EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Vietnam’s current anti-corruption campaign, which led to the forced resignations of the state president and two deputy prime ministers in early 2023, is the most comprehensive anti-corruption effort in the history of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV).
- The campaign has had some positive impacts on the economy, including reducing the informal costs of doing business, streamlining bureaucratic processes in certain business sectors, and breaking down some entrenched interest groups to create a fairer business environment.
- However, the campaign has also generated some negative consequences, such as slowdowns in the bureaucratic system and disruptions in critical services such as medical treatment and vehicle registration.
- The campaign also helps strengthen the dominance of internal affairs institutions in Vietnamese politics and its effects may be felt in the CPV’s succession politics ahead of its 14th National Congress in 2026.
*Nguyen Khac Giang is Visiting Fellow in the Vietnam Studies Programme at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
ISEAS Perspective 2023/41, 18 May 2023
INTRODUCTION
In early 2023, an unprecedented shake-up in the Vietnamese political landscape unfolded. President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, along with two deputy prime ministers, were forced to resign due to their “political responsibilities” in two corruption scandals that rocked the country in 2022.[1] The Viet A test kit scandal involves the distribution of overpriced COVID-19 test kits,[2] while the repatriation flight scandal centres around exorbitant fees charged to Vietnamese citizens who were stranded abroad during the pandemic and who were seeking to return home.[3] This unprecedented move, with Phuc being the first among top-ranking leaders of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) to resign due to performance reasons since Truong Chinh in 1956, marked a new high in the Party’s anti-corruption campaign, commonly known as the “Blazing Furnace” and overseen by CPV General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong since 2013.
Trong, a staunch communist theoretician, views corruption as the gravest threat to the regime’s survival and has vowed to conduct the campaign “without no-go zones and exceptions”.[4] Over the past decade, nearly 200,000 party members, including 36 Central Committee members and 50 military and police generals, have been disciplined.[5] Most notably, in 2018, Dinh La Thang, the former party chief of Ho Chi Minh City, became the first sitting Politburo member to be criminally charged; he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.[6]
With 7,500 individuals criminally investigated for corruption charges since the CPV’s 13th National Congress in early 2021, including 25 senior officials under the supervision of the Party’s Politburo and Secretariat,[7] the campaign is undoubtedly the most comprehensive effort in the CPV’s history to eradicate “bad roots” and to “purify” the Party, as Trong put it. This article examines the campaign’s key characteristics and its political and economic implications for the country in the short and medium term.
HARSHER APPROACH TO CORRUPTION FIGHTING
Corruption has been a persistent problem in Vietnam for many years, and is exacerbated by the one-party state’s inherent challenges, such as weak rule of law, lack of transparency and accountability, and a powerful politics-business nexus. Previously, the CPV tended to take a lenient approach to corruption, as it feared that exposing corrupt officials would erode its legitimacy and endanger the regime. As Nguyen Phu Trong once warned, anti-corruption measures must be carried out with caution, as they may lead to “throwing a mouse, breaking a jar” (Ném chuột vỡ bình).[8] As a result, members of the CPV Central Committee were rarely punished for corruption before 2016.
Notable exceptions include the 2006 PMU-18 scandal, which led to the resignation of Transport Minister Dao Dinh Binh (a Central Committee member) and the arrest of his deputy,[9] and the 2002 Nam Cam organized crime case which resulted in the arrest and eventual light sentencing of two other Central Committee members: Vice Minister of Public Security Bui Quoc Huy and Director of Vietnam Television Tran Mai Hanh.[10] In that case, then-Politburo member Truong Tan Sang was reprimanded for his lack of oversight, although he went on to become state president in 2011 when Nguyen Phu Trong was first elected as general secretary.[11]
That election marked a turning point, with Trong initiating a comprehensive overhaul of the country’s anti-corruption efforts. Following his successful re-election at the 12th CPV National Congress in 2016, he further accelerated the process, achieving substantial changes in the way the Party deals with corruption.
First, there has been a clear shift away from using government institutions towards using party institutions to address corruption. In 2013, Trong spearheaded the formation of the CPV-led Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption, which replaced the same agency under the government’s management.[12] Additionally, he re-established the Central Internal Affairs Commission, which, along with the Central Inspection Commission, provides the institutional capacity for the CPV to lead the anti-corruption campaign. The Ministry of Public Security, the campaign’s main executioner, has also been put under greater control by the Party chief. In 2016, Trong became the first general secretary to be a standing member of the Central Public Security Party Committee.[13]
Second, under Trong’s direction, the CPV has institutionalized rules and regulations to intensify the fight against corruption. Between 2012 and 2022, the main organs of the CPV issued over 250 documents related to party building and corruption prevention,[14] which were then formalized by other branches of government. Nearly 88,000 documents were issued during this period by ministries, sectors and localities, providing detailed regulations as well as implementation and organization guidance for anti-corruption procedures.[15]
Third, the CPV launched a widespread public awareness campaign against corruption, so that public servants “cannot, do not want to, dare not, and do not need to” (không thể, không muốn, không dám, không cần tham nhũng) commit corruption. This unprecedented campaign has improved public confidence in the CPV leadership and cemented Trong’s political position.[16] The CPV Propaganda Commission claims a 93% support rate for the anti-corruption campaign, though this figure cannot be independently verified.[17]
ECONOMIC SILVER LINING
The anti-corruption campaign has yielded several positive economic impacts. First, according to the 2021 Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) survey conducted by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the rate of businesses paying unofficial fees (i.e. bribes) has dropped significantly from 70% in 2006 to 41.4% in 2021, the lowest level in 16 years.[18] This indicates that the informal costs of doing business in Vietnam have decreased as a result of the campaign.
Second, in conjunction with administrative reforms, the campaign has streamlined processes for businesses and individuals. By cutting red tape, the government has improved the ease of doing business, attracting more investors and fostering economic growth. This is particularly important as Vietnam grows in popularity as a destination for foreign investments amidst the intensifying rivalry between China and the United States.[19]
Furthermore, the anti-corruption campaign has broken down parts of the politics-business nexus, especially in the property sector, thereby fostering a fairer business environment. At the local level, most corruption cases involve the sale of under-priced state-owned land to crony businesses.[20] In 2022, for example, former Binh Duong Party Secretary Tran Van Nam and former Ho Chi Minh City Deputy Party Secretary Tat Thanh Cang, both Central Committee members, were sentenced to seven and six years in prison, respectively, for their part in colluding with businesses to sell state-owned land below market value.[21] By limiting the influence of established interest groups in such cases, the campaign has provided opportunities for smaller businesses to thrive.
ECONOMIC PITFALLS
Despite the anti-corruption campaign’s successes, its rapid and aggressive approach has also generated negative economic consequences, such as a noticeable slowdown in the administrative process. This is due to public officials becoming anxious about being investigated and shirking their responsibilities. For instance, the disbursement rate of public investment in 2022 reached only 68% of its planned target,[22] and in the first quarter of 2023, more than 90% of central agencies and bodies and 30% of localities had a disbursement rate of under 5%, with 44 central agencies and bodies yet to disburse their funds.[23]
The fear of being drawn into anti-corruption investigations has caused many officials to hesitate in approving projects or licenses, leading to serious business disruptions.[24] For example, after a fatal karaoke bar fire occurred in Binh Duong Province, the Ministry of Public Security introduced tougher fire safety regulations for all businesses. The authorities required all karaoke bars to close until they met the new standards, but many owners complained that even after complying with the regulations, local fire police departments failed to approve their applications, driving them to bankruptcy.[25] In Ho Chi Minh City, only two out of 449 registered karaoke and bar businesses have had their applications approved, with 53 establishments still operating. The rest have gone bankrupt or have had their businesses suspended.[26] The impacts extend beyond the leisure industry, and many industrial manufacturers have also had to halt their operations because of the difficulty of complying with the new rules.[27]
At the same time, since 2020, an extraordinary 40,000 public employees have resigned,[28] amounting to a mass exodus from the bureaucracy. Among them, 89 officials out of around 500 staff left prestigious positions at the Government Office in 2022 alone.[29] Despite efforts to calm unsettled public employees,[30] this trend has persisted, leading to a weakened bureaucracy that affects the quality of policy making as well as the delivery of public services.
The repercussions of this issue go far beyond business and investment. In late 2022 and early 2023, Vietnam struggled with a severe shortage of medical equipment and supplies, mainly due to government officials refusing to approve procurement contracts.[31] Since October 2022, extensive investigations into the field of vehicle inspection services, coupled with the detention of around 400 personnel and vehicle inspectors, have caused the collapse of the automotive inspection system across the country. This breakdown has caused delays to the inspection of hundreds of thousands of vehicles.[32]
The anti-corruption campaign also has a cooling effect on the real estate sector and its related industries, which account for at least 16% of the country’s GDP. [33] Investigations have led to delays for many property development projects,[34] partly because some of the major property developers, such as Tan Hoang Minh, FLC, and Van Thinh Phat, have been targeted by the campaign. The lack of a clear framework for land pricing, coupled with local officials’ reluctance to take responsibility, are the main reasons, accounting for more than 50% of delayed projects.[35] The Ministry of Construction has revealed that the number of real estate companies going bankrupt in Q1/2023 increased 30% year on year, with 1,816 enterprises suspending their business, a 61% year-on-year increase.[36]
POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS
Internal affairs (nội chính) institutions, particularly those designed to maintain the Party’s internal stability and control the population, such as the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the Central Internal Affairs Commission (CIAC) and the Central Inspection Commission (CIC), have gained greater political power thanks to the anti-corruption campaign. Notably, the 13th Party Congress saw as many as four of the ten “special exemptions” nominated for Central Committee membership hailing from internal affairs agencies.[37]
MPS, often regarded as the enforcer of the anti-corruption campaign, has been immensely empowered. The 2018 revamp of the police force, intended to consolidate the police establishment, has led to a higher concentration of power in the hands of the minister of public security. At the same time, the estimated budget for MPS has seen a steady increase, rising from VND73.6 trillion (US$3.3 billion) in 2016 to VND 96.15 trillion (US$4.37 billion) in 2021.[38] With the departure of Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Pham Binh Minh, five out of the remaining 16 Politburo members now have police backgrounds.[39] General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong considers MPS the “sword and shield” of the regime.[40]
In 2007, the CIAC had been subsumed into the Central Office of the CPV. It was however reinstated by Trong in 2013 in an effort to strengthen the anti-corruption drive. Since then, CIAC has become increasingly important in executing and overseeing anti-corruption initiatives. In 2020, the CPV Central Committee decided to elevate CIAC from a consultative body to an “operational institution” that specializes in the Party’s internal affairs and designated it as the “permanent agency” responsible for administering the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption. The current leader of CIAC, Phan Dinh Trac, is the first CIAC head since 1976 to hold Politburo membership. This appointment is expected to set a precedent for future Party congresses.
The CIC serves as the primary agency responsible for supervising, inspecting and sanctioning wrongdoing by party members at all levels. During Nguyen Phu Trong’s tenure, CIC’s influence has grown significantly, as demonstrated by the numerous meetings held over the last three terms to discuss and announce disciplinary measures against senior party officials. In the 11th term (2011-16), CIC convened 37 meetings, and this number increased to 50 in the 12th term (2016-21). Over the past two years since the start of 13th term in early 2021, CIC has already held 28 meetings. CIC wields considerable power in deciding which cases are to be investigated and to what extent. According to one party insider, CIC is seen as the “guillotine” that instils fear in both state and party bureaucrats.[41]
As internal affairs institutions gain strength, technocratic agencies in the government such as the Government’s Office and economic ministries appear to be losing power. President Nguyen Xuan Phuc as well as Deputy Prime Ministers Pham Binh Minh and Vu Duc Dam were considered significant technocrats, but they have been replaced by less experienced party loyalists (Vo Van Thuong, Tran Hong Ha, and Tran Luu Quang, respectively). Initially, the military saw a boost in influence during the 13th Congress, but they have since been dealt a heavy blow by the anti-corruption campaign, with 20 generals being disciplined since 2016.[42]
Moreover, the institutional modifications implemented as part of the anti-corruption crusade are expected to have a major impact on Vietnam’s political landscape. The success of these measures is now seen as a key indicator of the performance of party secretaries,[43] leading provincial authorities and other party-state entities to prioritize internal affairs over other duties, such as economic development.
While it is easy to establish the predominance of internal affairs institutions, reversing this trend will be a formidable challenge once the leadership opts to temper the “Blazing Furnace”. The authoritarian inclination of the country’s political system is a worrying development in the long run, as it does not allow for independent voices on corruption issues. In late 2021, Towards Transparency, the Vietnam affiliate of Transparency International, a well-respected global NGO focused on combating corruption, was forced to close its Vietnam office due to security concerns.[44]
In the medium term, the anti-corruption campaign has major implications for the upcoming 14th Party Congress in 2026. The campaign has already removed two potential candidates for the top four positions, Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Pham Binh Minh, while providing opportunities for party loyalists such as Vo Van Thuong and Vuong Dinh Hue. It is likely that leaders of security and disciplinary agencies, including Minister of Public Security To Lam, CIAC Head Phan Dinh Trac, and CIC Chairman Tran Cam Tu, will be strong contenders for leadership roles in 2026.
CONCLUSION
Vietnam’s ambitious anti-corruption campaign has yielded both positive and negative outcomes. While successful in reducing corruption to some extent, the campaign has also led to significant disruptions in the bureaucracy, resulting in an atmosphere of unease in the political landscape. To improve confidence in private businesses, foreign investors and public officials, the relevant authorities will need to take immediate and targeted actions.
First, the party-state must prioritize rebuilding the effectiveness and accountability of its bureaucracy by increasing public salaries. Currently, the baseline monthly salary for a public employee is only VND1.8 million (US$80), and even the top leaders of the Party and government earn a mere VND23.4 million (US$1,060) per month in official salaries.[45] These meagre incomes make it difficult to incentivize top talents to stay in the system and contribute to the country’s growth, or to prevent corrupt practices.
Second, the anti-corruption campaign must be accompanied by a sound and transparent legal framework to guide the efforts, ensuring that they are conducted in a just and impartial manner. This is essential as the campaign risks becoming a witch hunt that can be exploited for political objectives and that can stifle creativity and progress within the regime. It is important to bear in mind that the Doi Moi reforms of the 1980s were inspired by various “fence-breaking” practices that could in the current political context be labelled as “economic mismanagement”.
Lastly, harsh punishment alone cannot solve corruption in closed political systems like Vietnam’s. To effectively address this issue, the CPV must undertake a more comprehensive process of political reform that addresses the root causes of corruption, promotes transparency and accountability within the party itself, and provides opportunities for civil society, the media and the public to contribute. Solving corruption is not something the party alone can accomplish.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- South Korea’s participation in the Vietnam War was marked by various atrocities, including massacres and sexual violence against thousands of Vietnamese civilians.
- Despite South Korea’s refusal to acknowledge these atrocities, Vietnam’s peace diplomacy — which involves shelving historical issues to promote cooperative and peaceful interactions with former foes — allowed for bilateral relations to flourish.
- At the same time, Vietnam has allowed local commemoration of Korean massacres and, on rare occasions, challenged South Korea’s contentious historical narratives.
- Vietnam’s peace diplomacy towards South Korea is under strain, given Vietnamese victims’ growing demand for accountability and acknowledgement from the South Korean government.
- To encourage South Korea’s acknowledgement and rectification of past atrocities, Vietnam needs to frame the issue as an area for collaboration and establish an organisation to represent and support the victims.
* Phan Xuan Dung is a research officer in the Vietnam Studies Programme of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore.
ISEAS Perspective 2023/33, 25 April 2023
INTRODUCTION
In December 2022, Vietnam and South Korea agreed to elevate their 30-year-old ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership based on the spirit of “heading towards a bright future”.[1] However, this promise was soon tested when, on 7 February 2023, the Seoul Central District Court ordered the South Korean government to pay 30 million won (US$23,730) in compensation to Nguyen Thi Thanh, a Vietnamese woman who survived a massacre committed by Korean soldiers during the Vietnam War.[2] Thanh had previously filed a lawsuit against the South Korean government in 2020, testifying that Korean marine soldiers killed her family members and shot her in the stomach as they attacked the Phong Nhat – Phong Nhi village in Quang Nam Province in 1968.
This ruling is significant as it marks the first legal acknowledgement of Korean troops’ atrocities during the Vietnam War. However, South Korea’s Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup quickly denied that Korean troops committed massacres in Vietnam, and the South Korean government filed an appeal.[3] In response, Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed deep regret, calling on Seoul to respect historical truth and take practical steps to address the consequences of war.[4] Hanoi also stressed that its policy of “shelving the past and looking towards the future” does not mean denying “the truth or history”.
This policy of “shelving the past and looking towards the future” is a reflection of Vietnam’s long tradition of ngoại giao hòa mục, hòa hiếu (peace diplomacy). Despite a long history of wars with foreign powers, Vietnam has typically avoided humiliating defeated adversaries or politicising war legacies. Instead, it has prioritised restoring and maintaining peaceful and harmonious bilateral relations to foster conducive conditions for national development.[5] Such an approach undergirded Vietnam’s resumption of diplomatic ties with the United States and its allies, including South Korea in 1992.[6] But as the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ recent statement connotes, Vietnam has forgiven but not forgotten South Korea’s past aggression, trying to balance between moving beyond the past and pushing back against South Korea’s denial of past misdeeds. This predicament will likely worsen as the issue of Korean atrocities resurfaces in the wake of Thanh’s lawsuit.
