Category: Vietnam

Reconciliation is not an act of benevolence, but a strategic choice!

Dinh Hoang Thang (PhD, CRT Fellow)

April 30, 1975 marked the end of a cruel and bloody war that had lasted for decades on Vietnamese soil. In territorial terms, it was a day of reunification for a divided people. But in terms of collective consciousness, it was not necessarily a day when political and moral divisions selflessly evaporated. More than half a century has since passed since the end of that war, yet invisible lines distinguishing North from South, and “nationalists” from “communists,”  and between opposing memories of victory on the one side and of anger over defeat on the other, still persist across many strata and  different subcultures within the national family of Vietnamese.

The question that must now be asked candidly is not which side was right or wrong, but rather: Why could the war end so decisively on one day, while reconciliation continues to elude the Vietnamese at home and abroad?

Lessons from the American Civil War: Victory Without Annihilation

After its devastating Civil War from 1861 to 1865, the United States found itself deeply divided, no less than Vietnam. More than half a million people had been killed, the Southern economy was devastated, and hard feelings spread widely throughout society as the Southerners bitterly resented the victors while the Northern victors looked down on the White southerners. Yet what stands out is the way Americans handled the postwar era without indulging in unremitting antipathy and disdain for the other.

The South was defeated, but it was not completely stripped of its honor or identity. Some of its leaders such as Robert E. Lee continued to be recognized as part of the nation’s history, rather than erased from collective memory. This conveyed an important message: defeat does not mean exclusion from the national community. Southerners were permitted – once they abolished slavery – to reconstitute their local governments as part of a united America.  All prisoners were freed and there were no ‘re-education” camps for the losers.

Upon Lee’s surrender, Union General Grant allowed Confederate officers to keep their sidearms, horses, and baggage as they returned to their homes. Confederate officers and men were allowed to return to their homes, promising not to take up arms against the United States. Rebel soldiers who owned their own horses or mules were allowed to keep them for spring planting. Grant ordered 25,000 meals to be issued to the hungry Confederate troops

The victorious federal government, instead of insisting on punishment of its enemies, prioritized their economic and infrastructural reconstruction.  The Republican Party victors understood that a nation cannot be strong if half of it remains trapped in the traumatic mindset of defeat. Reconciliation, therefore, was not only an act of charity, but a strategic choice.

This strategic but so honorable wisdom, came from one leader – President Abraham Lincoln. In his second inaugural address after re-election as the President of the Federal Union and before the war ended, Lincoln so vey wisely asked his people to act as follows: “ With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Vietnam: When Victory Is Tied to Absolute Truth

Unlike the American Civil War, the Vietnam War was not merely a civil war dividing one people against one another, but it was also part of international Hot and Cold Wars between secular faiths. This reality made any victory in the struggle for systemic domination not only a military triumph, but also the affirmation of a trans-national ideological dogma.

When a victor obtains authority to define “legitimacy” for an entire people, the space for alternative perspectives within that community inevitably narrows. History, in such a case, is easily thrust forward in a single direction, and memories that do not align with the dominant narrative are pushed to the margins. The result is that portions of the post-victory governed population cannot find themselves accepted within the officially sanctioned national story.

Military victory in such an intra-communal conflict may have been achieved swiftly, but thereafter the process of social healing might or might not be pursued with equal passion and priority. This creates a paradox: the war of ideas and ideals could end on the battlefield, but continue in opposed memories and in conflicting perceptions, even as, in the Vietnam War, “the winning side itself acknowledged that ‘a million people were happy, a million were sad…’”

External Factors and the Limits of the “Shadow Effect”

It is understandable, given historical and geopolitical contexts, that some point to the influence of China or the Soviet Union on the war in Vietnam. However, attributing all internal divisions or developmental stagnation solely to external factors risks oversimplifying the dynamics of that struggle of Vietnamese one with another. Vietnamese reality does not always fall under the shadow of outside preferences.

In recent decades, both the Soviet Union and China have made significant modifications to their economic systems and modes of governance, even if they have not entirely abandoned their earlier political choices. Vietnam, in its development process, has been shaped both by external influences and by its own internal constraints. The choices confronting Vietnam now lie not only in “who will exert influence on national policies,” but also in deciding upon internal options for structural adjustments and reconciliation.

A society cannot fully mobilize its internal strength if unresolved, divisive psychological fixations remain post conflict. When part of collective memory is silenced, social consensus struggles to pull forth from the depths of the national spirit the convictions and energies necessary for sustainable progress.

A Hard Truth: Peace Does Not Automatically Create Reconciliation

No nation can move forward rapidly if within it there remain communities that feel excluded from the official narrative of history. Peace, if it merely means the absence of gunfire, is only a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one for sustainable development—especially for a nation that truly seeks to rise high in wealth and well-being in comparison with others.

Reconciliation requires more than an end to the shooting and the killing: it demands recognition of diverse memories, the willingness to accept that history can be viewed from multiple perspectives, and that a conscious effort among people of good faith and good moral character can build a shared identity that transcends old divisions.

Reconciliation Is Not about Forgetting, But Coexisting and Collaborating

Reconciliation does not mean erasing the past or forcing everyone to think alike. On the contrary, it requires the maturity to accept that the people of a nation can live with multiple memories while still coexisting within a common framework and agreeing to build shared futures for mutual benefit.

What matters—and it is by no means easy—is not to make all memories identical, but to create a space where those different memories are acknowledged to be true but without closing minds to the truth of other memories. Only then can a viable national identity emerge and build a prosperous and honorable future above the distractions of “factions” or conflicts of “us versus them,” and instead bring forth a foundation for diversity in unity and unity embracing diversity.

Conclusion: Ending a War Is One Thing; Ending Division Is Another

The United States became strong not because it avoided division, but because it found a way to overcome it after the Civil War. So too did Europe after World War II when rival French and German nationalisms jointly brought forth the European Union. Vietnam has come a long way since April 30, 1975, but the more difficult journey—the journey toward genuine reconciliation within and among all its people—likely still continues.

One day, when April 30 is seen not only as a marker of victory, but also as a symbol of understanding and healing, only then will peace and Vietnamese truly be complete.

Introduction by Professor Stephen Young 

 

The metaphor “politics as a market” authored and developed by Dr. Đinh Hoàng Thắng in the essay below, in fact points to a natural constituent element of political economy, both in theory and practice, and has, at times, found concrete expression in history. Politics has been, and still is, a natural condition for all human communities, so too markets.

In 1945, Friedrich August von Hayek, in his seminal essay The Use of Knowledge in Society, challenged the traditional assumption in economics that all information necessary for beneficial decision-making could be collected and processed by a single “central brain.” In his view, this assumption was unrealistic. In real life, knowledge exists in a dispersed, uneven form, often local in nature—tied to specific circumstances of time and place. In short, information for Hayek was a commodity dispersed and “owned” by individual members of a community or other relevant social network, transitory or more reliably institutionalized

Yet nearly nine centuries before Hayek, Vietnam’s Prince Trần Hưng Đạo had already emphasized the enduring significance of the concept of Xã Tắc (the ”altars of soil and grain”) as the sacred foundation for the enduring political self-determination of the Vietnamese as a national community). Reverencing the soil and the grain it brought to life and made available for harvest was directly giving respect to the common people. For Tran Hung Dao, the survival of this country depended very much on more than loyalty to the monarch; it demanded concern for the people as a moral vector in history.  Thus, to speak of the Xã Tắc was to speak of the nation itself.  Ultimately, political and economic strength resided in the wisdom of the people.

Later the great statesman Nguyen Trai would write: humaneness and righteousness rest in the well-being of the people.  As the people needed food and belongings, so did they need good governance. Markets (economics) and politics (allocation of decision-making) were foundational supports of the nation. In his moral essay on the humane and righteous education to be provided by each family, Nguyen Trai wrote that for each individual prosperity and well-being depended on the moral accomplishments of the mothers – not of the Emperors and their mandarins.

Still later, in his morality tale – the poem Kim Van Kieu, Nguyen Du would conclude, harmonizing with Shakespeare’s depictions of human tragedy in the decisions made by King Lear, Macbeth and Othello, that individual virtue and goodness drove destiny towards the good, not the selfish passions of kings and those who serve them.  Such individualism – for better or for worse – always and inevitably delivers results for both markets and politics. 

Thus, for Tran Hung Dao, Nguyen Trai, and Nguyen Du, the most important information and decision-making for building and sustaining national vitality and geo-strategic positional power is distributed widely among individuals – those mothers who bring about good fortunes (phuc duc) for their descendants, those individuals who, hopefully, decide matters only as instructed by their good hearts (tam), and all those who work hard to till the soil, harvest the grain, and in so doing bring prosperity to markets.

In my work on “moral capitalism,” I have sought to underscore a similar insight: that sustainable systems—whether economic or political—cannot rely solely on centralized control, but must also depend on widely dispersed moral capacity and knowledge, along with the responsible participation of individuals throughout society. In this sense, the metaphor  of “politics as a market” should not be understood literally as an institutional model, but rather as a perspective suggesting that excellence in decision-making benefits from having access to multiple sources of knowledge, from competition among ideas, and from mechanisms that allow better solutions to emerge through comparison and accountability. If markets thrive through a decentralized pluralism avoiding monopolies, cartels, and cronyism, then so can a nation’s politics contribute sustainability to its possession of good fortune through a similar expansion of its participatory substructures.

In his essay, Dr. Đinh Hoàng Thắng sketches a journey across time and space, through what might be called the “flow of human intelligence.” Without imposing a definitive conclusion, he opens up a direction of thought—creating space for deeper reflection on how to balance inherently tension-filled elements within a contemporary political system structured around a single party.

In that spirit, I am honored to introduce this essay within the framework of the Caux Round Table’s “U.S.–Vietnam Project”: “Market Politics – Why Not?”

 

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“Market Politics” – Why Not?

 

Đinh Hoàng Thắng, (PhD, CRT Fellow)

 

Recently, the online platform “Tiếng Dân” recalled an intriguing historical detail: Party General Secretary Hà Huy Tập once criticized comrade Nguyễn Ái Quốc (later Hồ Chí Minh) in the mid-1930s. (1) At that time, the communist party was still very young, “like a newborn lying on the grass” (as described in Tố Hữu’s poetry). Yet even in that seemingly embryonic stage, differences in strategic thinking had already become routine—and notably, this reality did not disappear over time.

Looking along the subsequent course of history—from the resistance period, land reform, intense debates over “dogmatism” versus “revisionism,” to the turning point of adopting the Đổi Mới reformation of doctrine—we can observe a consistent thread: differences in policy thinking have always existed as a natural part of Vietnam’s political life. This is by no means a sign of instability, but rather the inevitable consequence of a deeper reality—that knowledge, experience, and perspectives on the realities of our world are never fully concentrated in one place.

