Vietnam's new leadership and challenges before it

“Vietnam wants to keep social and political stability to maintain an annual economic growth rate of about 6% for the near future”- Ngo Vinh Long, Professor of Asian History at the University of Maine.

Anti-corruption has been a major agenda for the Vietnamese government for a prolonged period. During the last tenure of the cabinet, corruption was the biggest issue faced by society and government. Proactively preventing and resolving to fight against corruption, bureaucracy, and effective boreoarctic mechanisms is the pillar of Vietnamese governance and this objective stands to preserve its socialist foundations[1]. The dissolving of the previous government at the start of April 2021 brought those questions back. Not ignoring the obvious that how the new cabinet and prime minister will be working in a coronavirus effected epoch, but how will the new appointment work towards the society? Will Vietnam enter a new age of nation-state development and how it chooses to formulate its diplomatic ties? Are we seeing a different era of international position or resumption of previous diplomatic policies focusing more on regional comprehensiveness rather than global narrative? 4^th April 2021 saw Pham Minh Chinh, head of the Communist Party's Central Organization Committee, elected as the new prime minister for the country[2]. Replacing the outgoing Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who will take on the new role of president of the country, the new prime minister insisted that his tenure will firmly defend the country’s independence in the international waters, sovereignty and territorial integrity and preserving the patriotic affection of the state[3]. The appointment of Chinh comes at a critical point both from a domestic perspective and an international perspective. Internationally, the biggest challenge that Vietnam currently faces is the threat of Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. Domestically, the Covid- 19 pandemics has been harsh on every nation-state. Vietnam successfully had a good economic turnover by the end of 2020, but with the appointment of a new prime minister and cabinet, the country is expected to have a reshuffle of its economic policies and priorities. Chinh’s elections also come in line with Hanoi’s moves to muzzle the press and monitoring social media in response to the rising tensions in Asia including Hong Kong, Thailand, and Myanmar[4]. The overseeing over the cyber and IT developments and political monitoring of the social media will also expect substantial change as Lt. Gen. Nguyen Trong Nghia, responsible for handling the army cyber unit has been appointed as head of the Commission for Propaganda and Education of the Central Committee[5]. Chinh maintained Vietnam's four political pillars: Communist Party Chief, President, Prime Minister and Chair of the National Assembly and the country’s Parliament have directed towards building a new trust among the society[6]. This new trust will be focused on terms of increasing trade for the upliftment of the Vietnamese economy and the new government believes that in the longer run, focusing on the economy and trade will tend to meet its obligations and diverse its capabilities in terms of maintaining multilateral and bilateral free trade agreements.

