The Economist - USA (2021-02-06)

32 Asia The EconomistFebruary 6th 2021

2

Banyan The shock of the old

W

hen comparedwith the vibrant

bustle and chaos in the rest of

Hanoi—where drag queens perform for

rapturous audiences and break-dancers

throw down moves on the city’s pave-

ments—the five-yearly congress of the

Communist Party of Vietnam could not

have stood in starker contrast. The exact-

ly spaced potted palms and bouquets; the

serried ranks of 1,600-odd delegates (few

of them women) all dutifully raising red

cards to vote; even the ban on delegates

meeting to chat in the evening: every-

thing was arranged to present a narrative

of conformity, calm and consensual

order within one of the world’s most

secretive political organisations.

And yet the main outcome of the

congress appears, on the face of things,

anything but orthodox. The party has

tended to disapprove of the kind of per-

sonal power that Xi Jinping has gathered

next door in China. Rather, authority is

spread among the four “pillars” of the

government: the general secretary of the

party, the prime minister, the president

and the speaker of the national assembly.

At the previous congress in 2016 it was

unusual enough that the general secre-

tary, Nguyen Phu Trong, saw off a pow-

erful reformist rival to secure a second

term—especially since he was well over

65, the usual age limit for re-election to

the Politburo. He then also assumed the

position of president on the death of the

incumbent in 2018, compressing four

pillars to three.

Almost certainly the outgoing prime

minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, fancied his

chances of succeeding Mr Trong as gen-

eral secretary, the most important of the

top four posts. Mr Phuc has overseen an

impressive campaign against the co-

vid-19 pandemic, despite a recent spate

of infections. He has extensive executive

experience and a broad patronage net-

work. Yet Mr Phuc comes from the centre

of Vietnam, when all previous general

secretaries have hailed from the commu-

nist heartland in the north. Moreover, says

Le Hong Hiep of the iseas-Yusof Ishak

Institute in Singapore, that same patron-

age network, in Mr Trong’s eyes, counted

against him. It might have constrained Mr

Phuc’s ability to continue Mr Trong’s “blaz-

ing furnace” campaign against corruption,

which has brought down party bigwigs,

business folk and others. Mr Trong main-

tains that rooting out corruption is the key

to the party’s survival.

In the event, Mr Trong and his allies

succeeded in blocking Mr Phuc. But Mr

Trong’s protégé, Tran Quoc Vuong, also

failed to win the job of general secretary.

Mr Vuong, a party stalwart and former top

prosecutor, heads the anti-corruption

campaign. But he lacks his own network of

allies, which seems to have diminished his

standing among members of the party’s

powerful central committee.

A stinging blow for Mr Trong? Think

again. For, having ruled out Messrs Phuc

and Vuong as general secretary, and

lacking a compromise candidate, the

congress voted instead for the white-

haired Mr Trong to remain for a third

term. That is unprecedented, but it may

have been Mr Trong’s intention all along.

His ability to stay in power is all the more

remarkable given that he is thought to

have suffered a stroke in 2019. Never, says

Tuong Vu of the University of Oregon,

make the mistake of underestimating Mr

Trong.

Even so, he was no blazing furnace at

the congress, appearing frail. Specu-

lation is swirling about whether he

might step down midway through his

new term. If so, his successor is likely to

be either the new speaker of the national

assembly, Vuong Dinh Hue, an econom-

ics professor and former finance min-

ister, or the new prime minister, Pham

Minh Chinh. The promotion of this

former police general and head of party

personnel and organisation is also un-

usual. Until now the prime minister has

been chosen from among the deputy

prime ministers. (The 66-year-old Mr

Phuc, meanwhile, has been kicked up-

stairs to the largely ceremonial post of

president, restoring the four pillars.)

For now, the conservative writ of the

76-year-old Mr Trong, a Marxist theoreti-

cian, runs in a country of 96m, more than

half of whom are under the age of 35. Mr

Trong means not only to continue his

anti-corruption drive. He also means to

crack down further on Vietnam’s rela-

tively open social media. His enduring

sway suggests the party’s intolerance of

dissent will continue, says Thao Dinh, a

prominent young activist. A tight grip,

Mr Trong seems to believe, is necessary

to keep the country on course. Lighten

up, the drag queens and break-dancers

seem to be answering.

The new general secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party is a surprise

to more than 2,700 (see chart on previous

page). On February 1st users of the service

erupted in protest after it blocked some 250

accounts, including those of prominent

journalists, at the government’s request.

When it hastily unblocked them, citing

freedom of speech, the government replied

with a threat to sue it for “disobedience to

legal blocking orders”. The fingered ac-

counts had shared a provocative hashtag

regarding the farmers’ protest, but its use

in most cases appeared inadvertent. It does

not help the government’s case that several

of the journalists, all among its critics,

found themselves charged by police with

sedition in multiple bjp-ruled states in

similarly worded rapsheets. Their crime

was to have raised questions regarding

whether one farm protester had been killed

in a road accident, as police claim, or by po-

lice gunfire, as his family and independent

medical experts reportedly believe.

In another move to pre-empt open dis-

cussion of touchy issues, the foreign min-

istry has imposed new rules on academic

conferences. In addition to the existing,

stringent scrutiny of foreigners invited to

conventional events, it will now require

state-run institutes and universities to

seek prior permission from the ministry

for any online conference or seminar

“clearly related to India’s internal matters”.

Professors may soon find it harder to travel

abroad, too. Police in the state of Uttara-

khand have announced that henceforth,

anyone they deem to have posted “anti-na-

tional” content on the internet will not get

a passport. Not to be outdone, police in Bi-

har say that anyone who joins a protest can

forget ever having a government job or con-

tract—a jarring rule in a country that won

independence through peaceful protest. 7