Here, Friedrich August von Hayek’s intuition from 1945 becomes particularly valuable. In The Use of Knowledge in Society, he was not merely revisiting economic questions, but fundamentally posing a question for all social systems: where is knowledge located, and how is it used? (2) His answer was, in essence, “deconstructive”: knowledge in not a concentrate, but a gas; it does not have only one residence, but lives scattered across the minds of countless individuals, caught up in specific contexts of time, place, and lived experience. No individual or institution can fully gather and process this entire body of knowledge.

If this holds true in economics, it is even more deeply and persistently true in politics.

For politics does not deal merely with data, but with interests, values, and expectations—elements far more resistant to centralization than market information. In this context, the existence of policy debates that largely remain internal within officialdom, with limited public visibility, is not just an organizational feature. It is also a choice about how social knowledge is used: keeping it within a small cage, rather than bringing it into a broader arena for comparison, testing, and adjustment.

From this arises a natural question: if differences are inevitable, if knowledge is dispersed, then why is the mechanism for handling those differences not more “open”?

After more than forty years of Đổi Mới, this question has become more urgent than ever. Vietnam has transitioned from a centrally planned economy to one operating under market logic—a shift not only in management technique, but in worldview. In Hayek’s deepest sense, the market is not merely a place for exchanging goods. It is a mechanism for processing dispersed knowledge: through prices, competition, and countless individual decisions, society “computes” outcomes in a way that no central brain could ever calculate.  We might say that markets are a form of AI data management operating down through the centuries.

Yet the striking point is this: while the economy has embraced that logic, politics appears to continue operating under a different one—the logic of centralization, of narrowing the space in which data is collected and processed and decision alternatives are evaluated one against another.

This misalignment does not necessarily lead to crisis, but it has created a particular condition: society is increasingly diverse in its interests, knowledge, and expectations, yet the mechanisms for reflecting and processing such diversity have not expanded accordingly. Differences persist but become harder to observe from the outside. Citizens are directly affected by policies, but do not meaningfully participate in the process of comparing and choosing among alternatives.

From Stephen Young’s perspective, this is precisely where a system begins to encounter its limits. In his concept of “moral capitalism,” he emphasizes that the sustainability of any system—economic or political—cannot rely primarily on centralized control. It must rest on three elements: moral capacity (ethical and legal), dispersed knowledge within society, and the responsible participation of individuals in decision-making. (3)

When one of these elements is minimized—especially dispersed knowledge—the system’s adaptive capacity declines. Not because of a lack of capable people, but because of a lack of mechanisms that allow different understandings to “dialogue” one with another.

It is here that the metaphor of a “political market” begins to make sense.

It is not a literal institutional proposal. No serious observer would suggest that politics could function exactly like a commodity market. But if we strip away the surface differences between markets and politics, we arrive at a deeper understanding: a market is a mechanism that allows alternatives to compete in order to reveal their value. Without competition, without comparison, concepts such as “better” or “more efficient” become vague.

Hayek emphasized that competition is not merely a state, but a “discovery procedure.” Firms do not know in advance which solution is optimal; they experiment, fail, and adjust. It is this very process that generates new knowledge. Applied to politics, the same insight holds: no group can know in advance which policy is best under all circumstances. The only viable approach is to create a mechanism that allows alternatives to be tested, compared, and refined.

In his widely praised recommendations for how the new republic of the United States of America could optimize the outcomes of its future politics, James Madison wrote in 1787 that traditional constricted systems of politics designed to minimize divisiveness within the nation imposed great burdens on a people. One approach – government imposition of uniform lifestyles on all citizens – would abolish self-advancing individualism. The other approach – “giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests” – would similarly rob the society of energy, innovation, wealth-creation, creativity. (4)

Madison rather recommended a kind of market competition among those will different interests, different ideas, different cultural and religious orientations. “Great and aggregate” national interests would be referred to a central government while, simultaneously, local and particular interests would be consigned to local governments to consider and regulate.   In short, politics would be distributed over different markets, each balancing buyers and sellers of different products seeking mutual satisfaction, compromise, through persuasion and bargaining.

In Federalist 37, Madison again used a market analogy of bargaining, saying that all political power should be derived from the people as purchasing decisions made by politicians and administrators. (5)

In Federalist #51 (written either by James Madison or Alexander Hamilton) the point is made of the power of having checks and balances – market competition among sellers: “Ambition must be made to counter ambition.” “This policy of supplying by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights.”

“It is of great importance … not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.”  (6)

Federalist #55 (written either by Hamilton or Madison) includes an insight into human nature that echoes the moral wisdom of Nguyen Du on the need for persons with good hearts to have power to do what they think, based on their own determinations of fact, is right. “As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be, that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.” (7)

In two volumes (1835 and 1840), the French student of society, culture and government, Alexis De Tocqueville, compared the decentralized, market-like, politics of the youthful American Republic with the centralized politics and governance of France, a system put in place successively by monarchs and their bureaucrats, the Revolutionary Jacobins, and by the autocrat Napoleon Bonaparte.  De Tocqueville much preferred the American alternative.

He wrote: “But I think that administrative centralization only serves to enervate the peoples that submit to it, because it constantly tends to diminish their civic spirit.”  (8) 

Administrative centralization, he wrote, “militates against the increase of [national] resources. … So it can contribute wonderfully to the ephemeral greatness of one man but not to the permanent prosperity of a people”.

“A central power, however enlightened and wise one imagines it to be, cannot by itself embrace all the details of life of a great nation. Such a task exceeds human strength. When it attempts to create and set in motion so many complicated springs, it must be satisfied with a very imperfect result, or exhaust itself in futile efforts. … In a word, [centralization – a monopoly of the political marketplace] excels at preventing and not at doing.”

De Tocqueville admired America because it permitted local community self-governance. He was struck by how Americans governed themselves at the local level — town meetings, juries, and civic associations gave ordinary citizens real practice in the art of self-rule. He saw this as the foundation of American democracy. Americans formed voluntary associations for virtually everything — religious, civic, political, commercial. He found this remarkable and believed it was democracy’s answer to the aristocratic institutions of Europe. Americans were intensely energetic, commercially minded, and always in motion – like eager buyers and sellers in crowded market seeking to buy the best for the  best price or sell the most for an acceptable profit.

The question, then, is: where is that mechanism today which can reach out to absorb knowledge wherever it sits and put ideas and facts, emotions and ideals, into competitive dialogues until some acceptable agreement emerges as to what is true, what is relevant, what is stupid, what is dangerous, what is reliable?

A common argument is that the current centralized political system can still make correct choices without open competition. This argument rests on confidence in the organization’s capacity for1) acquiring relevant knowledge and 2) self-adjustment. Yet, as Hayek warned, such confidence can easily fall into the “illusion of knowledge”—overestimating the ability of a central authority to grasp and process information.

From another perspective, Vietnamese history offers an interesting demonstration that knowledge cannot be monopolized. Trần Hưng Đạo—reverently called Đức Thánh Trần by the people—did not adopt a totalizing, centrally controlled approach even in moments of national survival. He understood that xã tắc was not an abstract concept, but the crystallization of the entire nation—its knowledge, will, and responsibility, distributed among its people.

His strategy was not one of absolute control, but of comprehensive mobilization. From the “scorched earth” policy to protracted resistance rooted in the people all designed to maximize an effective resistance movement against foreign invaders, reflected a fundamental principle: the strength of the system lies in activating the knowledge and capacity of the many, not in concentrating wisdom and morale at a single point of authoritarian discretion.

Placed alongside Hayek, we see a remarkable convergence between modern economic thought and historical experience: both point to the same conclusion—no center is large enough to substitute for society.

Thus, the question “Market Politics – Why Not?” can be reframed in a less contentious way: why not design a mechanism in which policy alternatives are placed within a broader space of comparison, where social knowledge can participate in the process of choice?

This does not mean abandoning control. On the contrary, it raises higher demands for institutional design. Politics, unlike economics, involves greater risks: fragmentation of power, conflicts of interest, social instability. These concerns are entirely legitimate.

But from Stephen Young’s perspective, the issue is not to avoid competition, but to place it within a moral framework. A system is truly sustainable only when its participants not only pursue their interests but are also accountable for the consequences of their actions. Ethics and legality, in this sense, are not slogans, but conditions that prevent competition from descending into chaos.  Young wrote in his book Moral Capitalism: … free markets have an inherent tendency to bring about a convergence of virtue and interest. “In other words, the logic of self-interest considered upon the whole when applied to business over time leads to betterment for the individual as well as for society.” (9)  Young noted that the German philosopher Hegel concluded that private property (see: Politburo Nghi Quyet 68, May 2015) was necessary for morals to emerge in human communities. Without the ability to take hold of some touchable part of Heaven and Earth, no person can fully bring his or her values into worldly effect.  Young noted that moral choice presumes that people do in fact have the power to make a choice, that they are in command of some force or power that an make a difference – like sellers and buyers in a free market.

Young noted that markets cannot thrive with trust as human and social capital. So too politics. Where there is no trust, there can be no collaboration or compromise. Thus, to have good markets and good politics, trust must be encouraged and rewarded while suspicions and debilitating manipulations must be called out and sanctioned.  Sincerity causes markets and politics to flourish for the benefit of all.

Both markets and politics thrive in states of equilibrium, where bargaining delivers a middle way and the Buddha advocated or a Mean which anchored Confucian decision-making.

When we combine three strands of thought—Hayek on dispersed knowledge, Trần Hưng Đạo on xã tắc rooted in the people, and Stephen Young on the moral capacity of market institutions—we begin to see a clearer logical structure which provides a practical answer to the original question – market politics – why not?

An effective political system cannot rely solely on centralized control, because necessary knowledge lies beyond the center’s reach. Nor can it rely solely on free, no-holds-barred, brutish competition, because without moral grounding such rivalries lead to dysfunctional and even dangerous instability. An effective political system requires a space where ideas can compete, but within a framework that ensures responsibility and stability.  What is needed is a “moral politics” to complement “moral markets”.

This is where the “market” metaphor reveals its value—not as a model, but as a principle for acquiring and then organizing knowledge and for making informed choices.

Ultimately, “Why not?” is not a question demanding a definitive answer. It is an invitation to rethink centralization and the advantages of openness, to reconsider how systems function—not to reject what exists, but to expand what is possible.

For if history—from the Trần era through the 20th century to the present—has shown one consistent truth, it is this: the strength of a society lies not in eliminating differences, but in how it uses those differences to become wiser.

And in that sense, a “market for politics”—even as a metaphor—may not be a distant idea, but rather a way of naming a long-standing need: the need for social knowledge to be heard, compared, and transformed into better choices for both the economy and politics.

