The party strikes back

After being overshadowed for years by nongovernment organizations doing “good deeds,” the Vietnamese Communist Party now has a boot on the neck of the country’s civil-society community.

Asia Democracy Chronicles, January 22, 2023

by Nguyen Tuan

In Vietnam’s thoi bao cap or subsidy period, which ran from 1954 in the north, and then 1975 (following the end of the Vietnam War) to 1986 throughout the country, there was no existence of civil society in the modern sense. In cases where civil society did exist, it was weak and hindered. 

Thoi bao cap was a combination of a planned economy and a dictatorship of the proletariat. The typical communist regime aimed to isolate individuals and sever their connections with others, allowing only a relationship between the individual and the Party through various channels such as government, state-owned enterprises, cooperatives, and mass organizations. The communist economy, which was not market-based, deprived individuals of the resources necessary to form connections, and the undemocratic communist politics made it impossible for them to do so.

It was not until 1986, when Vietnam implemented doi moi (renovation), that civil society began to flourish. Doi moi, which is still in effect, is an experimental combination of the market economy and communist politics. As the late political economist Melanie Beresford explained in a 2008 paper, it was introduced to address the extensive socio-economic crisis resulting from the implementation of the planned economic model over several decades, particularly during the transition from wartime to peacetime. 

As Vietnam’s market economy expanded, its people gained more resources and ways to fulfil their desire for social connections. A range of groups emerged, from those focused on personal hobbies to those committed to social causes.

Doi moi also opened up Vietnam to the rest of the world. Along with profit-seeking foreign investment inflows, there have been development cooperation programs, many of which have been handled by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Over time, these international NGOs established a network of local affiliates and NGOs that served as project partners. Today they and their local partners can be found across the country, even in remote areas, assisting in the alleviation of poverty, the provision of clean water, the prevention of diseases, the support of the poor’s livelihoods, and the protection of the disabled. 

All these are supposed to be the state’s responsibilities, but especially during doi moi’s early days, the government had been unable to handle them due to a lack of resources. Yet by taking over such tasks, civil society exposed the weaknesses of the Party and became a threat to its authority – or at least that is the way Party stalwarts saw it.

And so in the last few years, civil society in Vietnam has been under siege. As a result, some NGOs have been visibly downsizing, or have announced closure or even dissolution. Many NGO leaders are also in retreat or have plans to leave Vietnam. The country’s leaders, meanwhile, seem to have no plans of dismantling doi moi. Yet  so long as market-oriented economic reforms are not accompanied by democratic political reforms, doi moi is likely to remain just a tactical change and counterproductive to the country’s institutional transformation. This may also mean that the once thriving civil-society community in Vietnam may soon disappear.

Civil society outshines Party

To be fair, politics in Vietnam has become less authoritarian since doi moi began. Market reforms, after all, necessitate changes in the way society is governed as well. The Party has relinquished control over certain aspects of life, and policies issued by the executive branch and laws crafted by the National Assembly have replaced Party directives as the bases for society’s operations. People are now able to travel, meet, and interact with each other more freely, without constantly seeking permission like they did in the past.

After some time, the changes had prompted calls from inside and outside the government for the state to fulfil its proper responsibilities without interfering with the market or civil society. International donors and research institutes warmly supported these appeals, promoting them as a way to introduce the Good Governance model.

In 2014, at a forum on institutional reform, former trade minister Truong Dinh Tuyen even said, “It is time to recognize civil society.” He had already retired from public office by then, but he still commanded respect even in international circles. Credited with bringing Vietnam into the World Trade Organization (WTO), Truong Dinh Tuyen understood the difficulties and requirements of the Vietnamese economy’s transition from one that was planned to being market-based.

In 2015, the Side Agreement between Vietnam and the United States under the Trans-Pacific Partnership was signed, which committed Vietnam to allow the establishment of independent trade unions in accordance with International Labor Organization standards and without limitations. This delighted those who were hopeful for civil society to progress some more in Vietnam, as trade unions are supposed to be civil society’s most powerful and well-organized sector.

Not everyone in the Party, however, saw things in the same way as Truong Dinh Tuyen — particularly the communist theorists who placed a high value on ideology. And since doi moi was an experimental measure, Vietnam’s ruling political class was rather unprepared to handle the implications of both the market economy and the significant societal shifts that ensued.

