https://www.scmp.com/rss/500652/feed Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington, DC, where he focuses on Southeast Asian politics and security issues. The views are his own and do not reflect those of the National War College or Department of Defense. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com While To Lam was in China for his first trip abroad as the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the real news was at home, where he has consolidated power with speed. Lam has installed key allies in critical positions, while working to neutralise the two potential areas of opposition to his election to a full term at the 14th Party Congress in January 2026. Make no doubt, Lam is in full control. Following the funeral of the long-serving general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3275678/vietnams-lam-ruthlessly-cementing-control-and-reshaping-party-his-image?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3275678/vietnams-lam-ruthlessly-cementing-control-and-reshaping-party-his-image?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Aug 2024 02:00:20 +0000 Upon the arrest of Vietnamese tycoon Truong My Lan and a handful of senior officers at her property development company Van Thinh Phat in October 2022, there was a run on Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB). At the time, no public connection had been made between the bank and Van Thinh Phat, but everyone knew that it was inextricably tied to the now-jailed mogul. People began queuing up to withdraw their funds, prompting a multipronged response. Death penalty for Vietnamese tycoon convicted of US$12.5... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3260524/why-truong-my-lans-fraud-will-damage-vietnams-economy-and-investment-reputation-asia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3260524/why-truong-my-lans-fraud-will-damage-vietnams-economy-and-investment-reputation-asia?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 Apr 2024 03:00:27 +0000 A staggering level of fraud at one of Vietnam’s largest privately owned commercial banks was recently revealed by authorities in the country. In addition to 30 trillion dong (US$1.24 billion) in fraudulent bond issues, Truong My Lan – who was arrested on October 8 last year – has been accused of embezzling some US$12.53 billion from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), which she secretly controlled. To put that figure into perspective, it’s equivalent to 3.2 per cent of Vietnam’s gross domestic... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3243547/vietnams-corruption-poor-economic-management-will-hinder-its-growth-truong-my-lan-scandal-shows?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3243547/vietnams-corruption-poor-economic-management-will-hinder-its-growth-truong-my-lan-scandal-shows?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 Dec 2023 02:00:18 +0000 For two-and-a-half years, the world has largely sat by as the Myanmar military has rampaged across the country in a desperate bid to consolidate power after deposing a democratically elected government in a coup d’etat. The military has killed more than 4,500 people, jailed nearly 25,000, and increased aerial attacks on civilian targets, including schools, hospitals and houses of worship. A recent bombing attack at a camp for internally displaced people killed 39, mainly women and children, as... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3239091/myanmar-military-unlikely-win-war-opposition-needs-global-help-depose-junta?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3239091/myanmar-military-unlikely-win-war-opposition-needs-global-help-depose-junta?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 25 Oct 2023 06:00:36 +0000 US President Joe Biden on Tuesday completed a successful visit to Hanoi, where he and General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, leader of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party, upgraded ties to a “strategic comprehensive partnership”. Much has been made of the impact of the countries’ deeper relationship amid the US-China rivalry, and some takes were wide of the mark. Here are my main takeaways. An independent policy Many observers were keen to bill the upgrade in relations as an alignment against China.... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3234763/how-will-vietnams-upgraded-us-partnership-impact-its-china-russia-ties?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3234763/how-will-vietnams-upgraded-us-partnership-impact-its-china-russia-ties?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 17 Sep 2023 02:30:15 +0000 Vietnamese electric vehicle (EV) maker VinFast has been making headlines recently, from its recent Wall Street IPO that briefly valued it higher than Ford or GM, and a groundbreaking announcement of a US$4 billion plant in North Carolina, which garnered a tweet from US President Joe Biden. The firm’s stock price surged 312 per cent last week, though only 1 per cent of shares were traded. Even after a 50 per cent plunge in the stock price since Monday, VinFast is valued at US$95 billion, making... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3232936/vietnams-vinfast-appears-be-going-places-its-us-entry-reveals-issues-under-hood?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3232936/vietnams-vinfast-appears-be-going-places-its-us-entry-reveals-issues-under-hood?