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REFERENCES:  

(1)https://baotiengdan.com/2026/04/22/tbt-ha-huy-tap-phe-phan-dong-chi-nguyen-ai-quoc/

(2) https://oll.libertyfund.org/publications/reading-room/hayek-boll-12-f-a-hayek-the-use-of-knowledge-in-society-1945

(3) Stephen Young, Moral Capitalism (Berrett-Koehler, 2003); www.cauxroundtable.org

(4) James Madison, Federalist # 10, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp

(5) https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed37.asp

(6)) https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed51.asp

(7) https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed55.asp

(8) Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, New York, Doubleday and Company 1969, p. 88)

(9) Young, op. cit., p. 47

See also:

–  https://cdn.mises.org/qjae5_3_3.pdf  (COMPETITION AS A DISCOVERY PROCEDURE)

 – https://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/articles/c78n7e28xeeo  (50 năm kết thúc chiến tranh: Việt Nam, một lịch sử khác?)

– https://vi.wikisource.org/wiki/H%E1%BB%8Bch_t%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Bng_s%C4%A9

(Các bản dịch tiếng Việt của 諭諸裨將檄文 (Dụ chư tỳ tướng hịch văn) của Trần Hưng Đạo)

– https://press.uchicago.edu/books/excerpt/2011/hayek_constitution.html  (Why I am Not a Conservative)

Living under Institutional Path Dependence, Patron-Client Governance, and the Rationality of De-Risked Reform

Stephen B. Young & Đinh Hoàng Thắng

Executive Summary 

Vietnam is widely UNDERSTOOD through the lens of post-Cold War transition theory as a NATION-STATE moving gradually toward either liberal democracy or market-based convergence BUT NOT BOTH AT ONCE. This paper challenges that interpretation. Drawing on Magyar Bálint and Madlovics Bálint’s theory of post-communist regimes, combined with the stakeholder governance philosophy of the Caux Round Table (CRT) and the moral capitalism framework of Stephen B. Young, we argue that Vietnam is better understood as a stable managed-market authoritarian system embedded in patron-client networks of resource allocations (including all forms of discretionary power) .

This system is not transitional in the classic sense used in development theory, but neither is it static. It is adaptive within its own structural constraints. Reform outcomes therefore will depend less on ideological dispositions than on the internal reconfiguration of elite networks, institutional memory, and geopolitical risk management.

The central policy implication is that institutional change in Vietnam cannot be conceptualized as rupture or regime replacement. It must instead be approached as incremental, sequenced, and de-risked evolution within a constrained regime space. It will follow an evolutional trajectory keeping within boundaries set by its own cultural dynamic of legitimation.

I. BEYOND TRANSITION THEORY: VIETNAM AND THE STRUCTURE OF HYBRID ORDER 

The dominant paradigm in post-Cold War political economy theorizing assumed that liberal democracy and market capitalism represented the endpoint of institutional evolution, along the lines of Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History” thesis. This assumption shaped what was known as “transition theory,” which treated political development as a linear progression from authoritarian rule to democratic consolidation. However, empirical trajectories in Vietnam and other post-socialist systems have revealed limitations in this conceptional model.

Magyar and Madlovics demonstrate that such frameworks rely on three assumptions that are empirically unstable in hybrid regimes: the separation of political and economic spheres, the  active correspondence between formal institutions and actual power relations, and the role of the state as a neutral agent seeking public welfare. In Vietnam, none of these assumptions fully holds true.

Instead, Vietnam is better understood as having arrived at a stable position within a structured regime space characterized by the coexistence of formal institutions and parallel informal patronage coordination. In this bi-modal decision-making dynamic, markets function not as autonomous allocative systems but as embedded mechanisms within a politically structured resource distribution network. The network both provides input resources and extracts them in exchanges of value propositions. Economic liberalization therefore does not imply political liberalization; rather, it becomes an instrument for enhancing state capacity and elite coordination as more wealth is generated of which some is channeled to those systemically privileged,

Within Magyar’s typology, Vietnam aligns most closely with what he defines as a market-exploiting communist dictatorship, a regime type in which the ruling party maintains monopoly control over political authority while actively utilizing market mechanisms for growth, legitimacy, and integration into global capitalism. This configuration is not an incomplete transition to an “End of History” finish; it is a distinct equilibrium, an end-state of its own making.

The key analytical shift is from viewing Vietnam today as “moving toward” democracy to understanding it as operating within a bounded adaptive space. Movement occurs, but it is movement within constraints rather than movement toward convergence of free markets and pluralism in governance.

A central explanatory mechanism in this system is what Magyar terms the adapted political family. This refers to a networked structure in which party institutions, state agencies, and economic actors are integrated into a unified system of coordination and resource allocation. Within such systems, the boundaries between public and private authority are functionally blurred. Governance is exercised not only through formal institutions but through relational networks that determine access, opportunity, and constraint.   The moral autonomy of actors and the quality of their agency are compromised by inter-personal networks and reciprocating dyads of individuals each looking out for the other’s access to resources.

This structure helps explain a persistent paradox in Vietnam’s development: why market expansion and anti-corruption campaigns can coexist without fundamentally altering the distributional logic of the system. Reform is absorbed into the network through clever adaptations sustaining the status quo rather than qualitatively transforming it.

II. STRUCTURAL ACTORS AND THE DEMANDS OF PATERNALISTSIC AUTHORITY 

Understanding Vietnam’s institutional resilience requires moving beyond formal institutional analysis toward An inter-personal, relational, understanding of power. In Magyar’s framework, the state is not a directive, monolithic actor but a forum for coordination among elite networks. Authority is distributed through layered relationships of dependency, loyalty, and protection rather than solely through legal-rational rules.

This produces what can be analytically described as a captured state from above, in which the ruling elite simultaneously governs the institutional system and operates through its formalities to accomplish desired coordination. Unlike classical models of state capture driven by external oligarchic pressure, this configuration is internally generated and sustained by elite self-interest.

Within such a system, reform dynamics must confront paradoxes. Individuals who are most capable of initiating change are also those most embedded in and wedded to the structures that constrain it. This creates what may be called a risk-lock equilibrium. As actors ascend within the system, their exposure to institutional vulnerability decreases, while their dependence on system stability increases. Reform thus rationally becomes individually costly even when systemically beneficial. Thus a lock is created keeping perceptions of risk to individual high and unchanging.

This risk-lock dynamic is reinforced by institutional memory. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the instability experienced in several post-socialist transitions remain powerful reference points for elite risk perception in Vietnam. As a result, institutional conservatism rests not simply on ideological devotion but is deeply embedded in lived experience. What appears externally as resistance to reform is internally interpreted as prudential governance of a system functionally efficient to insiders.

At the same time, Vietnam’s development trajectory has been shaped by a gradual evolution of legitimacy narratives. Here, Stephen B. Young’s concept of moral capitalism provides a useful interpretive bridge. In this framework, legitimacy is no longer derived solely from ideological coherence but increasingly from measurable outcomes in terms of social welfare, economic performance, and institutional effectiveness.

This aligns closely with the Caux Round Table’s stakeholder governance principles, which define legitimate authority as stewardship of power in trust for all affected stakeholders rather than ownership of authority by officeholders. From this perspective, governance legitimacy becomes increasingly dependent on performance rather than ideological orthodoxy.

However, a systemic shift to the practice of a moral capitalism is structurally constrained. Because elite cohesion depends on existing distributive mechanisms, any move toward performance-based legitimacy necessarily alters established internal, inter-personal, power balances. This creates an inherent tension between maintaining system stability and benefiting in the future from undertaking adaptive reforms in the present.

III. DE-RISKED EVOLUTION: POLICY PATHWAYS WITHIN CONSTRAINED TRANSFORMATION 

The central policy question is not whether Vietnam will transform, but how institutional change can occur without triggering systemic instability. Magyar’s framework suggests that real regime evolution occurs not through crisis and zero-sum confrontations leading to rupture but through reconfiguration of coordination mechanisms within existing constraints.

From a policy perspective, this implies that reform must be understood as a process of reducing the perceived and actual risk of institutional change rather than maximizing its speed or ideological depth.

One key mechanism for enabling such evolution is the gradual shift toward performance-based legitimacy. When institutional authority is increasingly justified through economic productivity, administrative competence, and social outcomes, the ideological rigidity of the system is reduced. This does not eliminate existing power structures, but it changes the criteria by which those structures are evaluated.

For example, the Caux Round Table has pioneered assessment techniques for quantifying performance outcomes for both market enterprises and government agencies and officials.

A second mechanism involves the strengthening of institutional constraints. This does not necessarily imply Western institutional transplantation, but rather an increase in what can be called grounded predictability—the extent to which institutional behavior is governed by transparent, stable, and enforceable rules. Enhancing transparency in appointments, improving legislative oversight capacity, and institutionalizing policy evaluation mechanisms are examples of such incremental reforms. Their significance lies not in their symbolic alignment with external models, but in their capacity to reduce systemic uncertainty.

A third mechanism applies sequencing. Institutional change is more likely to succeed when it is structured in phases rather than pursued as an immediate, comprehensive, transformation. A phased approach—beginning with transparency and accountability, followed by institutional consolidation, and culminating in structural refinement—reduces uncertainty for all actors within the system. This is crucial because uncertainty, rather than policy or theoretical opposition, is often the primary driver of resistance to reform. Uncertainty intensifies perceptions of risk.

Comparative evidence from Eastern Europe suggests that successful transitions were not primarily the result of revolutionary rupture but rather of carefully sequenced institutional adjustments combined with inter-elite negotiations under conditions of external anchoring. Conversely, cases of instability often reflected making abrupt changes without having in place sufficient internal coordination capacity.

Vietnam’s situation includes a significant and unique difference in that it lacks a clear external anchoring mechanism comparable to EU accession for countries in Eastern Europe. This increases the importance of internal sequencing and elite consensus formation as stabilizing mechanisms of reform.

Conclusion: Reform as Controlled Movement in a Constrained Space 

Vietnam’s institutional trajectory cannot be adequately explained through binary categories of democracy versus authoritarianism or of transformation versus stagnation. Instead, it should be seen to be a process generating movement within a structured regime space shaped by patron-client networks, historical memory, and external anchors tied to geopolitical constraints.

The metaphor of a fearful “specter” haunting the Vietnamese elite is therefore analytically misleading if interpreted as an external force or ideological illusion. The constraints facing Vietnam are not metaphysical; they are structural and relational. They arise from the interaction between elite coordination systems, institutional design, and historical experience.

However, structural constraint does not imply immobility. Following Magyar, regimes evolve through shifts in coordination equilibrium rather than through systemic rupture. From the perspective of the Caux Round Table and Stephen B. Young’s moral capitalism, such evolution is most sustainable when legitimacy is increasingly grounded in outcomes that benefit all stakeholders.

The central policy implication is therefore clear: institutional reform in Vietnam is most viable when conceived not as transformation against the system, but as adaptive evolution within the system.

History does not present fixed endpoints. It presents structured possibilities.

And within structured constraints, opportunities for agency can remain meaningful.

 

————————-

 

Footnotes (selected) 

Magyar, B. & Madlovics, B. (2022). The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes. CEU Press.
Young, S. B. (2018). Moral Capitalism.
Caux Round Table (2009). Principles for Responsible Business.
North, D. (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance.
Kornai, J. (2000). The Socialist System. Princeton University Press.
Helmke, G. & Levitsky, S. (2004). “Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics.”
O’Donnell, G. & Schmitter, P. (1986). Transitions from Authoritarian Rule.
Carothers, T. (2002). “The End of the Transition Paradigm.”