The principal question stands, what development ideology will the new cabinet be moving ahead? In the East Asian landscape, Vietnam has emerged in terms of leading the development landscape in the region. With a growth rate of around 3%, Vietnam ended its GDP growth on a high note despite the pandemic’s considerable impact on the economic landscape[7]. Linking with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade agreement, Vietnam proved last year that it was ready to lead the role in regional development and multilateral economic and political landscape. Not only on the economic front, but Vietnam, in recent years, especially since 2019 has strongly affirmed to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to determine and specify its maritime sovereignty that for the nation China seems to violate aggressively[8]. Especially in terms of increasing the lengths of its bilateral relations, with Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2016, it has been stabilized and peacefully integrate and develop peaceful ties in Indo-Pacific into which India’s Act East Policy has also been integrated[9]. And further moving towards post-Covid-19 world India and Vietnam were able to disclose the potential by the end of 2020 and the initial part of 2021 that it can build further in business, culture, sports, and IT department. This relation can prove to be much more important when we consider that how India and Vietnam are part of non-permanent members of the UNSC and this can address to solve the critical geopolitical issues like the South China Sea conundrum, troubles in Myanmar and taking this leadership towards global climate change. For Prime Minister Chinh, already a task has been laid out. As per the Resolution of the XIII Congress of the Party, national digital transformation, development of a digital based economy, greater stress on science and technology development and creating a conducive environment for business development as well as enhancing infrastructural developments is the focus on developmental process[10]. Above this national defense, security and social order is a task that needs to be tackled and stabilized along with countering the threat of the South China Sea. Under the tenure of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, developments in strengthening the economy and enhancing Vietnam’s international position and stance to be part of leading developed nations is a major target. According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), Vietnam's economy expanded 2.91% in 2020 with a trade surplus of over 19 billion USD, whereas many regional economies have contracted to show negative growth in GDP. This opens the venture, and the most daunting challenge for PM Chinh is to continue and lay down a firm foundation in the next five years on which Vietnam can convert the question of being a modern state into an eventuality and compete in the same league off economies like South Korea, Japan and equating with Western countries. In the current landscape, the challenge becomes more difficult as Vietnam also needs to incorporate the suitability of sustained social development policies guided by efficient, non-corrupt political leadership[11]. By 2021, Vietnam will also be commencing two major development plans. Firstly, Fiver Year Economic and Social Development Plan (2021-2025) and the Ten Year Economic and Social Development Strategy (2021-2030) will severely depend on how the new political leadership will implement and plan with foresight and innovation[12]. The ground of modern state not only depends on its upcoming national strategies, but one should consider that how at the international level, Vietnam became the Chairman of the United Nations Security Council in April 2021 and this comes at a time when Vietnam can repeat its tenure from 2020-2021 to 2021- 2022[13]. This position puts Vietnam at the forefront to promote peace, stability and security at a global level which aims to initiate and stabilize regional integrity and stability. These international dealings and position allow Vietnam to be at the top when it comes to taking the multilateral development forwards and this diversified approach to foreign policies has allowed its recognition to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) chair for 2020 at a time when ASEAN was also adapting towards handling the coronavirus pandemic. And we must not forget that Vietnam has been pushing and seconding the ideas of developing economically integrated regional and multilateral treaties as a part of integrating the EU, Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership[14]. The new Vietnam leadership stands at a position where it must stabilize itself during this transition and transformation period, where it must blend old and new progress and ideas in political, economic, social development, and security fields, to realize the completion of the Five years and Ten-Year development plans along with meeting international challenges. This objective and the plans that Vietnam’s new government can allow to a grand international platform for Vietnam. Trade being the primary objective can allow Vietnam to grab the attention of the Western democracies to captivate and capitalize on the new development role in international areas[15]. Moreover, it can also grab the much-needed attention of the international community for recognizing success in containing the COVID- 19 pandemics and despite working on a scale of socialist-oriented economy, it can achieve the primary objective of prioritizing capital and counter the neo-liberal slander that how a socialist oriented economy can lead the country down during times of crisis which Vietnam has been able to prove wrong[16].

At the national level, the new Prime Minister and Cabinet are working towards the ambitious goal to become a developed, high-income socialist-oriented economy and to surpass the stats of low- middle-income developing by 2020. This ambitious goal is set forth based on the next five years, Vietnam can mitigate the impact of coronavirus by quickly vaccinating Vietnam’s populations, implementing a stimulus package to get enterprises stricken by pandemic back into quick production and restoring reliable supply chains and meeting obligations under numerous free trade agreements[17]. Political Report and Economic Report of the Vietnam congress has also laid down that with the upcoming development plans for the next 15 years, that sustainable development is viewed to be the core and integral development. This accomplishment can be met by the Vietnamese economy if it is able to increase the growth by 6 per cent, which will also allow the opportunity to shift towards a digital economy and adopting e-commerce[18]. Vietnams’ long-term commitment to foreign investment and believes further liberalization of its legal and governance system can allow to align commercial statutes with international norms and further build the economic base to allow intensive foreign investment which can benefit the Vietnamese economy on a longer level[19]. For its national economy, Vietnam provides a complex system and structure. Since its major economic progress in the early 2010s, the development of the economy has allowed the government to intervene in the development policies and this has become a problem regarding red-tapism and increasing corruption due to major involvement of the bureaucracy. But the affiliation of the government has substantially changed as the Communist Party and its one-party authoritarian rule has not been the trajectory as much as experts and technocrats to manage the increasingly complex economic system[20]. This government should then also include the rule of law and private property rights, which also means that the government could create more courts and streamline the legal processes. The central political schism in Vietnam then stands in term of how the communist parties can balance out their political monopoly and focus on more progressive economic and international diplomatic developments. The new government can use the one-party state as means of legitimizing establishing itself as the leader of the global economy. The Communist Party has stressed the importance of its party ideology and evolve the socio-political landscape of Vietnam’s socialism which can be progressive and productive towards positive sociological developments[21].