This article first provides an overview of South Korea’s atrocities during the Vietnam War, followed by an analysis of Vietnam’s peace diplomacy towards South Korea and a discussion of Vietnamese victims’ quest for justice. It concludes by providing recommendations on how Vietnam can encourage South Korea’s cooperation in addressing this war legacy.
KOREAN ATROCITIES DURING THE VIETNAM WAR
Between 1965 and 1973, the Republic of Korea (ROK) deployed 320,000 troops to support the U.S.-backed South Vietnam in their fight against communist North Vietnam. Then, under President Park Chung-hee’s authoritarian rule, South Korea was motivated to demonstrate its commitment to the anti-communist cause in order to obtain American security assurances and financial aid to bolster the country’s economic development.[7]
Despite the South Korean government’s glorification of its participation in the war as a valiant defence against communist aggression, eyewitness accounts and historical materials have revealed a multitude of brutal acts committed by the ROK Army. In 1999, activist Ku Su-jeong and journalist Koh Kyoung-tae published a series of articles in Hankyoreh 21, a monthly South Korean magazine, that exposed the atrocities committed by Korean troops, including civilian massacres, sexual violence, and the burning of houses, through photographic evidence and survivor interviews. Ku Su-jeong also initiated the “Sorry, Vietnam” campaign, a grassroots movement that aimed to acknowledge and apologise for the harm caused by South Korea’s participation in the war.
South Korean activists and researchers have been striving to accurately identify the number of Vietnamese victims of the ROK Army. At the 2000 Jeju Human Rights Academic Conference, Ku Su-jeong reported that there were approximately 80 cases of civilian mass killings, resulting in around 9,000 deaths.[8] Two decades later, South Korean civil society’s search for more victims and Hankyoreh 21’s field reports released new figures, indicating 130 massacres and up to 10,000 deaths. Notable atrocities include the slaughter of 430 civilians in Binh Hoa Village (Quang Ngai Province), 74 in Phong Nhi – Phong Nhat villages (Quang Nam Province), and 135 in Ha My Village (Quang Nam Province).[9]
Additionally, there are accounts of Korean soldiers’ sexual violence, with up to 10,000 Vietnamese women and girls being abducted, sold, raped, and coerced into prostitution.[10] It is estimated that about 800 of them are still alive today, and tens of thousands of children were born as a result of these Korean sexual assaults. These children are referred to as Lai Đại Hàn (mixed Korean parentage).[11]
The South Korean government has long denied allegations of war crimes committed by its troops during the Vietnam War and has refused to investigate them. Moreover, the Ministry of Defense and the National Intelligence Service have repeatedly blocked access to records related to South Korean troops’ operations in the war.[12] Several South Korean liberal presidents have expressed regrets for the suffering caused by their country’s involvement in the war,[13] but have fallen short of acknowledging any Korean atrocities. Nonetheless, Vietnam’s peace diplomacy has prevented the issue from becoming a source of tension between the two countries.
VIETNAM’S PEACE DIPLOMACY TOWARDS SOUTH KOREA
With the onset of Đổi Mới economic reform in 1986 and the collapse of the Soviet-led communist bloc in the early 1990s, Vietnam recognised the need to diversify its external affairs in order to attract foreign investments for economic revitalisation. As such, Vietnam actively sought to normalise relations with former adversaries, with South Korea being a priority due to its impressive economic achievements and intention to expand to Southeast Asian markets.[14] During the negotiations for bilateral normalisation, some Vietnamese leaders voiced critical views of South Korea.[15] For example, in a visit to Seoul in 1991, then-Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Vu Khoan mentioned “the guilt of the South Korean army” in relation to the Vietnamese people.[16] However, these sentiments did not impede the negotiation process.
In fact, Vietnam’s urgent need to establish cooperation with South Korea to promote economic development led Vietnamese leaders to become more flexible with their demands. For example, in 1991, Vietnam demanded war reparations from South Korea during the first round of negotiations. However, when South Korea rejected this request, Vietnamese leaders softened their stance in the second meeting in 1992. Instead, they proposed that South Korea provide official development assistance (ODA) and increase economic cooperation to help alleviate the resentment of Vietnamese people hurt by Korean wartime actions.[17]
Since bilateral normalisation in 1992, Vietnam has put the issue of Korean involvement in the Vietnam War on the back burner. During a meeting with South Korea’s then-Foreign Minister Lee Sang-ok in 1992, Vietnam’s then-Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet noted the Vietnamese people’s animosity towards South Korea’s participation in the war, yet he also remarked that “[i]t was only a very short period of time and irrelevant to the will of the people.”[18] He therefore suggested that both countries focus on the future instead of dwelling on the past. In 2000, when asked about the alleged South Korean war crimes, Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded that “South Korean troops committed crimes against Vietnamese people. With humanitarian and peaceful neighbourly traditions, it is Vietnam’s policy to put the past aside.”[19]
As a result, South Korea was able to invest in Vietnam without facing the consequences of its wartime actions, while Hanoi received the much-needed financial aid for economic development. Over the past three decades, bilateral ties between the two former foes have flourished, with South Korea now being one of Vietnam’s top foreign investors and ODA providers. They recently set ambitious goals of increasing their bilateral trade turnover to US$100 billion by 2023 and US$150 billion by 2030.[20] South Korean chaebols such as Samsung, LG, Hyundai, and Lotte have a major influence on Vietnam’s economy. In northern Vietnam alone, Samsung has invested about US$20 billion into various projects, making up around 13.6% of Vietnam’s total industrial output value in 2022.[21]
Vietnam has also been receptive of South Korean humanitarian aid given to communities affected by war legacies. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) implemented a scheme to allocate significant resources towards assisting several provinces in central Vietnam.[22] By 2002, this initiative had resulted in the construction of around 40 new schools and multiple hospitals in regions where large numbers of civilians had been killed by the ROK Army, even though the aid was officially designated to serve any area in Vietnam in need of these facilities.[23] The KOICA-sponsored program could be seen as an attempt by South Korea to ease Vietnam’s lingering resentment about its atrocities without officially admitting responsibility.
More recently, from 2018 to 2021, KOICA provided approximately US$20 million under the Korea-Vietnam Mine Action Project (KVMAP) to remove unexploded ordinance (UXO) and support UXO victims in Binh Dinh and Quang Binh provinces.[24] In 2022, building upon the successes of KVMAP, KOICA partnered with the Vietnam office of the United Nations Development Programme to implement the Korea-Vietnam Peace Villages Project (KVPVP) in three central provinces — Binh Dinh, Quang Ngai, and Thua-Thien Hue.[25] KVPVP involves removing UXO, supporting UXO victims, and helping their communities attain sustainable development and climate change resilience. With a budget of US$25 million from KOICA, KVPVP will run from 2022 to 2026.
Although the Vietnamese government avoids revisiting South Korea’s past aggression, it does allow for local commemoration of massacres committed by Korean soldiers. Memorial monuments have been erected, and annual commemoration ceremonies are organised in the places where the atrocities occurred.[26] State media reports on these activities, as well as stories of South Koreans coming to Vietnam to pay respect to the victims.[27]
Vietnam has also occasionally rebuked Korean accounts of the war. For example, in 2017, Hanoi objected to South Korea’s then-President Moon Jae-in’s remarks honouring South Korean veterans who had fought in Vietnam.[28] More recently, in October 2022, Vietnamese authorities demanded that Netflix Vietnam take down the Korean drama series “Little Women”, citing historical inaccuracies, which had been criticised by Vietnamese netizens as an offensive glorification of Korea’s role in the Vietnam War.[29] However, in both instances, the Vietnamese government did not explicitly mention Korean atrocities or their victims. Vietnam’s objection to South Korean narratives seemed to be driven more by the desire to avoid humiliation than by concerns for the victims whom South Korea had never acknowledged.
This is further evidenced by two other lesser-known incidents, in which Vietnam quietly compromised in the realm of commemoration, in order to avoid upsetting South Korea. In 2000, a monument funded by South Korean veterans was built in Ha My village to commemorate victims of a Korean massacre in 1968. The monument initially contained a statement that incriminated Park Chung-hee’s troops. However, the ROK embassy in Hanoi requested its removal, and Vietnamese authorities acquiesced.[30] They invoked Vietnam’s official slogan of “shelving the past without forgetting it” in justifying the need to erase the statement to Ha My villagers.[31]
In 2016, the “Vietnam Pieta”, or “Last Lullaby”, a miniature version of a sculpture created by two South Korean artists to honour mothers and children killed by Korean soldiers, was donated to the Da Nang Museum. Initially, the sculpture was intended to be a memorial installation in Vietnam, but the Vietnamese government ultimately turned down the proposal, reportedly due to pressure from the South Korean government.[32]
Vietnam can be seen as struggling to balance between shelving the past and acknowledging the sufferings of its citizens during the war. Ultimately, due to its need for South Korea’s economic cooperation, Vietnam has largely refrained from confronting South Korea on its past atrocities. But such an exercise of peace diplomacy is becoming increasingly tenuous as certain Vietnamese victims continue their quest for justice.
VIETNAMESE VICTIMS’ QUEST FOR JUSTICE
In recent years, some survivors of Korean atrocities have asserted their agency in shaping memories of the war. One of them is Nguyen Thi Thanh, who had been fighting for justice even before the 2020 lawsuit. In 2018, Thanh and another survivor testified at the People’s Tribunal on War Crimes by South Korean Troops during the Vietnam War, which demanded that the South Korean government compensate the plaintiffs and launch a thorough investigation into the allegations.[33] A year later, 102 survivors joined Thanh in submitting a petition to the South Korean government, demanding a formal apology and reparations. However, the South Korean Ministry of Defence rejected the petition, claiming that there was no proof of any misdeeds committed by its troops.[34] Subsequently, Thanh sued the South Korean government in 2020 after exhausting all other options to get its attention.
In addition, survivors of sexual violence perpetrated by Korean troops have come forward to share their stories. One of them was Tran Thi Ngai, who was 24 when a Korean soldier stormed into her house and raped her. In 2015, eighty-one-year-old Ngai, along with other rape victims, wrote a letter to then-South Korean President Park Geun-hye, urging her administration to apologise and provide reparations.[35] That same year, another victim started an online petition on Change.org with the same demands, gathering more than 34,000 signatures.[36] Many Lai Đại Hàn descendants are also seeking justice from the South Korean government. Notably, Tran Dai Nhat, son of Tran Thi Ngai, founded the “Justice for Lai Đại Hàn” campaign to urge South Korea to acknowledge both the sexual violence experienced by Vietnamese women and the tens of thousands of children born as a result of rapes by Korean soldiers.[37]
All these victim-led movements share the common goals of recognition, truth-seeking, and restoration of the victims’ dignity. For decades, the Vietnamese government’s lack of support and South Korea’s refusal to accept responsibility have left these survivors with little recourse. But Thanh’s recent legal victory has created a legal precedent that might offer hope and inspiration for more victims to follow suit.
LESSONS FROM VIETNAM-U.S. RECONCILIATION
In light of Seoul’s continued denial of responsibility and the growing demand for justice from the victims, Hanoi needs to confront the issue rather than ignore it. However, taking a confrontational stance against its newest comprehensive strategic partner is not a realistic option, given Vietnam’s weaker bargaining position. Instead, Vietnam should channel its peace diplomacy towards encouraging South Korea to come to terms with the past.
Vietnam has a long history of successfully addressing complex war legacy issues, especially in its relations with the United States.[38] The U.S. has come to appreciate that resolving war legacy issues was critical for a complete and mutually beneficial relationship with Vietnam.[39] This was exemplified by America’s shift from denying the health effects of Agent Orange used in Vietnam to providing assistance to Vietnamese people with “disabilities that may be related to the use of Agent Orange”.[40] Persistent lobbying efforts by key Vietnamese and American actors from both the private and public sectors played a key role in changing Washington’s stance on the issue.[41]
Drawing from these lessons, two factors could help mitigate the bargaining power imbalance between Vietnam and South Korea. First, Vietnam should frame resolving historical issues with South Korea as an area for future-oriented cooperation. For instance, Vietnam could signal to South Korea that addressing war legacies is a prerequisite for a stronger bilateral defence partnership, as they have done vis-à-vis the U.S.[42] Additionally, Vietnam could point to the ongoing cooperation with South Korea in clearing UXO and providing support to UXO victims as an example of how addressing war legacies can be beneficial for the relationship.
Second, the establishment of a Vietnam Association for Victims of War Atrocities (VAVWA),[43] akin to the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange, is necessary for empowering the victims. By providing a platform for survivors to connect and share their experiences, VAVWA could raise domestic and international awareness of the issue, thereby indirectly putting pressure on the South Korean government. VAVWA could collaborate with victims’ allies in South Korea, such as Democratic Party lawmaker Kang Min-jung, who has been spearheading a bill with 24 other lawmakers to create a special investigation committee on the atrocities committed by the ROK Army against Vietnamese civilians.[44] Furthermore, cooperation with South Korean civil society groups involved in the matter is also crucial, as they have played a significant role in raising awareness in South Korea, fostering people-to-people reconciliation, and amplifying the voice of victims like Thanh.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore 119614. Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- The growing trend of young employees choosing to withdraw their social insurance premiums early has been a major challenge to Vietnam’s social insurance system. Those who choose to do so give up their pensions and the accompanying free public health insurance when they retire in the future.
- Factors such as employees’ livelihood, job prospects, perception of social insurance benefits, and lack of trust in the state’s management of the social insurance fund all have an impact on their decision to withdraw their social insurance premiums.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the precarious living and working conditions of many factory workers in the export sectors, evidenced by the surging number of claims for social insurance withdrawals. With their low and unstable incomes, many of these workers view their social insurance premiums as a form of savings, and have no choice but to seek early access to this money during times of financial hardship.
- The government is revising the social insurance law to keep people in the social insurance system for longer; however, the potential effects of the revision remain unclear. Changes to the social insurance system should go hand in hand with labour relations reforms and improved social policies that empower workers and support their livelihood.
* Tu Phuong Nguyen is a member of the Stretton Institute, The University of Adelaide, Australia.
ISEAS Perspective 2023/25, 11 April 2023
EARLY WITHDRAWAL OF SOCIAL INSURANCE PREMIUMS
Article 3.1 of Vietnam’s 2014 Law on Social Insurance defines social insurance as “the guarantee to fully or partially offset an employee’s income that is reduced or lost due to their sickness, maternity, workplace accident, occupational disease, retirement or death”.[1] All employees with labour contracts are entitled to the compulsory social insurance scheme, whereby employers and employees must contribute a certain amount to employees’ insurance premiums. Social insurance, which is the largest component of these premiums, mainly covers pensions and maternity benefits. Employees are also entitled to unemployment and health insurance. The contribution is calculated based on the individual employee’s basic wage and other forms of regular monthly payments. All participants’ social insurance premiums are centrally managed through the state’s social insurance fund.
To be eligible for the pension, an employee must contribute to the social insurance fund for at least 20 years. People who have contributed to the scheme for less than 20 years do not qualify for the pension, but are entitled to access their social insurance benefits as a lump sum. The law stipulates certain conditions in which employees can withdraw their social insurance premiums early, including when they (1) move overseas, (2) are diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, and (3) resign and cease contributions to the social insurance fund for a period of one year. According to official statistics, the third condition has been cited in more than 98 per cent of all social insurance withdrawal requests.[2]
In 2014, the Vietnamese government attempted to implement an amendment to the social insurance law which would have required employees to wait until retirement (at age 55 for women and 60 for men) to receive their pension. This change, intended to provide welfare protection for employees in the long run, was met with protests from thousands of workers in industrial regions in southern Vietnam.[3] Following dialogues with workers and legislative debates, the government reversed the amendment and allowed employees to withdraw their social insurance premiums one year after they quit their jobs, as before.
Subsequent to this, the number of people choosing to withdraw their social insurance premiums has been steadily increasing. From 2016 to 2021, the system welcomed an additional 4.23 million participants, but it also had 4.06 million people leaving.[4] On average, the number of lodgements for social insurance withdrawal increased by about 9 per cent each year.[5] In 2021, a record number of more than 960,000 people lodged their claims for social insurance withdrawals. Those who claimed such money were mostly aged below 40 and work in non-state sectors.[6] Fifty-five per cent of the claims were made by women.
As pension is a key pillar of social insurance benefits, the growing opt-out rate from social insurance potentially puts a greater burden on the state to provide care and support for people who have no source of income in their old age. This growing trend poses a key challenge to Vietnam’s social insurance system.
EXPLAINING THE TREND
Several factors, such as employees’ livelihood, job prospects, perception of social insurance benefits, and lack of trust in the state’s management of the social insurance fund, have contributed to this trend.
Although official statistics are unavailable, media reports and previous research suggest that many who apply for social insurance withdrawals are factory workers employed in key export sectors such as garment, footwear, and other processing industries.[7] These workers, especially those with low incomes, need the money from the social insurance fund to help them overcome their financial hardship. A survey by Vietnam’s Institute of Workers and Trade Unions showed that 30 per cent of workers have no savings and often need to borrow money to pay for household expenses.[8] As a result, many low-income workers have come to view their social insurance premiums as a form of savings, and are more likely to seek early access to it when their income is reduced or when extra household expenses arise.[9] In most of the cases, the withdrawn funds are used to settle household debts and pay for children’s care and education, medical bills, and housing. Some workers, who are either exhausted from years of factory work or have lost their jobs, may use the money to help them start anew, switch to informal work, or invest in a family business or small-scale trading activities.[10]
Besides the individual living circumstances of workers, weak government regulation and lack of transparency in the management of the social insurance fund also explain why people choose to leave the social insurance system.[11] Reports of persistent legal evasion and violations of workers’ social insurance rights are common, with the most serious issue being employers failing to submit their and their employees’ contributions to the state’s social insurance fund, despite deducting employees’ contributions from their monthly wages.[12] For many years, the state-managed social insurance fund has had a deficit, reaching a record high of more than VND13 trillion (US$554 million) in 2016.[13] Sceptical of the state’s capacity to manage their social insurance money and to provide insurance and pension payments in the long run, workers who face financial difficulties prefer to withdraw their social insurance premiums and forgo their pension.
