Country Profile: Vietnam

The Vietnam of yesteryear that many Westerners use as a reference point for the nation is long outdated, writes Bennett Murray.

Photo: Pascal Deloche/Panos 
Communist by name, capitalist by nature: Vietnam has moved towards the market. Photo: Pascal Deloche/Panos 

On a November evening last year in Hanoi’s upscale Tay Ho district, the pop star turned dissident Mai Khoi was huddled in her modest apartment with her husband. No-one dared to go outside as plainclothes government agents had already tried to forcibly kick the couple out, hitting a visiting filmmaker in the process and breaking his microphone. They also knew well that Vietnamese political activists were prime targets for brutal, extrajudicial beatings by men everyone presumed worked for the security forces. Khoi discussed their options with her husband: should they flee the country? Make a stand and risk imprisonment on anti-state charges?

Vietnam is a Southeast Asian country on the South China Sea known for its beaches, rivers, Buddhist pagodas and bustling cities. Hanoi, the capital, pays homage to the nation’s iconic Communist-era leader, Ho Chi Minh, via a huge marble mausoleum. Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) has French colonial landmarks, plus Vietnamese War history museums and the Củ Chi tunnels, used by Viet Cong soldiers

The provocation was petty: hours before, as US President Donald Trump’s motorcade passed near her house, Khoi had briefly unveiled a sign saying ‘peace on you, Trump’, with the first word crossed out and replaced with ‘piss’. It was over in a matter of minutes, and no-one in the crowd of spectators seemed to notice. But Vietnam’s secret police kicked into action soon after.

A police state

Despite the uninterrupted rule of the Communist Party since 1975, leftist economics have given way to massive foreign investment and a booming local private sector. While Marx may have been shoved aside, the country remains a harshly authoritarian police state. Media that are not owned outright by the state are editorially controlled by the Party, political opposition is banned and vague laws banning ‘propagating against the state’ and ‘abusing democratic freedoms’ result in lengthy prison sentences.

The Vietnam of yesteryear that many Westerners use as a reference point for the nation is long outdated. The Vietnam War, known locally as the Resistance War Against America, or simply the Resistance War, is an increasingly fading memory that only minimally explains the country that exists today. The tenacious resistance fighters who once stood up to a superpower are now old men and women, and their grandchildren, born into a world of economic opportunity completely alien to their elders, have other priorities.

Vietnam - Under the current constitution, the Communist Party of Vietnam is the only one allowed to rule, the operation of all other political parties being outlawed. Other human rights issues concern freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.
Communist in name only? Three decades since the communist victory, Vietnam is now part of the global capitalist economy. Photo: Pascal Deloche/Panos ​ 

US patrol boats

As for the United States, Vietnam’s forgiveness has evolved into a strategic partnership that is increasingly putting Hanoi into Washington’s camp. While it remains to be seen how far the relationship will go, it is increasingly absurd to see Vietnam, in any shape whatsoever, as an opponent to the US. It was an eager participant in the now-defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership and, since 2016, a buyer of US arms. More than a dozen American patrol boats have been sold to Vietnam and, surreally, the USCGC Morgenthau, a 3,250-ton cutter that once bombarded Vietnam from the sea during the war, has been in service in the Vietnamese coastguard since being purchased in 2017. With Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea alarming Hanoi and Washington alike, both governments are more interested in a military partnership than in reigniting a war that ended 43 years ago.

Vietnam - Under the current constitution, the Communist Party of Vietnam is the only one allowed to rule, the operation of all other political parties being outlawed. Other human rights issues concern freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.
The U.S. State Department wants to see Vietnam distance itself from Russian and Chinese arms deals and buy more from the US. Photo: Pascal Deloche/Panos 

Human rights repression

Vietnam, though smoothly integrating itself into a US-backed international order, continues to repress human rights at home. The 88 Project, a US-based advocacy group that monitors political repression in Vietnam, counts 130 prisoners of conscience serving a prison sentence, with another 16 in pretrial detention. Their numbers include the blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for speaking out after a leak at a Taiwanese-owned steel factory killed hundreds of tons of fish off the central coast; and labour-rights activist Truong Minh Duc, serving 12 years.

Vietnam Under the current constitution, the Communist Party of Vietnam is the only one allowed to rule, the operation of all other political parties being outlawed. Other human rights issues concern freedom of association, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.
Vietnam does not tolerate any challenge to its one-party rule, and the government is regularly criticized for silencing expression. Photo: Pascal Deloche/Panos

Mai Khoi an untouchable

The musician Mai Khoi remains free, although she only performs at private, secretive shows. Having once been the winner of Vietnam Television’s Album of the Year award, she is today banished from the mainsteam, labelled an opponent by the regime and an untouchable by polite society.