A Turning Point in Vietnam’s Politics – The Diplomat

Launched in December 1986, Vietnamese “Reform” ERA (renew) They ended in August 2024. Domestic political events have introduced the country to the new age in the coming months, although the upcoming period could be shown as Gramscian Interregnum, when “the old dies and new one cannot be born.”

The “political earthquake” last spring and the death of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in July made this change of era. The trong has been ill since the beginning of 2024, leaving a vacuum of current at the top of the party. In March, President Vo van Thuong, a trong protégé, resigned After it was determined that he was entangled in a corruption case that had happened more than a decade before. A month and a half later, at the beginning of May, the President of the National Assembly of Vuong Dinh Hue, who was believed to have been a leading candidate who inherited the trong, also resigned in a similar situation.

Two weeks after Hue’s resignation, CPV’s Executive Secretary Truthong Thi Mai, who took the second highest position in the apparatus party, followed a lawsuit in the extraordinary plenum of the CPV Central Committee. He also appointed the same meeting the Minister of Public Security for Lama as a new president in Vietnam. These four persons and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh were the main candidates for the highest place in the country – the CPV Secretary -General – according to the Party rules. So, after Trog died, CPV had almost no choice but to choose Lama as a party boss.

Ten days after he assumed his duty as the main leader of the CPV in August, Lam declared a new era, which he characterized as a “rise” (reaching out) Vietnamese nations. With dizzying speed and strong actions, several political decisions began to form a new era. The content of these decisions was not new – they have been discussed for years, even for decades – but the lack or consensus or political will has interfered with their materialization. In November, a tire of the National Assembly was handed over to September CPV Politburo decision to revive the controversial high speed railway project for which it voted in 2010. Megaproject is planned to cost about $ 67 billion and generate billions of dollars in revenue from the sale of land in the neighborhood of the railway. The same session of parliament also restarted the construction of two nuclear power plants that were stopped in 2016 after the Nuclear Fukushima Disaster.

These infrastructure and energy projects were part of a larger plan. Earlier that month, echoing Lam, Prime Minister Chinh vowing the goal Two -digit growth rates of annual gross domestic product (GDP) in the coming decades. Plenum of the CPV Central Committee of January 2025 fixed This goal is as a key goal of the Economic Policy of Vietnam for the years 2026-2030. In support of this long-term goal, a meeting of CPV revised the goal of growth For 2025, approved by the National Assembly last November, from 6.5 to 8 percent. Never before, the Vietnamese government was so ambitious. Vietnamese economic policies in the reform era were focused primarily on macroeconomic stabilization, not rapid growth. The highest GDP growth rate was ever registered 9.5 percent, and in 1995, and the average annual rate in the reform era (1987-2024) was 6.5 percent.

The Vietnamese new leadership was fully aware that double -digit growth rates required an economy aimed at technology and competent public administration. In November 2024, the procedure of the radical simplification of the party bureaucracy began at all levels, calling it a “revolution”. According to the plan, at least one of the five Existing government positions will be removed to increase efficiency and alleviate the burden of the state budget. This plan, approved in January 2025.

At the end of December, CPV Politburo brought a resolution no. 57 on “breaking up to progress of science, technology, innovation and digital transformation.” For several decades, Vietnam leaders emphasized that science and technology were the key to economic development, but the political obligation was slightly more than the service of the lip. More than any previous policy guidelines, resolution 57 calls for removal “All thoughts, concepts and barriers [that are] disturbing [economic] Development “and” converting an institutional frame into a competitive advantage in stimulating science, technology, innovation and digital transformation. “

Also unprecedented, that prescribes that the CPV Secretary General was chaired by the Central Management Committee on the Development of Science, Technology, Innovation and Digital Transformation and to assign at least 3 percent of state expenditures to these tasks. Lam’s final remarks on the CPV plenum on January 24 reported that the managing committee, which was chaired, had already identified Emergency tasks 2025 for the Government and would apply a set of indicators to evaluate the implementation of each Government agency resolution 57.

However, a turning point in the home policy of Vietnam has yet to be accompanied by any major displacement in the state’s foreign policy. After taking over the top job of the CPV chief, Lam traveled to France and Malaysia, where these countries raised to the circle of Vietnamese “comprehensive strategic partners”. These decisions are in accordance with the multi-layered foreign policy of Vietnam, although France is the first Western European country, and Malaysia is the first state of Southeast Asia, among the nine comprehensive strategic partners in Vietnam, which include all major forces in Asian-Pacific.

However, new priorities in domestic politics have provided new foreign policy parameters. Unlike colleagues Asean Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, Vietnam stopped becoming a “partner of partner Brics”, despite joining Samit BRICS in Russian invitation. The hesitation was reflected mainly at Hanoi’s concern about Washington’s attitude toward this group. In Hanoi’s thinking, Vietnam’s ambition to become a high -tech center in the global supply chains Bands on Vietnam Relations.

The “rise” of Vietnam will generally be the function of domestic arrangements and global supply chains. Liquid government restructuring is Change inner balance of powerBut the biggest test of this effort will be the 14th CPV Congress in January 2026. China focused on global supply chains was one of the greatest obstacles to Vietnam in the last decades because the “Chinese flourish” has debitetized Vietnamese economic structure from technological progress. Yes Still unclearHowever, whether it will not be remodeled by the global supply chains as a result of the end of the “Chinese boom” and the appearance of the USA-kine rivalry will favor Vietnam technological upgrade. These conditions can do or break the “rise” of Vietnam.