Following its failure in 2014 to pass a legal amendment that would prevent employees from withdrawing social insurance premiums early, the government has sought to raise awareness on the disadvantages of early withdrawal and the benefits of pension. Employees who choose to take out their social insurance premiums early are portrayed by government officials as “only thinking about their short-term needs”.[14] Plenty of news articles have included the catchphrase “short-term benefits, long-term disadvantages” (lợi trước mắt, thiệt lâu dài) to refer to the consequences of early withdrawal and its threat to employees’ future welfare.[15]
The media discourse on this matter has slightly shifted following the outbreak of COVID-19, coming to recognise how many workers’ precarious conditions had pushed them to withdraw their social insurance premiums. This was especially evident in 2022 when there were long queues of workers waiting outside social insurance offices in Ho Chi Minh City since dawn to lodge their claims.[16] Many had lost their jobs during the pandemic and had to resort to informal work to make ends meet. Even though the act of early withdrawal is still viewed in a negative light, the media discourse has demonstrated sympathy towards those who have no choice but to count on their social insurance money to cope with their financial burdens.[17] A union official suggested that more than 80 per cent of those who withdrew their social insurance premiums had no emergency savings for difficult times.[18]
Indeed, employment in some of Vietnam’s key export sectors has become increasingly precarious in recent years. As the country pursues an export-oriented policy, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created each year in the garment, footwear, and other processing industries. This has allowed many people from rural areas to move to industrialising regions and cities, earning an income that can help them and their families escape poverty. However, these sectors are exposed to global market fluctuations and disruptions, which can lead to supplier factories closing down or cutting costs and reducing their labour force. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were cases of foreign-owned factories suddenly closing down and their foreign bosses fleeing Vietnam, leaving their workers unpaid and without their social insurance payments.[19] With weak bargaining power,[20] workers are increasingly vulnerable to reduced workplace benefits, short-term contracts, casualisation, and redundancies.[21] Certain groups, such as pregnant workers, those caring for young children, and elderly workers, are even more susceptible to discrimination due to assumptions about their declining productivity.[22]
In terms of living conditions, numerous reports have raised concerns about workers’ economic struggles.[23] The minimum wage in high-growth regions, such as Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City, currently stands at approximately US$200 a month, a 6 per cent increase from the 2020 minimum wage.[24] However, a former leader of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour, the only trade union in Vietnam, suggested that the minimum wage still falls short of the minimum living needs of workers by 15 per cent.[25] In actuality, workers usually earn more than the minimum wage, but this discrepancy mostly comes from excessive overtime. In 2021, it was estimated that the average income in Ho Chi Minh City still fell short of a liveable income by 12 per cent.[26] The living conditions of rural-to-urban migrant workers are particularly difficult as they face extra costs such as rent and higher utility bills, while facing barriers in accessing services like healthcare, childcare, and their children’s schooling in the provinces and cities they move to.[27] Disruptions and uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have made workers’ lives even more precarious.[28]
Although the Vietnamese economy has shown positive signs of recovery after the pandemic, many jobs in the export sectors, especially garment and footwear industries, have been severely impacted by weak consumer demand in key export destinations such as the United States and Europe.[29] This has led to the closure and downsizing of numerous factories in southern Vietnam, resulting in an estimated loss of 34,000 jobs and a reduction in working hours for 600,000 workers, leading to a decrease in their income.[30] If affected workers are unable to secure employment or a stable income within a year, it is likely that many of them will consider withdrawing their social insurance premiums to alleviate their financial stress.
PROPOSED CHANGES TO SOCIAL INSURANCE LAW
Early withdrawal of social insurance premiums is currently a critical issue in the Vietnamese government’s reform agenda regarding the social insurance law. The government has proposed several measures to limit early withdrawals and encourage more employees to accumulate their contributions towards their pension. The first proposal reduces the amount of money that a person can withdraw early: only their own contribution would be available, while the employer’s contributions would remain with the state.[31] In case an individual is unable to re-join the social insurance system in the future, the employer’s contributions would be used to partially cover their pension. This proposal seeks to discourage early withdrawals and keep people in the social insurance system for longer. However, it does not take into account the precarious situation of many factory workers who have come to view social insurance money as their savings, and who may be desperate to access the money to sustain themselves and their families. Even though this proposal does not strip employees of their right to withdraw social insurance money, as was the case with the overturned legal amendment in 2014, it could still be met with resistance from workers if passed into law. The draft law,[32] circulated for public consultation in March 2023, includes this proposal while retaining the current regulation as an alternative.
The second proposal lowers the eligibility requirement for the pension.[33] Evaluating the potential effects of this proposal is more complicated, considering that workers’ circumstances vary. Currently, an employee is eligible for the pension if they have contributed to the social insurance fund for at least 20 years and have reached the legal retirement age (55 for women and 60 for men). This proposal lowers the minimum requirements from 20 years to 15 years, and eventually to 10 years in the long term, with the intention of making pensions more attainable.
To those employees who join the social insurance system at a later age, this proposal would give them a better chance of being eligible for the pension. It also acknowledges the reality that the total employment time of factory workers in certain manufacturing sectors is often not long. For instance, companies in the garment and footwear industries have been known to find ways to lay off elderly workers (meaning those over 35 years old),[34] leaving them disadvantaged in the labour market and struggling to find new employment. Because it is difficult for workers in these industries to accumulate 20 years of social insurance contribution, lowering the minimum requirements for social insurance contribution would enable more people to access the pension, and make pensions more appealing overall.
This proposal nonetheless overlooks other issues concerning workers’ circumstances and their lack of trust in the social insurance system. Many workers choose not to wait for the pension not just because of the requirement regarding the minimum years of contribution, but also because they must wait until their retirement to access their money. A typical female worker in the garment industry, for example, can start working in her early 20s, if not before. If she keeps on working and contributing to the social insurance fund, she will reach the minimum years required for the pension in her 40s, yet she has to wait until she is 55 to receive the pension. In reality, many workers do not plan to work in the factory until their retirement, as their health and productivity tend to get worse after years of intensive and hard labour. A union official at Pou Yuen, the largest footwear company in Ho Chi Minh City, has observed that about 500 to 600 senior workers, especially those who are 40 years old and above, quit every year.[35] According to the current regulation, once an employee’s social insurance contributions have exceeded the threshold of pension eligibility, they are not able to withdraw social insurance premiums as a lump sum and have to wait until their retirement to receive the pension. At Pou Yuen, some workers have resigned from their jobs a few months before the total period of their contributions would have reached 20 years, in order to avoid having their social insurance premiums “locked” in the system.
The draft law reduces the minimum period of pension eligibility from 20 years to 15 years. However, employees would still be able to withdraw social insurance premiums if the total period of their contributions is less than 20 years. This means that those who have accumulated from 15 to 20 years of contributions are eligible for the pension and still able to withdraw their social insurance premiums if they wish to. It is unclear whether the legal amendment will keep people, especially factory workers, in the system for longer. Given that violations of social insurance law are still common, and factory workers generally remain sceptical of the state’s ability to manage the social insurance fund, workers with precarious conditions would still choose to withdraw their social insurance premiums when necessary.
Since industrial workers are the key targets and beneficiaries of social insurance law, it is important that any future reforms take into account their views and circumstances, particularly their precarious working and living conditions. Strengthening law enforcement and ensuring better protection of workers’ social insurance rights will be crucial to raising workers’ trust in the state’s management of the social insurance fund. Future reforms of the social insurance system should be coupled with improved social policies and labour relations reforms that support workers’ livelihoods and grant them a greater voice in the collective bargaining process.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Strengthened mutual trust, growing people-to-people ties, and robust economic cooperation are principal assets guiding Vietnam – South Korea relations today.
- While bilateral economic cooperation has achieved significant milestones, defence ties remain relatively modest.
- Vietnam and South Korea have the leverage to strengthen ties further thanks to the comprehensive strategic partnership inked in December 2022. To keep the relationship moving forward, Seoul and Hanoi should collaborate closely and develop concrete plans for advancing their cooperation under the new framework.
- The two countries should further collaborate in multilateral fora and reframe their relationship as middle powers joining hands to forge multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific, develop resilient supply chains for their key industries and boost arms transfer and naval cooperation.
*Huynh Tam Sang is Lecturer at the Faculty of International Relations, Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, and Research Fellow at the Taiwan NextGen Foundation.
ISEAS Perspective 2023/4, 30 January 2023
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Vietnam–Korea relations have a long history. Records of early interactions between the two peoples date back to the 13th century when Vietnamese Prince Ly Long Tuong of the Ly Dynasty migrated to Korea and joined forces with the ruling Goryo Dynasty of Korea to fight against two Mongolian invasions.[1] From the 16th to the 19th century, Korean and Vietnamese envoys exchanged poems during tributary missions to Ming-Qing China.[2] During the colonial period, patriotic intellectuals and revolutionaries from Korea and Vietnam conducted exchanges and published books on the history of their nations “to learn lessons and to enlighten their peoples” while sharing “sympathies as enslaved peoples”.[3]
During the Cold War, Korea and Vietnam were both victims of great-power politics. Korea was divided into North and South in 1953, and Vietnam underwent the same fate in 1954, shortly after which the Vietnam War began. The Vietnam War was a tragic watershed in the relations between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Vietnam. From 1964 to 1973, South Korea—as an American ally—deployed over 300,000 troops to Vietnam to fight alongside the US against North Vietnam.[4] Hostilities persisted even after the war ended in April 1975. In July 1978, diplomats from South Korea, North Korea and Vietnam engaged in trilateral negotiations on the release of three South Korean diplomats still detained in Saigon.[5] These failed, and the issue was only resolved in April 1980.
Despite the lack of official engagements, South Korea’s economic success began to catch Vietnam’s attention in the late 1980s. With the launch of the Đổi Mới (Renovation) policy in 1986, Vietnam became interested in studying the South Korean experience in development. At a CPV Central Committee meeting in April 1986, Truong Chinh, then-Chairman of the State Council, expressed deep appreciation for South Korea, which, according to him, “became an industrialized country despite gaining little FDI inflows”.[6] In 1988, the Vietnamese Central Institute for Economic Management published a book titled “The South Korean Economy”, lauding Seoul’s industrialization model.
On the diplomatic front, the 1988 Seoul Olympics Games facilitated the ROK-Vietnam rapprochement by allowing a Vietnamese delegation to conduct unofficial exchanges with their South Korean counterparts. Thanks to “Olympics diplomacy” and the visits of Vietnamese officials such as Nguyen Xuan Oanh, Chairman of the Economic Office under Ho Chi Minh City Party Secretary (Văn phòng Kinh tế của Bí thư Thành ủy),[7] and Vu Tuan, Vietnam’s Minister of Light Industry, to South Korea from 1987 to 1989, bilateral relations became warmer. In 1990, the two countries began full-scale negotiations toward diplomatic normalization.
However, Vietnam’s military intervention in Cambodia remained a major hurdle. The then-South Korean Foreign Minister, Lee Sang-ok, stated that a political settlement of the Cambodian issue should be achieved before the normalization of bilateral relations could happen.[8] Seoul’s concern dissipated after the Paris Peace Agreement on Cambodia was signed in 1991. Several subsequent developments were also conducive to the ROK-Vietnam relations. These were the Sino-Vietnamese diplomatic normalization achieved in November 1991, the positive progress in US-Vietnam ties,[9] and the improved relations between Vietnam and ASEAN member states.[10] Vietnam’s diplomatic advancements and economic reforms strengthened the ROK’s resolve to normalize ties with Hanoi.
On 22 December 1992, the ROK and Vietnam signed a joint statement to establish full diplomatic relations. This important milestone largely aligned with the two countries’ mutual economic and geopolitical interests in the post-Cold War era.[11] On the part of Vietnam, its economic interests and foreign policy of “diversification and multilateralization” served as the basis for cultivating ties with Seoul.[12]
In 2002, the ROK and Vietnam upgraded their relationship to a “comprehensive partnership in the 21st century”. They further elevated ties to the level of a “strategic cooperative partnership” in 2009. Most recently, the two countries announced the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership during a visit by Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc to Seoul in December 2022.
THE COMPREHENSIVE FOUNDATION FOR BILATERAL TIES
The current relationship between Vietnam and South Korea has been built on a solid foundation based on the strengthening of mutual trust, growing people-to-people ties, and robust economic cooperation.
Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, Seoul and Hanoi continued their efforts to cultivate mutual trust. For example, bilateral parliamentarian cooperation reached a new height, with reciprocal visits in 2021 by Park Byeong-seug, Speaker of the ROK’s National Assembly, and Vuong Dinh Hue, Chairman of the Vietnamese National Assembly. Their visits resulted in an agreement to conduct high-level exchanges by establishing friendship groups of young and female parliamentarians.[13]As of February 2022, the ROK had donated 1.4 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Vietnam, while South Korean firms and friendship organizations had contributed more than US$20 million to Vietnam’s Covid-19 Vaccine Fund.[14] Meanwhile, Vietnam’s export of 200 tons of urea, though modest, contributed to South Korea’s efforts to deal with China’s urea export restrictions that began in mid-October 2021.[15] Vietnamese leaders have also held direct talks with Korean firms to exchange views on Vietnam’s investment policies, and Vietnamese local authorities have actively extended support to Korean firms operating in their localities.
People-to-people ties also enhance the resilience of the bilateral relationship. The Korean community in Vietnam comprises more than 7,000 companies and 180,000 expatriates, while there are 240,000 Vietnamese living in South Korea.[16] Korean-Vietnamese multicultural families are considered “public diplomatic messengers”, who have contributed to the strengthening of bilateral ties.[17] Hallyu (한류), or the Korean Wave, characterized by the promotion of Korean popular culture, has been growing popular in Vietnam, particularly among those in their 20s and 30s.[18] Some Korean cultural products, such as TV drama series, are well received by Vietnamese audiences.[19] Additionally, the influence and popularity of Park Hang-seo, the South Korean head coach of the Vietnamese national football team (2018-2023), have contributed to Vietnamese people’s positive perception of South Korea.[20]
Robust economic cooperation has served as the backbone of the Vietnam-South Korea relationship, with the Vietnam-Korea Free Trade Agreement (VKFTA), which took effect in December 2015, playing an important role. As of end-2021, South Korea was Vietnam’s largest foreign investor, with the accumulative registered capital reaching US$78.5 billion.[21] Korea’s investments cover a wide range of economic sectors, ranging from processing and manufacturing to real estate, retail and construction.[22] With a population of more than 99 million people and an average GDP growth rate of 5.33 percent in the period 2017-2021, Vietnam is an ideal gateway for Korean investors to expand into Southeast Asia, especially the Mekong subregion.[23]
Enhancing economic ties with South Korea helps Vietnam reduce trade dependence on China, which is seen by some Vietnamese policymakers as a security issue, given the South China Sea dispute between the two countries. South Korea is currently Vietnam’s third-largest export market, after America and China, with an export turnover of US$21.95 billion in 2021.[24] Vietnam ran a trade deficit of US$34.25 billion with South Korea in 2022 following the setting up of operations there by major Korean firms.[25] However, this is not seen as a major issue as the majority of Vietnam’s imports from the ROK are production materials and inputs rather than consumer goods.[26]
South Korea’s leading chaebols such as Samsung, SK, LG, Lotte and Hyundai have expanded their operations in Vietnam, helping to deepen Seoul’s economic linkage with Hanoi. For example, Samsung—Vietnam’s biggest foreign direct investor—has invested US$18 billion in Vietnam,[27] and has plans to increase the investment to US$20 billion. The trend of South Korean companies relocating their manufacturing facilities to Vietnam has accelerated in recent years, partly due to their efforts to diversify away from China[28] amidst disruptions caused by the US-China trade war. Vietnam’s stable economic environment and conducive foreign direct investment policies have turned the country into a preferred choice for Korean investors.[29]
Burgeoning bilateral economic ties have also been facilitated by South Korea’s New Southern Policy (NSP) – which was launched by former President Moon Jae-in to cultivate the ROK’s ties with ASEAN member states and India to reach the same level that the country maintains with the US, China, Japan and Russia.[30] Vietnam has been hailed as the centrepiece of the NSP.[31] In the words of former President Moon Jae-in, Korea’s relations with ASEAN are “indispensable for our prosperity and peace, and Vietnam is at the center of that relationship”.[32] Some scholars even branded Moon’s NSP as the “New Vietnam Strategy”.[33]
ADDING SUBSTANCE TO THE NEW COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
With the two countries announcing their comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP) in December 2022, South Korea has become the first middle power to have a CSP with Vietnam. Previously, Vietnam only had CSPs with three major powers, namely China (2008), Russia (2012), and India (2016). The upgrade of the ROK-Vietnam relationship to a CSP shows that South Korea is among Vietnam’s most vital partners.
