Category: Vietnam

Professor Stephen B. Young, JD

Global Executive Director

The Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism

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

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

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

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

One thousand years slaves to Chinese thieves

One hundred years under French domination

Twenty years this war day after day

Our Mothers’ legacy – a forest of dried bones

Our Mothers’ legacy – a mountainous graveyard

– Trinh Cong Son

1. When a Book Becomes a Battlefield

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. When Even the Party Leader Is Being Muzzled

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Who Benefits When stilled waters are Stirred Up?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three historical events deserve attention.

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

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

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

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

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

4. Two Faces of a Single Strategy

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

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

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

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

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

5. Two Spearheads and an Invisible Hand

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. One Directive No. 07 Is Still Not Enough

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

II. AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER AND A SUNKEN SHIP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III. WASHINGTON’S DUAL MESSAGE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion:

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

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

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

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

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

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

HOANG TRUONG 

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

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

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

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

 

1. FROM CONVERSATIONS WITH THANH TO A DIGITAL CULTURAL REVOLUTION 

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 2. VIETNAM IN 2026 IS NOT CHINA IN 1966 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

The central question facing all Vietnamese today is whether Vietnam possesses enough confidence to accept the competition of ideas as a force for development. Marx, after all, was never afraid of contradiction. In every age, it is those who hold power who most fear contradiction.

Hoang Thang Dinh

Ph.D. in Political Science; Fellow of the Caux Round Table

History sometimes produces anomalies – unnecessary inconsistencies and contradictions that become visible only when a political order faces a decisive turning point. A ruling party founded upon Marxism-Leninism may continue to proclaim its loyalty to that doctrine in every official document, while in practice steadily suppressing the very force that Marx regarded as the source of all development. Seen from this perspective, perhaps the greatest paradox in Vietnam today is not that Marxism is feared, but that Marx’s own personal intellectual dialectic is.

This is not merely a play on words. If one sets aside the familiar conventions surrounding revolution, dictatorship, and class struggle, the philosophical core of Marx’s thought revolves around a single question: how does society develop? His answer was clear. Every social order contains contradictions within itself. Change arises from the meeting up  of opposing forces and their mutual antagonisms, while absolute uniformity leads not to progress, but to stagnation.

The question, therefore, is not whether contemporary Vietnam continues to invoke Marxism-Leninism as an official doctrine. It plainly does. The more important question is whether a political system can remain faithful to Marx while attempting to remove contradiction, silence competing ideas, and reduce social life to hearing only a single authorized voice.

That contradiction between Marxist dogma and Marx’s philosophy of the natural law bringing about human evolution lies at the heart of Vietnam’s present dilemma.

1. What Did Marx Actually Say About Human Development?

Marx did not invent the social dynamic of dialectics. He inherited it from Hegel and transformed it by shifting its center of gravity from the realm of spirit to the material and social world. Yet whatever differences separated Marx from Hegel, the central proposition remained intact: there can be no movement without addressing contradictions and no development without conflict between what exists and what is struggling to emerge.

Hegel proposed a natural law of change.  A fixed logic – the thesis – comes into being. Then, in a fluid ecosystem, a counter-logic appears – the anti-thesis. Next, the thesis and the anti-thesis interact and meld their truths one with the other to create a new logic or truth – the synthesis. And then the cycle repeats itself: the synthesis becomes a new thesis which begets a new anti-thesis, which then combine into a second generation synthesis, which …

Thus, from a Hegelian approach, any contradiction between a thesis and an anti-thesis is only an interim waystation on the road to successful innovation and the future.  It is to be welcomed as step forward for humanity.

Hegel’s dialectic conforms nicely to the Second Law of Thermodynamics which holds that any energy state which does not flow degenerates. The isolated system – a thesis – cut off from innovation and new energy flows (anti-theses) succumbs to entropy whereby its internal energy is decomposed and becomes useless chaos.  Such an isolated system ultimately loses all productivity and so becomes useless.

For Marx, contradiction was therefore not simply a system defect to be eliminated. It was the driving force of history. Without tension inside the forces and relations of production, there would be no structural transformation of the economy over time. Without conflict between old institutions and new social realities, there would be no political change. Without disagreement between competing interpretations, there would be no advance in human understanding.

Dialectics, in this sense, is not a philosophy of unanimity. It is a philosophy of forward movement generated by differences.

Long before Marx, similar intuitions appeared in the civilizational wisdom of Asia. An old Chinese saying observes that “on the Yangtze River, the waves behind push forward the waves ahead”. The Vietnamese express the same insight more simply: “when old bamboo dies, new shoots rise”. Both images point to a universal law of life. Renewal occurs because the new emerges, challenges the old, and eventually transforms or replaces it.

A river without new waves becomes stagnant water. A society without new ideas gradually loses its vitality.

In fact, the Vietnamese have applied a Hegelian approach to nature for more than 2,000 years as part of their national identity – Truong Ton Dan Toc.  Their origin myth brings together a paternal figure – Lac Long Quan – with a maternal figure – Au Co – to meld their different energy orientations and so bring forth a unique new ethnicity.

Separately, the Truong Ton Dan Toc included a sophisticated balancing of different energy flows in the melding of Yang and Yin forces, Yang being the thesis and Yin the anti-thesis, and the 62 normal configurations of both energies constituting a set of differing syntheses.

Modern history offers repeated confirmation of this dialectic. In science, major discoveries often begin with the rejection of what had previously been accepted as truth. In economics, new firms and new technologies continuously displace established models. Joseph Schumpeter later described this process as “creative destruction,” the dynamic through which capitalism renews itself by dismantling obsolete arrangements and creating new ones.

The language differs, but the underlying principle is strikingly similar: without difference, there is no innovation; without challenge, there is no renewal.

This raises an unavoidable question. What happens when a society no longer accepts the existence of opposing forces? What happens when criticism is treated primarily as a political risk, debate is progressively narrowed, and difference itself becomes something to be monitored and controlled?

Under such conditions, social life does not merely become intellectually poorer. The very mechanism of development that Marx regarded as fundamental is disabled. The contradiction between theory and practice becomes even sharper when the political system responsible for suppressing disagreement continues to claim Marx as its ideological foundation.

It is precisely at this point that the anomaly of contemporary Vietnam reveals itself.

A genuinely dialectical society would not fear contradiction. It would institutionalize a process to constructively exploit contradiction, regulate it through law, and transform it into a source of correction and renewal. It would understand that disagreement is not necessarily disloyalty, that criticism is not automatically hostility, and that competing ideas are not enemies of national unity.

By contrast, a system that treats every significant difference as a threat may preserve outward conformity for a time, but it does so by weakening its own capacity to learn and grow stronger. It eliminates not only dissent, but also the warning signals through which errors are detected before they become crises.

This is why the issue reaches far beyond how best to interpret Marx. It concerns the conditions under which any modern society is capable of development. A nation cannot enter the knowledge economy while suppressing the social processes through which knowledge is tested. It cannot call for innovation if it fears intellectual independence. It cannot celebrate dialectics in theory while abolishing contradiction in practice.

The essential question, then, is no longer whether Marxism remains present in official discourse. The question is whether those who speak most frequently in Marx’s name are prepared to accept the principle at the very center of his thought: that development begins when opposing forces are allowed to exist, interact, and generate something new.

2. The Greatest Irony: Governing in Marx’s Name While Abandoning Marx’s Method

If Marx was correct that contradiction is the engine of historical development, then contemporary Vietnam presents a puzzle that deserves careful examination. The issue is not whether Marxism-Leninism continues to occupy a privileged place in official ideology. It clearly does. The more fundamental question is whether the governing method increasingly contradicts the very philosophical principle upon which Marx built his understanding of history. It is here that one encounters perhaps the greatest irony of Vietnam’s contemporary political development.

According to Marx, contradiction was never an unfortunate defect that society should eliminate. Quite the opposite. Contradiction was the source of movement, adaptation, and renewal. Social systems evolve because competing forces interact with one another, exposing weaknesses, correcting errors, and generating new possibilities. Development therefore requires tension—not permanent conflict, but the continuous encounter between different perspectives capable of producing higher forms of organization and understanding.

Measured against that standard, today’s Vietnam appears to be moving along a remarkably different path. Over time, the public space available for intellectual diversity has become progressively narrower. Journalism exercises less independent scrutiny than before. Civic organizations function within carefully defined limits. Scholars, artists, entrepreneurs, and policy specialists have all learned that some questions are best avoided and some conclusions are wiser left unstated. The significance of this trend lies not in any individual case, but in the broader political culture it gradually creates: one in which conformity offers security while intellectual divergence carries increasing uncertainty.

Such a development is not difficult to understand from the perspective of political power. Governments naturally seek stability. They attempt to reduce uncertainty, minimize social disruption, and preserve institutional coherence. These are legitimate objectives of governance. The difficulty begins only when stability gradually becomes indistinguishable from uniformity, and when the absence of disagreement comes to be interpreted as evidence of political success.

