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ECONOMIST The Communist
Parties of China and Vietnam do not get on The difference is
partly philosophical ONCE upon a time the
Communist Parties of China and Vietnam were staunch comrades in the
proletarian struggle. Mao Zedong thickened ties by helping Ho Chi Minh
in his anti-colonial fight against the French and Americans, providing
both military equipment and advice on communist discipline and ideology.
Capitalism has transformed both countries in ways that would have
shocked the two revolutionaries. Yet both parties have survived against
the odds, running Leninist dictatorships while overseeing rapid economic
growth. They are far and away the most successful of the world’s
remaining communist states, easily eclipsing shabby Cuba, tiny Laos and
militant North Korea. It is not just in
embracing free markets that Vietnam has mimicked China. Under Xi
Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party has centralised authority and
clamped down on dissent. Observers wonder whether the party in Vietnam
isn’t starting to follow suit. A harder line was signalled at the last
five-yearly congress, in early 2016. The zippy
prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, had been expected to take over
as general secretary from a thorough party man, Nguyen Phu Trong.
Instead, Mr Trong and his allies forced Mr Dung’s retirement, and Mr
Trong kept his job.
The party has since grown tougher, enforcing discipline and authority.
Across the country, it has cracked down on dissidents and activists.
And with shades of Mr Xi, Mr Trong has pursued
an unprecedentedly vigorous campaign against corruption.
Well-connected leaders in Ho Chi Minh City and Danang have fallen. In
September a former chairman of PetroVietnam, the state oil giant, was
sentenced to death over embezzlement at a tainted bank. Goons spirited
another former head of PetroVietnam out of Berlin to face charges in
Hanoi, to Germany’s anger. Some say Mr Dung himself will be charged. Like Mr Xi, Mr Trong
rightly believes that corruption threatens the party’s survival.
Corruption is an even bigger problem in
Vietnam than in China, and something had to be done. Enforcing
party discipline also offers a better hope of carrying out reforms in a
system in which power is dispersed and the centre is often ignored. As
in China, the line between fighting graft and purging political enemies
is often blurred. But Mr Trong’s abrupt removal of the offspring of the
party elite from plum jobs can be seen as promoting pluralism and
meritocracy in a country where nepotism is rife, says Bill Hayton of
Chatham House, a think-tank.
Yet for all the similarities between the two parties, the days of warm
ties are long gone. Mr Xi visited Vietnam in November and
woodenly intoned about fraternal solidarity. That rang hollow to
Vietnamese incensed by China’s expansive claims in what Vietnam calls
the East Sea, not the South China Sea. In 2014 China towed an oil rig
into waters claimed by Vietnam, sparking violent anti-China protests. The two parties first fell
out in 1979, when Deng Xiaoping launched a war to punish Vietnam for
toppling China’s clients in Cambodia, the murderous Khmers Rouges.
(Vietnam gave China a bloody nose.) But the wary distrust dates back
centuries. Vietnam is hard-wired to resist and resent the notion that it
is in any way a vassal of the overweening empire to its north. Party
fraternity cannot easily be revived in an era of prickly nationalisms.
What is more, some analysts argue, for all Mr Trong’s aping of Mr Xi,
the two parties are drifting apart philosophically. Since 1989
and the slaughter of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protesters,
political reform in China has been off the table. Party and state are in
effect one. In contrast, starting
around the turn of the century, the Communist Party of Vietnam has
encouraged more pluralism. Clearer distinctions have been made between
party and state. Top posts such as general secretary of the party, state
president, prime minister and member of the Politburo have increasingly
been filled by competitive elections, albeit within the elite of the
party. In 2010 the local party congress in Danang held direct elections
for the municipal leadership, a first. More broadly a degree of dissent
is condoned. Some Vietnamese, including retired officials and generals,
have argued that Vietnam’s end-station should be multiparty democracy.
In Mr Xi’s China such airings are out of the question. Mr Trong remains just a
first among equals in a collective leadership. He heads the party but
not the state. Term limits will force him to step down by 2021—and he
may go sooner. Mr Xi, however, is state president as well as party
leader. He made clear at his party’s five-yearly congress in October
that he is the country’s undisputed boss. He may even overturn
convention and seek another term in office in 2022 after a decade in
power.
Growing a party This divergence may well
widen. Notwithstanding the current chill, discourse remains far freer in
Vietnam than it is in China. Intra-party discussions are more lively.
Outside the party, dissidents and religious groups still lay claim to a
part of the public stage, and foreign pressure on the authorities not to
be too harsh can work—Germany is trying now. Citizens have much freer
access to the internet. Le Hong Hiep of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute
in Singapore argues that under Mr Trong criticism will be tolerated—and
even found useful—so long as it is not seen as a challenge to the
regime. In China, in contrast, the internet is heavily policed, and no
public voice is allowed to critics in the party, let alone to
dissidents.
And then comes that prickly nationalism. Not even a Vietnamese
leader as well-disposed towards China’s Communist Party as Mr Trong can
afford to disregard national feelings and sink all into better
relations. Anti-Chinese sentiment runs high. It is only a matter of time
before some fresh affront, probably to do with China’s claims in the
South China Sea, strains those old fraternal ties still further |