Under the new CSP framework, leaders from both sides have agreed to intensify their collaboration in the areas of maritime security, national defence, and the defence industry. Since 2012, the two countries have held annual bilateral defence dialogues to foster mutual understanding and promote joint actions in addressing common security challenges, such as maritime and aviation security, as well as nuclear threats in the Korean peninsula.[34] In 2021, Seoul and Hanoi vowed to uplift cooperation in maritime security, arms production, and defence education and training.[35] South Korea helped Vietnam strengthen its naval capabilities by transferring two second-hand Pohang-class corvettes to the Vietnam People’s Navy.[36] South Korean Navy’s destroyers also made three port calls to Da Nang in 2017, 2018 and 2019, and participated in communication exercises with the Vietnamese Navy.[37] Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief activities, as well as search and rescue operations, are also noteworthy areas of bilateral security cooperation, as stated in the Vietnam-South Korea Joint Vision Statement on Defence Cooperation with a vision towards 2030.[38]
South Korea now ranks third among Vietnam’s top five major arms suppliers (after Russia and Israel), accounting for 6.6 percent of Vietnam’s arms imports in the period 2017-2021.[39] As Vietnam is seeking to reduce its arms dependence on Russia, there is an opportunity for South Korea to become a reliable arms partner for Vietnam. At the 10th senior-level defence dialogue in September 2022, Seoul and Hanoi also pledged to boost ties in arms industry.[40]
Among the South Korean defence hardware that Vietnam may be interested in are the KF-21 supersonic fighter jets which are reportedly “fairly affordable”.[41] In seeking potential deals, Hanoi could benefit from Seoul’s coordinated policies to support customers through “loans, repayment flexibility, outgoing offset packages, technology transfers, investments and industrial collaboration in sectors that often go beyond defence”.[42] Another relatively easy measure for South Korea to step up defence ties with Vietnam is to increase its naval visits to Vietnam. Such visits, when conducted frequently, could help promote the ROK’s engagement with Vietnamese leaders and local communities while underscoring the bilateral commitment to boosting defence cooperation. Seoul should also consider Hanoi’s recent request for another corvette transfer,[43] a move that will not only help strengthen bilateral naval relations but also incentivize Vietnamese defence planners to consider serious arms deals with Seoul in the future.
It should be noted that the new CSP framework between Vietnam and South Korea is not limited to defence and strategic cooperation only. It also covers cooperation in other fields that are strategically significant for both countries, including in the economic and technological domains.[44] For example, to navigate global supply chain disruptions, the ROK pledges to work with Vietnam to develop the latter’s rare earth mineral industry, while Hanoi looks to deepen its cooperation with Seoul on “chip, battery, and auto production”.[45]
According to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, Vietnam “is a core partnering nation in South Korea’s Indo-Pacific strategy and the Korea-ASEAN Solidarity Initiative”.[46] President Yoon also stated that South Korea would closely collaborate with Vietnam to promote Korea-ASEAN and Korea-Mekong cooperation.[47] With this vision, Hanoi will likely continue to play a prominent role in Seoul’s Southeast Asia policy going forward.
However, obstacles also lie ahead for the bilateral relationship. For example, although bilateral security and defence ties have been strengthened, they are still modest, while joint activities have not been well institutionalized and thus remain infrequent and inconsistent.[48] At the same time, although South Korea’s defence industry could benefit from Vietnam’s push for military modernization and arms diversification, the two countries’ military industrial cooperation remains limited.[49]
Meanwhile, the idea of amplifying defence and maritime exchanges has become prominent in bilateral discussions, but neither side has elaborated on any additional steps or details, such as the frequency of interactions or topics to be covered, to actualize this vision. Seoul and Hanoi should develop concrete plans for advancing their cooperation.
The two countries should also reframe their partnership to better reflect their growing role and status, as well as their shared interests, particularly in promoting regional security, stability, and a rules-based order. The question is, how should the upgraded relationship be reframed? One way for them to do so is to frame their relationship as middle powers joining hands to forge multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific. In February 2022, Vietnamese Ambassador to South Korea Nguyen Vu Tung stated that Vietnam and South Korea have long promoted multilateralism, especially based on the perspective and interests of middle powers, and enhanced the vitality of multilateral cooperation mechanisms, including ASEAN.[50] The two countries should work together to further promote such a joint vision, which will not only help strengthen bilateral ties and promote the two countries’ interests, but also contribute to the rules-based order and to cooperative multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific region.
ENDNOTES
For endnotes, please refer to the the pdf document.
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
2022/98 “The U.S. Coast Guard in the South China Sea: A Vietnamese Perspective” by Nguyen The Phuong
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- The future of Vietnam-U.S. defense and security cooperation relies on meaningful policies that can meet both sides’ needs in the South China Sea and beyond. A deeper engagement of the U.S. Coast Guard in Southeast Asia can be a promising avenue toward that end, especially given China’s “grey zone” tactics to gain de facto control over disputed waters in the South China Sea.
- A comprehensive engagement by the U.S. Coast Guard in the South China Sea can be seen by Vietnam as a catalyst that effectively enhances the bilateral relationship and contributes to the evolving regional security architecture.
- As a leading power with a network of allies and security partners, Washington should demonstrate that it can find innovative ways to deal with unprecedented challenges. But to engage effectively with Vietnam, the United States should be patient and needs to diversify its engagement methods, including through multilateral coast guard cooperation arrangements.
- For Vietnam, strengthening its security partnership with the United States requires bold thinking and actions. At the same time, the two countries should also look for new and feasible cooperation initiatives to deepen mutual trust and strengthen practical cooperation in mutually beneficial areas.
*Guest writer, Nguyen The Phuong, is a PhD Candidate in Maritime Security at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia. He is also a Lecturer at the Faculty of International Relations, Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and Finance (UEF).
ISEAS Perspective 2022/98, 6 October 2022
INTRODUCTION
Although diplomats from both Vietnam and the United States have given special prominence to the two countries’ growing comprehensive partnership, many challenges remain.[1] In particular, despite gradual concrete improvement in recent years, defense and security cooperation has not met expectations. Vietnamese policymakers’ indecisiveness and their exaggerated fear of potential retaliations from China have been cited by analysts as reasons why they hesitate to actively push for significant breakthroughs in bilateral defense and security ties.[2]
The future of Vietnam-U.S. defense and security cooperation relies in part on meaningful policies that can meet both sides’ objectives in the South China Sea and beyond. If the United States undertakes projects that can have a real and profound impact on the South China Sea situation that is favourable for Hanoi, Vietnam would respond positively. The author’s personal dialogues with both Vietnamese and U.S. scholars and officials reveal the need for practical collaborative projects that can boost bilateral defense ties, increase Vietnam’s confidence in Washington’s regional commitments and effectively tame China’s assertive behaviour in regional waters. One of the possible avenues for the two sides to conduct such projects is through the increased engagement of the United States Coast Guard (USCG) in Southeast Asia’s maritime domain. This article discusses how Vietnam can and should play a proactive role in the shaping of such an initiative.
A MEANINGFUL PROJECT: USCG IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA
In March 2019, the USCG cutter Bertholf joined a U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Curtis Wilbur, to transit the Taiwan Strait for the first time. Two months later, the same vessel conducted a maritime exercise with the Philippine Coast Guard near Scarborough Shoal. Another USCG cutter, the Stratton, has been deployed alongside the U.S. 7th Fleet in Yokosuka, Japan. In 2021, the USCG cutter Munro, part of the U.S. 7th Fleet, conducted engagements with Japanese and Filipino navies and maritime enforcement agencies.[3] According to Vice Admiral Michael McAllister, as a military service of the United States, the USCG can integrate seamlessly into defense operations alongside the Navy and other services.[4]
U.S. coast guard cooperation with Southeast Asian countries has been ongoing for some time.[5] For example, Washington has provided technical assistance, financial support, training and capacity-building to regional maritime law enforcement agencies, including Vietnam’s, through selective maritime security institutions such as the Southeast Asia Maritime Law Enforcement Initiative (formerly known as the Gulf of Thailand Maritime Law Enforcement Initiative) or the Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Initiative.[6] However, these initiatives were not designed for the U.S. to initiate strategic reorientation toward the Indo-Pacific maritime domain. It seems that Washington considers these coast guard cooperation activities less important than other maritime security priorities,[7] although the U.S. Coast Guard 2018-2022 Strategic Plan did call for steps to “strategically orient time and resources toward international activities that maximize return on investment to national and Coast Guard priorities; and foster international capacity-building efforts in regions that are […] critical to U.S. interests”.[8]
Despite the abovementioned activities and the importance of Southeast Asia for U.S. maritime strategy, the USCG did not have “even a single operational vessel west of Guam”.[9] This changed in May 2022 when President Biden hosted the U.S. – ASEAN Special Summit, where Washington announced that a USCG vessel would be assigned to the region to operate as a “training platform”, provide multinational crewing opportunities and participate in cooperative maritime engagements.[10] A regional-based technical training team will also be established to provide capacity building in the areas of institutional development, readiness, sustainment of equipment and workforce professionalism.[11] Where their assets will be based remains unclear, but it is highly likely that Guam will be the operational centre for the USCG’s activities in Southeast Asia.
The permanent presence of an official USCG detachment in the South China Sea could be the first step for a deeper engagement of the USCG in Southeast Asia.[12] Based on previous experiences between USCG and regional maritime law enforcement agencies, such a service can help establish a multi-national task force of paramilitary and civilian agencies for upholding international law and combating illegal activities at sea, while fending off Chinese assertiveness by mirroring Beijing’s tactics. However, the deployment should be assigned to one of the regional countries, not at a base outside the South China Sea. Such a comprehensive engagement by the USCG will likely be considered by Vietnamese policymakers as a meaningful project that, as explained in the next section, not only effectively enhances the bilateral relationship, but also encourages Hanoi to proactively contribute to the evolving regional security architecture.
Since the United States conducted its first Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) mission in the South China Sea in 2013, Vietnamese policymakers have carefully observed U.S. military activities in the region. Several of them, mostly within the military, have not been impressed. They perceive the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy at best as lacking substance in dealing with China’s unconventional tactics at sea, and at worst as lame-duck thinking that can do nothing to constrain China’s rise.[13] Several U.S. scholars have also raised questions about the effectiveness of FONOPs, considering them insufficient in preventing2022 Beijing from using the “grey zone” tactic in the South China Sea.[14]
Any “breakthrough” initiatives that involve Vietnam in the maritime security domain will need to meet two requirements. First, the policy of “4-nos and 1-depend” highlighted by Vietnam in its 2019 Defense White Paper needs to be upheld.[15] In other words, such initiatives should not generate the impression that Hanoi is banding with Washington against Beijing. Fortunately, the “1-depend” principle provides some flexibility for Vietnam to hedge against China.[16] It opens the door for deeper defense cooperation and creates a sense that existing limitations, or restrictions, in security and defense cooperation between the two countries are subject to changes.
Second, Vietnam’s concerns behind its hesitance to conduct meaningful security cooperation with the United States need to be addressed. An interlocutor within the U.S. Coast Guard once told the author that “every country in Southeast Asia wants the U.S. to lead, but they don’t want to be led by the U.S., and Vietnam is a particularly good example of that.” This could be an overstatement, but it does, to some extent, reflect the strategic thinking of many regional countries. The reluctance of most Southeast Asian states to get closer to the United States mainly results from China’s increasing political, economic and military influence in the region. Indeed, Hanoi deliberately restricts military cooperation with Washington because “it was afraid of sending a wrong signal to Beijing”.[17] This fear, exacerbated by strategic distrust, becomes a huge obstacle to meaningful cooperation between Vietnam and the United States.
Against this backdrop, increasing USCG’s engagement with Vietnam’s diverse maritime forces in the South China Sea could be the right step toward expanding maritime cooperation between the two countries. Unlike the Navy, the coast guard, as a softer tool for maritime enforcement, can help reduce the “sensitiveness” that inherently informs Vietnam’s concern regarding maritime security cooperation with America. And, as argued below, it may also be a relevant tool to counter China’s “grey zone” tactic in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
VIETNAM LIKELY TO SUPPORT USCG ENGAGEMENT IN SOUTH CHINA SEA
Both Vietnam and the United States need to appreciate that China will pursue “war by other means”. Indeed, many Vietnamese strategists seem to believe that Beijing does not want to fire the first shot in any war, conventional or nuclear. Instead, such “grey zone” tactics have been a cornerstone in China’s maritime strategy in the Indo-Pacific since 2009, and have enabled Chinese maritime forces to incrementally change the status quo without firing a single shot.[18] The United States, as the leading superpower, imagines victory in a high-intensity war in the Western Pacific, and has devoted resources to ensure that scenario. However, China does not need to go to war to assert its control over regional waters. Therefore, the United States must invest in relevant capabilities to counter Chinese “grey zone” coercion.
Vietnam has been mirroring China’s approach in the South China Sea, albeit on a smaller scale. Vietnam’s coast guard fleet and fisheries resources surveillance force are among the largest in Southeast Asia. They have been at the forefront of nearly every recent confrontation with Chinese maritime forces at sea.[19] However, one of the main disadvantages of the Vietnam Coast Guard is its limited number of vessels and their relatively small size. The continuous presence of USCG cutters in the South China Sea may help ease the pressure on smaller regional coast guards, including Vietnam’s, especially in international waters around the Paracels and the Spratlys. The frequency and intensity of confrontation may increase, but the nature of “white-hull” forces allows them to avoid the dire diplomatic and military risks that their “grey hull” counterpart (i.e., naval forces) may otherwise have to face.
The permanent presence of a powerful law enforcement force like the USCG in the South China Sea may also soften the suspicious attitude towards U.S. intentions and commitments to the region among regional countries. Because of the constabulary and less militaristic nature of white hulls, it may also be easier for Vietnam to accept some form of maritime security network in which coast guards play a central role. Such an arrangement may focus on dealing with less sensitive issues such as protecting the environment and maritime resources, combating piracy, armed robbery and illegal fishing.
Such a network of like-minded maritime law enforcement partners could play an essential role in strengthening and expanding the maritime domain awareness capabilities of Vietnam’s maritime forces. Since 2016, the United States has provided nearly US$100 million in capacity-building assistance to help strengthen Vietnam’s maritime domain awareness and its presence in its waters in the South China Sea. This involves the provision of professional training as well as equipment such as coastal radars or unmanned aerial systems.[20] Maritime domain awareness is not only about sharing technology, know-how or intelligence but also about networking and actual joint activities to improve regional security. Vietnam has generally been hesitant to join regional joint-patrol schemes. However, this may change if ASEAN maritime member countries and the United States, along with its traditional allies such as Japan or Australia, come up with a well-planned and well-executed mini-lateral initiative with coast guard forces acting as lead players. The first operations of such an initiative could take place in the southern part of the South China Sea, where Vietnam and other Southeast Asian maritime countries have been actively participating in other initiatives involving the United States such as the annual Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training (SEACAT) exercise, or many other workshops and exercises hosted by the Indonesian Coast Guard in partnership with the USCG.
One could even expect a more open attitude from Vietnamese officials towards the concept of “places not bases”, where white-hull cutters instead of naval warships will be welcomed. Currently, Singapore is considered the best option for this concept within the boundary of the South China Sea as it already hosts a significant U.S. Navy presence, as well as rotationally deployed ships. Vietnam can offer an alternative option for supplies in case the USCG wishes to deploy a permanent detachment to the region. Several ports in southern Vietnam, especially Phu Quoc Island or Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, may welcome USCG cutters if they dock for supplies or replenishment before sailing off to conduct patrol missions in the South China Sea or moving to other places. Visits to these locations would be less politically sensitive as these are located in areas where non-traditional maritime security issues, such as illegal and unregulated fishing activities, piracy, or environmental degradation, are common. Moreover, the USCG and other regional coast guards can also use them as logistical hubs, especially in joint-patrol missions, which helps to further legitimize their involvement in the initiative.
CHALLENGES AHEAD
Memories and experiences from the socio-economic crisis in the 1980s created two enduring security concerns that came to shape Vietnam’s security mindset. Economic collapse gave rise to reformist “new thinkers” who believed that market-oriented reforms and international integration were needed to transform the country’s frail economy. It also created a sense of insecurity among the conservative “old thinkers” because the legitimacy of the Communist Party of Vietnam, which is in part based on socio-economic performance, was severely undermined. However, the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s imbued among the conservatives a high level of skepticism towards liberal ideas embraced by the “new thinkers”.
The success of any meaningful maritime security initiative between Vietnam and the United States therefore relies heavily on the attitude the dogmatic “old-thinkers” might hold towards it. Washington has always been considered by Hanoi as a valuable “comprehensive partner”, especially in terms of economic and maritime cooperation. But one of the factors that has caused Vietnam to be hesitant in upgrading bilateral ties to the “strategic partnership” level is the conviction among certain old thinkers that the United States remains a potential threat to the Party’s regime security. American officials have been frustrated with the overcautious attitude of their Vietnamese counterparts, as this has hampered security cooperation between the two countries.
However, mutual trust has been improving in recent years, helping to ease the old thinkers’ suspicion towards the U.S. intentions in strengthening defense and security ties with Vietnam.[21] Depending on the level of trust, Washington should treat the issue of coast guard cooperation patiently or push it through a multilateral initiative that includes several ASEAN stakeholders such as Indonesia or the Philippines in order to make Vietnamese officials more comfortable with such collaboration projects.
On the part of Vietnam, strengthening the security partnership with the United States requires bold thinking and action. Hanoi should not passively wait for cooperative opportunities with Washington to emerge. There have been growing voices from regional scholars urging Vietnam to take up a leadership role in areas where it has strength, including maritime security.[22] Washington has recently clarified its positions on maritime disputes in the South China Sea and decried China’s maritime claims there as “unlawful”, paving the way for more concrete policies against Beijing.[23] Vietnam, as a main claimant state with a large stake in the South China Sea, should be bold and quick in defining its role in the regional maritime domain and looking for new initiatives to address the evolving maritime challenges. Its paramilitary and civilian maritime forces can lead the way by joining an active network of regional coast guard forces that includes the USCG to promote its national interests and uphold the rules-based international maritime order.
