historical shifts early enough to shape national strategy accordingly?

For many years, Vietnam’s foreign policy has succeeded in preserving a delicate strategic balance among the contending major powers while steadily expanding the country’s international partnerships. That achievement has given Vietnam an important strategic asset—one that deserves to be preserved. Yet as competition among the major powers increasingly shifts away from direct military confrontation toward rivalry over technology, supply chains, trade standards, and the capacity to shape regional order, maintaining balance alone may no longer be sufficient to advance and protect the interests of the Vietnamese people.

If the phrase “bamboo diplomacy” is indeed appearing less frequently in Vietnam’s official discourse, the more significant question is not whether a slogan is fading, but whether Vietnamese diplomacy is gradually entering a new stage of strategic thinking. 

Recent developments—including the prominent participation of the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador at a high-level political event attended by Vietnam’s senior leadership—may be viewed as signals worth noting well. Even so, it would be premature to interpret such transactional episodes as evidence of a new foreign policy doctrine. In diplomacy, genuine strategic change is rarely announced overnight; it is revealed through the consistent accumulation of decisions, priorities, and policy behavior over time.

Such a strategic transformation for Vietnam, if it should emerge, would not abandon the principles that have guided Vietnam’s diplomacy for decades. Rather, it would represent their evolution. Strategic balance would remain essential, but it would no longer be the ultimate objective. The larger goal would be to anticipate structural changes in the international system, strengthen the nation’s long-term resilience, and expand Vietnam’s capacity to shape—not merely respond to—the external environment in ways that serve its enduring national interests.

Success in achieving that, perhaps, is the most consequential strategic test facing Hanoi today.

HOANG TRUONG 

Hoang Truong is an associate of the Caux Round Table in Hanoi, a specialist most familiar with world affairs and an insightful observer of Vietnam’s foreign policies and global challenges.

There is no need to wait until the conclusion of the Third Plenum of the 14th Central Committee to understand its importance. General Secretary and President To Lam’s opening address alone provides sufficient material to identify an increasingly serious contradiction in the politics of Vietnam. On one hand, the Party leader speaks of modern governance, a knowledge-based economy, technology, human development, national resilience, and social trust. On the other hand, the Vietnamese people are being emotionally hammered by a “tsunami” of public denunciation, in which questions concerning history, culture, and ideas can quickly be turned into political accusations, while academic debate is pushed into the realm of national security.

[for the Vietnamese source see: https://dangcongsan.vn/xay-dung-dang/toan-van-phat-bieu-khai-mac-cua-dong-chi-tong-bi-thu-chu-tich-nuoc-to-lam-tai-hoi-nghi-trung-uong-3-khoa-xiv.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com]

Beginning with Nguyen Thanh Nam’s book Conversations with Thanh, this wave is now spreading to controversies surrounding the figure of “Saint Tran.” The target may have changed, but the method of disparagement remains largely the same: select a few sentences from an author, remove them from their context, attribute wrong-headed political motives to the author, mobilize the press and social media to condemn the writer, and then compel the institutions, organizations, and persons concerned to distance themselves from such thinking, disavow the author, or engage in self-criticism for having failed to “do the right thing”. Old fashion public loudspeakers have now been digitalized into thousands of social-media accounts, but the accusatory tone, the politics of labeling, and the psychology of going with the crowd still bear the imprint of an era that was thought to have passed.

 

1. FROM CONVERSATIONS WITH THANH TO A DIGITAL CULTURAL REVOLUTION 

 

The case of Conversations with Thanh reveals the alarming extent to which this mechanism has spread. Nguyen Thanh Nam was prosecuted; those involved in the book’s publication were disciplined; and 23 media organizations that had published articles about the book faced penalties, including one whose license was revoked. FPT University, associated with the author under attack, also quickly issued a statement denying any involvement in the writing and publication of the book and declaring its opposition to the author’s views.