At precisely that moment, however, another process quietly unfolds beneath the surface. A political system may become more orderly, yet simultaneously lose part of its capacity for self-correction. Independent criticism becomes rarer. Alternative analyses disappear from public debate. Institutions hear fewer warnings before policy mistakes accumulate into structural weaknesses. What appears externally as consensus may, in reality, conceal a growing decline in the system’s ability to learn from its own experience.

Seen through Marx’s own dialectical framework, this outcome is deeply ironic. What is being reduced is not merely criticism of particular policies, but the social existence of opposing forces themselves. Yet Marx never regarded opposing forces as enemies of development. He regarded them as its indispensable condition. A society that removes contradiction from public life also removes one of the principal mechanisms through which historical progress becomes possible.

The paradox becomes even more striking as Vietnam enters what its leaders describe as a new era of national advancement. Official strategy now emphasizes innovation, digital transformation, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, private enterprise, and global competitiveness. These aspirations are entirely understandable. No country can hope to prosper in the twenty-first century without embracing scientific creativity and technological innovation. Yet history has never produced an innovative economy within an intellectually homogeneous society.

Here lies the paradox within the paradox. Competition is encouraged in markets, but competition among ideas remains far more constrained. Technological innovation is celebrated, while intellectual innovation often encounters institutional hesitation. Entrepreneurs are encouraged to challenge old business models, but society remains considerably less comfortable when citizens challenge established assumptions in public life. The result is an increasingly visible gap between the economic imagination required for modernization and the political imagination permitted within the public sphere.

Eventually, theory and practice begin moving in opposite directions. A nation may continue to invoke Marx as the philosophical foundation of its political legitimacy, while simultaneously narrowing the very conditions under which Marx’s dialectical method could actually operate. In that situation, dialectics survives primarily as doctrine rather than as a living method of understanding reality. Contradiction is praised in textbooks but discouraged in public life.

Perhaps this is the deepest irony confronting Vietnam today. The central issue is no longer whether some citizens criticize Marxism. The more revealing question is whether a political system that continues to govern in Marx’s name remains willing to accept the single principle that gives Marx’s philosophy its enduring intellectual vitality: that societies develop not by eliminating contradiction, but by allowing competing forces to interact, challenge one another, and ultimately produce something better than either could achieve alone.

3. Innovation Begins Where Conformity Ends

One of history’s greatest ironies is that many of civilization’s most transformative revolutions did not begin in royal palaces, government ministries, or the headquarters of powerful institutions. They began in places so ordinary that they seemed almost invisible. A suburban garage. A university laboratory. A rented apartment. A dormitory room. Again and again, history reminds us that the future rarely announces itself from the center of established power. More often, it arrives quietly from its margins.

When Bill Gates imagined that every office and every household would one day possess its own personal computer, the idea struck many observers as wildly unrealistic. When Steve Jobs insisted that technology should become an extension of human creativity rather than merely a calculating machine, established companies saw little reason to take him seriously. Years later, Elon Musk was widely dismissed for arguing that electric vehicles could redefine the automobile industry and that private companies could compete in space exploration. Their proposals often sounded less like business plans than acts of intellectual audacity.

The remarkable fact is not that these individuals encountered skepticism. Every genuinely original idea does. The remarkable fact is that these men lived in societies capable of distinguishing between disagreement and disloyalty. They were free to fail, free to be criticized, and equally free to prove that conventional wisdom had been mistaken. Their greatest protection was not political influence or inherited privilege. It was an institutional environment that accepted intellectual deviation as a normal condition of progress.

This pattern extends far beyond Silicon Valley. Galileo challenged the cosmology of his age. Charles Darwin overturned centuries of established assumptions about the origins of life. Albert Einstein transformed modern physics by questioning concepts that had appeared settled since Newton. Tim Berners-Lee changed the architecture of global communication with an invention whose significance few initially recognized. In every generation, history advances because someone is willing to ask questions that the majority has not yet imagined.

The lesson is remarkably consistent. Innovation is never produced by unanimous agreement. It emerges from continuous competition among ideas. Some fail. Many disappear. A few fundamentally reshape the world. The decisive factor is not whether every new idea is correct, but whether society provides sufficient intellectual space for better ideas to emerge, compete, and eventually replace inferior ones. This process is precisely what Joseph Schumpeter described as “creative destruction”—the permanent renewal of society through challenge rather than repetition.

This is why the world’s most innovative nations share certain institutional characteristics. Their universities enjoy substantial intellectual autonomy. Their scientific communities encourage rigorous criticism rather than ritual agreement. Their entrepreneurs regularly challenge established industries. Their journalists question those who govern. Their courts protect lawful dissent. None of these institutions exists because disagreement is inherently desirable. They exist because history repeatedly demonstrates that societies capable of correcting themselves invariably outperform societies that merely preserve appearances of consensus.

Vietnam now stands before precisely this historical reality. The country can import advanced technologies, attract foreign investment, construct modern infrastructure, and acquire sophisticated machinery. Yet none of these imports will on their own automatically produce innovation. The most valuable strategic resource of the twenty-first century is neither oil nor rare earth minerals nor financial capital. It is the human capacity to think independently, to imagine alternatives, and to challenge inherited assumptions before circumstances force change from outside.

This reality raises a question far more fundamental than industrial policy or technological strategy. Can a gifted Vietnamese student pursue an unconventional scientific hypothesis without fearing that intellectual independence itself may become a liability? Can a young entrepreneur openly challenge established methods without first calculating the political acceptability of new ideas? Can scholars engage in serious debate over national development without every disagreement being interpreted primarily through the lens of political conformity? These questions reach beyond individual freedoms. They concern the creative capacity of the nation itself.

Perhaps this brings us back, unexpectedly, to Marx. If contradiction constitutes the engine of historical development, then every society aspiring to innovation must ultimately decide whether it views intellectual diversity as a strategic asset or as a political risk. The answer to that question will determine far more than the future of academic debate. It may well determine whether Vietnam succeeds in building a genuine knowledge economy or merely acquires the outward technologies of one.

For nations do not become innovative simply because they purchase advanced machines. They become innovative because they cultivate citizens who are unafraid to think differently. History has rarely rewarded societies that perfected conformity. It has consistently rewarded those confident enough to allow new ideas to challenge old certainties before the rest of the world does it for them.

4. Strong States Do Not Fear Independent Minds

Perhaps the deepest misunderstanding in modern politics is the assumption that political stability demands intellectual conformity; that political stability and intellectual paralysis are essentially one and the same reality. History suggests precisely the opposite. The strongest states have rarely been those that eliminated disagreement. They were the ones that developed institutions capable of absorbing disagreement, learning from it, and transforming it into better public policy.

This distinction is more important than it first appears. Every government seeks stability; no responsible state welcomes chaos. Yet stability achieved through institutional resilience differs fundamentally from stability achieved through intellectual uniformity. The former grows stronger because criticism exposes weaknesses before they become crises. The latter often appears solid until accumulated errors suddenly reveal how little corrective capacity remains beneath the surface.

Modern constitutional government developed precisely from this insight. Independent courts, professional journalism, autonomous universities, competitive elections, civic associations, and open policy debate were never designed simply as expressions of individual liberty. They evolved because societies gradually discovered that governments, like markets, make mistakes. Institutions capable of identifying those mistakes early became one of civilization’s greatest political innovations.

In this respect, political systems resemble living organisms more than mechanical machines. A healthy immune system does not weaken the human body by constantly identifying abnormalities. It protects the body by detecting danger before it becomes irreversible. Public criticism performs a remarkably similar function within political communities. It identifies institutional blind spots, challenges obsolete assumptions, and exposes emerging risks before they mature into national failures. Silence, by contrast, is not always a sign of health. Sometimes it merely indicates that the immune system itself has ceased to function effectively.

This may explain why societies that appear highly stable often prove unexpectedly fragile when confronted with profound change. Systems accustomed to hearing only agreement gradually lose the capacity to recognize reality as it evolves. Information becomes increasingly filtered. Honest feedback becomes progressively rarer. Decision-makers receive reassurance precisely when they most need correction. Under such conditions, crises seldom emerge because criticism was excessive. More often, they emerge because criticism arrived too late.

Vietnam’s long-term challenge therefore extends well beyond economics or technology. The country undoubtedly requires investment, infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and scientific capability. Yet none of these achievements can fully substitute for institutions capable of continuous self-correction. Sustainable national development ultimately depends not only upon the efficiency of government but also upon the quality of feedback available to government itself.

Perhaps this returns us once again to the anomaly with which this essay began. A confident political order does not fear competing ideas because it understands that ideas, unlike conspiracies, become stronger or weaker through open examination. Only weak arguments require permanent protection from criticism. Strong arguments improve precisely because they survive criticism.

The question for a political system is what kind of “order” it should seek and institutionalize. There is a continuum of systems of order – from chaos and anarchy, at one pole, to a paralyzing stasis hugging tight to inertia at the other pole.  The most constructive and vital systems of order lie in the middle of the continuum. Finding such fluid but confined systems requires searching for a Middle Way, an Aristotelean Mean or a Daoist Wu-Wei equilibrium.