Such can be a profoundly risky turning point. Because afterwards,  systemic governance no longer follows the principle of “legitimizing power through law,” but privileges power “to selfishly legitimize itself.”

Introduction: 

Stephen B. Young, Global Executive Director, the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism

This essay reflects on the implications of consolidating control of media and two academic institutions under the supervision of Vietnam’s Communist Party.  The author – writing under a pen name – defends the Rule of Law consistent with the Caux Round Table’s Principles for Moral Government.

The fundamental Principle for Moral Government is:

Power brings responsibility; power is a necessary moral circumstance in that it binds the actions of one to the welfare of others. Therefore, the power given by public office is held in trust for the benefit of the community and its citizens. Officials are custodians only of the powers they hold; they have no personal entitlement to office or the prerogatives thereof. … The state is the servant and agent of higher ends; it is subordinate to society. Public power is to be exercised within a framework of moral responsibility for the welfare of others. Governments that abuse their trust shall lose their authority and may be removed from office.

Second, the CRT Principles for Moral Government affirm the wise and responsible use of discourse, including free expression of opinion:

Public power, however allocated by constitutions, referendums or laws, shall rest its legitimacy in processes of communication and discourse among autonomous moral agents who constitute the community to be served by the government. Free and open discourse, embracing independent media, shall not be curtailed except to protect legitimate expectations of personal privacy, sustain the confidentiality needed for the proper separation of powers, or for the most dire of reasons relating to national security.

Third, the CRT principles for Moral Government affirm the Rule of Law as the foundation for legitimacy of public decision-making:

Only the Rule of Law is consistent with a principled approach to use of public power.

Nguyễn Hữu Quang, taking a Microscopic eye view

No need for euphemisms: the decision to transfer a wide range of key state institutions—from the national media system to the two academies—under the direct authority of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Central Committee is unconstitutional.

This is not just another “bureaucratic restructuring,” nor is it about “strengthening the leadership role” of the Communist Party. It is a reorganization that warps the power structure as has been authorized by the Constitution for many years.

A constitution—under any regime— provides the necessary, protective, boundaries between potentially competitive institutions: the state, political parties, and society. It is not a superficial, only decorative, trapping. It is a promise to the people that power, no matter how overwhelming, must always remain within limits.

But when state institutions—belonging to the nation, funded by public resources, and carrying public authority—are transferred outright to a political organization, what is erased is not merely an administrative structure. What disappears is a definitive boundary between the State and the Party. The Party thus assumes for itself the authority of the people.

And if the Constitution has not been amended to allow this, then there is no other way to describe it than to plainly say out loud: power has suppressed  the Constitution.

NOT A LEGAL WORKAROUND — BUT STOMPING THE LAW UNDER FOOT 

For years, major changes have typically followed a familiar sequence: adjusting policy first, formalizing the law later. That is how power politely and circumspectly “worked around” institutional constraints.

But what is happening now is no longer a workaround. It is a direct suppression.

The timing of the change—before the National Assembly session scheduled for April 6—is not a technical detail. It is a political message.

And that message is clear: there is no need to wait for formal legal ratification. What the Party decides, that is the law.

If there were still respect for the Constitution, the process would begin with a constitutional amendment followed by a reordering of structures. But when reform action precedes legal authorization, it can only mean one thing: the law has lost its power.

Taking such a shift comes with many risks. From this point forward, the system no longer legitimizes power through law, but allows power to legitimize itself.

In other words, the Constitution ceases to be a foundation of the nation and becomes just a byproduct of history.

“SITTING ON” THE CONSTITUTION — NO LONGER A METAPHOR BUT A REALITY

There were stages in the past when power needed to maintain respectful appearances—when a veneer of constitutionality was thought necessary for its legitimacy.

But when a structural decision is made without seeking any constitutional approval, then even that veneer is devalued as superfluous.

This is when metaphor becomes reality.

The Constitution—rather than the apex of the legal system—is reduced to nothing more than a document capriciously revised at will. Its words no longer constrain power; the entire document is no more than a tool in the service of  power.

What else can this subjugation be called if not “sitting on the Constitution”?

What is striking is that such disrespect is no longer concealed. It is open, direct, and requires no justification.

That disrespect reveals a system which has crossed a psychic threshold: it no longer feels the need to pretend to follow rules.

“NOT LIKE ANY OTHER” DECISION —THAT IS THE PROBLEM

Supporters may call this decision to place state functions under the Party “exceptional.” But in politics, being “unlike any other” is rarely a sign of thoughtful evolution. More often, it signals willful radicalization.

Even in highly centralized systems, certain limits still exist:

• In China, major academies and research institutions remain within the government system.

• In Russia, despite tight media control, the state retains the legal role of authorizing public institutions.

Why don’t the Chinese Communists and Russian autocrats erase that boundary between personal power and constitutional legitimacy entirely?

Because they understand one thing: if the state dissolves into a just a factional political organization, the entire legal structure of the country loses its meaning, encouraging lawlessness across the board

The state, even when subordinate in practice, must still exist as a formally independent entity. That is a condition for maintaining international relations, signing agreements, assuming responsibility, and functioning within the global system.

But the current decision goes further than re-arranging supervisory control relationships:   it is direct and explicit absorption of state functions by a sub-state apparatus.  It is a tail wagging a dog.

This is no longer “the Party leading the state.” It is the Party replacing the state.

And that is precisely why it is “unlike any other.”

WHEN MEDIA NO LONGER BELONGS TO THE NATION

Radio, television, and news agencies are, by nature, the public voice of a nation—not of a party, but, ideally, of the collective.

They are founded with taxpayers’ money, operated with public resources, and represent the country as a body-politic both domestically and internationally.

When these institutions are transferred to a political organization, what changes is not just governance. The very nature of the national voice is what changes.

From such a point on, there is no longer a “Voice of Vietnam” in the national sense—only the voice of a political organization purporting to speak in the name of the nation.

This distinction is not superficial. It is elemental. The one can never become the other.

A country without a voice independent from its ruling organization loses part of its internal sovereignty.

WHEN SCIENCE TOO BECOMES AN INSTRUMENT OF POWER

If media provides the flow of information, science is the foundation of knowledge.

The academies, in principle, must safeguard intellectual independence, provide policy critique, and generate knowledge free from short-term political objectives.

But when they are placed under the direct command of a political organization, an unavoidable question arises: how much intellectual space remains for academic freedom?

Science cannot develop in an environment where conclusions are predetermined. Research cannot survive if its goal is not the pursuit of truth, but compliance with elite narratives.

At that point, science becomes something history has seen before: a tool for legitimizing willful self-interest.

And once science is politicized, the consequences extend far beyond laboratories and conferences—they spread across society, from education to technology to national competitiveness.

AN INEVITABLE CHAIN OF CONSEQUENCES

A decision like this is not a singularity. It belongs to  a familiar pattern seen in centralized systems:

• Concentration of power in a single center
• Central control over the entire information system
• Elimination of space for dissent
• Politicization of knowledge and science
• Gradual isolation from the global ecosystem

There are no exceptions.

• When information is monopolized, errors go undetected.
• When errors go undetected, they accumulate.
• When they accumulate long enough, they conjoin and erupt all at once—often when the system encounters a serious weakness  .
• History has demonstrated this repeatedly.

THE COST MAY BE DELAYED – BUT INEVITABLY IT WILL BE PAID

Advocates of the by-passing the Constitution might argue that the decision will guarantee “stability”.

But stability based on absolute control is not sustainable. It can only cover the surface of society, with no more adhesive holding power than cellophane tape.

Beneath such surface stability lies:

• A system without self-correction mechanisms 
• A suffocated scientific environment
• A controlled information landscape
• A society gradually losing all nourishing connections with the world
• An economy that cannot modernize 
• A system that will not become either effective or efficient because all criticism is treated as a threat.

CONCLUSION: HOW MUCH DAMAGE HAS BEEN DONE?

The pertinent question now is no longer whether the system is moving toward centralization.

Rather, the important question is: how much centralization of power has been consolidated?

• When the Constitution is no longer a constraint, but a utensil. 
• When the state is no longer an independent sovereign entity, but only the extension of a partisan organization. 
• When both media and science are directed from a single center of power. 
• Then this is no longer a sign warning of danger ahead. It is already a social condition.

A social condition in which power no longer needs to conceal itself, justify itself, or limit itself.

And history has made one thing clear: systems like this do not collapse from a lack of power.

They collapse because they lose the ability to self-correct.

The question is not whether destabilizing consequences will come.

It is: when?

[This essay is sponsored by the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism (CRT) as a contribution to public policy discussions in Vietnam and the United States on Vietnam’s opportunities for growth and development, in the context of the CRT’s global ethical principles for capitalism and government]

I Ching Hexagram “Lake over Thunder – Following” (隨): What to do When Domestic and Foreign Policies Are Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Following external pressures while ignoring the will of one’s own people… Internal changes such as bureaucratic reshuffling, administrative downsizing, or inspections of major projects already underway may satisfy certain factions, but they have not yet liberated the vast social energies that have long been constrained.

 

Stephen B. Young & Nguyễn Thế Hùng

 

Introduction: The Political Wisdom of the “I Ching” 

 

In the “I Ching” (Book of Changes), the hexagram “Lake over Thunder – Following” (隨) conveys a profound political principle: when historical circumstances undergo powerful transformation, leaders cannot simply resist the currents of change. Instead, they must align themselves with the evolving patterns of the time and guide their nation through the turbulence.

The symbolic structure of this hexagram is revealing. The upper trigram is “Lake” (Dui), associated with joy, openness, and social harmony. The lower trigram is “Thunder” (Zhen), representing sudden movement, awakening, and dramatic change. The imagery suggests a society experiencing powerful forces of transformation beneath the surface, while the leadership above must maintain balance, responsiveness, and harmony.

The classical judgment for this hexagram reads: “Following. Supreme success. Perseverance brings benefit. No blame.”

In other words, when a society responds to change according to fundamental principles, it can achieve prosperity, benefit the many, and maintain long-term stability.

 

However, “following” in the I Ching does not mean blind compliance. The text consistently emphasizes that true success arises only when strength and flexibility are balanced, and when internal legitimacy aligns with external adaptation.

Viewed through this lens, a major tension becomes visible in contemporary Vietnam: foreign policy seeks flexibility and integration with the world, while domestic political structures remain constrained by outdated institutional patterns.

When the two sides of the same system operate according to contradictory logics, the balance described in the hexagram can begin to break down.

1. Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba: Global Thunder Before the Storm 

The inner trigram of this hexagram is Thunder (Zhen). In nature, thunder never erupts without warning. It is always preceded by the accumulation of dark clouds, pressure, and storm.

Recent developments in several countries illustrate this dynamic clearly.

