🇻🇳 A look back at Nguyen Phu Trong

Hello friends!

Today, here’s a look at what the world — and it is mostly the world, we’ve got little word from inside Vietnam just yet — is saying following the death of Nguyen Phu Trong last week. A lot of reviewing his legacy with a nervous eye to successions ahead. 

I am really looking forward to photo essays in the days to come and will happily share those next week. 

See you tomorrow for a huge list of all the best things I read this month.
Erin Cook

Nguyen Phu Trong is dead at 80. The late secretary-general of Vietnam’s Communist Party had the kind of life that so many of the region’s elder-statespeople have — in some ways, his life’s story is that of his country’s. 

According to Nikkei Asia’s fantastic obituary, Trong was born in 1944 when Vietnam was still a French colony but occupied by Japan. He joined the Party during the Vietnam War and ‘studied party-building and literature before devoting his career to communism.’ He worked his way up the ranks before taking the top job in 2011. He was eventually given an unprecedented third term as secretary-general. 

This obituary lists Trong’s three major legacies off the bat — a new era of fruitful relations with the US, striking a balance with neighbouring China and kicking the anti-corruption campaign, or ‘burning furnace,’ into gear. This is a good framework, so let’s work through it. 

Vietnam has been increasingly important to the US, particularly in securing manufacturing and production security amid its own rivalry with China. Rebecca Tan for the Washington Post notes this extends to security as the geo-political situation remains fraught. ‘Vietnam has sought to use Washington as a counterweight to Beijing, especially in the face of increased Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, which is claimed in part by Vietnam,’ Tan writes. 

Vietnam doesn’t exactly see itself the same way — it is a sovereign nation, after all — but has been quick to take advantage. US President Joe Biden made a visit to Hanoi last year pledging friendship and business, but it’s a switch in market status that Vietnam wants. A decision from the US is expected by the end of the month. 

China’s politburo is mourning a “good comrade, brother and friend,” the Guardian reports of Chinese state media. Vietnam’s ‘bamboo diplomacy,’ which is flexible and bendy, but never breaks, has ensured the country has managed to maintain relations with China even as it buddies up with the US. 

‘Xi recalled that over the past decade, he and Trong had maintained close contact and developed a deep camaraderie, and that last year, they jointly announced the elevation of bilateral relations to a China-Vietnam community with a shared future that carries strategic significance, a milestone in bilateral ties,’ China Daily reports. 

That great Nikkei read notes that ‘Trong's unrivalled Marxist-Leninist bona fides’ had helped him establish a very tight working relationship with Xi Jinping, who rose to his role just a year after Trong and similarly was extended an unheard-of third term. 

Over at Fulcrum, Le Hong Hiep and Nguyen Khac Giang were ready to go! This excellent piece looks at Trong’s long legacy dropped before the NYT push notification. As we know and love about Fulcrum, this is far more in-depth than the immediate news analysis and traces Trong’s history as a savvy political player, outwitting his way up the Politburo. 

‘As the CPV’s top leader, Trong’s main job is to maintain the Party’s survival and ultimately its hold on power. As such, he often adopted a hardline approach towards perceived threats to regime security,’ the pair write. This explains the strengthening of government institutions, including the Ministry of Public Security, in rooting out corruption in the ranks and a renewed ‘emphasis on revitalising ideology as a means of preventing moral decay among party members.’ 

But it may not have played out exactly how he had hoped: ‘Trong’s consolidation of power during his anti-corruption crusade had the unexpected consequence of undermining the very institutions he sought to strengthen,’ they write. The pair suggest that the ‘dominance’ of Trong’s leadership saw power centralise within the Politburo and himself specifically ‘thereby weakening the Central Committee and undermining the principle of collective leadership.’

How this works out in the coming years will certainly be interesting to watch. President To Lam, who rose to the post only a month ago after predecessor Vo Van Thuong was ousted as a major scalp in the anti-corruption drive, has been named temporary general-secretary. 

To Lam had been running the very powerful Ministry of Public Security prior to the shake-up. I’m not sure if we can say he is ‘widely expected’ to hold on to the gen-sec role after the enormous congress due in 2026, but I am confident in saying no one would be surprised if he did. We might be looking at a different political landscape entirely, Gregory Poling says in this CSIS Q&A, and that makes any prediction tough.

‘Even less clear than who succeeds Trong is whether they will command the same influence. It seems unlikely that any of the leading contenders will command the degree of cross-factional respect that Trong did. If others could easily bridge those divides, Trong would not have been seen as the indispensable man and kept in power for so long. The intraparty struggles and horse trading will be kept from outsiders, rendering any odds-making in the 2026 leadership contest little more than a guessing game.’

Let’s just get through the week first. Vietnam is officially in a state of mourning as of today ahead of tomorrow’s state funeral in Hanoi. Flags are at half-mast and, as Mike Tatarski spotted in his Vietnam Weekly this morning, news sites have gone greyscale. 

Communists have a great state funeral aesthetic, but there is that edge of menace we often find in Vietnam. Three Facebook users in Saigon have been fined for spreading ‘untrue news’ about Trong’s death, RFA reports citing Vietnamese news. ‘In the days after Trong’s death, the Ho Chi Minh police's cyber security unit detected Vietnamese and foreign nationals using social media to post information deemed to be “unfounded” and intended “to destroy the national unity [and] to humiliate the party and state leaders’ dignity.”’ RFA reports. 

There’s an aside in BBC’s report that I found interesting. It’s often difficult to get a straight story in Vietnam, but when it comes to Trong’s health over the last few months that is by design. A 2018 law reclassified the health of top officials as a state secret. ‘Intense speculation over his health has long thrived on social media,’ the outlet notes. This had reached fever pitch in recent months as he became a less reliable attendee at various state events.