The American Constitution with its system of checks and balances is just such a Mean in the distribution of power among those who hold different Hegelian Theses and Anti-theses.  The Federalist Papers explained how checks and balances worked to produce a system of dynamic order avoiding both anarchy and tyranny through moderate movements taking place within a bounded social setting.

In Federalist Paper #10 we read: “AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. … By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”  Here James Madison associated “faction” with the seeking of power to dominate others living in the same community.

Factions, he said, arise from separations in the possession of social, economic, and political power. “From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties. … It is of great importance in a republic 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. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.”

Federalist Paper #51 describes how checks and balances produce equilibrium among factions so that society as a whole benefits from the contributions of each faction:  “by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places. …  Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. …  a 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.”

Where, in an operative Hegelian dialectic, different theses, anti-theses, and syntheses contend with each other in seeking approval and support, checks and balances are at work bringing about, over time, benefits for the entire society to share and enjoy. The central issue confronting Vietnam, therefore, is not whether intellectual diversity creates temporary discomfort. Every living society experiences disagreement. The more important question is whether the nation’s institutions possess sufficient confidence to transform disagreement into knowledge rather than interpreting it primarily as political risk. The answer to that question will shape far more than the future of public debate. It will determine the adaptive capacity of the Vietnamese state itself in a century defined by technological disruption, geopolitical uncertainty, and unprecedented rates of change.

For history leaves little room for ambiguity. Strong states are not those that succeed in silencing independent minds. Strong states are those confident enough to govern among them.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the question is no longer whether Vietnam remains faithful to Marxism-Leninism as an official doctrine. The more consequential question is whether it remains faithful to the single principle that gave Marx’s philosophy its enduring intellectual power: that development emerges through contradiction rather than conformity.

History has repeatedly demonstrated that scientific discovery, economic innovation, and political progress all begin with ideas that challenge established certainties. Societies prosper not because they eliminate disagreement, but because they possess the confidence to transform disagreement into knowledge, correction, and renewal.

The paradox confronting Vietnam today is therefore larger than Marx himself. A nation cannot aspire to become an innovation-driven economy while narrowing the intellectual space from which innovation naturally arises. Nor can it cultivate creative citizens while expecting them to think within predetermined boundaries.

The ultimate question is not who still speaks in Marx’s name. It is who still believes in the dialectical spirit that made Marx intellectually significant in the first place.

For Marx never feared contradiction.

History has never feared contradiction.

Innovation has never feared contradiction.

In every age, it is those with power who most fear contradictions.

(Ideology, Performance, Public Trust, and Civic-National Identity)

Stephen B. Young and Hoang Thang Dinh

Author’s Note: This working paper is one outcome of an ongoing scholarly dialogue between Stephen B. Young and Dr. Hoang Thang Dinh, conducted in Caux, Rome, and Paris, on political legitimacy, public trust, and Vietnam’s civilizational development. It also forms part of a broader collaborative research project exploring the long-term resilience, civilizational maturation, and future path of the Vietnamese nation, which is currently being prepared for publication.

Introduction: The Puzzle

Political systems rarely transform through dramatic declarations. More often, they change first in the language through which they justify themselves. Before institutions evolve, political discourse begins to shift. Before doctrines disappear, they gradually recede from the center of public rhetoric. Contemporary Vietnam may now be entering such a transition.

This paper does not claim that Vietnam has entered a new political system, nor does it attempt to infer the intentions of individual leaders. It proposes a more modest hypothesis: that official political discourse in Vietnam may be undergoing a gradual rebalancing of its sources of legitimacy, from a language centered primarily on ideology and revolutionary history toward one increasingly grounded in governance, state capacity, economic performance, public trust, and civic-national identity.

The question is not whether ideology has disappeared. It has not. Marxism-Leninism, socialism, and the constitutional role of the Communist Party remain central to Vietnam’s formal political framework. The question is whether ideology continues to function as the dominant language through which political authority explains and justifies itself, or whether performance, trust, and national development have moved closer to the center of political legitimation.

1. What Is Political Legitimacy?

Political legitimacy refers to the belief that political authority is rightful, not merely powerful. A government may command obedience through law, bureaucracy, coercion, habit, or fear. Legitimacy, however, concerns something deeper: whether citizens, elites, and institutions regard authority as justified.

Max Weber’s classic typology distinguished among traditional, charismatic, and legal-rational legitimacy (Weber, 1978). David Beetham later argued that legitimacy depends on three connected elements: power must conform to established rules; those rules must be justified by shared beliefs; and there must be evidence of consent or acknowledgment by the governed (Beetham, 1991). Seymour Martin Lipset added an important modern dimension by linking political legitimacy to a regime’s capacity to maintain effectiveness and secure social acceptance over time (Lipset, 1959).

This paper builds on these traditions but adapts them to the Vietnamese case. It treats legitimacy not as a single source but as a layered structure. In Vietnam, four layers are especially important: ideological legitimacy, performance legitimacy, public trust, and civic-national identity.

Ideological legitimacy derives from doctrine, revolutionary history, and official narratives of political purpose. Performance legitimacy derives from the state’s ability to deliver growth, stability, security, development, and effective governance. Public trust concerns whether citizens believe that public institutions act fairly, competently, and in the common interest. Civic-national identity refers to the deeper relationship between citizens and the political community: the sense that public authority reflects the dignity, memory, values, and aspirations of the nation.

These layers are not mutually exclusive. They interact. Ideology may provide historical narrative. Performance may provide practical credibility. Public trust may provide moral confidence. Identity may provide belonging. The central question is how the balance among these layers changes over time.

2. Doi Moi and Vietnam’s First Legitimacy Transition

The transformation that began with Doi Moi in 1986 is usually understood as an economic turning point. Vietnam moved from central planning toward a socialist-oriented market economy while preserving one-party rule. This interpretation is historically correct, but analytically incomplete.

Viewed through the lens of political legitimacy, Doi Moi represented Vietnam’s first major legitimacy transition. Before Doi Moi, legitimacy rested primarily on two pillars: revolutionary legitimacy, derived from national liberation and reunification; and ideological legitimacy, grounded in Marxism-Leninism and the socialist project. During the decades of war and immediate postwar reconstruction, these sources reinforced one another.

The economic crisis of the mid-1980s changed this equilibrium. Inflation, shortages, declining productivity, and international isolation weakened the capacity of ideology alone to sustain political confidence. The challenge facing Vietnamese leaders was not only economic recovery. It was also the preservation of political legitimacy under dramatically changing domestic and international conditions.

Doi Moi did not abolish ideology. Rather, it added a new source of legitimacy: performance. Growth, poverty reduction, improved living standards, foreign investment, international integration, and social stability increasingly became part of the state’s claim to effective rule. Citizens were asked not only to believe in a revolutionary project but also to evaluate authority through tangible improvements in everyday life.

This interpretation is consistent with a significant body of scholarship on post-Doi Moi Vietnam. Carlyle Thayer, Martin Gainsborough, Benedict Kerkvliet, and especially Le Hong Hiep have shown that socio-economic performance became a crucial foundation of the Communist Party’s contemporary legitimacy (Thayer, 2010; Gainsborough, 2010; Kerkvliet, 2005; Le Hong Hiep, 2012). Doi Moi should therefore be understood not only as economic liberalization but also as an adaptive political strategy that enabled institutional continuity through developmental success.

The result was not democratization in the liberal constitutional sense. Nor was it ideological abandonment. It was a rebalancing: revolutionary history continued to provide symbolic authority, while economic performance increasingly provided practical credibility.

3. Is Vietnam Entering a Second Legitimacy Transition?

If Doi Moi marked Vietnam’s first legitimacy transition, an intriguing question now emerges: is the country entering a second?

This question must be approached cautiously. Political systems do not transform simply because official rhetoric changes. Nor should isolated speeches be treated as conclusive evidence of institutional evolution. Yet political discourse deserves careful attention because it often reveals changing priorities before those priorities become visible in law, policy, or institutional reform.

Recent official discourse appears to place increasing emphasis on a vocabulary different from that which dominated earlier decades. Themes such as administrative restructuring, institutional reform, technological innovation, digital governance, implementation capacity, infrastructure, competitiveness, growth, and national development seem increasingly prominent in major policy speeches.

This observation should be tested more systematically. A future version of this paper should include a content analysis of major leadership speeches from the late Nguyen Phu Trong period and the early To Lam period. The following categories could be coded across comparable speeches:

Category	Examples of Terms to Code
Ideological references	Marxism-Leninism, socialism, Ho Chi Minh Thought, Party-building, revolutionary tradition
Revolutionary legitimacy	liberation, reunification, sacrifice, national independence, historical mission
Performance legitimacy	growth, productivity, competitiveness, infrastructure, income, investment
State capacity	institutional reform, administrative restructuring, implementation, efficiency, governance
Technology and modernization	digital transformation, AI, science and technology, innovation, data governance
Public trust	integrity, accountability, transparency, service to the people, public responsibility
Civic-national identity	nation, people, Vietnamese aspiration, national rise, dignity, civilizational development

Such an analysis would help determine whether the observed shift is durable or merely rhetorical. It would also allow scholars to distinguish between three possibilities: continuity in new language, tactical adaptation, or a deeper rebalancing of legitimacy.