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 31 Aug 2023 08:00:22 +0000 In a little-noticed move in September 2022, Myanmar’s military government shut public access to a key part of its online corporate registry to shield the shareholdings of the senior leadership and their families, and to safeguard the establishment of front companies created to evade international sanctions. The Myanmar Companies Online (MyCO) fee-based platform was established with Japanese technical help in August 2018 in accordance with the country’s 2017 Law on Corporations, under the... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3216299/myanmar-seals-corporate-data-investors-may-be-implicated-juntas-bid-evade-sanctions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3216299/myanmar-seals-corporate-data-investors-may-be-implicated-juntas-bid-evade-sanctions?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Apr 2023 00:30:19 +0000 Thai politicians are now beginning their campaigns in earnest after Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha announced this month that he would dissolve the house early and call a general election on May 7. The behind-the-scenes manoeuvring is intensifying as party leaders contend with the reality of the senate’s outsize role, that makes the magic number for an opposition party to form government 376, not 251. Thai politics have never been so fluid. Thailand’s electoral system has undergone three... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3211378/why-thai-politics-remains-rigged-system-little-chance-reforms?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3211378/why-thai-politics-remains-rigged-system-little-chance-reforms?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 26 Feb 2023 01:00:16 +0000 The Vietnamese government has passed a new law that bans advertisers from proscribed websites and social media channels, the latest in a string of regulations that are meant to assert control over the internet, which the bulk of the population relies on to live. Unlike China which runs an intranet behind a firewall and precludes foreign social media firms from accessing its domestic market, Vietnam’s internet is open and dominated by Western social media platforms. That has always been a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3203480/under-my-thumb-vietnam-tightens-screws-foreign-tech-firms-internet-users?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3203480/under-my-thumb-vietnam-tightens-screws-foreign-tech-firms-internet-users?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Dec 2022 01:00:20 +0000 The Covid-19 pandemic is the first major crisis since World War II that the United States has not been a leader in resolving. That role has largely fallen to China, which continues to reap diplomatic accolades for its efforts. Nowhere is this truer than in Southeast Asia, where the US and China compete most directly. While China and Russia are offering vaccines at cost or in co-development deals, the US is all but absent. The attitude of the administration of US President Donald Trump has been... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3115900/china-doles-out-coronavirus-vaccine-southeast-asia-us-withers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3115900/china-doles-out-coronavirus-vaccine-southeast-asia-us-withers?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 30 Dec 2020 15:09:01 +0000 In defiance of the Thai government’s declaration of a “serious state of emergency” in Bangkok and the arrest of more than 40 activists, thousands of protesters took to the streets again on Thursday. The day before, demonstrators in front of Government House were removed and gatherings of more than five people were banned. This is the third major protest since July, and it comes on the anniversary of the deadly 1973 military crackdown on students. But this clampdown is different, coming hours... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3105890/thailands-protesters-are-taking-monarchy-because-military?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3105890/thailands-protesters-are-taking-monarchy-because-military?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 Oct 2020 13:01:00 +0000 On October 26, Islamic State (Isis) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed himself during a raid by the United States. It is appropriate to reflect on his lasting legacy in Southeast Asia. The rapid spread of Isis across Iraq and Syria in 2014 inspired Salafi jihadists across Southeast Asia, who were rudderless at the time. By 2010, Jemaah Islamiah, al-Qaeda’s regional affiliate, was no longer able to perpetrate sustained violence. Isis was a shot in the arm to the archipelago of militant groups in... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3035993/whos-baghdadi-now-after-us-special-forces-hunted-down-isis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3035993/whos-baghdadi-now-after-us-special-forces-hunted-down-isis?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 01 Nov 2019 16:30:11 +0000 In the aftermath of the devastation of the Easter Bombings in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people, there has been widespread shock that two of the nine suicide bombers were the children of a millionaire spice merchant who grew up in luxury. Several of the bombers had studied abroad and their career prospects seemed bright. This is not unusual. Psychologist Marc Sageman, writing about al-Qaeda, called terrorism a middle-class phenomenon. A 2016 Brookings Institution study showed that... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3007914/sri-lanka-attacks-why-wealthy-and-successful-become-suicide?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3007914/sri-lanka-attacks-why-wealthy-and-successful-become-suicide?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 Apr 2019 09:30:09 +0000