ENDNOTES
[1] Bich T. Tran (2020), Will We See a US-Vietnam Strategic Partnership?, The Diplomat, https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/will-we-see-a-us-vietnam-strategic-partnership/.
[2] The Phuong Nguyen (2019), Vietnam’s Need to Become a Proactive Middle Power, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, Center for Strategic and International Studies, https://amti.csis.org/vietnams-need-to-become-a-proactive-middle-power/.
[3] USNI News, US Coast Guard Continues to Expand Presence in the Western Pacific, https://news.usni.org/2021/09/03/u-s-coast-guard-continues-to-expand-pressence-in-the-western-pacific.
[4] Ibid.
[5] See Amy E. Searight (2020), U.S. Coast Guard cooperation with Southeast Asia: Maritime Challenges and Strategic Opportunities”, Statement before the US Congress, Center for Strategic & International Studies, https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110649/witnesses/HHRG-116-PW07-Wstate-SearightA-20200310.pdf.
[6] US White House (2015), FACT SHEET: U.S. Building Maritime Capacity in Southeast Asia, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/17/fact-sheet-us-building-maritime-capacity-southeast-asia.
[7] Herzinger, 2019.
[8] U.S. Department of Defense (2018), Coast Guard Strategic Plan 2018-2022, https://media.defense.gov/2018/Nov/16/2002063979/-1/-1/0/USCG_STRATEGIC%20PLAN__LORES%20PAGE_20181115_VFINAL.PDF.
[9] Blake Herzinger (2019), Reorienting the Coast Guard: A Case for Patrol Forces Indo-Pacific, War on The Rocks, https://warontherocks.com/2019/11/reorienting-the-coast-guard-a-case-for-patrol-forces-indo-pacific/.
[10] US White House (2022), FACT SHEET: U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit in Washington, DC, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/12/fact-sheet-u-s-asean-special-summit-in-washington-dc/.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Herzinger, 2019.
[13] Author’s interview with Vietnamese military officers, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City, December 2021.
[14] For instance, see Zack Cooper & Gregory B. Poling (2019), America’s Freedom of Navigation Operations are Lost at Sea, Foreign Policy, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/08/americas-freedom-of-navigation-operations-are-lost-at-sea/.
[15] This policy refers to Vietnam’s principles of no military alliances, no siding with one country against another, no foreign military bases on its soil, and no using of force or threatening to use force in international relations. At the same time, Vietnam also stressed that “depending on circumstances and specific conditions, Vietnam will consider developing necessary, appropriate defense and military relations with other countries”. See Vietnam Ministry of National Defence (2019), 2019 Vietnam National Defence, http://www.mod.gov.vn/wps/wcm/connect/08963129-c9cf-4c86-9b5c-81a9e2b14455/2019VietnamNationalDefence.pdf.
[16] The Phuong Nguyen (2019), Vietnam’s 2019 Defense White Paper: Preparing for a Fragile Future, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, Center for Strategic and International Studies, https://amti.csis.org/vietnams-2019-defense-white-paper-preparing-for-a-fragile-future/.
[17] Do Thanh Hai (2021), Vietnam and China: ideological bedfellows, strange dreamers, Journal of Contemporary East Asian Studies, Vol 10, Issue 2, p. 174.
[18] According to the Australian Department of Defense, grey-zone activities are “coercive statecraft actions short of war. The grey-zone is a mainly non-military domain of human activity in which states use national resources to deliberately coerce other states. States achieve grey-zone goals using multiple, apparently unrelated innocent/low attributable, mutually-supporting and synchronized statecraft techniques below the threshold of war. Grey-zone campaigns seek to exploit adversaries’ weaknesses and suppress adversaries’ response options, all the while achieving tangible national strategic aims”. See more at “Grey Zone”, The Perry Group, Australian Defense College, https://theforge.defence.gov.au/perry-group-papers/grey-zone.
[19] The Phuong Nguyen (2020), Vietnam’s Maritime Militia is not a Black Hole in the South China Sea, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, Center for Strategic and International Studies, https://amti.csis.org/vietnams-maritime-militia-is-not-a-black-hole-in-the-south-china-sea/.
[20] U.S. Department of State (2021), U.S. Security Cooperation with Vietnam, https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-vietnam/.
[21] On the trust-building process between Vietnam and the United States over the past three decades, see Ted Osius (2021), Nothing is Impossible: America’s Reconciliation with Vietnam, Rutgers University Press.
[22] Ralf Emmers & Huong Le Thu (2021), “Vietnam and the search for security leadership in ASEAN”, Asian Security, Vol 17, Issue 1, pp. 64-78. See also, Joshua Bernard B. Espena & Don McLain Gill (2020), Indonesia and Vietnam: The Quest for ASEAN Leadership, Geopolitical Monitor, https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/indonesia-and-vietnam-the-quest-for-asean-leadership/.
[23] Zack Cooper and Bonnies S. Glaser (2020), What Options are on the Table in the South China Sea, War on the Rocks, https://warontherocks.com/2020/07/what-options-are-on-the-table-in-the-south-china-sea/.
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha. Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Since 2015, the Cambodian government has been addressing the politically and diplomatically sensitive issue of illegal Vietnamese immigrants through methods such as documentation, deportation, eviction, relocation and registration.
- These actions are the ruling Cambodian People’s Party’s response to the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party’s successful politicisation of anti-Vietnamese sentiments among Cambodian voters.
- The Cambodian government’s Vietnamese immigrant policies also serve the ecological development goal of improving Cambodian water systems, as well as beautifying and developing its urban areas.
- Given Cambodia’s asymmetrical power relationship with Vietnam and the sensitive issue of illegal Vietnamese immigrants, the closer bond between Cambodia and China serves as an enabling factor for the Cambodian government in adopting tougher policies.
- The Cambodian government’s measures will however neither reduce the fear held by many Cambodians of Vietnamese domination nor will they alleviate the potential diplomatic fallout.
*Jing Jing Luo is Post-Doctoral Researcher at the School of Public Affairs, Xiamen University, China. Kheang Un is Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University, USA.
ISEAS Perspective 2022/81, 11 August 2022
INTRODUCTION
Since 2015, the Cambodian government, under the control of the Cambodian People’s Party (CCP), has taken measures to address the long-standing issue of Vietnamese immigrants living in Cambodia. These measures include documentation, deportation, eviction, relocation and re-registration of Vietnamese immigrants. Against this backdrop, extant literature has focused on controversies over alleged violations of the human rights of Vietnamese immigrants, their liminal citizenship status, and anti-Vietnamese sentiments in Cambodia.[1] Unlike these works, this article offers a preliminary analysis of under-discussed factors that underlie the Cambodian government’s current policies towards Vietnamese immigrants. These include: (1) the Cambodian National Rescue Party’s (CNRP) successful politicisation of anti-Vietnamese sentiments among voters; (2) Cambodia’s improved state capacity and changing needs; and (3) Cambodia’s narrowing power gap with Vietnam due to increasingly close Sino-Cambodian relations.
BRIEF HISTORY OF ETHNIC VIETNAMESE IN CAMBODIA
The influence of the Vietnamese court over Cambodia in the 1600s made possible the settlement of ethnic Vietnamese in the country. French colonisation of Indochina in the 19th century further facilitated the movement of ethnic Vietnamese into Cambodia. Particularly, French colonial policies of agro-industry development and administrative consolidation led to the recruitment of ethnic Vietnamese to staff the French colonial bureaucracy and work in the rubber plantations in Cambodia.[2] The French colonial administration also encouraged Vietnamese traders to settle in Cambodia. A significant Vietnamese population continued to live in Cambodia following Vietnam’s independence from France in 1945. The Vietnamese community in Cambodia subsequently grew, to approximately 450,000 members by 1970.[3] Between 1970 and 1979, this minority group faced state-sanctioned anti-Vietnamese campaigns, which led to the expulsion of approximately 200,000 ethnic Vietnamese to Vietnam under the Lon Nol regime (1970-1975). Still worse, the ultranationalist Khmer Rouge government forced many to flee to Vietnam and undertook ethnic cleansing policies against those remaining in Cambodia.[4]
Following the Vietnamese military intervention in Cambodia in 1979, many ethnic Vietnamese who had previously been forced to leave Cambodia returned. In addition to these returnees were new Vietnamese immigrants who moved in to settle in Cambodia. The Khmer resistance movements against the Vietnamese army and the new People’s Republic of Kampuchea claimed that a “settler colonization of Cambodia” was occurring. Hoang Minh Vu contests such a claim, arguing that the movement of people from Vietnam to Cambodia in the 1980s was the outcome of a “refugee crisis” caused by an “economic collapse” associated with “draconian economic, monetary, land, and political reforms” imposed on southern Vietnam by the communist government following the unification of the country in 1975.[5] He further states that “There was no need for the Vietnamese government to institute a policy of settler colonialism; people were simply voting with their feet.”[6] This is the locus of the controversy over ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia. Independent sources estimate the number of ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia to be between 400,000 and 700,000.[7] These immigrants engage in diverse economic activities such as trade, retail, carpentry, mechanical repair, restaurants, construction, and fishing. A large number of them live on floating houses on rivers and lakes, particularly the Tonle Sap Lake and the Mekong and Bassac Rivers. There is a widespread belief among Cambodians that most ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia are not descendants of those who had lived in the country before the war. Rather, they were those who accompanied the invading Vietnamese army in 1979 and their descendants, or more recent immigrants.
Since 2015, the Cambodian government has identified approximately 70,000 Vietnamese who possess “irregular administrative documents”.[8] The new immigration laws require that these people apply with a fee for a residency card, which is subject to renewal every two years; in year seven, they are eligible to apply for citizenship.[9] The Cambodian government has also tightened its immigration policies and, since 2015, has expelled 5,223 Vietnamese from the country.[10]
CAUSES OF ACTIONS AGAINST ILLEGAL VIETNAMESE IMMIGRANTS
Countering the CNRP’s Rise
Since Cambodia allowed multi-party elections in 1993, ethnic Vietnamese have become one of the core campaign issues for opposition parties. They link the presence of ethnic Vietnamese to Vietnam’s alleged broader intention of “swallowing Cambodia”. Such claims resonate among many Cambodians, given the long history of animosity between the two countries and Cambodia’s loss of territory to Vietnam’s southward expansion. Given the absence of exit polls and survey data on voters’ behaviour, the effectiveness of opposition electoral appeals to anti-Vietnamese sentiments is unknown. However, the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) multiple-year surveys on Cambodians’ opinions about the future of Cambodia allow us to gauge the general appeal of the opposition parties’ anti-Vietnamese rhetoric. The IRI surveys indicate that many Cambodians considered “illegal immigrants” a pressing issue for Cambodia, to a level as salient as issues of corruption, inflation, nepotism, poverty, and the environment.[11] Moreover, in 2013, 17 percent of respondents to the IRI Survey ranked “illegal immigrants” as the reason for Cambodia moving in the wrong direction.[12]
Therefore, the issue of Vietnamese illegal immigrants has been, in Dr. Kin Phea’s words, “a political wound for the CPP”.[13] Arguably, the CPP government’s indecisiveness in addressing the issue offered the opposition the pretext to label the CPP “a Vietnamese puppet”; this cost the party much popular support in the 2013 national election.[14]
It should be noted that prior to the 2013 national election, the issue of Vietnamese immigrants on the CPP’s electoral performance was mitigated by several other factors. The first was divisions within the opposition camp. These, compounded by an electoral system that favours large political parties, offered the CPP an advantage in capturing votes.
The second factor was the CPP’s institutional and resource strength which permitted it to maintain nationwide and top-down patronage networks, and thus electoral domination.[15] In the years leading up to the 2013 national election, however, rapid socio-economic transformation lessened the CPP’s domination. Population growth in recent decades meant that youth constituted the majority of voters. Being more educated, more politically active and engaged, and more mobilized as a result of information technology, Cambodian youth began to seek changes to the status quo dominated by the CPP.[16]
The third factor was the merger of the Human Rights Party and the Sam Rainsy Party into the CNRP—a union that offered the opposition a united rural and urban front. These changes, compounded by the CNRP’s intensified politicisation of the issue of Vietnamese immigrants, boosted the party’s electoral gains in the 2013 general election to a level that shocked the CPP. Particularly, in areas with large numbers of Vietnamese immigrants, the CNRP outperformed the CPP.[17] It was the first time that an opposition party was able to expand into and deepen its electoral footprints in rural Cambodia, the CPP’s stronghold.[18] It was at this critical juncture that the CNRP became a clear and present danger to the CPP. These conditions forced the CPP to initiate new policies to strengthen state capacity, promote economic development, and address the issue of Vietnamese immigrants.
Development Goals and Increased State Capacity
If Vietnamese immigrants had been only an electoral issue for the CPP, then logically any measure to address it would not have been necessary following the dissolution of the CNRP in 2017. However, as suggested earlier, one of the factors that undermined the CPP’s electoral performance in 2013 was Cambodians’ dissatisfaction with the CPP’s patronage-based development and its low state capacity. With the dissolution of its main political opponent—the CNRP—the CPP realised that its future legitimacy and thus political domination rest on its ability to strengthen state capacity and promote broad-based economic development, improve social order, and strengthen national sovereignty. To improve state capacity, the CPP has focused on strengthening state revenue mobilisation. Tax revenue increased substantially from 12.1 per cent of GDP in 2013 to 15.25 per cent in 2016, 19.4 per cent in 2019,[19] and 20 per cent in 2020.[20] Indicators of governance effectiveness significantly improved by 46.15 percentage points (from -0.91 in 2013 to -0.46 in 2020).[21] Such increased state capacity allows the government to address its development goals, including improving Cambodian water systems, beautifying cities and towns, and restoring order so as to attract investment.
Beginning in 2012, as part of the government’s development plan, Phnom Penh and provincial capital cities were required to enter a contest for the most “beautiful city”. Provincial governors’ and city mayors’ potential promotions rested in part on their provinces’ success in beautifying their provincial capitals. Furthermore, it should be noted that “cleaning up” the floating communities (that were primarily but not exclusively ethnic Vietnamese) in Phnom Penh opened up prime real estate areas along the river for investment, particularly from China. In Kampong Chhnang, floating communities are also located in the vicinity of the provincial capital. “Messy” floating communities, whose members raised fish in cages, allegedly contaminated the areas’ ecosystems, violated people’s sense of orderliness, and consequently reduced the value of nearby properties and investments.[22] These floating communities included ethnic Vietnamese, Khmer, and Cham (also called Khmer Islam). Thus, city development and environmental improvement necessitated the eviction and relocation of Vietnamese people along rivers and lakes.
Sino-Cambodian Relations: An Enabling Factor
Given the historically close ties between the two countries’ ruling parties—the CPP and the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)—Vietnam and Cambodia have maintained comprehensive cooperation on key issues, including trade, security and diplomacy.[23] Two-way trade turnover has been increasing steadily since the early 2000s. Vietnamese exports to Cambodia grew from US$81 million in 2000 to US$182 million in 2005, US$501 million in 2010, US$1.682 billion in 2017 and US$2.725 billion in 2019.[24] Cambodia’s exports to Vietnam also increased substantially from US$20 million in 2000 to US$46 million in 2005, US$96 million in 2010, US$326 million in 2017, and US$359 million in 2019.[25] By 2019, Vietnam had become Cambodia’s third-largest trading partner after China and the United States.[26] Vietnam is currently the third largest investor in Cambodia after China and South Korea.[27]
Diplomatically, the two countries have also maintained high-level party and government dialogues.[28] Vietnam is a key CPP security partner, providing assistance in terms of training and medical care for senior Cambodian military officers. During Cambodia’s border conflicts with Thailand in 2008 and 2011, Vietnam provided security assistance—albeit limited in scope—in response to requests from the Cambodian government.[29] Moreover, the ruling parties of the two countries have worked closely to combat forces deemed “hostile” and “unfriendly” toward their respective governments.[30]
At the same time, there are also issues that can potentially disrupt the seemingly close Vietnam-Cambodia relations. Apart from the issue of Vietnamese immigrants in Cambodia, some segments of the two countries’ border have not been demarcated, allowing border disputes to persist. These are challenging issues within the context of the asymmetrical power relationship between the two countries. Since Vietnam is more powerful than Cambodia, the latter needs to exercise caution to avoid drawing reactions from the former in ways that could have a negative impact on Cambodia’s security and economic interests. Such reactions could be Vietnam’s non-cooperation on border issues or military training, for example.
But Cambodia’s asymmetrical power relationship with Vietnam began to change in the early years of the 21st century when the rise of China provided new opportunities for Cambodia to balance against its more powerful neighbours, Vietnam and Thailand, and Western powers. China became Cambodia’s natural ally given its economic potential and ideological appeal. Cambodia has also been a beachhead for China’s soft-power projection into Southeast Asia.[31] In 2010, China and Cambodia upgraded their relations to the level of a “comprehensive strategic partnership”. Consequently, the volume of two-way trade rose from US$1.4 billion in 2010 to US$9.53 billion in 2020.[32] During the same period, China’s aid to Cambodia rose from US$54.1 million in 2010 to US$420.56 million in 2020, while its investment in Cambodia jumped from just over US$1 billion[33] in 2010 to US$2.96 billion in 2019.[34] Sino-Cambodian military relations have also been strengthened, evidenced by increases in military aid, training and annual joint military exercises.[35] China also funded the renovation of Ream Naval Base, which has drawn much scrutiny and suspicion of China’s geostrategic ambitions.[36] Apparently, closer Sino-Cambodian relations have provided Phnom Penh with more leverage, and enabled it to narrow its perceived power gap with Vietnam. Cambodia has therefore been able to reassert its sovereignty and tackle the sensitive issue of Vietnamese immigrants without being too concerned about reprisals from Vietnam.[37]
The Vietnamese government has not publicly protested over the Cambodian government’s immigrant policies. Rather, it has extended its support by assisting poor Vietnamese to pay the residency card fees, and creating employment opportunities for those resettled from Tonle Sap Lake through Vietnamese companies operating in Cambodia.[38] Arguably, the lack of public protests by the Vietnamese government suggests that Vietnam is concerned that confrontation with Cambodia over the issue might push the latter further into China’s orbit. Given its ongoing territorial conflict with China in the South China Sea, and past efforts by China to encircle Vietnam through its alliances with Democratic Kampuchea, the Vietnamese government seems to fear history repeating itself.