At present, the evidence remains preliminary. But the hypothesis is plausible enough to merit investigation. As Vietnam becomes more integrated into the global economy, its government faces challenges that cannot be addressed through ideological narratives alone: productivity, technology, demographic change, environmental stress, geopolitical competition, and institutional effectiveness. Under such conditions, performance naturally becomes more central to political justification.

4. Why Performance Alone Is Not Enough

Performance legitimacy has strengths. It forces governments to deliver. It links political authority to concrete outcomes. It may encourage reform, competence, and responsiveness. But performance is also conditional.

Growth can slow. Markets can change. External shocks can occur. Demographic trends can become unfavorable. Technological disruption can create new inequalities. A political system that relies too heavily on performance becomes vulnerable when performance declines.

This is why performance legitimacy cannot be a complete theory of political legitimacy. It answers the question: what has the government delivered? But it does not fully answer: for whom, toward what purpose, and under what moral obligations?

Here Stephen B. Young’s emphasis on public trust is crucial. The Roman question Cui bono?—who benefits?—remains central. Growth alone is not enough if its benefits are captured by narrow interests. Administrative efficiency is not enough if public authority serves itself rather than the public.

In the United States, for example, President Richard Nixon was impeached by the House of Representatives for abusing his trust in holding the office of President. The Impeachment Resolution in Article 1 concluded: 

In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore Richard M. Nixon, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

The idea of government as public trust has deep roots. Roman law treated public office as a responsibility exercised for the public good. John Locke developed this into a theory of government as fiduciary authority: officials hold delegated power on behalf of society and remain accountable to the purposes for which that authority was entrusted (Locke, 1689/1988).

This shifts the discussion from power to responsibility. Public authority is not legitimate merely because it is effective. It must be effective in serving the public good. It must be trusted as fair, competent, restrained, and oriented toward the welfare of the community.

Modern scholarship on trust reinforces this point. Francis Fukuyama emphasized the importance of social trust for prosperity and institutional performance (Fukuyama, 1995). Bo Rothstein argued that quality of government depends not only on capacity but also on impartiality, fairness, and institutional integrity (Rothstein, 2011). Public trust is therefore not decorative. It is a core element of durable legitimacy.

5. Which Identity? Clarifying the Concept

The concept of identity must also be clarified. Identity can mean many things: ethnic identity, cultural identity, national identity, political identity, civic identity, or civilizational identity. A paper on legitimacy cannot use the term loosely.

This paper does not use identity in an ethnic or racial sense. Nor does it reduce identity to cultural nostalgia. The relevant concept is civic-national identity: the relationship between citizens and the political community to which they belong.

Civic-national identity answers a fundamental question: why does this political order deserve my loyalty? It is not simply a matter of blood, ancestry, or tradition. It concerns whether citizens recognize themselves in the institutions, values, memory, dignity, and aspirations represented by the state.

Benedict Anderson’s idea of the nation as an “imagined community” remains useful here (Anderson, 1983). Charles Taylor’s work on recognition also helps explain why political communities require more than administration; they require acknowledgment of dignity and belonging (Taylor, 1994). (see also Ruth Benedict’s Chrysanthemum and the Sword on the political implications of Japanese identity.)

In the Vietnamese case, civic-national identity may be especially important because Vietnam’s political history has long been shaped by the struggle for survival, independence, unity, and dignity. Concepts such as sinh ton, truong ton, and truong thanh are not merely cultural expressions. They point toward a deeper question: what does it mean to be Vietnamese in the twenty-first century?

This is where identity becomes the deepest layer of legitimacy. Ideology may tell a story about history. Performance may deliver results in the present. Public trust may sustain confidence in institutions. But civic-national identity gives citizens a reason to see the state not as an external power but as an expression of their own political community.

In this sense, legitimacy is not inherited once and for all. It must be continuously earned. A state may survive through performance. But a political community endures through identity.

Conclusion: A Research Agenda

This paper has advanced a modest argument rather than a definitive conclusion. It does not claim that Vietnam has entered a fundamentally new political system, nor does it suggest that changes in official discourse necessarily indicate institutional transformation. It proposes a framework for examining how political legitimacy may evolve through changing relationships among ideology, performance, public trust, and civic-national identity.

From this perspective, Doi Moi may be understood as Vietnam’s first legitimacy transition, introducing performance as a central source of credibility alongside revolutionary and ideological legitimacy. Contemporary political discourse raises the possibility—still requiring careful empirical investigation—that Vietnam may now be entering a second phase, in which governance capacity and state effectiveness assume even greater importance.

Whether such a transition proves durable will depend on factors beyond performance alone. Governments may secure support through development, but enduring legitimacy rests upon something deeper: public trust, institutional integrity, and the ability of political institutions to embody the shared values and aspirations of the community they serve.

The principal contribution of this paper is not to offer a political judgment about contemporary Vietnam. Rather, it seeks to reopen a broader theoretical question: how do political systems adapt their foundations of legitimacy as societies, economies, and identities evolve?

Vietnam offers one important case through which that larger question may be explored.

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References:

Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso. https://www.versobooks.com/products/1126-imagined-communities

Beetham, D. (1991). The legitimation of power. Macmillan. Beetham, David. (Một trong những công trình kinh điển về lý thuyết tính chính danh chính trị.)

Ruth Benedict, Chrysanthemum and the Sword (Mariner Books Classics; ‎ 2006)

Fukuyama, F. (1995). Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. Free Press. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Trust/Francis-Fukuyama/9780684825250

Gainsborough, M. (2010). Vietnam: Rethinking the state. Zed Books. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/vietnam-9781848135659/

Kerkvliet, B. J. T. (2005). The power of everyday politics: How Vietnamese peasants transformed national policy. Cornell University Press. https://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg/publication/763 (The Power of Everyday Politics: How Vietnamese Peasants Transformed National Policy)

Le Hong Hiep. (2012). Performance-based legitimacy: The case of the Communist Party of Vietnam and Doi Moi. Contemporary Southeast Asia, 34(2), 145–172. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41756339

Lipset, S. M. (1959). Some social requisites of democracy: Economic development and political legitimacy. American Political Science Review, 53(1), 69–105. https://cooperative-individualism.org/lipset-seymour_some-social-requisites-of-democracy-1959-mar.pdf

Locke, J. (1988). Two treatises of government (P. Laslett, Ed.). Cambridge University Press. Original work published 1689. https://www.yorku.ca/comninel/courses/3025pdf/Locke.pdf

Nathan, A. J. (2003). China’s changing of the guard: Authoritarian resilience. Journal of Democracy, 14(1), 6–17. https://nghiencuuquocte.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Authoritarian_Resilience.pdf

Rothstein, B. (2011). The quality of government: Corruption, social trust, and inequality in international perspective. University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/Q/bo11632847.html

Taylor, C. (1994). The politics of recognition. In A. Gutmann (Ed.), Multiculturalism: Examining the politics of recognition (pp. 25–73). Princeton University Press. https://web.stanford.edu/class/polisci92n/readings/nov6.1.taylor.pdf

Thayer, C. A. (2010). Political legitimacy in Vietnam: Challenge and response. In J. London (Ed.), Politics in contemporary Vietnam: Party, state, and authority relations. Palgrave Macmillan. https://journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/giga/jsaa/article/view/170/170.html

Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (G. Roth & C. Wittich, Eds.). University of California Press. https://www.ucpress.edu/books/economy-and-society-2/paper

Young, S. B. (forthcoming). Moral government and public trust. Caux Round Table Working Paper. https://www.cauxroundtable.org/

Young, Stephen, “Public Office as a Public Trust: a suggestion that a fiduciary standard is implied in Impeachment for High Crimes and Misdemeanors”. Georgetown Law Review, 1975

The American Presidency Project, https://www.google.com/search?q=richard+nixon+articles+of+impeachment&rlz=1C1CHZN_enUS986US986&oq=richard+nicon+artic&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCQgBEAAYDRiABDIGCAAQRRg

Suggested Reading:

David Beetham, The Legitimation of Power. https://www.jomswsge.com/pdf-207099-127014?filename=127014.pdf

Max Weber, Economy and Society. https://www.ucpress.edu/books/economy-and-society-2/paper

Seymour Martin Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy.” https://www.jstor.org/stable/1951731

Le Hong Hiep, “Performance-based Legitimacy: The Case of the Communist Party of Vietnam and Doi Moi.” https://www.jstor.org/stable/41756339

Martin Gainsborough, Vietnam: Rethinking the State. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-southeast-asian-studies/article/abs/vietnam-vietnam-rethinking-the-state-by-martin-gainsborough-london-zed-books-2010-224-pages-maps-notes-bibliography-index/ACC763EA92E613E5BAB5E3C21268969B 

Benedict Kerkvliet, The Power of Everyday Politics. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/59999

Fukuyama, Trust. https://www.persee.fr/doc/rfsp_0035-2950_1995_num_45_6_403599

Bo Rothstein, The Quality of Government. https://www.gu.se/sites/default/files/2020-05/2005_6%20Rothstein_Teorell.pdf

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. https://criticallegalthinking.com/2023/04/25/benedict-andersons-imagined-communities/

Stephen B. Young, CRT writings on Moral Government, Moral Capitalism, and public trust. https://www.cauxroundtable.org/

There are moments in history when internal strains and external pressures converge. At such moments, problems once dismissed as isolated deficiencies suddenly reveal themselves as the limits of an entire development model. Vietnam appears to be approaching precisely such an imperative to decide – this way or that? 