In Venezuela, years of economic collapse, corruption, and authoritarian governance have produced extreme levels of social frustration. The anger of the population accumulated over decades before erupting into political upheaval.

In Iran, economic crisis has intensified as currency depreciation and inflation erode living standards. Public dissatisfaction has triggered waves of protests and growing instability within the political system.

In Cuba, the situation may be even more stark. Poverty and stagnation are visible throughout cities and rural areas. The country has experienced widespread blackouts, shortages of fuel, and lack of food supplies—clear signs of a system exhausted after decades of isolation and inefficient governance.

These examples illustrate an important political law: A regime may survive for a long time through political control, but without institutional and economic reform it eventually faces systemic crisis.

In many cases, the trigger for change is not purely domestic. External pressures often accelerate the moment of transformation.

The assertive foreign policy of Donald Trump toward countries such as Venezuela, Iran, and potentially Cuba should not be interpreted solely as a geopolitical struggle for resources like oil. Rather, it may function as a trigger mechanism within a larger historical process.

From the perspective of the I Ching, such actions correspond to the word “Yuan” (Origin or Foundational Principle) in the hexagram’s judgment. They attempt to reshape the underlying principles governing international order.

 

The key question, therefore, is not whether change is coming. The key question is which national leaders will recognize the emerging principles of the new era and adapt accordingly.

2. Should Vietnam “Follow the Times” in This Global Storm? 

Navigating between competing great powers is not automatically equivalent to practicing the wisdom of the Hexagram “Following”.

Vietnam currently faces intense geopolitical pressures. It must maintain relations with China, while simultaneously deepening economic and strategic cooperation with the United States, Europe, and other major powers.

In this context, the upcoming visit of Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Tô Lâm to Beijing fits the logic of pragmatic adjustment: one cannot ignore geopolitical realities and must adapt to protect national interests.

Yet the I Ching warns that genuine “following” only produces positive results when it rests upon moral legitimacy and a stable ethical center.

Without such a center, flexibility risks degenerating into dependence.

True strategic autonomy requires something deeper than diplomatic maneuvering. It requires internal legitimacy rooted in the trust and participation of the people.

3. Vietnam’s Greatest Paradox 

This brings us to Vietnam’s most fundamental contradiction today.

Vietnam is seeking deep integration into the global system—economically, technologically, and strategically. It has signed numerous trade agreements, expanded foreign investment, and established comprehensive strategic partnerships with many countries.

Yet domestically, the political system continues to severely limit fundamental civil liberties, including freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and broader civic participation.

This creates the central paradox: Following external change while not following the will of the people at home.

Internal reforms—such as administrative restructuring, anti-corruption campaigns, or oversight of large state projects—may resolve conflicts among political factions. But these actions have not yet unleashed the enormous social and creative potential of Vietnam’s nearly 100 million citizens.

If Vietnam truly wishes to “follow the time,” it must liberate the productive energies of its society.

 

A country cannot realistically aspire to become a Comprehensive Strategic Partner (CSP) with democratic nations while simultaneously maintaining a political system that restricts core civil liberties.

In the long run, foreign policy and domestic governance cannot travel on separate paths.

The I Ching teaches that yin and yang must remain balanced. If one side develops while the other is suppressed, the entire system becomes unstable.

4. The “Illusion of Stability” in Closed Systems 

One of the greatest dangers faced by closed political systems is self-deception produced by their own propaganda structures.

When information flows are tightly controlled, ruling elites may come to believe that society remains stable—even when deep transformations are occurring beneath the surface.

This produces what might be called an illusion of stability.

Propaganda does not only reassure the population; it can also prevent those in power from accurately perceiving the real condition of the country they govern.

In the digital age, however, this situation is becoming increasingly unsustainable.

As Vietnam integrates more deeply into the global economy and as internet connectivity expands, citizens inevitably compare their own political and economic realities with those of other societies.

Information, knowledge, and global benchmarks are steadily reshaping how people understand:

• their rights
• their opportunities
• and the legitimacy of political institutions.

5. Following the Time — But Ultimately Following the People 

The deeper message of Hexagram Following is not that societies should simply align with the strongest power.

Rather, it teaches that the ultimate force in history is the collective will of the people.

Wise diplomacy is necessary. But diplomacy cannot substitute for internal reform.

If a country truly seeks to integrate into the modern world—economically, technologically, and politically—it must build institutions based on:

 

• rule of law
• transparency
• and respect for human rights.

These principles are not merely moral ideals. In today’s global system, they function increasingly as structural requirements for sustainable development and international credibility.

Without such foundations, foreign policy strategies become temporary patchwork solutions.

Democratic societies cannot be indefinitely misled or manipulated. Their governments operate under real constitutions, competitive elections, and the constant scrutiny of voters.

Even when policymakers act from pragmatic interests rather than moral conviction, they must still respond to ethical expectations embedded within democratic institutions.

The earlier intellectual work on Moral Capitalism, as well as the continuing discussions within the CRT (Caux Round Table) community, reflect precisely this fundamental principle: societies endure when economic power is aligned with moral legitimacy.

Conclusion: 

The hexagram “Lake over Thunder – Following” teaches that political wisdom lies in recognizing when the fundamental principles of an era are changing. To recognize that shift is to understand how to move with the current of history rather than against it. But the defining currents of the 21st century are not limited to geopolitical competition among great powers. They also include:

• the rise of civil society
• the global diffusion of rule-of-law principles
• and the growing human demand for dignity, freedom, and civic participation.

If domestic and foreign policy are understood as two sides of the same coin, the strategic choice facing any nation becomes clearer. A country can adapt to the direction of history, reform its institutions, and integrate authentically into the international community. Or it can continue along an older trajectory—one that many nations have already followed, only to discover too late that delaying reform merely magnifies the crises that eventually arrive.

Stephen B. Young, JD, is a retired Dean and Professor of Law at Hamline Law School.  His book Moral Capitalism is being published in Vietnamese. His scholarly works on Vietnam include The Tradition of Human Rights in China and Vietnam, a study of classical jurisprudence in China and Vietnam. When serving in the United States Agency for International Development in Saigon (1968-1971) he studied the I Ching (Kinh Dich) with Mr. Duong Thai Ban, a noted master of the art of consulting the ancient hexagrams. He has been interviewed by the BBC in Vietnamese on his book Kissinger’s Betrayal: How American Lost the Vietnam War and has been published on the Tieng Dan website.

Dr. Nguyễn Thế Hùng, a Vietnamese physicist holding a Ph.D. in Physics, is a scholar known for his strong scientific foundation and analytical approach to philosophical and cultural studies. With a deep interest in exploring ancient principles, he brings a modern scientific perspective to traditional Eastern thought. His latest publication on I Ching (Kinh Dịch), one of the oldest philosophical classics of East Asia, reflects this interdisciplinary vision.

In the book, Dr. Nguyễn seeks to interpret the I Ching—a system centered on the concepts of yin and yang, transformation, and the dynamic nature of the universe—through the lens of contemporary scientific reasoning. Rather than treating it solely as a mystical or divinatory text, he approaches it as a symbolic framework that embodies profound insights into change, order, and human experience.

Vietnam and the United States Confront Multidimensional Strategic Variables: some are only optics but others have resilient substance

 

Introduction by Professor Stephen Young  

Unlike September 2024—when mixed signals and discordant domestic voices accompanied Vietnam’s high-level engagement with Washington—General Secretary To Lam’s visit to Washington on February 18 – 20) unfolded with more controlled message discipline and more obvious choreography. Over two days, the Vietnamese leader not only attended the inaugural session of President Donald Trump’s Gaza Peace Board but also secured something more politically consequential: a formal meeting with the American President at the White House.

After three previously unsuccessful attempts to arrange direct talks, the doors of the White House finally opened. The handshake, the carefully worded public praise, and the optics of mutual respect were unmistakable.

 

HOÀNG TRƯỜNG (PhD)

And yet: beneath the hopeful symbolism lies a more complex strategic landscape. Vietnam–U.S. relations are not stalled—but neither have they achieved a lasting structural break with the past. Instead, they remain in a transitional phase shaped by multidimensional uncertainties: institutional tensions within the United States, geoeconomic rivalry centered on China, and internal political calibrations in Vietnam.

This review examines the strategic consequences of the meeting—not merely as a diplomatic event, but as a node within a broader matrix of power, legitimacy, trade negotiation, and geopolitical balancing.

1. The Meaning of Access:  Washington’s Recognition of Party Leadership in Vietnam 

One of the most consequential dimensions of the visit lies not in what was signed, but in who was received—and how.

To Lam arrived in Washington not as head of state, nor as prime minister, but as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.  He does not hold a state office. Yet in Vietnam’s political system, the General Secretary of the Party is the supreme decision-maker, positioned over the Constitution and the laws

This distinction once posed a diplomatic complication for Washington. When General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong was invited to the Oval Office in 2015 by President Barack Obama, the meeting triggered a deliberate institutional adjustment in American protocol. Former U.S. Ambassador to Hanoi, Ted Osius, later described the extensive effort required to persuade Washington bureaucrats that the Party leader—not just the state president—was Vietnam’s highest authority in fact.

That meeting marked a turning point. It established a presidential–general secretary axis in bilateral engagement.

By contrast, President Trump appeared entirely comfortable hosting To Lam. Public remarks highlighted Vietnam’s importance and conveyed personal warmth. The ease of the interaction reflects how normalized the recognition of Vietnam’s Party leadership has become in U.S. diplomacy.

Strategically, this matters in two ways:

External legitimacy: It reinforces To Lam’s status as Vietnam’s principal interlocutor with the West.

Internal authority: It allows him to demonstrate to domestic audiences that he commands direct access to the world’s leading power. For a leader consolidating his position after the 14th Party Congress—and no longer holding the presidency—such symbolism carries weight.

2. Multilateral Cover, Bilateral Priority 

Officially, To Lam’s presence in Washington centered on his participation in the inaugural session of President Trump’s Board of Peace. 

Vietnam positioned itself as an early supporter of the effort. While President Trump announced that participating countries in the new international entity had pledged over $7 billion for Gaza reconstruction, Vietnam was not publicly listed among major financial contributors. Instead, Vietnamese officials later indicated future possible contributions in peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, and post-conflict reconstruction support.

Yet the full bilateral schedule revealed the real priority for the two leaders: trade and technology.

Meetings included discussions with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and other economic officials. The Board of Peace discussion of Gaza provided diplomatic cover for what was, for Vietnam and the United States, fundamentally a commercial and strategic negotiation.

This dual-layer approach reflected Vietnam’s general foreign policy approach: using multilateral engagement as a platform to open up opportunities  bilateral negotiations.

3. Trade Tensions: Surplus, Tariffs, and Structural Friction 

The economic relationship between Vietnam and the United States is both extensive and contentious.

Vietnam’s trade surplus with the U.S. remains substantial. Washington has imposed a 20% tariff on Vietnamese imports and up to 40% on goods deemed to be Chinese products transshipped from Vietnam. Six negotiation rounds have yet to produce a comprehensive agreement resolving American concerns

Two structural concerns dominate U.S. calculations:

• Persistent trade imbalance.
• Allegations that Vietnam serves as a conduit for Chinese goods circumventing American tariffs.