Regardless of whether the book is right or wrong, it is no longer being treated primarily as an intellectual product to be assessed through historical evidence, reasoned argument, and academic responsibility. Instead, it has become the focus of a political and media campaign whose reach extends far beyond the work itself.

 

What is disturbing is not merely the fate of one author. Even more dangerous is the precedent now being established for Vietnam’s “new era” as announced by General Secretary To Lam: any interpretation of potentially anything which differs from an “orthodox” historical narrative may be regarded as a threat to the regime; anyone who, say, introduced or reviewed a book, or simply provided a forum for its discussion, may also be held accountable for deviation from orthodoxy. In such an atmosphere, fear precedes thought. Publishers become afraid to publish, journalists become afraid to discuss, universities become afraid to defend freedom of inquiry, and intellectuals learn that the safest course is silence.

 

It is difficult not to see in this process the shadow of China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. Vietnam today is, of course, not yet Maoist China: there are no Red Guards storming private homes, no mass public humiliations, and no struggle sessions conducted in precisely their old form. But the Cultural Revolution was not merely theater with costumes; it was, above all, a method of exercising power. That method transforms intellectual disagreement into political guilt, mobilizes the crowd to punish individuals, equates loyalty with the repetition of doctrine, and places symbols of authority beyond the reach of scholarly inquiry.

Understood in this sense, what is unfolding in Vietnam resembles a “digital Cultural Revolution.” The new Red Guards no longer wear red armbands but hide behind online accounts. Public loudspeakers are no longer merely mounted on street poles; they now reside in everyone’s mobile phone. A verdict is delivered by the court of public opinion before academic debate is even allowed to begin. When an entire society is mobilized to hunt down a sentence, a book, or a particular way of referring to a historical figure, the real objective is no longer to defend the truth. It is to compel everyone to look at the past through a single pair of eyes.

 2. VIETNAM IN 2026 IS NOT CHINA IN 1966 

Vietnam in 2026, however, is not China in 1966. This is a difference that no national leader can afford to ignore. Maoist China was a relatively closed society whose people had little access to outside information, while its economy was barely connected to global value chains. Vietnam today depends on exports, foreign investment and imported technologies, educational cooperation, global financial markets, and the confidence of international partners. Every act of intellectual repression immediately crosses national borders and becomes part of the evidence used by external businesses, universities, governments, and international organizations to assess Vietnam’s openness, risks of doing business, and the predictability of its institutions.

The digital equivalent of public loudspeakers and struggle sessions may therefore produce temporary silence, but its long-term cost is the erosion of trust. Citizens cease to believe that the law protects their right to debate. Intellectuals cease to believe that their good faith will be respected. Businesses can no longer be certain where the boundary between professional activity and political risk lies. International partners must also ask whether a country aspiring to become a center of innovation can genuinely accommodate independent minds, or whether a sudden outbreak of ideological anger can overturn every previous commitment to openness.

Seen against this background, the “four strategic shifts” outlined by To Lam at the Third Plenum expose an even wider gap between rhetoric and reality. He called for improving the Party’s leadership capacity and the operational quality of the state apparatus; achieving unified governance of the country’s development space; establishing a growth model based on productivity, knowledge, technology, and human beings; and strengthening national resilience, adaptability, and protection. These are all reasonable objectives. 

But not one of them can be achieved in a society groveling in fear.

A knowledge economy cannot be born from obedience. Technology cannot develop sustainably if people are encouraged to produce only the soothing compliments their superiors want to hear. Productivity is not simply a matter of working hours or the amount of machinery invested; it also depends on the ability to analyze, recommend, criticize, experiment, and correct mistakes. Nor can national resilience be built by eliminating every dissenting voice, because a system deprived of contrary information gradually loses its ability to recognize its own errors.

Most notably, To Lam called on members of the Central Committee to express “clear positions, clear arguments, clear recommendations, and clear policy options.”