Hoang Thang DINH (Fellow of the Caux Round Table) 

At the National Conference convened by the Politburo of the Vietnamese Communist Party on July 1, 2026, General Secretary and State President Tô Lâm identified seven major bottlenecks which he believed were hindering the country’s development. They ranged from institutional weaknesses and bureaucratic inefficiency to human capital, science and technology, and the quality of governance. None of these deficiencies is new. Vietnamese scholars, economists, and even many officials within the system have discussed them for years. What is new—and politically significant—is that they have now been recognized at the highest level as systemic national challenges rather than isolated administrative shortcomings.

At almost the same time, another form of pressure was gathering from abroad. Over the past several months, the United States has initiated a series of investigations under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, focusing on Vietnam’s industrial overcapacity, labor standards, and intellectual property protection. On the surface, these appear to be trade disputes. Yet viewed more carefully, they may convey a deeper strategic message. In an era of intensifying geopolitical competition, Washington is no longer evaluating Vietnam merely through the lens of geography or strategic location. Increasingly, it is judging the quality and sustainability of Vietnam’s own development model.

It is the intersection of these two currents – domestic and foreign –  bringing Vietnam into a new phase of history. On one side stand the domestic structural constraints that the leadership itself has now acknowledged. On the other stands an international environment undergoing rapid transformation, where the comparative advantages that has fueled Vietnam’s remarkable growth over the past three decades can no longer be taken for granted. These may appear to be two separate stories, yet they ultimately reflect the same underlying reality: Vietnam’s current development model has reached the limits of its effectiveness.

Put differently, the seven bottlenecks just identified by General Secretary Tô Lâm and the recent American trade investigations are not unrelated challenges. One is identified by an internal diagnosis; the other by an external assessment. Both lead to the same fundamental question: will Vietnam continue relying on the existing model of development, or will it undertake a deeper, more comprehensive, and more strategic reform?

For that reason, this essay is not intended as either praise or criticism of any individual leader. The more consequential fact is that the country’s highest-ranking official has publicly acknowledged the existence of these structural obstacles. Once such a diagnosis has been made, the essential question is no longer whether an illness exists, but what has caused it.

If the illness resides merely within the administrative apparatus, then organizational restructuring may well be a sufficient cure. But if the bureaucracy merely exhibits the most visible symptoms while the underlying causes are embedded in the country’s broader model of governance, then the reforms required must necessarily be far more ambitious. They must extend well beyond administrative streamlining or personnel reduction. They will require a comprehensive realignment of domestic governance and foreign policy, institutional reform and strategic repositioning, all within an international order that is itself undergoing profound change.

Modern Vietnamese history has repeatedly demonstrated that major diplomatic breakthroughs endure only when supported by meaningful transformation at home. The Đổi Mới reforms of 1986 offer perhaps the clearest example. The normalization of relations with the United States in 1995, Vietnam’s accession to ASEAN, and its participation in successive generations of global trade agreements likewise rested upon internal reforms that expanded the country’s capacity to engage the world. Today, as the international economic order enters another period of transition, Vietnam confronts a similar challenge—but at a considerably higher level of complexity. The central issue is no longer whether Vietnam should lean toward one great power or another. The real question is whether the country possesses sufficient capacity for self-renewal to preserve its own strategic autonomy in an increasingly competitive international environment.

A superficial understanding of the seven bottlenecks might suggest that they concern little more than administrative management: fragmented institutions, cumbersome organizations, unclear demarcations of decentralization, inadequate personnel, slow scientific and technological development, weak human resources, and ineffective policy implementation. Yet a closer examination reveals that virtually none of these problems belongs exclusively to the bureaucracy itself. Each represents the manifestation of a much deeper structural condition. The bureaucracy is merely where the symptoms become most visible; the underlying pathology lies in the operations manual for the entire system.

For many years, the standard response to major policy failures has followed a familiar pattern: amend several regulations, reorganize a handful of agencies, or launch another campaign to streamline the state apparatus. Such measures have certainly produced incremental improvements. Yet when the same categories of problems repeatedly reappear after successive rounds of reform, the difficulty can no longer be attributed to isolated institutional weaknesses. It lies in the design and operation of the entire governing system.

The most significant aspect of General Secretary Tô Lâm’s remarks, therefore, is not simply the enumeration of seven bottlenecks. More important is the implicit acknowledgment that these challenges have become systemic in nature. When a nation simultaneously struggles with institutional quality, human capital, governance effectiveness, innovation capacity, and economic competitiveness, it becomes increasingly implausible to attribute all these deficiencies solely to administrative shortcomings. Together they suggest that an entire development model—one that has shaped Vietnam’s trajectory for decades—is butting up against its structural limits.

If that diagnosis is correct, administrative reform alone will no longer suffice. A better-organized bureaucracy may still perform poorly if the rules governing its operation remain fundamentally unchanged. Conversely, a governance system built upon transparency, fair competition, and public accountability can generate significant improvements even without a perfectly designed administrative structure. The central issue, therefore, is not simply how government agencies are organized, but the principles by which they exercise authority and answer to society.

This distinction points to two concepts that are often conflated in Vietnamese policy debates: bureaucratic restructuring and governance reform. Bureaucratic restructuring addresses essentially technical questions. How should agencies be organized? How should authority be decentralized? Who should be responsible for what? These are undeniably important issues, but they remain questions of administrative engineering.

Governance reform, by contrast, asks far more fundamental questions. What should be the proper role of the state in a modern economy? Under what principles should markets operate? Is the rule of law genuinely supreme for all actors, or do political exceptions continue to prevail? Are relations between public authority and private enterprise governed by equal competition under law, or by administrative privilege and discretionary power?

One concept is merely regulatory; the other fundamentally constitutional.

Choosing one concept over the other ultimately determines a nation’s long-term capacity for development. It would therefore be a profound misunderstanding to regard the seven bottlenecks merely as a checklist of administrative deficiencies awaiting correction. Behind them lies a much larger challenge: how can Vietnam move beyond a growth model driven primarily by inexpensive labor, capital accumulation, and export expansion toward a new one based on productivity, innovation, institutional quality, and genuine competitiveness? This is no longer simply an issue for the Ministry of Home Affairs or the state bureaucracy. It is a challenge which must be met correctly by the country’s entire development paradigm.

Ironically, just as the need for such reforms has become increasingly urgent, the international environment has entered one of its most turbulent periods in decades. Recent changes in American trade policy did not create Vietnam’s structural bottlenecks. They have, however, dramatically increased the cost of postponing reform. Weaknesses that once manifested themselves largely within the domestic economy are now beginning to shape Vietnam’s external relationships and strategic room for maneuver.

Every great reform movement in history begins with what appears to be a deceptively simple question: what must change first?

Vietnam answered that question in 1986 by liberating productive forces, recognizing a multi-sector economy, and opening itself to the world. Those decisions inaugurated one of the most remarkable development cycles in modern Vietnamese history. Tens of millions escaped poverty. The country emerged from decades of isolation and became an integral participant in the global economy.

History, however, never stands still. A development model that once served as a powerful engine of national progress may, over time, become the principal constraint upon further advancement.

For that reason, the reforms Vietnam now requires cannot be confined to reorganizing government agencies. They must involve a fundamental transformation of the development model itself. The state can no longer simultaneously serve as referee, competitor, allocator of economic resources, and ultimate gatekeeper determining who gains access to opportunity. A modern state must gradually shift from exercising control to creating enabling conditions—from distributing privileges to guaranteeing a fair legal framework; from governing primarily through administrative directives to governing through the rule of law, public accountability, and effective public service.

Only when the state’s role is properly redefined can the private sector fully develop, society unleash its creative potential, and the economy finally escape the long shadow of the traditional “ask-and-give” administrative culture.

In the twenty-first century, a nation’s most valuable resource is no longer land, inexpensive labor, or even foreign investment. Its greatest strategic asset is trust which generates action and optimism.

Investors commit capital because they trust the predictability and transparency of legal institutions. Entrepreneurs innovate because they believe their achievements will be protected. Citizens contribute because they trust that their efforts will not be undermined by arbitrary authority or entrenched privilege. International partners deepen cooperation because they believe commitments will be honored consistently over time.

No government can manufacture trust through slogans or political resolutions. Trust is accumulated only through the quality of institutions when that quality depends on how people behave towards one another.