Chinh’s administration has a challenge towards its developments of national infrastructure and international development. In terms of fostering strategic infrastructure development and digital transformation of the economy along the lines of science and technology and creating more favorable sustainable conditions to national calamities, Chinh needs to overcome the negative impacts of its administrative and bureaucratic challenges. The trend that the Chinh administration tends to be looking towards is a blend of preserving the success of the previous administration and continue with major technological and procedural innovations. A consistent foreign policy based on independence, peace and cooperation is the cornerstone for Hanoi for the foreseeable future. This fiduciary relationship is what the Chinh administration tends to believe that what will allow it to develop its socio-economic reform process. Promoting autonomy and creativity at all levels of Vietnamese society is going to be the challenge for administration along with preserving the international reputation of managing the Covid-19 cases as did in 2020 and moving ahead with an ambitious vaccination programme for the rest of 2021[22]. By committing to the development of a law-governed state, upholding the rule of law, strengthening the discipline in the state apparatus, the whole society, actively prevent and consistently and preserving corruption will be the major objective. PM Chinh needs to bring both nimbleness and creativity to Vietnam's reform process. 

Notes

[1] J. Boudreau & N.D. TU Uyen (5^th January 2021). “The Secretive Meeting Where Vietnam Changes Leaders”. Bloomberg

[2] V. Anand (14th April 2021). “New Leadership Takes Charge in Vietnam: Challenges and Prospects”. ModernDiplomacy

[3] Ibid.

[4] S. Strangia (6^th April 2021). “Vietnam confirms Appointment of Security Official as Next Prime Minister”. The Diplomat.

[5] (12^th April 2021). “National Assembly approves appointment of 12 new minister, cabinet members”. Vietnam Investment Review.

[6] Ibid.

[7] L.H. Hiep (8th February 2021). “Work Cut Out for Vietnam’s New Prime Minister”. Fulcrum

[8] J. Boudreau, N.D. Tu Uyen & X. Q. Nguyen (2^nd April 2021). “Vietnam’s PM Phuc Nominated as President in Power Realignment” Bloomberg.

[9] A. Illmer (25^th January 2021). “Vietnam’s party congress picks new communit leaders”. BBC News.

[10] Y.R. Kassim (3^rd April 2021). “Vietnam’s New Leadership: Back to the Four Pillars”. S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

[11] Z. Abuza. (2^nd February 2021). “The Fallout from Vietnam’s Communist Party Congress”. The Diplomat

[12] Ibid.

[13] R. Ghosh (17^th April 2021). “Vietnam Ready: The nation’s new leadership aims to propel the country to new development highs”. The Times of India

[14] Ibid.

[15] T. Onishi (5^th April 2021). “Vietnam picks new PM and President for next 5 years”. Nikkei Asia

[16] B. Pham & B. Murray (6^th April 2021). “Vietnam’s new PM a surprise, but won’t herald change in approach to US, China: analysts”. South China Morning Post

[17] Ibid.

[18] A. Chhenpor(8^th April 2021). “New Vietnamese Leadership Won’t Affect Bilateral Relations, Experts Say”. VOA Cambodia.

[19] T. Onishi (5^th April 2021), ibid.

[20] A. Illmer (25^th January 2021). “Vietnam’s party congress picks new communit leaders”. BBC News.

[21] Huaxia ( 7^th April 2021). “Vietnam’s top legislature relieves cabinet members” Asia&Pacific.

[22] A. Chhenpor(8^th April 2021), ibid. 

Pic Courtesy -vietnamnews.vn

(The views expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views of CESCUBE.)