Vietnam’s response to these concerns during To Lam’s visit was clear: visible rebalancing.

Agreements reportedly totaling more than $30 billion were showcased, prominently including aircraft purchases involving Boeing:

• Sun PhuQuoc Airways agreed to buy 40 Boeing 787-9 aircraft.
• Vietnam Airlines confirmed purchases of 50 Boeing 737-8 aircraft.
• Vietjet announced financing arrangements tied to additional Boeing aircraft acquisitions.

These transactions serve a dual purpose: commercial modernization of Vietnam and political signaling.

However, industry observers note that Vietnamese carriers—particularly Vietjet—have repeatedly signed memoranda of understanding (MOUs), restructuring agreements, and phased contracts over the past decade. Public announcements often do not clarify whether such deals represent new commitments or restructured previous orders.

In political terms, however, precision may matter less than perception. Large procurement announcements reinforce the narrative that Vietnam is actively narrowing its trade gap with the United States.   And President Trump loves to announce that foreign cash is flowing into America.

Thus, President Trump publicly acknowledged Vietnam’s efforts to rebalance – who buys from whom? —a domestic political win for him, even absent a signed trade agreement with Vietnam.

 

4. Export Controls and Technology Access: A Conditional Opening 

The most concrete outcome of the White House meeting was President Trump’s pledge to direct agencies to remove Vietnam from strategic export control categories D1–D3.

If implemented, this could expand Vietnam’s access to:

• American advanced semiconductors.
• American Artificial Intelligence technologies.
• American dual-use systems critical to industrial upgrading.

For Vietnam, this aligns with its ambition to move its economy up the global value chain and integrate Vietnamese companies into next-generation supply chains.

Yet President Trump’s pledge sits awkwardly within a volatile institutional environment.

On the same day as Trump met with his Vietnamese counterpart, the U.S. Supreme Court revoked Trump’s executive authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).  Trump then immediately signaled his intention to pursue alternative legal routes under the Trade Act of 1974.

This episode illustrates a broader point: U.S. trade policy is currently shaped by friction among executive ambition, judicial oversight, and congressional scrutiny.

For Vietnam, this means that any prospective commitment from the White House must pass through domestic institutional filters. Policy durability cannot be assumed.

5. The China Variable: Transshipment and Strategic Suspicion 

Vietnam’s position within the serious U.S.–China rivalry is a central strategic variable.

Washington has grown increasingly attentive to transshipment practices—where Chinese goods are routed through third countries to evade tariffs. Congressional testimony has emphasized preventing such “leakage.”

Vietnam’s geographic proximity to China and deep integration into regional supply chains make it particularly scrutinized for assisting its neighbor gain access to US customers

If Vietnam is perceived as a backdoor channel for Chinese exports, punitive tariffs could be imposed by the United States. Conversely, overly restrictive Vietnamese measures against Chinese-linked investment could strain Hanoi–Beijing ties.

Thus, a balancing act defines Vietnam’s contemporary strategic posture:

• Maintain economic interdependence with China.
• Expand strategic partnership with the United States.
• Avoid formal alignment with either.

To Lam’s White House meeting may have strengthened reciprocal trust—but such trust remains conditioned on verifiable trade compliance.

 

6. Media Strategy and Narrative Construction 

An underexamined but strategically important dimension of the visit was narrative management.

Vietnamese media prominently highlighted digital displays in Times Square and a Washington Times article praising Vietnam’s proactive diplomacy. The latter appeared under an “advertisement” label, reflecting a sponsored placement.

Such media practices are not unprecedented; Vietnam has used similar strategies during previous high-level visits. Domestically, they serve to project international recognition and prestige.

For To Lam, narrative control was especially significant. Unlike September 2024—when online commentary and dissenting voices surfaced—this visit was subject to tighter domestic messaging discipline.

In political terms, such management of optics is a form of power consolidation on To Lam’s behalf.

7. Domestic Political Implications 

The domestic implications of the visit may be as important for Vietnam as the foreign policy outcomes.

To Lam previously served briefly as Vietnam’s President before consolidating his role solely as General Secretary. His continuing to operate internationally as Vietnam’s de facto head of state reinforces a Party-centered structure of national authority for the Vietnamese.

For internal Party audiences, the White House reception strengthens To Lam’s standing. It signals that he can command Western respect without diluting Vietnam’s political model.

However, risks remain.

In Vietnam, segments of ideological conservatives and veterans—whose political identity remains shaped by the “anti-American resistance” narrative—may view deepening U.S. ties with caution. Visible warmth with Washington could prompt calls for renewed emphasis on ideological vigilance against “peaceful evolution” – the importation into Vietnam of decentralizing and democratizing reforms.

Thus, external diplomatic successes must be balanced against internal ideological counterforces.

8. From Symbolism to Structure: What Would a Breakthrough Look Like? 

What would constitute a genuine strategic breakthrough?

Three developments would signal structural transformation:

1. A comprehensive bilateral trade agreement institutionalized over and above executive discretion.
2. Formal recognition under US trade law of Vietnam as a market economy. 
3. Ending American export control restrictions backed by congressional authority.

None of these steps occurred during To Lam’s visit.

Instead, the Vietnam/US bilateral relationship remains one of incremental adjustments.

Conclusion: Transitional, Not Transformational 

The February White House meeting between President Donald Trump and General Secretary To Lam was symbolically significant and politically useful for both sides.

For Washington, it reinforced influence in Southeast Asia without formal alliance commitments.

For Hanoi, it consolidated leadership legitimacy and advanced technology access negotiations.

Yet the relationship has not entered a new structural phase.

It remains in transition—shaped by:

• Institutional tension within the U.S. political system among the Presidency, the Congress, and the courts.
• Differing Strategic needs on the part of China and the United States.
• Unresolved domestic political differences within Vietnam.

The handshake mattered. The optics mattered. The promise on export controls mattered.

But transformation requires institutionalization of mutual collaboration and respect.

Until only political commitments harden into legally resilient frameworks, Vietnam–U.S. relations will continue advancing—carefully, conditionally, and in response to the differing influences of multidimensional strategic variables.

 

Following the official trip to the United States from February 18 to 20, regardless of what the General Secretary and his inner circle may publicly declare, the fundamental question moving forward remains this: What will be the true order of priorities for the Communist Party of Vietnam? The preservation of the existing system and one-party rule? The restructuring of the national development model? Or simply the consolidation of power at the level of individuals and factions?  

Dr. Nguyễn Thế Hùng, PhD, and Professor Stephen Young, JD 

I. Hexagram Qian and the Trajectory of Political Will 

In the Yijing (I Ching), Hexagram Qian (乾) symbolizes Heaven—pure creative force, unrestrained yang energy, and the relentless ascent of will. The six lines of Qian are not merely metaphysical symbols; they constitute a structural model of political ascent.

From “Hidden dragon, do not act” (潜龙勿用) to “Flying dragon in the heavens” (飞龙在天), the hexagram outlines a process of self-construction and progressive legitimation. It depicts the journey of an individual endowed with strong political will, overcoming successive constraints to reach the apex of authority.

Yet the Yijing does not conclude at the summit. Immediately following “Flying dragon in the heavens” comes the warning: “Arrogant dragon will have regret” (亢龙有悔).

The philosophical insight here is profound: the apex is not a culmination but a new ordeal. Once at the highest point, a leader no longer confronts discrete rivals. Instead, the object of engagement becomes the totality—society, institutional structures, historical momentum, and collective expectation. Should the leader continue to operate in a mode of conquest rather than adjustment, counterforces inevitably arise. “Regret” in this sense does not signify immediate collapse, but the consequence of failing to transform one’s governing posture at the appropriate moment.

II. “Arrogant Dragon” Through the Lens of Modern Power Psychology 

“Arrogance” (亢, kang) does not merely denote opposition. At a deeper level, it describes a confrontational stance maintained after the consolidation of supreme authority.

Political psychology suggests a recurring pattern: individuals who ascend through forceful will often internalize that will as universally efficacious. Before reaching the summit, firmness and decisiveness are assets. At the summit, however, excessive rigidity risks estrangement from the broader social organism.

At the apex, the “other dragon” is no longer a faction or rival personality. It is the aggregate of complex interests: markets, media ecosystems, an expanding middle class, global strategic pressures, and transnational economic interdependence. If governance remains purely confrontational—resisting rather than harmonizing—latent opposition accumulates within the system itself.

Thus, “Arrogant dragon will have regret” is not a moral admonition but a law of equilibrium. Power unmodulated generates counterpower. Will untempered erodes its own foundation.

III. “Ultimate Intent” (Khế Lý) and “Strategic Presentation” (Khế Cơ) 

Within a modernized interpretive framework of the Yijing, we may distinguish between two analytical layers:

• Khế cơ (契機): the strategic discourse presented publicly—language of stability, development, discipline, integration, and the promise of a “new era.”
• Khế lý (契理): the ultimate intent—the deeper objective guiding political action, not necessarily disclosed in full, nor always readily decipherable.

In contemporary politics, ultimate intent is rarely articulated explicitly. It is typically obscured through three mechanisms: moralized rhetoric, incremental reform, and calibrated foreign policy balancing. Observers can infer it only through long-term behavioral patterns and policy prioritization.

In the present case, the issue is not what the General Secretary and his advisory circle state openly, but what they privilege in practice. Is the overarching goal systemic preservation? Structural transformation? Or power consolidation?

History suggests that when a leader attains authority not merely as a “product of circumstance” but through a prolonged process of self-positioning, such ascent is seldom accidental. It usually reflects a pre-formed will. The decisive question, then, is whether that will inclines toward preservation or transformation.

IV. Foreign Policy and the United States Visit: Confrontation or Harmonization? 

In an era of intensifying global strategic competition, a visit to the United States carries significance beyond diplomatic ceremony. It signals both domestic messaging and external legitimation.

At the apex of power, a leader faces a strategic bifurcation: to employ foreign policy as an instrument of internal consolidation and projection of firmness, or to leverage it as an avenue for developmental expansion.

If emphasis falls on attracting investment, deepening technological cooperation, expanding markets, and maintaining strategic balance, such actions suggest what may be termed “harmonizing the dragon”—an acknowledgment that national strength cannot rely indefinitely on internal control alone but must rest upon integrative capacity.

Conversely, if foreign engagement functions primarily as a symbolic reinforcement of domestic authority without accompanying structural reform, the logic of “confrontational dragon” remains dominant.

The distinction lies not in diplomatic protocol, but in the substantive policy trajectory that follows.

V. Success or Regret? 

Political history demonstrates that reaching the apex is seldom the most arduous task. The greater challenge lies in shifting from a posture of conquest to one of calibration.