For precisely that reason, meaningful reform must begin with the rule of law. Law must become the common framework governing every actor, rather than an instrument applied differently according to political influence or administrative discretion. When laws are transparent, power naturally becomes constrained. When power is constrained, social creativity gains room to flourish. And when creativity is protected, national competitiveness acquires a durable foundation.

It is impossible to build an innovative economy upon an unpredictable legal environment. Nor can entrepreneurs be expected to mature into globally competitive firms if property rights, commercial autonomy, and contractual security remain vulnerable to arbitrary reinterpretation.

Yet the establishment of genuine rule of law, indispensable though it is, will not by itself be sufficient unless accompanied by an equally profound transformation in Vietnam’s philosophy of development.

For many years, Vietnam’s achievements have been measured primarily through GDP growth, export performance, foreign direct investment, and the scale of infrastructure projects. These cash-flow indicators remain important, but they are no longer sufficient in an age increasingly defined by technology, data, knowledge, and high-value production.

The decisive question is no longer how many goods Vietnam exports. The more important question is how much Vietnamese knowledge, Vietnamese technology, Vietnamese brands, and genuine Vietnamese innovation are embodied within those exports.

Escaping the limitations of an assembly-based economy therefore requires placing education, science and technology, and an independent private sector at the very center of national strategy. No country becomes truly developed if its educational system values conformity more than independent thinking; if scientific research remains stronger in official rhetoric than in practical achievement; or if private entrepreneurs continue to be viewed as simultaneously indispensable and politically suspect.

An innovative economy requires citizens educated to think critically, universities and research institutions protected by academic freedom, businesses competing on equal terms under the law, and a society willing to reward experimentation rather than merely punish failure.

If that diagnosis is correct, administrative reform alone will no longer suffice. A better-organized bureaucracy may still perform poorly if the stipulated (but more importantly the tacit) rules governing its operation remain fundamentally unchanged. Conversely, a governance system built upon transparency, fair competition, and public accountability can generate significant improvements even without a perfectly designed administrative structure. The central issue, therefore, is not simply how government agencies are organized, but what will be the principles by which they exercise authority and answer to society.

Hoang Thang DINH (PhD, Pollical Science, Fellow, Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism)

Political power can rename a city. It cannot rename the collective memory of a people.

Governments may redraw maps, revise administrative boundaries, issue decrees, and proclaim new official identities. Yet history repeatedly reminds us that collective memory obeys a different power paradigm. It is not created by administrative power, nor can it be abolished by administrative power. It is shaped by lived experience, by family stories, by the emotional geography of childhood, by the streets, schools, hospitals, cafés, seasons, departures, and returns through all of which a people slowly comes to recognize itself.

Half a century has passed since the National Assembly of Vietnam officially renamed Saigon as Ho Chi Minh City. From the standpoint of state administration, that decision took effect immediately. From the standpoint of historical consciousness, however, the change of name has unfolded in a far more complex and revealing way.

1. A City May Be Renamed, but Memory of what was Cannot Be Disciplined

There are events that alter the destiny of a nation. There are decisions that change borders, institutions, and even the official name of a city. But there are also realities that neither time nor the power to command can easily erase. Among these realities, collective memory may be the most invisible, yet also the most durable, inheritance of a people.

Fifty years ago, the renaming of Saigon opened a new chapter in Vietnam’s political history. It marked the end of one historical order and the beginning of another. Administratively, the change was clear and immediate. Maps were revised. Documents were updated. The official vocabulary of the state was transformed. Yet the history of administration and the history of a people’s inner moral life do not always move at the same pace or in the same direction.

Today, several generations of Vietnamese have been born and raised without ever seeing the name “Saigon” on their birth certificates or household registrations. And yet the name remains alive in the most natural rhythms of Vietnamese speech. People in the North still say they are “going to Saigon.” People in Central Vietnam still say they are “heading into Saigon.” People in the South still speak of “going up to Saigon.” Across the Vietnamese diaspora — from Paris, Berlin, and Budapest to California and Sydney — millions of Vietnamese continue to speak of Saigon not merely as a place, but as a memory, a longing, and a fragment of their own lives.

After half a century, this persistence of a name can no longer be explained away simply as a a linguistic habit. Nor can it be sublimated under a political attitude. Something deeper is at work. The continued life given to the name “Saigon” reveals the extraordinary resilience of collective memory. It shows that what endures in history is not always what power has officially declared, but what generations of human beings have carried within themselves.

Memory operates according to laws different from those of power. Memory is rooted in childhood, family, neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, streets lined with tamarind trees, old cafés, sudden tropical rains, farewells, reunions, and all the ordinary moments that quietly become part of the soul of a city.

It is precisely those ordinary things that crystallize into personal identity. A city is not only an administrative unit. It is a lived world. It becomes real through the emotional and moral attachments of the people who inhabit it, leave it, remember it, and pass its name on to the next generation. That is why Saigon has survived not merely as a former name, but as a cultural symbol, a style of life, and a spiritual presence through which many Vietnamese, wherever they may live, still recognize something of themselves.

In this sense, Saigon today is no longer only a geographical designation. It has become a moral and cultural reference point. It evokes not simply nostalgia for a vanished city, but poses for all who hear it named a broader question about the continuity of Vietnamese history. What survives after political rupture? What remains after war, victory, defeat, and administrative transformation? Which memories become the property of the nation?

Perhaps the most interesting development after fifty years is that the present itself has begun, cautiously but unmistakably, to return to that memory. When Vietnam’s current leadership recalls Saigon as the former “Pearl of the Far East,” or refers to the time when Singaporeans once came to Cho Ray Hospital for medical treatment, the significance lies not only in those specific remarks. More important is the fact that the memory of Saigon is gradually re-entering official discourse.  Memory is overcoming power.

That return is revealing. It suggests that the deeper sediments of collective Vietnamese consciousness never truly disappeared. They merely sank beneath the surface of political history. At certain moments, when a nation begins to search for standards by which to imagine its future, those submerged layers of memory rise again. They become not a burden from the past, but a source of reference for the future.

The same tendency can be seen in education. In recent years, the idea of “liberal education” has been invoked more frequently in Vietnam. Yet any serious attempt to trace the Vietnamese roots of that spirit cannot ignore the educational legacy of Saigon before 1975. This does not require idealizing the past or denying the limitations of that historical period. It simply requires intellectual honesty. Knowledge has no national  or party flag. A good school, a capable hospital, and an open cultural environment do not lose their value merely because they emerged under a different political system. If they were achievements of Vietnamese people, then they belong to the unmanipulated inheritance of the Vietnamese nation.

It is at this point that the story of Saigon rises above the question of a city’s name. It asks a much larger question: when does a nation possess enough confidence to regard the whole of its history as a common inheritance?

After war, history is often told in the different languages of the winners and the losers. But after half a century, what remains most important for the Vietnamese is no longer that 1975 line of division. What demands attention is the question of which values still possess enough vitality to accompany the nation into its future. If Vietnamese people still speak of Saigon today with recognition, tenderness, or respect, then what they are recalling is not only a city of the past. They are also pointing toward a possible source of inspiration for the future.

Saigon, therefore, is not merely a name that refused to disappear. It is a reminder that a nation cannot mature by amputating parts of its own memory. A mature civilization does not fear the complexity of its past. It learns to distinguish between political rupture and historical continuity. It knows that the deepest foundations of national identity are not built by forgetting, but by transforming memory into a common inheritance.

2. Healing Begins by Respecting One Another’s Memory

If, after half a century, the name Saigon continues to live naturally in the language of millions of Vietnamese, then the essential question is no longer what the city ought to be called. The more important question is why this memory has proved so enduring. The answer, perhaps, lies not in the name itself, but in Vietnam’s unfinished journey toward reconciling differences in its own history, antagonisms and contradictions within Vietnamese-ness itself.

For many years, Vietnamese society has spoken of national reconciliation as both an aspiration and a necessity. No nation can move confidently into the future while remaining divided by unresolved memories of the past. 

Yet reconciliation cannot be achieved simply through commemorative ceremonies, political declarations, or official slogans. Those may express goodwill, but they cannot by themselves restore the moral trust that history has fractured. Genuine reconciliation is not merely a political process; it is, before all else, a cultural and ethical achievement. It begins when citizens become willing to acknowledge the legitimacy of one another’s memories, even when those memories are not identical to their own.

Throughout the years following the war, Vietnamese people have often been encouraged to “leave the past behind” in order to focus on the future. There is undeniable wisdom in looking ahead. But looking ahead does not require erasing what came before. 

The past is not a door that can simply be closed at will. It survives within the memories of individuals, families, and communities, and memory has never yielded easily to administrative decree or ideological instruction. No government possesses the authority to legislate remembrance. Political institutions may shape official history, but they cannot fully determine the history that people carry within themselves.

For that reason, no nation can truly heal by amputating part of its own memory. Nor can reconciliation flourish if one group of citizens is expected to forget before it is permitted to belong, while another is encouraged to remember only within officially prescribed boundaries. Healing does not require uniform memories. It requires the moral generosity to recognize that different memories may all belong to the same national experience. Diversity of remembrance is not a threat to unity. Properly understood, it is one of the conditions through which authentic unity becomes possible at a higher level of generalization as to who we really are.

