Could China gain from Vietnam’s political infighting and ‘hardline’ tilt?

Name: Vietnam’s president Vo Van Thuong quits after just one year
Uploaded: 2024-06-05T02:00:12.000Z
Duration: 1 min 48 s
Description: Vietnam’s president Vo Van Thuong quits after just one year

Vietnam’s ‘blazing furnace’ anti-corruption campaign has claimed a number of senior figures, turmoil that one analyst says is unprecedented

The cracks in the leadership may affect the ruling party’s ability to stand united to deal with China on the South China Sea dispute, observer says

6-MIN READ6-MIN

Shi Jiangtao

Published: 10:00am, 5 Jun 2024Updated: 11:20am, 5 Jun 2024

Three of Vietnam’s top five leaders – president Vo Van Thuong, chairman of the National Assembly of Vietnam Vuong Dinh Hue and Truong Thi Mai, head of the powerful Organisation Commission of the Communist Party’s Central Committee – have stepped down for unspecified wrongdoings since March.

They are among the six out of 18 members of the Politburo forced to resign since December 2022 as part of the “blazing furnace” anti-corruption campaign championed by party chief Nguyen Phu Trong.

The country’s former minister of public security To Lam, who is widely seen as playing a central role in the political upheaval, has been appointed president and is in a prime position to succeed Trong in the next leadership transition, along with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

01:48

Vietnam’s president Vo Van Thuong quits after just one year

While the anti-graft drive has proved popular with the public, the expanding crackdown – which ensnared thousands of people, including top officials and senior business leaders – came as Vietnam sought to benefit from the diversification of Western investment away from China.

China is expected to benefit from Vietnam’s unprecedented political turmoil amid months-long infighting and internal machinations within the ruling Communist Party, and signs of a more authoritarian tilt in Hanoi, according to observers.

Bill Hayton, an associate fellow at the Chatham House Asia-Pacific Programme, described the turmoil as “unprecedented” and said it showed politics in Vietnam was “in a permanent state of flux”.

“We do not know if this is the end of the fight or a kind of halfway stage,” he said. “At the moment, it looks like the hardliners, notably the police generals and the Leninists, have won the battle.”

Aside from Lam’s rise, General Luong Cuong, 67, director of the General Department of Politics of the Vietnam People’s Army, was promoted to replace Truong Thi Mai at a plenary session of the Central Committee on May 18. The party also named four new members to the Politburo last month.