CONCLUSION
Vietnam’s past territorial expansion and wars with Cambodia have made ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia an explosive political issue, even reaching the level of state-sanctioned discrimination and massacre in the 1970s. The extent of the Cambodian public’s satisfaction with their government’s recent actions against Vietnamese immigrants, as well as the Vietnamese government’s reactions, remain to be seen. If the 70,000 Vietnamese who have been granted temporary residency are denied citizenship status and deported to Vietnam, there will likely be a strong reaction from the Vietnamese government. However, many Cambodians will be frustrated if expulsions do not occur. The citizenship status of the thousands of Vietnamese living in Cambodia remains a controversial issue and therefore, anti-Vietnamese sentiments will continue to be salient in Cambodia for the foreseeable future.
However, the Cambodian government’s recent policy of granting temporary residency to Vietnamese living in Cambodia with the possibility for them to become Cambodian citizens is a step in the right direction in resolving a long-standing and contentious issue.
It should be noted that such a policy is effective only when the governments of both Cambodia and Vietnam undertake two additional measures. First, the two governments need to strengthen joint efforts in patrolling their porous borders to combat the flow of new illegal Vietnamese immigrants into Cambodia. Second, the Cambodian government needs to strengthen the capacity of, and reduce the venality within its immigration agency.
ENDNOTES
[1] See, for example, Christoph Sperfeldt, “Minorities and statelessness: Social exclusion and citizenship in Cambodia.” International Journal On Minority And Group Rights 27, no. 1 (2020): 94-120; Ben Mauk, “A People in Limbo, Many Living Entirely on the Water”, The New York Times Magazine, 28 March 2028, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/28/magazine/cambodia-persecuted-minority-water-refuge.html.
[2] David Chandler, The History of Cambodia, (Oxford, UK:Routledge, 2008).
[3] Ramses Amer, “The Ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia: A Minority at Risk?” Contemporary Southeast Asia 16, No. 2 (1994), p. 214.
[4] Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79 (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2002).
[5] Hoang Minh Vu, “Vietnam’s Near Abroad? Vietnam-Cambodia Relations in Historical and Regional Perspective, 1975-present”, paper presented at the Annual Association of Asian Studies, March 2019.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Minority Rights Group International, Cambodia: Ethnic Vietnamese, at https://minorityrights.org/minorities/ethnic-vietnamese/.
[8] Ate Hekstra and Meta Kong, “Vietnamese in Cambodia: Stateless, discriminated and in fear of deportation”, LICAS.NEWS, 15 September 2015, https://www.licas.news/2020/09/15/vietnamese-in-cambodia-stateless-discriminated-and-in-fear-of-deportation/.
[9] Ibid.
[10] General Department of Immigration, Foreigner Deportation Statistics, 2015-2022. Kheang Un’s personal communication.
[11] International Republican Institute, Survey of Cambodian Public Opinion, 30 November-15 December, 2011, at https://www.iri.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/201220May201020Survey20of20Cambodian20Public20Opinion2C20November203020E2809320December20252C202011.pdf; 12 July-6 August, 2010, at https://www.iri.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/iri.org/2011 January 20 Survey of Cambodian Public Opinion, July 12-August 6, 2010.pdf.
It should be noted that the survey does not explicitly refer to “illegal immigrants” as Vietnamese, but based on extant literature and the authors’ own research, it is certain that respondents equate “illegal immigrants” predominantly to illegal Vietnamese immigrants.
[12] International Republican Institute, “Survey of Public Opinion.” 12 January-February 2, 2013, at https://www.iri.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Cambodian20Poll20920Final20PUBLIC.pdf.
[13] Dr. Phea Kin, Director, International Relations Institute, Royal Academy of Cambodia, interview with authors, 7 April, 2022.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Kheang Un, Cambodia: Return to Authoritarianism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019). See also David Craig and Kimchoeun Pak, “Party Financing of Local Investment Projects: Elite and Mass Patronage”, in Cambodia’s Economic Transformation, edited by Caroline Hughes and Kheang Un (Copenhagen, Denmark: NIAS, 2011), pp. 219-244.
[16] Caroline Hughes and Netra Eng. “Facebook, Contestation and Poor People’s Politics: Spanning the Urban–Rural Divide in Cambodia?” Journal of Contemporary Asia 49, no. 3 (2019): 365-388.
[17] Dr. Phea Kin, interview with authors via Zoom, 7 April 2022.
[18] Kheang Un, Cambodia.
[19] World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS?locations=KH (accessed 20 April 2022).
[20] Ministry of Economy and Finance, Annual Review Meeting, “Report on Monitoring and Evaluation of Implementing PFMRP and Q4 and 2021 PFMRP Program.” March 23, 2022 (power point presentation, in Kheang Un’s possession).
[21] These indicators measure “perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government’s commitment to such policies”. The score ranges from -2.25 (weak) to +2.25 (strong). For more details, see World Bank, Worldwide Governance Indicators, at http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/Home/Documents (accessed 20 April 2022).
[22] Cambodian researcher, interviews with authors via Zoom, 03 April 2022.
[23] Steve Heder, “Cambodia–Vietnam: Special Relationship against Hostile and Unfriendly Forces.” In Southeast Asian Affairs 2018, edited by Malcolm Cook and Daljit Singh (Singapore: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, 2018), pp. 113–32.
[24] World Integrated Trade Solution, Cambodia, at https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/KHM/StartYear/2015/EndYear/2019/TradeFlow/Import/Indicator/MPRT-TRD-VL/Partner/VNM/Product/all-groups (accessed 20 March 2022).
[25] World Integrated Trade Solution, Cambodia, at https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/KHM/StartYear/2015/EndYear/2019/TradeFlow/Export/Indicator/XPRT-TRD-VL/Partner/VNM/Product/all-groups (accessed 20 April 2022).
[26] World Integrated Trade Solution, Cambodia, at https://www.google.com/search?q=cambodia+largest+trading+partners&rlz=1C1HIJC_enUS838US838&oq=Cambodia+largest+trading+&aqs=chrome.0.0i512j69i57j0i390l3.8320j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 (accessed 20 April 2022).
[27] U.S. State Department of State, 2021 Investment Climate Statements: Cambodia, at https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-investment-climate-statements/cambodia/#:~:text=Investment%20into%20Cambodia%20is%20dominated,by%20the%20end%20of%202020 (accessed 20 April 2022).
[28] Heng Kimkong, “Cambodia-Vietnam Relations: Key Issues and The Way Forward,” ISEAS Perspective, no 36, 2022, 12 April 2022, at /articles-commentaries/iseas-perspective/2022-36-cambodia-vietnam-relations-key-issues-and-the-way-forward-by-kimkong-heng/ (accessed 20 April 2022).
[29] Chanborey Cheunboran. Cambodia’s China Strategy: Security Dilemmas of Embracing the Dragon. Routledge, 2021.
[30] Heder, “Cambodia–Vietnam.”
[31] Jing Jig Luo and K. Un, “Cambodia: Hard Landing for China’s Soft Power?” ISEAS Perspective, Issue 2020, no. 111, 6 October 2020, at /wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ISEAS_Perspective_2020_111.pdf (accessed 22 April 2022).
[32] OEC, Cambodia/China, at https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/khm/partner/chn?redirect=true (accessed 21 April 2022).
[33] Prak Chanthul, “China Pumps Up Cambodia Economy, but at What Cost?” Reuters, 05 April 2011, at https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-56123620110405 (accessed 26 April 2022).
[34] Heimkhmera Suy, “No Simple Solution to China’s Dominance in Cambodia.” East Asia Forum, 26 December 2020, at https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2020/12/26/no-simple-solution-to-chinas-dominance-in-cambodia/ (accessed 24 April 2022).
[35] Jing Jing Luo and Kheang Un, “China’s Role in the Cambodian People’s Party’s Quest for Legitimacy”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 43, no. 2 (2021): 395-419.
[36] Ellen Nakashima and Cate Cadell, “China Secretly Building Naval Facility in Cambodia, Western Officials Say,” Washington Post, 6 June 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/06/cambodia-china-navy-base-ream/.
[37] Cambodian Researcher, interview with authors via Zoom, 03 April 2022.
[38] Hoang Minh Vu, interview with authors, 3 October 2019. See also Kheang Un and Jing Jing Luo, “Cambodia in 2019: Entrenching One Party Rule and Asserting National Sovereignty in the Era of Shifting Global Geopolitics.” In Southeast Asian Affairs 2020, edited by Malcolm Cook and Daljit Singh (Singapore: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, 2020), pp. 117-134.
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha. Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Most of the popular news sites in Vietnam are currently run by three private tech conglomerates, namely FPT, Zalo/VNG and VCCorp. On the face of it, this situation poses a challenge to the Vietnamese party-state. But in fact, there are no signs that these tech companies have ventured into editorial independence.
- The nexus between tech conglomerates and the Vietnamese party-state has augmented, not curtailed, new constraints on the media, with the former being subject to market pressures while remaining answerable to and at the mercy of propaganda officials.
- Vietnamese authorities have justified the controversial Press Shakeup Blueprint 2025 as a much-needed move to overhaul the bloated bureaucracy and overlapping ownership that have plagued the news industry. While legitimate to some extent, critics of the blueprint point out that it is a testament to how the Vietnamese party-state has constantly looked to weaponize regulations to induce news uniformity and instill self-censorship across the board.
- The façade of innovation of Vietnamese news outlets should not be interpreted as a harbinger of a more independent press. In fact, its continued strong control over mainstream media is emblematic of how the Vietnamese party-state has sought to engineer a superficial openness to camouflage a tighter grip on public discourse.
* Dien Nguyen An Luong is Visiting Fellow of the Media, Technology and Society Programme at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. Point of disclosure: before being appointed a Visiting Fellow, he worked for Thanh Nien, VnExpress and Zing News, the news organizations analysed in this paper.
ISEAS Perspective 2022/79, 5 August 2022
INTRODUCTION
This paper seeks to give a sense of the biggest and most influential media outlets in Vietnam, who owns and controls them, and what sorts of tools, methods and policies are employed to ensure the regime’s control over the information ecosystem. It addresses these questions: What are the vested interests behind private conglomerates that run newly emerging news outlets? Do these media entities exhibit a particular editorial slant that challenges the party line? How have the authorities sought to keep exerting control and influence on the press in this new media landscape at a time when they are struggling to rein in online discourse?
The vast majority of the most popular news sites in Vietnam are currently run by three private tech conglomerates, namely FPT Corporation, Zalo/VNG and VCCorp. On the face of it, this situation poses a potential challenge for the Vietnamese party-state, which does not allow private media ownership and has always sought to control public discourse. This paper argues that, in fact, there are no signs that these tech companies have exhibited any editorial independence; rather, they seem to be adopting a pragmatic stance and consulting closely with the government.
THE NEXUS BETWEEN TECH FIRMS AND THE PARTY-STATE
Internet growth in Vietnam got off to a rather low start. The Internet arrived in Vietnam only in 1997 and three years later, a mere 203,000 Vietnamese (or 0.25 per cent of the then total population) were online.[1] But due to growing demands from the business community and consumers for cheaper, faster and better Internet access[2], as well as the need to boost e-commerce as Vietnam opened up to the global economy[3], the authorities allowed for more competition from the private sector and the development of online media. As of January 2022, around 72 million Vietnamese, or 70 per cent of the population, were online.[4] In the early 2000s, established newspapers, including the mouthpiece of the Communist party, started to launch their online versions. Major tech companies entered the fray in the mid-2000s, accelerating the development of Vietnam’s online media space with prominent entrants that remain the most popular and most read today.[5] Since Vietnam ushered in economic liberalisation policies known as “Doi Moi” (renovation) in 1986, the party-state has “actively outsourced the burden of funding media to the market.”[6] All this attests to a rat race for readers’ attention and advertising dollars in an increasingly commercialised and growing media industry.
Just like everywhere else, Vietnam’s print newspapers have been haemorrhaging readers to online news sites. Of the top ten most-read online news sites in Vietnam, VnExpress has been the most popular. Among state-run sites that cracked the list, Tuoi Tre (Youth) and Thanh Nien (Young People), which also launched their online versions in the early 2000s, have remained the most influential established print newspapers in the country. Tuoi Tre operates under the remit of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and Thanh Nien under the Vietnam Youth Federation. Considered the most progressive newspapers in Vietnam in the 2000s, both were at the forefront of pushing the envelope in their coverage of endemic corruption, government malfeasance and social injustice. The other two state-run news outlets that are on the list are VietNamNet, owned by the Ministry of Information and Communications, and Dan Tri (Public Intellectual), which is under the Central Association for Education Promoting.
FIGURE 1. THE TOP 10 MOST-READ ONLINE NEWS SITES IN VIETNAM
(Sources: SimilarWeb and Semrush, February 2022[7])
The other news sites on the list centre on three tech conglomerates: FPT Corporation (the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology), Zalo Group, and VCCorp (Vietnam Communication Corporation). FPT Corporation owns VnExpress. Zalo Group, owned by VNG, runs Zing News and baomoi.com. VCCorp owns Kenh14.vn and Soha.vn. Closer scrutiny of the profiles of those corporations, how they are beholden to the authorities and what shapes the editorial line of their news outlets offer a glimpse of the nexus between tech conglomerates and the Vietnamese party-state.
What are their profiles?
FPT: Starting out as a food processing technology company in 1988, FPT Corporation is currently the largest IT group in Vietnam.[8] Its core business revolves around three sectors: information technology, telecommunications and education.
Zalo/VNG: VNG, the parent company of Zalo, has been billed as Vietnam’s first ever unicorn startup specialising in online gaming, e-commerce, music streaming and messaging application.[9] Zalo owns the eponymous premier chatting app in Vietnam, boasting more than 70 million users.[10]
VCCorp: The conglomerate brands itself as a leading technology and Internet player in Vietnam.[11] Its core business models focus on e-commerce, online content, online advertising and mobile content.
How beholden are these tech conglomerates to the Vietnamese government?
Of note, the interests of the Vietnamese party-state and those of such tech conglomerates have become increasingly aligned and intertwined.
FPT: According to Nikkei Asia, the government holds a 5.9 per cent stake in FPT Corporation while foreign investors own 48.75 per cent.[12] The conglomerate has been a major Internet Service Provider (ISP) that has been a part of the country’s Internet filtering regime, blocking sites at the behest of Vietnamese censors.[13]
Zalo/VNG: A major communication channel between the Vietnamese government and its citizens, Zalo has also been utilised as part of the e-government infrastructure across the country.[14] Vietnamese authorities have tapped into patriotic nationalism to talk the public into using the app.[15] Since 2018, Zalo/VNG, along with VCCorp and another Vietnamese tech firm, has been at the vanguard of what amounts to a national mission. The government has tasked those tech firms with jacking up the number of social media customers that use domestic platforms, a move designed to rival Meta’s Facebook and Google’s YouTube.[16]
VCCorp: VCCorp bankrolled and developed Lotus, a Vietnamese social network that was launched in 2019 to much fanfare and with wholehearted support from the government.[17]
What dictates their editorial line?