But why should the right to articulate clear positions be reserved only for those Vietnamese seated inside the Central Committee’s conference hall? A society of 100 million people, including millions of intellectuals, entrepreneurs, teachers, scientists, and overseas Vietnamese, must also have the right and even the duty to present views, arguments, and alternative policy choices. If debate within the Party is considered necessary to improve decision-making, then debate within society must be regarded even more strongly as a national resource for avoiding mistakes.

Further, To Lam demanded that every choice made by Party and Government leaders at all levels place the interests of the nation, together with the lawful and legitimate rights and interests of the people, above all else. At the same time, he emphasized the need to consolidate social trust. But such trust cannot be created by directive, still less through punishment. Trust emerges only when citizens see power exercised consistently, when the law is predictable, and when their legitimate rights are not narrowed according to political circumstances. A state that calls upon intellectuals to contribute while making them afraid to write books is destroying the very resource it seeks to mobilize.

 3. VIETNAM CANNOT INTEGRATE WITH THE WORLD WHILE CLOSING ITS OWN SOCIETY 

This contradiction becomes even clearer when compared with the messages To Lam has delivered in his international engagements. On American soil, he spoke of development as something that cannot be separated from the broader currents of humanity. More recently, he has tentatively approached the concept of “liberal education,” emphasizing the awakening of human potential rather than coercion and indoctrination. Although his language remains cautious, it nevertheless suggests that Vietnam’s leader understands that the country cannot enter the age of knowledge with an educational system designed merely to produce obedience.

Yet these tentative signs of openness repeatedly encounter an invisible wall. Certain ideas expressed before foreign audiences become blurred or disappear when official media publish the speeches at home. “Liberal education” is mentioned and then quickly placed under ideological suspicion, partly because the concept was once associated with the educational tradition of South Vietnam before 1975. An idea that should be judged by its present value is instead investigated according to its historical “political background.” The ghosts of ideology continue to prevent the country from embracing even those ideas that its own leaders understand to be beneficial, even necessary.

No country today can develop in isolation from the currents of humanity. Those currents consist not only of capital, markets, technology, and production chains. They also include academic freedom, the right to ask questions, the relative autonomy of universities, professional journalism, the rule of law, and the ability of civil society to exist. Vietnam cannot selectively embrace the material achievements of modern civilization while rejecting the intellectual and institutional conditions that made those achievements possible.

 

There is nothing wrong with Vietnamese leaders seeking a state visit to Washington. Expanding Vietnam’s relations with the United States and the West is also consistent with the country’s strategic interests. But partnerships in the twenty-first century cannot be built solely through diplomatic ceremonies or multibillion-dollar contracts. A genuinely attractive Vietnam must be one that its partners can trust, where citizens can breathe, intellectuals can speak, and businesses are not forced to search for invisible political boundaries behind every professional decision.

 4. “SAYING ONE THING AND DOING ANOTHER”: A SYSTEMIC DISEASE 

To Lam concluded his speech by demanding an end to the situation in which “policies are correct, but institutionalization is slow, implementation is undisciplined, and results remain limited.” Perhaps he should add an even more serious disease: policies are articulated in the language of openness, while power continues to operate according to the inertia of a closed system. When this happens, the problem is no longer simply the gap between resolutions and implementation. It is a conflict within the system itself: one faction seeks development through knowledge and international integration, while another continues to defend its cultural and administrative powers through control and fear.

How much longer must Vietnam and its people remain trapped in this contradiction? When will the country’s leaders fully recognize that Vietnam cannot invite the world to cooperate while suffocating intellectual life at home; that they cannot speak of liberal education while allowing society to be submerged in denunciation; and that they cannot call for the restoration of public trust while citizens continue to witness a government that says one thing and does another?

The proposed four strategic shifts will ultimately become no more than four formulas in a political speech unless they are accompanied by a more  important shift, perhaps the most important shift of all: a transition from governing through fear to nation-building through freedom, the rule of law, and trust.