The 14th National Party Congress (NPC), among the most important meetings for the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), will take place in Hanoi this week.
The summit is ostensibly used to confirm the CPV’s leadership for the next five years (at least in theory — quite a few members from the 13th Congress stepped down early amid allegations of corruption).
Ultimately, however, it is about the allocation of power within Vietnam’s political system and, by extension, Vietnam more broadly.
With this in mind, this article outlines a few key points worth keeping in mind for a more nuanced understanding of what is happening at this once every five years event.
Vietnam is in transition from a command to a market economy.
Prior to the Doi Moi reforms in 1986 Vietnam was a command economy with resources almost entirely allocated by the state. This gave the state huge power.
Doi Moi, however, kicked off a period of liberalisation that saw privatisation of state assets, private ownership, and foreign direct investment, particularly in manufacturing, significantly restructure the economy leading to rapid economic growth.
At a more structural level, however, it was the reallocation of power from the government to the market that really made the big difference, a process that is ongoing.
The Vietnamese government is populist.
The Government of Vietnam is known to make big announcements appealing to one section of the public, only to make a contradictory announcement to another.
For example, Resolution 68 announced last year was supposed to put Vietnam’s domestic private sector at the centre of the country’s economic development, then just last week Resolution 79 put the state-owned sector at the heart of the country’s economic development.
Similarly, it often says one thing and then does another.
For example, the EVFTA and the CPTPP both require member states to ratify the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 87 allowing workers to form independent trade labour unions.
Vietnam, however, not only dragged its feet on ratification, but also reportedly issued a directive to party members that, though the law may allow for it, in actual practice, they should not allow new labour groups to be established.
Only about 5 percent of Vietnamese are members of the party.
Party leadership, in theory, is elected by the members of the CPV, which account for about 5 percent of Vietnam’s population.
This is important to remember when considering what a mandate to lead might look like and what role representation might play in any mandate.
On that note, when the provinces were merged last year, of the new Party Secretaries, just three out of 34 were women, with none under the age of 45. Likewise, the chairpersons of the 34 new provinces were all men over the age of 45.
Vietnam has elections.
On that note, once every five years, the Government of Vietnam does hold elections for deputies to the National Assembly, for which most Vietnamese over the age of 18 are entitled to participate.
However, this is usually held after the National Party Congress — this year it will be in March — at which point the leadership will already have been chosen.
Moreover, candidates also require approval from the CPV to run, significantly limiting the opportunity for opposition voices to make their way into the National Assembly.
FDI is crucial to Vietnam’s economy.
Vietnam is hugely dependent on foreign direct investment.
Samsung alone accounts for roughly 15 percent of Vietnam’s total exports.
Many FDI firms are also only minimally exposed to the country, using Vietnam for end-of-the-line assembly and testing, parts of the supply chain that can relatively easily shift elsewhere.
Vietnam is also surrounded by densely populated, low-wage jurisdictions to which these supply chains could relatively easily shift.
Foreign direct investment has also been a critical economic driver over the last forty years, the growth of which is often cited as evidence of the government’s strong economic credentials.
With this in mind, foreign investment policy is not likely to change significantly, whatever the outcome.
The press is a part of the state.
Finally, all mainstream media in Vietnam is controlled in one way or another by the state.
Reporting on the NPC, therefore, is likely to be highly choreographed and coordinated with little room, if any, for the local press to go off-script.
Moreover, in the lead-up to the NPC, there has been a broad crackdown on public commentary, the trials in absentia of human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, journalist Le Trung Khoa, and blogger Hoang Thi Hong Thai, combined signalling that public commentators should be careful where they tread.
The point is that what comes out, with respect to the NPC, through the local press should be taken with a grain of salt, and it should be expected that what is reported will likely be only the tip of the iceberg.