News outlets run by the private tech companies tailor their content to a young, Internet-savvy audience, a growing middle class, and the business community. Their topics of coverage are diverse, ranging from politics to society, world affairs to education, business to urban life, technology to youth, and entertainment to sports. But when it comes to politics, their editorial line has revolved chiefly around amplifying official sources and state-sanctioned narratives under the banner of innovative online journalism that embraces long form, visual and interactive storytelling. The treatment of any contentious issues is well within the boundaries of the permissible, serving mostly as a useful local-level overview. Coverage of governance malfeasance and corruption at the central level has been dictated by the political consensus and elite framing of the Vietnamese party-state. In sum, news outlets run by private tech conglomerates have never seemed intent on adopting any editorial slant that challenges the party line. As Nguyen-Thu (2018) observes, the growing clout of businesspeople in the media industry only means that they are likely to be inclined to shun “sensitive” topics and to focus instead on “commercially rewarding but politically benign content.”[18] The nexus between tech conglomerates and the Vietnamese party-state has augmented, not curtailed, new constraints on the media, with the former being subject to market pressures while remaining answerable to and at the mercy of propaganda officials. As Nguyen-Thu (2018) encapsulates, “the defining characteristics of the contemporary Vietnamese media is thus not just political censorship, but the raw combination of political surveillance and commercializing pressure.”[19]
“UNPREDICTABLE AND ARBITRARY” CENSORSHIP
Under the Press Law 2016, all press agencies in Vietnam, including those run by private tech companies, must be placed under the remit of the party, the government or various political, social, professional or religious associations and organizations.[20] Private participation in news organizations and television is allowed, but their editorial content must not be related to political and current news events.[21] In practice, private production of content has taken place for years. Many outlets have produced TV shows, hosted online news portals and published local versions of foreign magazines and publications. The same dynamic can also be observed in the television industry, where state-run stations are allowed to privatise their shows, apart from those on news and current affairs.[22]
Still, the bottom line is that in order to operate in Vietnam, private companies are required to partner with a state entity. FPT’s VnExpress is concurrently under the ownership of the Ministry of Science and Technology and Zalo’s Zing News under the remit of the Vietnam Publishing Association. The case of VCCorp is a bit trickier, however. All news sites run by the conglomerate, including the two on the most-read list, are technically licensed as “aggregated information websites”, not online newspapers. This means that these sites are obliged to operate effectively as news aggregators[23]; they are allowed to only republish news information from a state-approved whitelist. But in practice, many such aggregated information websites have had their own staff produce original content. Their technical workaround has been to publish such information in the name of citing from certain state-affiliated online newspapers, with the latter’s consent.[24] In that spirit, the VCCorp-run aggregated information websites are affiliated with news outlets that are owned by the Young Intellectuals and Scientists Association, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
The Central Commission of Propaganda and Education and the Ministry of Information and Communications have been at the helm in controlling the press, dictating over all state-run print, broadcast, online, and electronic media.[25] The Central Commission of Propaganda and Education acts as an ideological gatekeeper, advising the Communist party of Vietnam on how to keep tabs on the press. The Ministry of Information and Communications is mainly charged with regulating Vietnamese media through the licensing system and overseeing other legal, technical and economic aspects of the industry.[26] All editors-in-chief of those press agencies are Communist party members; this requirement has extended to those who hold senior editorial positions at established newspapers. Senior editors, including those of private-run ones, are summoned to weekly meetings with propaganda officials either every Tuesday in Hanoi, the capital, or every Wednesday in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s economic hub. In those meetings, published articles are reviewed and news outlets are subject to dressing-down or even fines if they are deemed not subservient enough to the party line. Propaganda officials also set the boundaries of what is publishable for upcoming topics of importance and public interests.
But such out-of-bounds markers have never been straightforward and have in fact become increasingly fuzzy. As Cain (2013, 3) observes, Vietnam’s media controls are “purposefully unpredictable and arbitrary”[27] in a bid to induce and perpetuate self-censorship among journalists and their editors in particular. Indeed, it is the Vietnamese party-state’s deployment of vagueness and uncertainty that plays a crucial role in enabling the authorities to keep the media on their toes. Thanks to a conflicting array of laws, decrees, and even the Constitution as far as it provides for press freedom, Vietnamese authorities on the one hand allow for criticism of the party-state but on the other can make such practices an offense.[28] All this puts the media in an ironic position: It is tasked with serving as a “forum for the people” while at the same time serving as a “mouthpiece of the Party.”
KILL THE CHICKEN TO SCARE THE MONKEY
The heyday of Vietnam’s critical journalism in the 2000s was short-lived. In mid-2008, after forcing a minister of transport to step down and exposing graft that sent scores of high-ranking officials to jail, two prominent Vietnamese journalists from the two most influential established newspapers, Tuoi Tre and Thanh Nien, were arrested.[29] Later that year, the editors-in-chief of the same newspapers were also fired. The authorities never clearly articulated their rationale for their dismissal, but it was not difficult to fathom: Their corruption coverage crossed the line. The concurrent dismissal of the top editors of Vietnam’s legacy news organisations was an unprecedented move in the history of the country’s journalism. This crackdown has since upended the country’s media landscape, perpetuating a climate of fear and self-censorship that only appears to exacerbate day by day.
A decade later, Tuoi Tre became the casualty to another unprecedented move. In 2018, its online version was suspended for three months after being accused of misquoting the then-Vietnamese president and publishing readers’ comments deemed by the authorities as undermining “national unity”.[30] The incident was likely to bring about a sense of déjà vu for VnExpress. The site was also on the brink of shutdown in 2004, three years into its operation, due to readers’ comments that were critical of the government policy on car imports.[31] VnExpress narrowly escaped the closure but since then, critical and investigative journalism has effectively been off its editorial agenda. Those cases are likely to have served as cautionary tales for the rest of the media landscape: Any editorial slant that crosses the party line risks imperilling the very survival of any news organisation, let alone private-run ones. Such tactics are in line with how the Vietnamese party-state controls the media. As Cain (2013) observes, because the authorities lack the wherewithal to punish every single transgressor, their strategy of choice is to kill the chicken to scare the monkey, or to go after “a handful of exemplars to keep the rest in line.”[32]
The 2018 punishment against Tuoi Tre has also appeared to further embolden Vietnamese authorities to dangle the no-holds-barred threat of withdrawing the license of any news outlet they consider straying from the party line. Nowhere is this strategy of choice more manifest than in what has been referred to as the Press Shakeup Blueprint 2025.[33] The blueprint, which was announced in 2015, seeks, among other things, to increase and centralise state control over the media by axing or merging hundreds of press organisations. The authorities have justified this move as being essential to the revamping of the bloated bureaucracy and overlapping ownership that have plagued the news industry.[34] While this justification is legitimate to some extent, critics of the blueprint point out that one of its key aims is to rein in media organisations deemed decamping from ideology. Most notably, the authorities seem intent on explicitly prohibiting news outlets from covering topics that are not aligned with the raison d’être of the agencies or associations they belong to.[35] For instance, judging by the tenor of the plan, Zing News would be allowed to run articles mostly on publishing activities since it falls under the remit of the Vietnam Publishing Association. If the outlet ventures into coverage of other topics deemed editorially sensitive or slanted by the censors, that could be considered in contravention of the stated aims of the license, which could lead to its withdrawal. This scenario is poised to affect almost half of all press organisations in Vietnam, which technically belong to various socio-political-professional associations (See Figure 2). The press overhaul has been enforced unevenly since 2019 and it remains to be seen what will become of Vietnam’s media landscape by 2025. But for now, the prospect of the blueprint appears to add another layer of uncertainty and suspense for a press that has already been cowed into submission. It is alsoa testament to how Vietnamese authorities have constantly looked to weaponise regulations to induce news uniformity and instill self-censorship across the board.
FIGURE 2. OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE OF PRESS ORGANISATIONS
(Source: Ministry of Information and Communications)
APPETITE FOR ALTERNATIVE NEWS SOURCES REMAINS HIGH
Vietnamese authorities have repeatedly urged the mainstream media to get out of the rut to enhance professional practices and embrace digital technology at what they call a make-or-break juncture for Vietnamese journalism. But as we have seen, the façade of innovation in Vietnam’s media landscape should not be understood as a harbinger of a more independent press.[36] In fact, its continued strong controls over mainstream media is emblematic of how the Vietnamese party-state has sought to engineer a superficial openness to camouflage a tighter grip on public discourse.
The era of swelling social media activism seems to have elicited a policy response aimed at further constraining traditional media in their coverage of contentious issues that cast the regime in an unflattering light. The fact that the privately-owned media outlets have also toed the Party’s line suggests that the appetite for alternative news sources will remain high.
ENDNOTES
[1] “The Internet Turns 20 in Vietnam: P6—Wi-Fi and Household Internet”, Tuoi Tre News, 12 November 2017, https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/features/20171112/ the-internet-turns-20-in-vietnam-p6-wifi-and-household-internet/42600.html
[2] Bjorn Surborg, “On-line with the People in Line: Internet Development and Flexible Control of the Net in Vietnam”, Geoforum 39, no.1 (2008): 344–57, http://citeseerx. ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.458.505&rep=rep1&type=pdf
[3] Tim Kelly and Michael Minges, Vietnam Internet Case Study (Switzerland: International Telecommunication Union, 2002), p. 29, https://www.itu.int/ ITU-D/ict/cs/vietnam/material/VNM%20CS.pdf
[4] “Digital 2022: Vietnam”. DataReportal, 15 February 2022. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2022-vietnam
[5] Zachary Abuza, Stifling the Public Sphere: Media and Civil Society in Vietnam, (Washington DC: National Endownment for Democracy 2015), p .9, https://www.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Stifling-the-Public-Sphere-Media-Civil-Society-Vietnam-Forum-NED.pdf
[6] Giang Nguyen-Thu. 2018. “Vietnamese Media Going Social: Connectivism, Collectivism, and Conservatism”. The Journal of Asian Studies 77, no. 4: 895–908
[7] “Digital 2022 Vietnam: The Essential Guide to the Latest Connected Behaviours”. We Are Social and Kepios, 15 February 2022.
[8] “FPT Corp.” Nikkei Asia, https://asia.nikkei.com/Companies/FPT-Corp
[9] Lien Hoang, “Vietnam’s first unicorn bets on AI and overseas growth”. Nikkei Asia, 30 April 2021. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-Spotlight/Vietnam-s-first-unicorn-bets-on-AI-and-overseas-growth
[10] “Zalo was honored as the leading messaging app in Vietnam”. Vietnam Insider, 29 March 2022. https://vietnaminsider.vn/zalo-was-honored-as-the-leading-messaging-app-in-vietnam/
[11] VC Corp. https://www.linkedin.com/company/vccorpvietnam/about/
[12] “FPT Corp.” Nikkei Asia, https://asia.nikkei.com/Companies/FPT-Corp
[13] Dien Nguyen An Luong, A Study of Vietnam’s Control over Online Anti-state Content, no. 05/2022 (Singapore: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, 2017), p. 8
[14] Uyen Diep with Ha Dang, “COVID-19: For Vietnam, Information Is A Public-Health Weapon”. Reporting Asean, 18 June 2021. https://www.reportingasean.net/covid-19-vietnam-iinformation-public-health-weapon/
[15] Phuong Loan, “‘Ở đâu có người Việt, ở đó có Zalo’” (Zalo will follow Vietnamese wherever they may go). Zing.vn, 15 January 2019. https://
news.vn/o-dau-co-nguoi-viet-o-do-co-zalo-post889846.html
[16] “Vietnam wants 50 percent of social media users on domestic platforms by 2020”. Reuters, 8 November 2020. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-socialmedia/vietnam-wants-50-percent-of-social-media-users-on-domestic-platforms-by-2020-idUSKCN1ND1FM
[17] “Vietnam’s social media crowd swells with new entrant to take on Facebook, Google”. Reuters, 17 September 2019. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-cybersecurity/vietnams-social-media-crowd-swells-with-new-entrant-to-take-on-facebook-google-idUSKBN1W20NH
[18] Giang Nguyen-Thu. 2018. “Vietnamese Media Going Social: Connectivism, Collectivism, and Conservatism”. The Journal of Asian Studies 77, no. 4: 895–908
[19] Ibid., p.898
[20] Vietnam Press Law 2016. https://wipolex-res.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/vn/vn111en.html
[21] Nguyen T.N., Bui C.T. 2019. “The state management of media activities in Vietnam “. The Russian Journal of Vietnamese Studies. Vol. 3. – N. 3. – P. 18-27. 10.24411/2618-9453-2019-10024
[22] Nguyen-Thu. “Vietnamese Media Going Social, p. 898
[23] Thi Thanh Phuong Nguyen-Pochan. “State management of social media in Vietnam.” The Russian Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Institute of the Far Eastern studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2021, 5 (1S), pp.23 – 33.
[24] Hien Minh, “Zing.vn và 18 tờ báo khác sẽ không còn được là “báo” nữa” (Zing.vn and other 18 newspapers will no longer be allowed to function as “newspaper”). Luat Khoa Magazine, 3 March 2020. https://www.luatkhoa.org/2020/03/zing-vn-va-18-to-bao-khac-se-khong-con-duoc-la-bao-nua/
[25] Zachary Abuza, Stifling the Public Sphere: Media and Civil Society in Vietnam, (Washington DC: National Endownment for Democracy 2015), p .10, https:/
/www.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Stifling-the-Public-Sphere-Media-Civil-Society-Vietnam-Forum-NED.pdf
[26] Giang Nguyen-Thu. 2018. “Vietnamese Media Going Social: Connectivism, Collectivism, and Conservatism”. The Journal of Asian Studies 77, no. 4: 895–908
[27] “Kill One to Warn One Hundred: The Politics of Press Censorship in Vietnam”, Cain, Geoffrey. ISSN: 1940-1612 , 1940-1620. The international journal of press/politics, Vol.19(1), p.85-107
[28] Ibid., p. 94
[29] Martha Ann Overland, “Top Vietnamese Journalists Arrested”. TIME, 16 May 2008. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1807113,00.html
[30] Vietnam withdraws licence of news site, issues fine. Bangkok Post, 17 July 2018. https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1505098/vietnam-withdraws-licence-of-news-site-issuesfine
[31] “VnExpress mất Tổng biên tập” (VnExress’ Editor-in-chief gets the ax). BBC Vietnamese, 10 November 2004. https://web.archive.org/web/20211208004318/https://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/forum/story/2004/11/printable/041110_vnexpress_mercedes
[32] “Kill One to Warn One Hundred”, Cain, p. 92
[33] “Vietnam introduces draft planning for national press management”. Tuoi Tre News, 26 September 2015. https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20150926/vietnam-introduces-draft-planning-for-national-press-management/38123.html
[34] Nguyen T.N., Bui C.T. 2019. “The state management of media activities in Vietnam “. The Russian Journal of Vietnamese Studies. Vol. 3. – N. 3. – P. 18-27. 10.24411/2618-9453-2019-10024
[35] “Quyết liệt triển khai Quy hoạch phát triển và quản lý báo chí toàn quốc đến năm 2025” (Drastically implementing the Press Plan 2025). The Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information, 25 December 2020. https://abei.gov.vn/phat-thanh-truyen-hinh/quyet-liet-trien-khai-quy-hoach-phat-trien-va-quan-ly-bao-chi-toan-quoc-den-nam-2025/107464
[36] “2021 World Press Freedom Index”. Reporters Without Borders. https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2021
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha. Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the Vietnamese government has appeared sympathetic to Moscow, unwilling to denounce its aggression. Facing criticism from some quarters of the public, Vietnam’s propaganda machine has used social media channels to justify the government’s position.
- Mắt Thần (Divine Eye), a state-linked Facebook page, has mobilized pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine sentiments by publishing videos on two old Ukrainian media items about Ho Chi Minh that it considers offensive.
- The controversial episode has led to conflicting reactions from Ukrainian and Russian authorities, as well as Vietnamese netizens, who are themselves divided over the war.
- Divine Eye’s attempt to “weaponize” Ho Chi Minh to mobilize public support for Vietnam’s stance on the Ukrainian conflict is another example showing that, more than 50 years after his passing, Ho Chi Minh’s emotional appeal remains a useful tool for Vietnam’s propagandists.
- However, the reach of Divine Eye’s videos is rather limited, and the effectiveness of this propaganda remains unclear.
* Olga Dror is Professor of History in the Department of History, Texas A&M University, USA. She has written extensively on Vietnamese religions, intellectual history, and various aspects of the Vietnam War. Her current research focuses on the personality cult around Ho Chi Minh.
ISEAS Perspective 2022/61, 13 June 2022
INTRODUCTION
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Vietnamese official press has presented itself as non-partisan. However, given Vietnam’s historical ties with Russia, and Moscow’s present role as Hanoi’s main arms supplier, the Vietnamese government has appeared sympathetic to Moscow, and has been unwilling to denounce its aggression.[1] Vietnam abstained on two United Nations (UN) General Assembly resolutions that condemned the invasion and voted against the suspension of Russia’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council. On 19 April 2022, the Russian News Agency also announced that Vietnam and Russia are planning to hold a joint military exercise in 2022.[2] Yet, many Vietnamese intellectuals and members of the public have held a contrary view, condemning Russia’s invasion and showing support for Ukraine.
Against this backdrop, there have been indications that Vietnam’s propaganda machine has used different tools and narratives to justify its initial position on the conflict, often on social media. This article looks at how Mắt Thần (Divine Eye), a state-linked Facebook page, has mobilized pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian sentiments by digging up two old media items about Ho Chi Minh from Ukrainian sources that the page considers offensive. The episode shows that more than 50 years after his passing, Ho Chi Minh remains not only an important source of legitimacy for the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) but also an effective mobilizing symbol for its propaganda machine.
According to Divine Eye’s self-description,[3] it is a media critic and a “multidimensional” information sharing channel. The page was created on 29 March 2021. As of 22 May 2022, it had 606,000 followers and followed no one. Divine Eye’s first video was uploaded on 27 April 2021. Since then, the page has posted between five and seven political videos per day, each 12-13 minutes long. Since 21 November 2021, Divine Eye has also posted the same materials on other channels, such as activepress24.com and canhco.net, suggesting that it is a propaganda platform that seeks to maximize its reach to the Vietnamese public. The page’s pro-state tone and the significant volume of materials it produces every day also suggests that it is well-resourced and backed by Vietnam’s official propaganda machine. It has also been identified by some researchers to be among the largest pro-Russia Facebook pages/groups in Vietnam.[4]
Divine Eye’s logo is similar to the Divine Eye symbol in Caodaism, a syncretic religion in southern Vietnam, which reminds followers that God sees everything. However, the logo seems to have been copied from an image of the esoteric evil eye, the glance of which is believed to destroy or harm anyone on whom it falls. Ironically, the original logo was first posted online by a Ukrainian-Israeli artist who strongly denounced the Russian war in Ukraine.[5]
Initially focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic and the South China Sea dispute, Divine Eye has since February 2022 switched its attention to Russia’s war in Ukraine and adopted a markedly pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine tone. Towards this end, it posted on 19 March 2022 a video in which it appealed to the Vietnamese public to be irate over the fact that “Ukrainian Media Made a Film Insulting President Ho Chi Minh – Calling Him a Dictator of History”.[6] The video, which is 12 minutes and 42 seconds long, refutes two media items produced in Ukraine: a 2013 article and a 2017 documentary. Divine Eye accused these media items of slandering Ho Chi Minh by calling him a dictator. By 22 May 2022, the video had been viewed 1.5 million times and shared 3,500 times, gathering 43,000 reactions and 12,000 comments.