Initially, the Party did not take much action toward the growth of local associations that were engaging the public in earnest. It received international NGOs and their local partners with a practical approach, as these helped address the socio-economic problems faced by underprivileged groups and regions. These were issues that the government, with its limited resources, found difficult to solve.

But then Party theorists began figuring out how to label and define the changes resulting from the Party’s doi moi experiment. For example, the terms “socialism-oriented market economy” and “socialist rule of law” – while vague in meaning — have been promoted to the public to demonstrate that the Party’s doi moi process is also led by logic. In addition, Party theorists introduced to the public their version of civil society: “socialist-oriented civil society.” But this theoretical development failed to lead to any tangible result.

Tightening screws

It was the victory of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong over then rival Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at the 12th National Party Congress in 2016 that marked the beginning of a phase in which economic pragmatism had to give way to ideological priorities.

Ten months after the Congress, the Party Central Committee, led by Nguyen Phu Trong, adopted Resolution 4, officially opposing civil society for the first time. A year later, Regulation 102 was issued to implement Resolution 4. Among other things, it stated that Party members who promoted civil society would be dismissed. Reform-minded Party members, such as former science and technology vice minister Chu Hao, had their memberships revoked because they continued to support civil society after the resolution was issued.

Dozens of civil-society organizations formed as a result of anti-China rallies and the environmental protection movement in 2010s were also promptly suppressed and neutralized, resulting in the arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of activists.

On the legal front, laws intended to create a legal framework for civil society, such as the Law on Associations and the Law on Demonstration, were placed on hold indefinitely, while laws restricting civil rights, such as the Law on Cybersecurity, were quickly approved.

But the Party’s animosity toward civil society did not end with unregistered groups and rights activists, and swiftly extended to registered NGOs and their influential leaders.

The crackdown on NGOs began with targeted restrictions and harassment of a few prominent organizations and their leaders, and then became more widespread and systematic as the authorities honed in on the NGOs’ primary vulnerability: their sources of funding.

Decree 80, issued in 2020, now prohibits funding from abroad without prior government approval. The decree’s language, moreover, indicates that the Ministry of Public Security will now have the primary responsibility of evaluating, approving, and monitoring the use of foreign grants by NGOs; previously, the Ministry of Interior and other governing agencies were in charge.

In early 2022 came the high-profile arrest of Nguyen Thi Khanh, founder of the well-known environmental NGO GreenID, allegedly for personal income tax evasion in connection with the US$200,000 she had received as part of her Goldman Environmental Prize in 2018. A few months later, she was sentenced to two years in prison.

Modeled after China

The arrest and detention of some of the most influential leaders of Vietnamese NGOs have sent a chilling message to the rest of the NGOs. But they may not have been as startled as they have been if they had paid attention to what was happening in China.

Vietnam frequently imports governance methods from China, albeit often with a delay of a few years. Even Vietnam’s doi moi experiment in 1986, which aimed to reform the country’s economy and politics, was modeled after China’s reform and opening up policy in 1978, or a lag of around 10 years.

In 2014 in China, just one year after becoming General Secretary and President, Xi Jinping had formed the National Security Commission to coordinate a nationwide crackdown on civil society. In the following two years, the Commission — chaired by Xi — oversaw a surge in repression, including the detention of hundreds of rights activists and lawyers and the drafting of a series of security laws such as the 2014 Counterintelligence Law, the 2015 Law on Anti-Terrorism and Law on National Security, the 2016 Law on Cybersecurity and Law on Charity, and the 2017 Law on Foreign NGOs.

Vietnam’s Law on Cybersecurity was enacted in 2018, modeled after China’s version with few differences. Vietnam’s Decree 80 also closely resembles China’s Law on Foreign NGOs, particularly in its recognition of the Ministry of Public Security’s authority over appraisal, approval, and monitoring of foreign grants, rather than the Ministry of Home Affairs or other specialized agencies. 

These days, indications are that Vietnam will absorb Chinese social governance concepts and practices at a much faster pace. For the first time, the most recent Vietnam-China Joint Declaration, issued during General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s visit to China last November,  suggests that the two countries will collaborate to combat peaceful evolution and color revolution domestically and politicization of human rights issues internationally. 

For civil society in Vietnam, the implication is clear: its death certificate is already being prepared by the Vietnamese Communist Party. ●

Tuan Nguyen is a human rights defender from Vietnam.