The American Spectator : Vietnam Struggles

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Vietnam Struggles

By George H. Wittman on 1.21.11 @ 6:07AM

Grudgingly moving in China's direction.

It appears that Vietnam's Communist Party, which has just completed its 11th National Congress, has approved turning to the nation's private sector to provide greater entrepreneurship and management skills to the economy. The officially reported 1,377 delegates gathered in the immense convention hall in Hanoi in uniform ranks of dark suits seated in appropriately red faux leather auditorium chairs. The gathering ratified what their Central Committee -- or rather the 12 man Politburo -- had already agreed to at the end of last year.

Of course nothing is truly settled until May, when the new national assembly is elected. Interestingly, the national assembly representing the citizenry in general rather than strictly VNCP members has become more aggressive lately in pressing forward its opinions. The movement to bring more private business owners into the Communist Party seems both a logical political and economic move. According to Bloomberg News analysts, about 81.5% of Vietnam's industrial output derives from national and foreign private business. The central government in Hanoi, however, insists 40% of GDP is generated by state-owned enterprises. While these statistics can be manipulated so they are not as contradictory as they first appear, it takes a heavy weighting of non-industrial output to do so. Whatever the true accounting actually is, it seems that the ruling party apparat thinks it's about time to bring some of those private business brains into the "club" in order to get the economy into high gear.

It took a while, but the advice coming out of Beijing was that utilizing the private business skills of Vietnam actually could be beneficial to the economy of their "little brother." No Vietnamese enjoys taking instruction from the giant Han neighbor to the north. But the obvious success of the Chinese Communist Party in using, yet still controlling, its own "capitalist roaders" could no longer be ignored. This was especially true after the disastrous experience with the Vietnamese state shipbuilding enterprise, Vinashin, and PetroVietnam. Hanoi could no longer back up these debt-ridden sovereign conglomerates, forcing credit downgrades by both Moody's and S&P.

There is a general recognition that the officials who have been running Vietnam's state-owned enterprises tend to lack the business planning capability necessary in such operations. Vinashin's debt accumulation was caused by unjustified expansion and mishandling of funds. Hanoi doesn't want to admit it, but endemic corruption and bureaucratic bloat have placed a stranglehold on economic development.

The ordinary Vietnamese have their lives impacted daily by soaring food prices and double-digit inflation. Payoffs to key local officials are a regular occurrence and have become such an embarrassment for the Party that they were mentioned in the opening speeches to the delegates to the Congress. Despite repeated references to bureaucratic corruption and akin civil sins, business observers expected little real change in the near term.

Balancing this legitimate self-criticism there is the traditional blame placed on the United States and other Western nations for shortfalls in "patriotic" efforts to reinforce Communist order and effort. Repeated outside urgings for democratic reform tend either to fall on deaf official ears or are considered the source of discontent that clearly proliferates Vietnam's social and political scene.

Efforts by the American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her two visits to Vietnam last year to build a rapport with Hanoi's leadership reportedly has achieved only surface results. Mistaking the customary politeness of the Vietnamese she met for developing friendship, Secretary Clinton actually believed she was making gains in relations between the two nations. This, despite being warned not to overvalue the traditional seeming openness of Hanoi's diplomats. It wasn't until an attack on a U.S. Embassy political officer visiting in Hue that the message got through to the seventh floor of the State Department in Washington.

The political officer, Christian Marchant, attempted to visit with the dissident Roman Catholic priest, Nguyen Van Ly, when police prevented the U.S. diplomat from leaving his car by repeatedly slamming its door against his legs. Luckily for Marchant no bones were broken, though severe contusions and abrasions hindered his ability to walk for several days. Hanoi responded to Washington's official complaints of assault on an accredited diplomat by noting the priest was under house arrest for anti-government actions and the American officer had not cleared his visit with the authorities.

As charming as the Vietnamese people are, their government remains as brutal and suspicious as ever. In the minds of the leadership the revolution is still going on, and that concept is used to justify continued repression under the guise of national discipline. Hanoi has a great distance to travel to balance its political, economic and social objectives. Trying to be a mini-Communist China combining internal totalitarian control with efforts to encourage the development of Western-style entrepreneurship is just not working for Vietnam.

About the Author

George H. Wittman writes a weekly column on international affairs for The American Spectator online. He was the founding chairman of the National Institute for Public Policy.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (12) | Leave a comment

Melvin| 1.21.11 @ 7:07AM

But, but I thought Hillary Clinton was the smartest woman in the world. After all that is what the DNC told everyone. What happened?
It appears that the diplomatic corps has been summarily turned over to the bumbling stumbling, neophyte corps. Unfortunately this is what happens when political cronyism circumvents common diplomatic sense.
I have immense respect for veteran diplomats trained in the fine art of international poker. It takes years, and years to develop diplomatic ties with countries that on the outside are all sugar and spice, but on the inside cold and calculating as Vietnam is.
Hillary can't go over there and toss a few smiles, and washing machines and expect the Vietnamese to be all warm and fuzzy just because a Clinton came a calling.
How that infernal know-it-all woman ever though she was qualified to be Sec. of State?