Figure 1 – Screenshot of Divine Eye’s Video (21 May 2022)
One day after publishing the post, Divine Eye reinforced its argument with another video, asserting that “Ukrainians Must Feel Ashamed When They Learn That Not Only Russia But the Whole World Respects Uncle Ho”.[7] The video opens with an image of a monument of Ho Chi Minh erected in Moscow in 1990 with a superscription across the screen: “Uncle Ho – An Icon Revered by the Entire World, But Ukrainians Still Fall into an Unforgivable Mistake.” This is followed by an image of Lenin’s monument being destroyed and then images of numerous monuments honouring Ho Chi Minh in countries around the world. By 22 May, this video had garnered 45,000 likes, 2,800 shares, 3,100 comments, and 965,000 views. Both posts are among the most visible and discussed videos that Divine Eye has ever produced.
It is notable that the two Ukrainian media items that Divine Eye refers to in its videos were published long ago and gained little attention until the page dug them up. The first video referred to an article published in April 2013 by Oleg Bagan, the current Director of the Dimitry Dontsov Scientific and Ideological Center in Drohobych in western Ukraine, in the online newspaper Українська Правда (Ukrainian Truth). Written after the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the article evaluated his “left-populist” policies and connected them to Lenin’s policies and how these resulted in great suffering and loss of life. The author then claimed that Lenin’s policies were repeated by various charismatic leaders of dictatorial regimes such as Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Kim Il Sung, Fidel Castro, Josip Broz Tito, Muammar Gaddafi, and Saddam Hussein.[8] This was the only mention of Ho Chi Minh in Bagan’s article. As of 21 May 2022, more than nine years after its publication, the article had been read only 280 times.
The second Ukrainian media item mentioned by Divine Eye was produced over four years ago. On 7 November 2017, the centenary of the October Revolution, the Ukrainian 24TV channel published a 12-minute documentary titled “Ho Chi Minh – a God-like Elder-Dictator with a Bolshevist Heart.” The documentary was made by Andriy Konkov, a Ukrainian journalist and news editor of the channel, as part of his “Dictators” series.[9] Konkov described Ho Chi Minh’s childhood and his trips to France, the Soviet Union, China, and other places. He also discussed Ho Chi Minh’s role in the liberation of Vietnam from the French. However, Konkov also called Ho Chi Minh an agent of the Kremlin and raised topics considered politically sensitive in Vietnam, such as Ho Chi Minh’s relationships with women; the 1953-56 Land Reform, which he said took 100,000 lives; and the repression of intellectuals. He concluded that Ho Chi Minh was a dictator of an authoritarian state. It is important to note that 24TV channel has a very limited daily viewership of 1.1% in Ukraine.[10] By 22 May 2022, the video had only registered 4,826 views, nowhere close to the viewership of some of Konkov’s other works that on average garnered around 50,000 views each.
UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN OFFICIAL REACTIONS
In March 2018, several months after the release of Konkov’s video, Oksana Yurinets, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and head of a parliamentary group for inter-parliamentary relations with Vietnam, wrote a letter to the director of 24TV channel at the request of then-Vietnamese Ambassador to Ukraine Nguyen Anh Tuan. In the letter, Yurinets demanded that the channel “refute unreliable information” in the video as it “undermines Ho Chi Minh’s prestige” and “misleads local people, especially those who are sympathetic with Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam.” However, she did not specify what information she wanted removed, and nothing was done about the video.[11] Whatever the case, Vietnamese propagandists ignored it for five years as they did Bagan’s article for nine years. The fact that Divine Eye dug up these old media items to mobilize anti-Ukraine sentiments following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could hardly have been a coincidence.
On 21 March, two days after the release of Divine Eye’s first video, VOA Vietnamese published a report in which Nataliya Zhynkina, Ukraine’s Chargé d’Affaires in Vietnam, claimed that digging up and using these two old media items was “part of an information war, with the aim of causing enmity between the people of Ukraine and Vietnam.” Zhynkina stressed that the pieces got almost no attention in Ukraine and noted that Ukrainian delegations to Vietnam always respectfully visited Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum. She also added that there was a high school named after Ho Chi Minh in Kyiv, and in 2015, the Ukrainian Library of Parliament held an exhibition on “Ho Chi Minh and Ukraine” to mark the 125th anniversary of his birth. Zhynkina alleged that “the origin of this attack is an information source on Facebook, which broadcasts false content and propaganda from Russia”.[12] On 23 March, Divine Eye struck back by accusing Zhynkina of causing a controversy “to force Vietnam to act to protect Ukraine” and condemning her for meeting with “the opposition” in Vietnam.[13]
The episode also garnered attention from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On 6 April 2022, at her weekly briefing, Maria Zakharova, the Ministry’s spokeswoman, was asked by a representative of the Ministry’s journal, Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn’ [International Life], about the reactions in Vietnam to the Ukrainian media items “insulting” Ho Chi Minh. Zakharova commented that: “[T]his is a highly unsavoury story. At the same time, it is the norm for the Kiev regime and those who follow its mainstream of twisting history.”[14] The response suggests that Zaharova was unaware of the nature of the two Ukrainian media items, or that she intentionally associated the dated productions of two individuals with the official view of the current Ukrainian government. On 15 April, the excerpts related to Vietnam from Zakharova’s briefing were posted on the website of the Russian Embassy in Vietnam in both Russian and Vietnamese.[15] On 17 April, Divine Eye posted a video praising the response of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. By 22 May, the video had garnered 290,000 views, 1,200 comments, 12,000 reactions, and almost 1,000 shares.[16] The whole episode suggests that Divine Eye is closely connected to pro-Russian interests.
VIETNAM IN-BETWEEN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE
There are some fallacies in Divine Eye’s videos. The creators of the videos conveniently chose to focus on Konkov’s claim that Ho Chi Minh was a dictator and ignore all other facts mentioned by him, such as Ho Chi Minh’s role in liberating Vietnam from French colonialism. Moreover, the videos also assign collective guilt to the Ukrainians, extending the blame for the old media items created by two individuals on the current Ukrainian government and President Zelensky, who only assumed office in 2019. However illogical this approach is, some comments on the videos show that it seems to work. One Facebook user claimed that the defeat of Ukraine, which according to him is ruled by a clown (a reference to Zelensky’s previous career as a comedian), is the joy and happiness of the Russian people, whom the author conflates with the Soviet Union, and is also the joy of Vietnamese citizens since “the clown dared to speak ill of the leader of our country Vietnam.” This disregard for logic impedes balanced, well-informed discussions, by appealing to emotions instead.
Most Divine Eye followers respond to these emotional cords by asserting their love, respect, and veneration for Ho Chi Minh. They found Divine Eye videos skilfully produced and convincing. One follower called Konkov (or TV24 channel, or Ukrainians in general—it is unclear from the sentence), “idiots and a bunch of stupid reactionaries, who do not know anything about the great and respected leader, Ho Chi Minh.” Another one claimed that “[t]hose who dare to offend the beloved leader of the Vietnamese people, Uncle Ho Chi Minh, will be cursed by the whole world and their country will be ravaged by war!” Another credited Divine Eye’s video for changing his opinion on the war—while he had initially supported the Ukrainians, his sympathies had now switched to the Russians as he felt that the Ukrainians had abused the Vietnamese people.
Obviously, Divine Eye caters to an “echo chamber”—a very specific self-selected audience that supports its views.[17] However, among them, there was a small number of reactions that were critical of Putin and Russia. One comment noted that both Vietnam and Ukraine are independent countries, and no country has the right to impose what path another must take. Another comment asked: “Why force them to follow dictatorial socialism, while they want to follow the capitalist way, the way of independence, and freedom? Forcing Ukraine to follow the way it does not want shows that Putin belongs in the jungles, not in the domain of international law.”
Divine Eye’s anti-Ukrainian position does not seem to align with the view of the broader Vietnamese public. For example, Dien Nguyen An Luong and Amirul Adli Bin Rosli find that Vietnamese internet users are often critical of the government’s stance vis-à-vis the war in Ukraine.[18] There have even been some demonstrations and projects in Vietnam where people collect money, clothes, medicine, and other goods to send to Ukraine as many Vietnamese feel affinity with Ukraine or are appalled by Russian aggression.[19] Divine Eye is trying to persuade opponents of the Vietnamese government’s approach and those on the fence to fall in line, behind Uncle Ho.
CONCLUSION
Ho Chi Minh, both during his life and after, has played an important role in the mobilization of Vietnamese citizens to support the CPV and its policies. His personality cult has been indispensable in this process.[20] Generations of Vietnamese have been raised with the avuncular image of Ho Chi Minh, and been taught to love and be devoted to Uncle Ho. Although the grip of the Ho Chi Minh cult on Vietnamese minds has been weakening in recent years, the CPV still uses it to keep the Vietnamese in line.[21] Divine Eye’s attempt to “weaponize” Ho Chi Minh in mobilizing pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine sentiments, and by extension public support for Vietnam’s stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is yet another example of Ho Chi Minh’s emotional appeal remaining a useful tool for Vietnam’s propagandists, more than 50 years after his passing.
The effectiveness of this propaganda remains unclear, especially since the reach of Divine Eye’s videos is rather limited. Where Vietnam’s official position is concerned, Hanoi has announced that it will provide Ukraine with US$500,000 in humanitarian aid. During a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. on 11 May, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also reaffirmed Vietnam’s position of respecting the UN Charter, principles of international law, states’ independent sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as addressing all disputes through peaceful means without use or threat of force.[22]
While short of calling out Russia, the statement’s neutral undertone suggests that despite its voting on the UN’s resolutions to preserve ties with Russia, Vietnam also wishes to moderate its stance on the Ukrainian conflict to avoid hurting its relationship with Ukraine and with the West.
ENDNOTES
[1] For an analysis on the pro-Russian online sentiments in Vietnam, see Hoang Thi Ha and Dien Nguyen An Luong, “The Russia-Ukraine War: Unpacking Online Pro-Russia Narratives in Vietnam” ISEAS Perspective 2022/44, 27 April 2022. /articles-commentaries/iseas-perspective/2022-44-the-russia-ukraine-war-unpacking-online-pro-russia-narratives-in-vietnam-by-hoang-thi-ha-and-dien-nguyen-an-luong/.
[2] “Rossia I Vietnam Provedut Novye Mezhdunarodnye Uchenia” [Russia and Vietnam to Hold New International Military Exercises], TASS, 19 April 2022, https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/14407641.
[3] https://www.facebook.com/MatThan.Official. At the end of May, the page was inaccessible for several days.
[4] See, for example, Hoang Thi Ha and Dien Nguyen An Luong, “The Russia-Ukraine War.”
[5] The two images are carbon copies. The artist has many other similar images. See: https://www.etsy.com/il-en/listing/944657825/esoteric-evil-eye-svg-2-turkish-eye-svg
[6] I am indebted to Nina Grigoreva, my former classmate in Russia, for drawing my attention to this video that served as a starting point for this article. See, Mắt Thần, “Phẫn Nộ! Truyền Thông Ukraina Làm Phim Xúc Phạm Chủ Tịch HCM, Đổ Lỗi Cho Việt Nam” [Get Indignant! Ukrainian Media Made Films Insulting President Ho Chi Minh, Blaming Vietnam], 19 March 2022, https://www.facebook.com/MatThan.Official/videos/3131807903757662/. While the official page of Divine Eye has been restored, the video remained inaccessible as of 7 June. However, it can be found at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1114053539171034 and on some Youtube channels.
[7] Mắt Thần, “Người Ukraina Sẽ Phải Xấu Hổ Khi Biết Rằng Không Chỉ Nga Mà Cả Thế Giới Kính Nể Bác Hồ” [Ukrainians Must Be Ashamed To Learn That Not Only Russia But The Whole World Respects Uncle Ho], 21 March 2022, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=329331582501785 Like the previous clip, this one is inaccessible on Divine Eye’s page as of 7 June, but can be found at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3196205573951482.
[8] Oleg Bagan, “’Чавес – вічно живий!’. Кілька тез про типологію одного явища” [‘Chavez is alive forever!’ Several Theses on the Typology of One Phenomenon], Українська Правда, 18 April 2013, https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/columns/2013/04/18/6988429/
[9] Андрій Конько,“Хо Ши Мін – “богоподібний старець-диктатор” з більшовицьким серцем” [Ho Chi Minh is a ‘God-like Elder-Dictator’ with a Bolshevik’s Heart], 7 November 2017, https://24tv.ua/ho_shi_min__bogopodibniy_starets_diktator_z_bilshovitskim_sertsem_n886343
[10] “Channel 24,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_24_(Ukraine)
[11] “Нардеп від БПП заступилася за комуністичного лідера” [The People’s Deputy from the BPP Stood Up for the Communist Leader ], 24TV, 21 March 2018, https://24tv.ua/ru/nardep_ot_bpp_vstupilas_za_kommunisticheskogo_lidera_n941296.
[12] VOA Vietnamese, “Đại biện Ukraine ở VN: Xới lên bài viết về Hồ Chí Minh là ‘tấn công thông tin’, gây thù hằn,” [Ukrainian Chargé d’Affaires in Vietnam: Digging Up Articles About Ho Chi Minh is an ‘Information Attack’, Inciting Hatred], 21 March 2022, https://www.voatiengviet.com/a/dai-bien-ukraine-o-vn-xoi-len-bai-viet-ve-ho-chi-minh-la-tan-cong-thong-tin-gay-thu-han/6494295.html
[13] It is published on the Divine Eye’s alternative websites on 23 March 2022: Nam Anh, “Đại Diện Ukraine Tại Việt Nam Lên Tiếng Về 2 Ấn Phẩm ‘Tấn Công Thông Tin’ Gây Thù Hằn” [Ukrainian Representative in Vietnam Speaks Out About 2 Publications – ‘Propaganda Attacks’ Inciting Hatred], https://canhco.net/dai-dien-ukraine-tai-viet-nam-len-tieng-ve-2-an-pham-tan-cong-thong-tin-gay-thu-han-p597427.html and https://activepress24.com/dai-dien-ukraine-tai-viet-nam-len-tieng-ve-2-an-pham-tan-cong-thong-tin-gay-thu-han.
[14] Брифинг официального представителя МИД России М.В.Захаровой, Москва, 6 апреля 2022 года [Briefing of the Official Representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs M. V. Zakharova, Moscow, 6 April, 2022]. https://www.mid.ru/ru/press_service/video/brifingi/1808254/#19, transcript in English “Briefing by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova,” Moscow, 6 April 2022, https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1808254/.
[15] The post in Russian: https://vietnam.mid.ru/ru/press-centre/news/iz_brifinga_m_v_zakharovoy/ and in Vietnamese: https://vietnam.mid.ru/vi/press-centre/news/tr_ch_cu_c_h_p_b_o_c_a_m_v_zakharova/.
[16] “Bộ Ngoại Giao Nga Lên Tiếng Chỉ Trích Sự Thiếu Hiểu Biết Của Ukraina Khi Xuyên Tạc Về Chủ Tịch HCM” [“Russian Foreign Ministry Criticizes Ukraine’s Ignorance When Distorting [Representation] of President Ho Chi Minh”], 17 April 2022, https://www.facebook.com/MatThan.Official/videos/1054424731812359
[17] Hoang Thi Ha and Dien Nguyen An Luong, “The Russia-Ukraine War.”
[18] Dien Nguyen An Luong and Amirul Adli Bin Rosli, “Vietnam Netizens’ Reactions at Odds with Vietnam’s Stance on Ukraine,” Fulcrum, 16 March 2022, https://fulcrum.sg/vietnam-netizens-reactions-at-odds-with-vietnams-stance-on-ukraine/.
[19] This is based on numerous posts on Facebook as well as conversations with Vietnamese and expats living in Vietnam.
[20] See, for example, Olga Dror, “Establishing Hồ Chí Minh’s Cult: Vietnamese Traditions and Their Transformations,” The Journal of Asian Studies 75, no. 2 (2016), pp. 433-466.
[21] More and more young Vietnamese do not see Ho Chi Minh as an indispensable element of their lives despite the state’s efforts. In the market economy, it is becoming more difficult to inundate book stores with books by or about Ho Chi Minh. As a result, the circulation of these works is quite limited. If in the past a publishing house would publish a 100,000 or 200,000 copies of such books, currently the run is often limited to 300 to 500 copies.
[22] Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh Ahead of U.S.-ASEAN Summit”, 11 May 2022, https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/event/220511_Prime_Minister_Chinh_0.pdf.
| ISEAS Perspective is published electronically by: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Singapore 119614 Main Tel: (65) 6778 0955 Main Fax: (65) 6778 1735 Get Involved with ISEAS. Please click here: /support/get-involved-with-iseas/ | ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute accepts no responsibility for facts presented and views expressed. Responsibility rests exclusively with the individual author or authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright is held by the author or authors of each article. | Editorial Chairman: Choi Shing Kwok Editorial Advisor: Tan Chin Tiong Editorial Committee: Terence Chong, Cassey Lee, Norshahril Saat, and Hoang Thi Ha. Managing Editor: Ooi Kee Beng Editors: William Choong, Lee Poh Onn, Lee Sue-Ann, and Ng Kah Meng Comments are welcome and may be sent to the author(s). |
“Real Exchange Rate and Firm Productivity: The Case of Vietnamese Manufacturing” by Minh Hong Phi