If the ultimate intent is to reconcile competing interests, soften rigid structures, and widen the sphere of social creativity, then harmonization strengthens durability. If, however, ultimate intent is confined to preserving position through unyielding will, the equilibrium principle articulated in the Yijing will assert itself: a dragon that ascends too high without moderation will encounter regret.

The Yijing does not prophesy individuals. It delineates patterns.

Its central insight remains disarmingly simple:
When power reaches its extreme, survival no longer depends on strength, but on self-adjustment.

The inquiry into “ultimate intent,” therefore, is not a matter of personal curiosity. It is an inquiry into the trajectory of an entire historical phase.  

————————————–

 

Dr. Nguyễn Thế Hùng, with a Ph.D. in Physics, is a scholar known for his impressive scientific learning and his comprehensive analytical approach to philosophical and cultural studies. With a deep interest in exploring ancient principles, he brings a modern scientific perspective to traditional Eastern thought. His latest publication on I Ching (Kinh Dịch), one of the oldest philosophical classics of East Asia, reflects this interdisciplinary vision. An English translation of his explanations of the I Ching’s 64 hexagrams is planned.

In his book, Dr. Nguyễn seeks to interpret the I Ching—a system centered on the concepts of yin and yang, transformation, and the dynamic nature of the universe—through the lens of contemporary scientific reasoning. Rather than treating the hexagrams solely as only mystical or  for use in divination, he approaches them collectively as a symbolic framework that embodies profound insights into change, order, and human experience.

His work represents an effort to bridge modern physics and ancient wisdom, making the philosophical depth of the I Ching more accessible to today’s readers. The book serves not only as an academic contribution but also begins a cultural dialogue between science and the humanities.

Stephen B. Young, a student of jurisprudence and East Asian Law at Harvard Law School, has written The Tradition of Human Rights in China and Vietnam.  He also studied the I Ching in Vietnam with Mr. Duong Thai Ban and writes for the Caux Round Table annual commentaries each lunar New Year on what can be constructively learned from the I Ching to apply to our decision making in the coming new lunar year.  Young graduated from Harvard College and Harvard law School. He was an Assistant Dean at the Harvard Law School and Dean and Professor of Law at the Hamline School of Law.  His is Global Executive Director of the Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism.

Vietnam at a Crossroads: 

• Power, Perception, and the Future of a Strategic Partner 
• Tô Lâm Through the Lens of Western Media:  Notes of Caution about Vietnam’s path of Development 

In recent days, feature stories about Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Tô Lâm appearing in French and American media have gone beyond mere profiles of a top political leader. They exposed how the West views Vietnam’s coming political trajectory. A confident, reform-oriented, and more open country need not fear any proffered narrative —because when reality changes, such narratives will change accordingly. As an old Confucian saying, now part of Vietnamese wisdom, reminds us: “Both bitter medicine and the truth can hurt but also heal.” 

By: Hoang Thang Dinh (PhD), U.S.–Vietnam Project, CRT 

 

Recent coverage in major Western outlets of Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary Tô Lâm has gone well beyond the profile of an individual leader. It reflects something larger: how Vietnam’s political evolution is being assessed at a moment when the country has become central to the geopolitical and economic recalibration of the Indo-Pacific.

 

When Courrier International portrayed Mr. Tô as a “Frankenstein hybrid of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin,” and when The New York Times emphasized his rapid consolidation of authority, the language was vivid. But the underlying concern was structural, not personal. The issue is not simply who leads Vietnam. It is how Vietnam is choosing to be governed at a time when its international importance has never been greater.

 

The United States and Vietnam elevated their relationship in 2023 to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership — Washington’s highest diplomatic tier. The upgrade reflected converging interests: supply-chain diversification away from China, maritime security in the South China Sea, semiconductor investment, and a shared desire to balance Beijing’s expanding influence. For American policymakers, Vietnam has become a pivotal state in the Indo-Pacific architecture.

 

That is precisely why Western scrutiny has intensified.

 

In open societies, concentration of power draws attention. When observers see an expanded personal role in governance and the increasing prominence of security institutions within state management, they interpret these developments through a familiar framework: centralization justified in the name of stability. The comparisons to China and Russia may be exaggerated, but they are not accidental. They stem from perceived structural similarities — the prioritization of political control, the tightening of civic space, and the central role of security organs in policymaking.

 

Yet Vietnam is not China, and it is not Russia. Unlike Beijing or Moscow, Hanoi is not positioned as a systemic adversary of the West. It is, rather, a strategic partner whose trajectory matters precisely because cooperation is expanding. This creates a paradox. Western governments pursue pragmatic engagement for geopolitical reasons, while Western media and civil society evaluate Vietnam through normative standards rooted in rule of law, institutional transparency, and political pluralism.

 

That tension will not disappear.

 

Vietnam’s economic model magnifies the stakes. The country is deeply integrated into global markets and heavily dependent on exports and foreign direct investment. It is positioning itself as an alternative manufacturing hub, a semiconductor partner, and a key node in diversified supply chains. But global capital does not evaluate only labor costs and logistics. It also assesses predictability, legal safeguards, transparency, and reputational risk.

 

Political centralization can generate short-term decisiveness — faster policy execution, tighter administrative discipline, and coherent anti-corruption campaigns. But over time, investor confidence depends on institutional reliability rather than personal authority. Multinational corporations and financial markets are less concerned with ideology than with legal clarity, dispute resolution mechanisms, and governance predictability. Strategic trust is built not merely through alignment against China, but through institutional credibility.

 

For Washington, this raises a delicate question. How does the United States deepen strategic cooperation with Vietnam — in defense, technology, and supply chains — while remaining consistent with its stated commitment to democratic norms and human rights? For Hanoi, the question is equally consequential: how to preserve political stability while reassuring global partners that institutional development will keep pace with economic ambition.

 

This is not an argument for dismantling Vietnam’s one-party system. Political systems evolve according to their own histories and social contracts. But history offers a consistent lesson: systems capable of adaptation endure longer than those that close themselves off. In a competitive global environment defined by capital mobility, technological disruption, and talent flows, legitimacy is increasingly linked to transparency and institutional resilience.

 

If Vietnam continues to expand economically while constricting political space, it risks sustaining a structural contradiction. It seeks to attract high-value investment, advanced technology, and strategic trust from democratic economies — yet perceptions of institutional opacity may complicate that effort. Over time, perception shapes policy. And policy shapes capital flows.

 

Western commentary on Mr. Tô should therefore be understood less as hostility and more as providing important points for reflection. The sharper the language, the greater the opportunity to lean. Vietnam is not being treated as an adversary. It is being treated as a consequential partner whose direction matters.

 

A confident nation does not fear scrutiny. When realities evolve, perceptions follow. If Vietnam can demonstrate that political stability and institutional modernization are not mutually exclusive — that rule of law, accountability, and openness can coexist with centralized leadership — its strategic standing will strengthen accordingly.

 

In the fierce global competition for capital, technology, and influence, concentrated power may yield immediate decisiveness. But enduring strength flows from institutions. As an old Confucian saying reminds us: bitter medicine cures illness; the truth may be difficult to hear but it too heals

References:

• https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/world/asia/vietnams-leader-has-new-power-and-hes-in-a-hurry.html
• https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/politique-au-vietnam-l-ambitieux-to-lam-se-reve-en-monstre-de-frankenstein-mi-xi-jinping-mi-poutine_239501
• https://dcvonline.net/2026/02/11/lanh-dao-viet-nam-nam-them-quyen-luc-va-dang-voi-va/?utm_source=chatgpt.com (Bài trên NYT)
• https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#inbox/FMfcgzQfBkQvhJqnpHnskXtnGGZSHxWQ (“Au Vietnam, l’ambitieux To Lam se rêve en “monstre de Frankenstein” mi-Xi Jinping, mi-Poutine”, Bản lược dịch do AI Gemini thực hiện từ Tạp chí “Courrier international”)
• https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/vietnam-political-shake-up-consolidates-power-2025-xx-xx/

Introduction by Professor Stephen Young

Executive Director & CEO, U.S.–Vietnam Project, Caux Round Table

At a moment when the international system is under visible strain—from protracted conflicts in the Middle East to intensifying strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific—the  future trajectory of Vietnam–U.S. relations deserves careful and serious attention. The convergence of two volatile issues— bringing peace to Gaza and resolving the questions of who must pay tariffs and making supply-chains trustworthy and reliable—has created a rare inflection point global affairs. US-Vietnam relations today are not merely another episode in a narrowly focused bilateral engagement; conditions present a strategic test of whether the relationship can evolve from symbolic superficials into having structural resilience.

Vietnam and the United States have traveled a remarkable path over the past three decades. From  a post-war normalization to a more fulsome strategic partnership, the arc of cooperation has expanded to include issues of trade, technology, education, and regional security. Yet maturity in international relations is measured not by ceremonial events but by an ability to manage frictions—particularly in areas such as trade imbalances, origin transparency, and geopolitical risk.

In the analysis that follows, Hoang Thang Dinh (PhD) argues that Vietnam’s role in emerging peace initiatives and its response to tariff pressures are interconnected dimensions of building national credibility in a fragmented global order. As middle powers gain greater relevance in a multi-polar world, Vietnam’s choices—alongside America’s—will shape not only the durability of their bilateral ties but also the broader architecture of cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and even beyond.

 

By: Hoang Thang Dinh (PhD), U.S.–Vietnam Project, CRT 

 

The “Board of Peace – Gaza” initiative has emerged at a moment when the international system is increasingly ruptured by protracted conflicts and strategic misalignments among major powers. The crisis in the Middle East is not merely a humanitarian tragedy or a matter of regional security; it has become emblematic of a global order lacking effective mechanisms for  inter-state coordination and intentional collective response. In such a context, the role of middle powers like Vietnam—countries that aspire to maintain channels of dialogue with multiple sides—becomes especially significant.

 

For Vietnam, active participation in peace initiatives is more than simply a position; it is an investment in acquiring long-term strategic credibility. Hanoi’s advantages lie in having a balanced diplomacy, avoidance of military alliances, and a consistent commitment to international law. By proactively leveraging outreach from this open-ended platform, Vietnam can affirm that it is not just one link in global supply chains, but, more significantly, is also a responsible stakeholder in all global affairs. In turn, this stance sends a signal to all partners – current and potential – that Vietnam’s bilateral relationships rest on political depth and strategic substance, rather than being limited to trade flows or petty transactional diplomacy.

 

Tariffs: A Bottleneck Requiring Decisive Resolution 

 

The immediate and more tangible test of Vietnam–U.S. relations lies in the economic sphere. A substantial trade surplus and recurring suspicions of tariff circumvention have turned the issue of trade practices and regulations into a persistent source of sensitivity. As the United States tightens supply chain controls to curb China’s industrial influence, Vietnam finds itself conflicted—benefiting from manufacturing relocation from China while simultaneously risking being perceived as a transshipment hub for Chinese companies.