The passage of time offers every society an opportunity to revisit its history with greater calmness and greater intellectual honesty. The Saigon that existed before 1975 possessed both remarkable achievements and undeniable limitations. The Ho Chi Minh City of today likewise represents extraordinary vitality, creativity, and economic dynamism, while at the same time confronting new questions concerning urban development, social cohesion, and the quality of public life. Neither historical period should be romanticized. Neither should be dismissed. Both deserve to be understood as successive chapters in the continuing history of Vietnam.

Only when these different chapters are viewed as parts of one continuous national experience can history become a teacher rather than a battlefield. The purpose of remembering is not to assign permanent moral superiority to one period over another. It is to understand how a nation has evolved, what it has learned, where it has failed, and which achievements remain worthy of preservation regardless of the political circumstances under which they first emerged.

Some Vietnamese scholars have compared the nation to travelers who have not yet fully crossed the symbolic “River of Stars” toward reconciliation. The metaphor is illuminating. Wars may end with military victories or diplomatic agreements, but the currents of memory often continue to flow on for generations before they finally mingle. Territorial peace does not automatically become peace within the human spirit. A nation may rebuild its roads, bridges, and cities within a few decades. Rebuilding mutual trust among memories often requires much longer.

Seen from this perspective, Saigon is no longer merely a story about South Vietnam, nor simply a reminder of an earlier political order. It has become a measure of Vietnam’s own cultural confidence. A mature nation does not fear memory, nor does it require memory to submit to political authority. It understands that the more turbulent its history has been, the more necessary it becomes to preserve every layer of that experience with honesty and compassion. National identity grows stronger not because difficult memories disappear, but because they are gradually woven into a broader and more generous understanding of the nation’s common journey.

Perhaps the time has come to look at Saigon through a different lens—not as a symbol of division, but as an inseparable chapter in the making of modern Vietnam. A people who preserve every layer of their historical memory are ultimately richer than a people who preserve only those memories that conform comfortably to the present. The spiritual resources that enable a civilization to renew itself are rarely created overnight. They are accumulated slowly across generations, deposited quietly within the collective consciousness of a nation, and rediscovered whenever history demands new sources of wisdom.

Ultimately, healing does not mean forgetting. Nor does reconciliation require unanimous interpretations of the past. It asks something both simpler and more demanding: that a nation possess enough moral confidence to accept the whole of its own history as a shared inheritance. Only then can memory cease to divide and begin, at last, to unite.

3. Still Saigon—Still Vietnam

Half a century has now passed. The city bears a different official name, a different skyline, and a different place in Vietnam’s national development. New boulevards have replaced old avenues. New urban districts continue to expand beyond what earlier generations could have imagined. Ho Chi Minh City has become one of Southeast Asia’s most dynamic metropolitan centers and the principal economic engine of the country. History has never stood still, nor should anyone wish to reverse its course. Every generation must build upon the foundations it inherits while creating new possibilities for those who follow.

As nations move forward, what should they carry with them from the past? Economic growth, technological innovation, and institutional reform are indispensable. But civilizations are sustained not only by what they build. They are equally sustained by what they choose to remember. Material progress gives a nation greater capacity. Historical memory gives that capacity meaning.

Perhaps the most revealing question after fifty years is no longer whether the city should officially be called Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City. The more revealing question is why the name Saigon continues to resonate so naturally across generations of Vietnamese, including many who never personally experienced the city that once bore that name. The answer lies neither in geography nor in ideology. It lies in a far more enduring characteristic of human societies. People readily adapt to changing institutions, but they seldom abandon the memories that have become woven into their moral and emotional identity.

That attachment should not be mistaken for nostalgia, nor should it be interpreted as resistance to historical change. Rather, it reflects one of the essential conditions of civilizational continuity. A mature society does not preserve its identity by freezing history. It preserves its identity by allowing each generation to reinterpret inherited memories without destroying them. Historical continuity is not the absence of change; it is the capacity to carry the past into the future without becoming imprisoned by either.

For that reason, no civilization becomes stronger by erasing the achievements or experiences of earlier historical periods. It grows stronger by integrating them into an increasingly comprehensive understanding of itself. Pre-1975 Saigon possessed accomplishments worthy of recognition, alongside limitations that deserve honest assessment. Contemporary Ho Chi Minh City likewise reflects remarkable achievements while confronting challenges that will define Vietnam’s future. Wisdom lies neither in idealizing one period nor condemning another. Wisdom lies in recognizing that both belong to the same unfolding story of the Vietnamese nation.

Vietnam today often speaks of entering a new era of national development. Such an aspiration is both legitimate and necessary. Yet no genuinely new era can be built upon fragmented memories. A nation advances most confidently when it possesses the moral courage to regard the whole of its history as a shared inheritance—to celebrate genuine achievements, to acknowledge painful failures, and to learn from both with equal honesty. This is precisely what may be described as the sedimentation of collective consciousness: those quiet layers of memory deposited over generations within language, culture, social habits, and the moral imagination of a people. They cannot be manufactured by political authority, yet they quietly sustain the continuity of civilization itself.

Seen from this perspective, Saigon is no longer simply the name of a city. It has become evidence of a larger historical truth. Political power may administer the present. Historians may continue to debate the past. Governments may reinterpret national narratives according to changing circumstances. Yet the collective memory of a people ultimately belongs neither to governments nor to historians. It belongs to the civilization itself. No political authority, however powerful, can permanently govern the inner memory of millions of human beings.

Nations reach true maturity not when they cease discussing their past, but when they no longer fear it. They become stronger when they recognize that historical memory exists not to serve the political needs of the present, but to deepen the moral resources with which the future will be built.

Fifty years from now, this city will undoubtedly look different once again. Its skyline will continue to rise, its economy will continue to evolve, and future generations will inherit a Vietnam very different from the one we know today. Yet if those future generations still speak the name Saigon with quiet familiarity and unforced affection, that will not represent the failure of some part of history. It will represent one of a civilization’s deepest victories: the triumph of collective memory over the transience of political power.

Perhaps that is the shortest path by which Vietnam, after enduring so many crashing waves and violent storms in its modern history, may finally guide its national vessel toward the farther shore—not through enforced forgetting, but through using  the quiet wisdom of remembering together.

Hoang Thang Dinh (PhD, CRT Fellow)

There is a famous line by Vietnamese poet Xuân Diệu: “How can one live without loving, without longing, without cherishing someone?” Yet in international politics – especially in Asia today – states often find it convenient to “love without saying it,” to “grow closer without letting others know,” to “align without making it official.” That is why General Secretary and President Tô Lâm’s state visit to India, and the decision by Hanoi and New Delhi to elevate their bilateral relationship to an “Enhanced Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” (ECSP), has a significance far beyond ordinary diplomacy. In many ways, it was an effort to “make clear who we truly are to each other” after years in which both sides recognized each other’s strategic value but publicly maintained enough distance to avoid unnecessary geopolitical discomfort.

A close reading of Tô Lâm’s remarks at the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statements at the joint press conference, and the wording of the Joint Statement itself, reveals that this note of “enhancing” is not merely a cosmetic upgrade in diplomatic terminology. (1,2,3) Rather, it reflects an important transformation in how Vietnam and India perceive each other within Asia’s evolving balance of power – an Asia in which China has become increasingly assertive, the United States increasingly present, and middle powers such as India, Japan, and Vietnam increasingly compelled to construct flexible forms of strategic alignment in order to preserve their own autonomous maneuverability. 

The first critical question is what exactly distinguishes an “Enhanced CSP” from the previous “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.” On the surface, some might dismiss it as little more than an exercise in diplomatic semantics, given that Vietnam and India already established a CSP back in 2016. But in modern diplomacy – particularly among Asian states that tend to use strategic language sparingly – the addition of the word “Enhanced” is never accidental. If the 2016 CSP focused primarily on political trust, high-level exchanges, foundational defense cooperation, trade, and people-to-people ties, the ECSP of 2026 signals movement toward much more substantive strategic integration: coordination within the regional order itself about the nature of that order.

In other words, the earlier CSP resembled a strategic friendship, while the ECSP increasingly resembles a strategic alignment of interests and capabilities. This becomes especially clear in the phrases repeatedly emphasized by Indian officials: “strategic convergence,” “shared vision,” and “economic security.” These words are no longer the vocabulary of symbolic diplomacy; they are the vocabulary of geopolitics. When New Delhi stresses strategic supply chains, critical minerals, economic security, advanced technology, and maritime security, it effectively signals that Vietnam now occupies a new place within India’s Indo-Pacific strategy. From the Indian perspective, Hanoi is no longer merely a traditional friend in Southeast Asia – it is becoming a crucial player in an intentional response to China’s restructuring of regional strategic space.

Indeed, Indian newspapers such as The Economic Times and The Times of India have treated To Lam’s visit not as an ordinary bilateral event, but presented it using the the prism of Indo-Pacific, strategic competition, and the reshaping of Asia’s balance of power. Within that framework, Vietnam emerges as perhaps India’s most trusted strategic partner in ASEAN. It is hardly accidental that New Delhi has steadily deepened defense ties with Hanoi over the years, from submarine training and defense credit lines to discussions surrounding the BrahMos missile system.