Richard Baker| 1.21.11 @ 7:46AM

Let the Vietnamese stew in their own juices. Delicious that after thousands of years of fighting and hating the Chinese they need to ask them for help. Sat Cong.

JimP| 1.21.11 @ 8:13AM

Come on, Rich. You know it's all our fault. If our corrupt imperialist corps and Congresscritters hadn't trumped up the war and we 'suckers' gone over to fight for the running dog capitalist exploiters, VN would be the paradise that Hanoi Jane, Tom Hayden... well, you know the names... told us it would be. Cummunism works. And if it doesn't, it's the fault of America and the gangster capitalists and their tools, like moi. (Heavy sarcasm for anyone not aware)

Ninh| 1.21.11 @ 4:32PM

We don't hate Chinese. We don't hate Americans. In fact we don't hate the French either. What we hate is ignoramous like little Dick here.

Tom in Michigan| 1.21.11 @ 4:54PM

Hillary Clinton never fails to amaze me in her complete and utter ineptitude as SOS. This is indeed a woman who knows nothing about virtually everything when it comes not only to diplomacy but even the most simple things about other cultures. Where is all the vaunted prog embrace of diversity?

As somebody who has studied Asian cultures extensively (I am fluent in Japanese,have post-graduate and Masters degrees in Japanese language and culture and technical Japanese and can translate written Chinese. I also have a Masters degree concentrating in international economics and marketing from a top-ten US business school), I can attest to the complete lack of knowledge Clinton has displayed regarding the Vietnamese culture as well. She's too uneducated to even distinguish traditional politeness from diplomatic acceptance.

Far from being "the smartest woman in the world," Clinton is beyond doubt one of the dumbest to ever trod the world stage. That she did not know her husband was carrying on like a drunken frat boy with his pudgy 21-year old intern, could not pass the DC bar exam (that's why she went back to Arkansas, not because of some phony follow-your-man nonsense) and has made so many diplomatic blunders - starting with the risible "Russian reset" fiasco (she could have easily gottent he correct translation from Google-translate but, that was apparently beyond her and her staffers' ken) - is proof positive of what a dumkoph - a sort of Ed Schultz in a pants-suit - she is.

The funniest part though, will be her coming Presidential campaign which will feature her "experience" in diplomacy as a center piece. Of course, her minions will fall all over that bit of comedy.

Obama is no better. His bow to the Japanese Emperor was inappropriate on several levels. First, the President of the United States bows to no monarch. Our nation was formed on anti-monarchy and, the rest of the world knows this. Second, the bow itself was done completely incorrectly and, if you must insist on bowing; you never make physical contact as in his ridiculous handshake.

Democrat voters have placed this nation's foreign policy in the hands of rank amateurs - and, that's being as "civil" as possible in describing these complete naifs. The interaction this week and in the past between the Boy Blunder in the White House and the Chinese leaders is further proof of just how hopelessly out of their league our putative "leaders" are. We desperately need to get adults back in the Executive Branch, at State and in the White House before these dunderheads embarass, damage and endanger our nation further.

Ninh| 1.21.11 @ 4:57PM

No sane person can honestly say that China is a communist state. What China today is becoming a quasai fascist state. Just want to remind you all a little History: China and Vietnam have become what they are today because of the failures of US policies. Here are cases in point.
1. We ignored McCarthur suggestion to invade Beijing when the North Koreans and Chinese were on the run.
2. We supported the French in the Indo-China war.
3. We tacitly supported the division of Vietnam into North and South.
4. We f---ked up Cambodia.
5. Nixon and Kisseger went whoring with Mao that created a monster that we know as China now.
6. We looked the other way when China invaded Hoang Sa which was a part of our South Vietnam at the time.
7. We Supported regimes that went against their own people in South Vietnam.
8. We quit our so-called friends just like the French just did with the dictator of Tuinisa.

Worse of all, we have not learned a thing from History. Case in point:
1. We invaded Iraq.
2. We should invade Pakistan but we never will. And when we leave, the brutal Talibans will be back and terrorize their own people.

So Cheers. Don't waste your energy so much on hating people. People behave the way they are since the dawn of man. When it's said and done, do not find execuses. You got your chance, you either fail or succeed. Communism would have not been invented if it had not been for the brutal capitalism that the West practiced a couple of century ago. Same thing with islam would have not existed had their not been for Judaism.

Tom in Michigan| 1.21.11 @ 7:31PM

The idiocy of the "moral equivalency" fallacy and the frequency with which supposedly intelligent people use it to justify evil is simply appalling. It is the equivalent of saying, "I yelled at my wife today so, it's OK that one of my neighbors beat his and another of my neighbors killed his." Sadly, this is the nonsense that leftist teachers use to turn young brains into mush.

Richard Baker| 1.22.11 @ 8:31AM

Ninh:
So now the Vietnamese love the Chinese? Unfortunately, bucko, I am aware of Vietnamese history. If you're on this site in America then why aren't you in the glorious People's Republic of Vietnam and when can you leave? If you want, I'll pay for a 1st-class airfare back home or arrange a C-130 parachute drop (with parachute, of course). Wouldn't that make you SO happy? Sat Cong.