 

At this time, should Indonesia secure a favorable trade arrangement with Washington, new competitive pressures would impact Vietnam markedly. Then present competitive rivalries would no longer center solely on textiles or furniture; competition would revolve around access to high-value technology supply chains, including semiconductors, advanced batteries, and renewable energy systems. For the United States, the decisive factor in economic relations is no longer low labor costs but institutional transparency and systemic reliability. In this light, a high-level trade consultation mechanism, coupled with firm commitments to prevent place of origin fraud, could prove pivotal in dispelling American suspicions and establishing a stable, forward-looking framework for trade between both parties. The multiple rounds of negotiations conducted by the ten trade delegations from both sides thus far do not appear to have yielded fully satisfactory outcomes for either party.

Resolving tariff disputes in a definitive manner would not only sustain export growth but also elevate Vietnam’s role from that of a passive recipient of supply chain relocation to a creator of value added innovation in emerging product lines.

 

U.S.–China Competition: Balancing Without Standing Aside 

 

The U.S.–China strategic rivalry is reshaping the Indo-Pacific security and economic landscapes. Within this evolving environment, Vietnam neither can nor would wish to choose sides, yet equally it cannot afford to remain just a silent and passive by-stander. An autonomous, independent and diversified foreign policy would enable Hanoi to maintain stable relations with both powers.  But doing so demands increasingly sophisticated management of risks and response to developments.

From Washington’s perspective, Vietnam could become a partner of considerable geostrategic relevance having a dynamic economy. For Hanoi, ties with the United States would provide access to advanced technology, a vast consumer market, and high-quality capital flows. If properly structured, such mutually beneficial cooperation between Washington and Hanoi would never aim at confronting any third country, but only at strengthening Vietnam’s strategic resilience. In a region where trust has become an increasingly scarce asset, policy consistency and predictability will constitute a most critical competitive advantage for any nation motivated to commit to such consistency and predictability.

 

From Historical Symbolism to Durable Strategic Architecture 

 

The historic events already commemorated this past year——fifty years since the end of the war, thirty years of normalization, and those yet to come – the 250th anniversary of American independence—create a powerful symbolic backdrop for the optimal evolution of Vietnam-US relations, Such bilateral relations have been, with good faith and skill, transformed from conflict to deep and wide-ranging cooperation within barely three decades, following a trajectory that has exceeded even the expectations of the most ptimistic observers.

 

History, however, is made only through the establishment of concrete and enduring institutional frameworks. Anything less substantive is only sand blowing in the wind.  If both sides can convert high-level engagements into substantive progress on tariff resolution, enhanced supply chain transparency, and coordinated contributions to peace initiatives such as proposed for Gaza, bilateral ties between Hanoi and Washington will enter a qualitatively more mature phase. At that point, the bilateral relationship will be less vulnerable to domestic political shifts in one country or the other, or to unpredictable fluctuations in the global balance of power.

In a world increasingly polarized and fragmented, the maturity of Vietnam–U.S. relations will not be measured solely by ceremonies and diplomatic language, but by the mutual capacity to confront and resolve the most difficult issues. It is precisely at these selective and very sensitive pressure points that the strategic future of the relationship will ultimately be determined.

After the 14^th Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party: “Aftershocks” 

Vietnams after the 14th Party Congress, still  moves forward at a remarkable pace, with shifts in who holds power, new institutional arrangements, and adventuresome development  goals all unfolding simultaneously and at a speed rarely seen since the Đổi Mới reforms of the 1980s. On the surface, Vietnam’s political–economic landscape appears stable. Beneath what is apparent, however, multiple institutional layers are experiencing tremors that are starting to reverberate across society. Decisions taken today may well shape Vietnam’s developmental trajectory for decades to come. 

This series of thoughtful essays presents writings from diverse—sometimes divergent—sources. Taken collectively, they affirm that, 1) even under increasingly constrained conditions, independent voices persist in speaking out within Vietnamese civil society t, and that 2) these voices continue to deserve attention. 

Second Essay: When a powerful Institutional Shock Hits Markets

The post–Congress convergence of intensified power centralization and highly ambitious economic growth targets has produced a distinctive institutional shock—one that is now beginning to impact the market through channels far subtler than those associated with ordinary economic cycles. 

Nguyen Xuan Nghia, PhD
Economist, Institute for Vietnamese Development Issues

After the 14th Party Congress, Vietnam has entered a phase in which the surface of economic activity appears broadly stable. Official messaging emphasizes determination to reform, to streamline the state apparatus, to promote the private sector, and to pursue exceptionally high growth targets over the coming years. From the outside—particularly through the lens of international media and analysts—Vietnam is often portrayed as a country that has “placed a large bet” on successful economic development while maintaining regime stability.

Yet it is precisely the combination of intensified power concentration with ambitious growth objectives that has generated a peculiar  kind of institutional shock, not a shock that triggers immediate disruption, but rather, a shock which alters the operating rhythm of the entire system, changes gradually transmitting to the market through new expectations, behavioral shifts, and changes in resource allocation. These new dynamics are quiet, but cumulative—and difficult to reverse over the medium to long term.

Idealized Growth Expectations 

Analysis by Joshua Kurlantzick and Annabel Richter highlight a central paradox of the post–Congress economic environment: while political power has become more consolidated and tightly controlled, expectations of possible economic achievement have expanded to the point of near idealization. Annual growth of 10 percent is no longer framed as an optimistic scenario, but as an official target tied directly to the personal credibility of top leadership and to the legitimacy of the system as a whole (1).

In economic terms, this is not an ignorable prediction. When growth becomes a measure of political success, the market no longer views it as a theoretical outcome of long-term reform, but as an immediate mandate that must be fulfilled. Expectations are thus pushed beyond the economy’s current internal capacity to achieve , creating invisible pressure on investment and production decisions. In this context, risk lies less in failing to achieve high growth and more in drawing the entire system into a race toward objectives that exceed the ability of its underlying fundamentals to deliver as so unreasonably expected.

Redefining Risk 

Another notable development emphasized by policy analysts is the encouragement of the state apparatus to “accept higher risk” when approving projects, in order to replace a long-standing bureaucratized culture of risk aversion and fear of taking personal responsibility. From an administrative perspective, this signals an attempt to unlock human decision-making capacity that has been constrained for years (2).

From a market perspective, however, the implications are ambiguous. When prudence is relaxed not through deep institutional reform but under pressure to meet growth targets, risk itself becomes difficult to calculate. Businesses cannot clearly discern where the boundary will lie between acceptable risk and punishable failure. In such an environment, economic decisions will tend to favor projects that align with policy priorities and political signals, rather than those with only economic efficacy and not political patronage. The market thus operates less according to the open-minded logic of profit and more according to calculations seeking self-preservation.

Personalizing Growth Responsibility 

The direct linkage between the top leadership’s personal credibility and long-term growth objectives—toward 2030 and further to 2045—creates another powerful mechanism transmitting contexts for entrepreneurial decision-making (3). In political economy, when economic success or failure is personalized, systems tend to prioritize short-term results to preserve system legitimacy, even at the expense of long-term development achievements.

Markets respond to such a signal with considerable rationality. Long-term investments—particularly in areas requiring high institutional stability such as core technologies, education, or corporate governance reform—become less attractive than investments in large, quickly completed projects easily associated with policy achievement goals. Investment allocations thus become channeled, not due to capital scarcity, but because the incentives for using capital have shifted.

Resource Allocation via Public Spending and Mega-Projects 

Rapidly expanding public expenditure and the rollout of large-scale infrastructure mega-projects represent the clearest manifestation of structural shake-up as it impacts the market. These projects are not only intended to stimulate demand, but also to produce tangible, measurable outcomes within political cycles, thereby reinforcing short-term political legitimacy and social confidence (4).

Development experience, however, suggests that scale does not equate to quality. When capital is injected rapidly and institutional oversight is weakened from excessive concentration of political discretion, the risks of making inefficient and diffuse investment rise sharply. The market then responds by gravitating towards acquiring assets—particularly land and infrastructure-linked real estate—rather than in productivity enhancement or technological innovation. This encourages market adaptation pursuing capital sheltering, not value creation.

Distorted Competition and “National Champion” Groups 

A key component of Vietnam’s post–Congress economic strategy is the cultivation of “national pillar conglomerates”—private-sector entities receiving strong state guidance and support. Kurlantzick and Richter note that Vietnam currently lacks sufficiently robust mechanisms to regulate the relationship between these conglomerates and political power (5).

Under the new condition of concentrated authority, the line separating policy support from political patronage becomes increasingly “flexible”. Markets quickly recognize that scale and connections may matter as much as—if not more than—pure economic efficiency. Competition weakens, small and medium enterprises are squeezed, and innovation incentives decline—undermining the very foundation upholding sustainable long-term growth.

Erosion of External Long-Term Confidence 

Although Vietnam remains an attractive investment destination amid global supply-chain restructuring, uncertainties surrounding tariffs and U.S. efforts to prevent Vietnam from serving as a “transshipment hub” for Chinese goods significantly increase policy risk (6). When combined with a domestic system operating in campaign mode, foreign investors tend to shorten commitment horizons and avoid projects which require high institutional stability for their coming to profitable fruition.

There is no immediate capital flight. Yet confidence in long-term prospects erodes. This form of market impact is particularly dangerous because it does not immediately register in macroeconomic indicators, revealing itself instead through data on capital quality, investment duration, and willingness to transfer technology.

Reversal of Roles Between Institutions and the Market 

After the 14th Congress, the core economic question is no longer whether Vietnam can achieve 10 percent growth for several years, but whether its economy is being turned towards a trajectory in which the market must adapt to the operating tempo of political institutions—rather than such institutions creating space for the market to develop according to its own logic (7).

This represents a composite transmission channel, where all prior effects converge. If sustained, the market will continues to function on its own but will grow increasingly cautious, prioritizing safety over innovation, while the economy’s self-governance in making timely corrections erodes—especially as the labor force ages rapidly.

The overall institutional shock to Vietnam’s economy following the 14th Party Congress has not produced an immediate economic crisis. Instead, it is transmitting into the market through multiple channels concerns that drive decision-making—expectations, risk calculations, investment structures, competition, and long-term confidence. These concerns interact and reinforce one another, altering how the economy actually operates without dramatic surface-level disruption.

The deeper concern lies not in ambitious growth aspirations, but in the risk that the market becomes increasingly subordinated to the short-term operational rhythm of institutions. If this trajectory is not recognized and corrected in time, short-term growth gains may be purchased at the cost of prolonged fragility in the medium and long term—a price often recognized only when corrective capacity has already declined.

References:
(1) CFR – Vietnam’s Most Important Party Congress in Years…
(2) Thanh Tra – Encouraging and Protecting Officials Who Dare to Act
(3) EVN – International Impressions of Vietnam’s Breakthrough Economic Orientation
(4) Reuters – Vietnam Targets $55 Billion in Foreign Loans…
(5) CFR – same as (1)
(6) SCMP – Why One Clause in the US–Vietnam Trade Deal Is Sparking Concern
(7) VietnamPlus – Rethinking Vietnam’s Growth Model