This context explains why Vietnamese media placed unusual emphasis on Tô Lâm’s meeting with Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, even before highlighting several other diplomatic engagements. (4) In today’s Indian power structure, Doval is not merely a security adviser; he is one of the principal architects of the Modi era’s strategic doctrine, deeply involved in shaping India’s Act East policy and broader Indo-Pacific approach. By foregrounding this meeting, Hanoi effectively signaled that security has become the core pillar of the ECSP.

There is an unwritten rule in Asian diplomacy: the most sensitive matters are rarely settled during semi-public official talks but are instead handled more discreetly through national security channels. Issues involving intelligence-sharing, defense technology, maritime coordination, or balancing China are seldom discussed publicly in full detail. Thus, Tô Lâm’s meeting with Ajit Doval carried far greater significance than a ceremonial diplomatic encounter. It suggested that Hanoi and New Delhi are quietly building layers of cooperation far deeper than what appears in public communiqués.

Yet an intriguing paradox remains: despite the ECSP and extensive international reporting about Vietnam potentially acquiring BrahMos missiles (5), Vietnamese media have almost entirely avoided references to the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP), “balancing China,” or even “hot weapons purchases.” This silence is not accidental. (6) It reflects Hanoi’s characteristic practice of strategic balancing.

Vietnam currently faces an extraordinarily delicate challenge: how to strengthen deterrence capabilities without becoming confined and stereotyped inside a new Cold War-style alliance system. If Hanoi openly emphasized BrahMos, the Indo-Pacific, or maritime security cooperation aimed at countering pressure in the South China Sea, Beijing could easily interpret such moves as participation in a broader containment structure against China. Yet while Vietnam seeks to diversify strategic partnerships, it also remains determined not to destabilize its overall relationship with Beijing. (7)

Consequently, Hanoi has adopted a remarkably nuanced discourse: security cooperation is real, but the language presenting its reality is deliberately “de-militarized.” Vietnam speaks more often about “non-traditional security,” “regional stability,” “technological cooperation,” and “international law” than about alliances, deterrence, or counter-balancing. Put differently, Vietnam seeks to “enjoy the substance without donning the uniform.” This is “bamboo diplomacy” at the geopolitical level.

This approach also shapes how Vietnam interprets FOIP. For Washington, FOIP carries an unmistakably strategic meaning centered on freedom of navigation and counter-balancing China’s becoming a naval power. Japan sees FOIP as a framework for preserving a rules-based order. (8) India, meanwhile, presents FOIP in softer terms – as inclusive and multipolar, avoiding the appearance of an Asian NATO. (9) Vietnam’s public messaging about the enterprise is even more nuanced.

At the most superficial level, Vietnam views FOIP primarily as an economic opportunity: diversification of supply chains, attraction of high-tech investment, semiconductors, rare earths, and logistics development. (10) This is the least politically sensitive dimension for Hanoi because it aligns directly with national development priorities. At a more balancing-of- power level, Vietnam sees FOIP as a legal and normative space for defending UNCLOS, freedom of navigation, and peaceful dispute resolution. This is, in essence, ASEAN’s version of FOIP.  (11) But at the third level –  unsentimental balancing of hard power – Vietnam remains extremely cautious. Hanoi understands perfectly well that it benefits from the presence of the United States, Japan, India, and Australia in maintaining regional equilibrium, yet it also understands that moving too close to any single source of power projection could threaten its own strategic autonomy. (12)

It is precisely here that the triangular relationship among Vietnam, India, and China becomes particularly significant. Over recent years, competition between New Delhi and Beijing has intensified dramatically, stretching from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean. Vietnam has consequently emerged as a key partner in India’s eastward strategic outreach. Yet Hanoi also understands that it cannot become the “frontline state” of any anti-China coalition. Vietnam needs India to widen its strategic space, but simultaneously it needs a stable relationship with China in order to sustain national development.

For this reason, Vietnam – India relations are likely to continue evolving in a manner that is “substantial but soft.” In practical terms, meaningful cooperation in security, technology, and economics will steadily expand, while public rhetoric will remain carefully calibrated. The sharper the U.S.–China rivalry becomes, the more skillfully Hanoi will need to manage its strategic image. (13)

Within this broader context, Vietnam’s potentially joining BRICS also becomes increasingly interesting. (14) n theory, Vietnam possesses many characteristics associated with BRICS+: strong relations with Russia, China, and India; growing importance within ASEAN; an open export-oriented economy; and a highly strategic geopolitical location. Yet Hanoi remains cautious. The reasons are not merely economic but geopolitical. Since its expansion, BRICS has increasingly acquired the image of a bloc seeking to reduce Western influence and challenge the dominance of the U.S. dollar. Vietnam, however, still depends heavily on the United States, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea for trade, investment, and technology. Joining BRICS prematurely could generate geopolitical interpretations that would complicate Hanoi’s balancing of its strategic needs against offsetting risks.

Thus, Vietnam is likely to continue prioritizing “multi-alignment” over bloc politics. Hanoi seeks connectivity with all centers of power without becoming glued to any single one. This, in many ways, distinguishes Vietnam’s diplomacy from that of many other middle powers.

More broadly, the international and Indian media reactions to To Lam’s visit also reveal Vietnam’s changing position within the regional order. What captured attention was not ceremonial protocol, but geopolitics: the ECSP, BrahMos, strategic supply chains, rare earths, the Indo-Pacific, and Tô Lâm’s evolving political role. Vietnam is no longer viewed merely as a developing Southeast Asian country; increasingly, it is perceived as a “swing state” – a country capable of influencing the broader strategic balance of Asia. (15)

And perhaps that is the deepest meaning of the ECSP. The enhancement is not about choosing sides, but about expanding strategic space for both Hanoi and New Delhi in an Asia growing ever more polarized. India needs Vietnam to deepen its presence in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea; Vietnam needs India to diversify strategic partnerships and avoid being trapped within the binary, zero-sum, logic of U.S.–China competition. Meanwhile, China – though rarely mentioned explicitly – remains the silent shadow present throughout the entire public staging of this visit.

Ultimately, the “Enhanced CSP” is not merely a story about two countries. It is a reflection of a new Asia in which middle powers are becoming increasingly proactive in shaping their own strategic destinies. And in such a world, the most important task is not to stand entirely on one side or another, but to become strong enough to “impress on others who we truly are to one another” with every major power – while still preserving enough distance in order not to lose one’s autonomy in any single bilateral relationship. (16)

References:

THAM KHẢO:

 

(1) https://baochinhphu.vn/phat-bieu-chinh-sach-cua-tong-bi-thu-chu-tich-nuoc-to-lam-tai-hoi-dong-cac-van-de-the-gioi-cua-an-do-10226050621193717.htm

(2) https://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/41106/English+Translation+of+Prime+Ministers+Press+Statement+during+the+Joint+Press+Statement+with+the+General+Secretary+of+the+Communist+Party+of+Vietnam+and+the+President+of+Vietnam+May+06+2026

(3) https://tuoitre.vn/tuyen-bo-chung-viet-nam-an-do-ve-quan-he-doi-tac-chien-luoc-toan-dien-tang-cuong-2026050701250451.htm

(4) https://baochinhphu.vn/tong-bi-thu-chu-tich-nuoc-to-lam-tiep-co-van-an-ninh-quoc-gia-an-do-102260506002141007.htm

(5) https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/defence/countering-china-india-offers-vietnam-brahmos-missile-during-president-to-lams-visit/articleshow/130922764.cms?utm_source=chatgpt.com

(6) https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/india-may-discuss-brahmos-missile-sale-to-vietnam-during-presidential-visit-sources-say/articleshow/130822763.cms?utm_source=chatgpt.com

(7) https://magazine.thediplomat.com/2023-01/how-vietnam-can-balance-against-china-on-land-and-at-sea?utm_source=chatgpt.com

(8) https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/05/02/japan/politics/japan-vietnam-foip-takaichi/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

(9) https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/indian-foreign-minister-says-does-not-share-ishiba-vision-asian-nato-2024-10-01/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

(10) https://fulcrum.sg/vietnams-hedging-strategy-in-the-indo-pacific/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

(11)https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10357718.2020.1869132?utm_source=chatgpt.com

(12) https://www.belfercenter.org/research-analysis/balancing-without-allying-vietnams-middle-power-strategy-amids-us-china-rivalry?utm_source=chatgpt.com

(13) https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/vietnam-s-bamboo-diplomacy?utm_source=chatgpt.com

(14) https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3293207/vietnams-strategic-hesitation-brics-highlights-delicate-us-ties-and-economic-

(15) https://thediplomat.com/2024/03/vietnam-a-swing-state-in-the-us-china-rivalry/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

(16) https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/middle-powers-and-indo-pacific-order?utm_source=chatgpt.com

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?”

 

———————————–

 

“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)