Abandoning his predecessor’s war on technocrats, Lam is empowering them to push economic development.
By Zachary Abuza
14/12/2024
Images by Adobe Stock (Amanda Weisbrod/RFA)
Closing out the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s on Dec. 1, General Secretary To Lam and allies announced a sweeping set of proposals to streamline the Vietnamese government, legislature, ruling party apparatus.
If enacted, it would be the most sweeping changes that the Vietnamese government system has seen in decades, involving ministerial restructuring, the elimination of parliamentary committees, the shuttering of government offices and party committees, and some consolidation within the state-owned media, educational and research sectors.
At the government level, five of 21 ministries will be eliminated through mergers and closures.
The Ministry of Finance will absorb the Ministry of Planning and Investment, while the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Construction will merge, and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will merge with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The Ministry of Information and Communications will merge with the Ministry of Science and Technology, while the Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs will be dissolved with individual components parceled out to other ministries.
Three central-level government agencies will be dissolved. The Ministry of Finance and the State Bank will assume the responsibilities of the State Capital Management Committee and the National Financial Supervisory Commission.
Lam is making his mark
The Religious Affairs Committee and Ethnic Minority Affairs Committees will merge.
Other consolidation will occur within the state education and research sectors and broadcast media. Even ministries that are not affected by the restructuring will be required to streamline their own activities.
The National Assembly will eliminate four committees and one agency that reside beneath the legislature’s Standing Committee.
The proposal calls for the merger of the Economic and Finance Committees, the Social and Culture Committees, and the Judicial and Legal Committees, with the complete dissolution of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
A matter of concern is that the Legislative Research Institute, which was modeled on the U.S. Congressional Research Service to provide technical expertise on legislation, will be eliminated altogether.
Within the CPV, the Central Propaganda and Education Committee will merge with the Central Mass Mobilization Committee, while the External Relations Committee will be dissolved, with its functions transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Vietnam's President Luong Cuong, left, and General Secretary of the Communist Party To Lam, walk to the National Assembly in Hanoi, Vietnam, Oct. 21, 2024. (Minh Hoang/AP)
The Health Care Committee will likewise be dissolved with its authorities split between the Ministry of Health and the Organization Commission.
The new central-level committee will be established to oversee other central agencies, the judiciary, including the Supreme People’s Procuracy and the Supreme People’s Court.
Lam is clearly trying to make his mark just five months after being elected CPV general secretary.
Cumbersome bureaucracy
While his predecessor Nguyen Phu Trong sought to legitimize the party in the eyes of an increasingly disgusted and apathetic public through his “Blazing Furnace” anti-corruption campaign, Lam seeks to legitimize the party through rapid economic growth.
An impediment to performance-based legitimacy is Vietnam’s cumbersome bureaucracy.
In his speech to the Central Committee, Lam reiterated that “In parallel, administrative reforms must be accelerated to create the most favorable conditions for citizens and businesses, which will contribute to improving the living standards of the people.”
Trong was a career ideologue, who spent much of his 13 years rebuilding the party apparatus in order to serve as a check on technocrats.
Lam is charting a completely different path, seeking to do away with some key communist party offices, and trying to streamline the “dual-hatted” system whereby every government and military organization has both a civil executive and a parallel party leadership structure.
The one place where this dual hat system will not be touched is the military: The party always controls the gun.
Lam knows that the country is entering into a “new revolutionary era” with significant challenges.
Labor productivity is slipping and while Vietnam attracted $36 billion in pledged foreign investment in 2024, it remains an assembler. There is an insufficient production ecosystem in the country.
There is a reason that Vietnam’s trade deficit with China is almost the same as its surplus with the United States: Vietnamese exports are made from imported components. Lam is acutely aware of the dangers of being caught in the middle income trap.
Rising star Hung
The man behind all of this is Le Minh Hung, a rising star within the Communist Party and a key ally of Lam, who oversaw his recent promotion to the Politburo.
Hung was the governor of the state bank of Vietnam, the youngest man to hold that position.
Vietnam's State Bank Governor Le Minh Hung is seen in Hanoi, Vietnam May 31, 2017. (Kham/Reuters)
He is currently in charge of the CPV’s Organization Commission, which is in charge of all personnel issues, a key assignment ahead of the 14th Congress.
Hung’s father was the former Minister of Public Security and in that role a mentor to Lam during his rise through the security bureaucracy.
And this shakeup was orchestrated by the CPV Secretariat, which Lam has stacked with his allies.
Lam’s big plan appears to have the backing of the majority of the Central Committee. Editorials in state-owned media have endorsed the proposal, striking notes of urgency. But clearly not everyone in the party is on board.
Normally, we see very little change or policy implementation in the year preceding a CPV Congress.
That Lam is willing to push this is a strong indication that he is confident of the Central Committee’s faith in his leadership. He is much less of an ideologue, and more of a state-led capitalist authoritarian.
The ambitious move also speaks to Lam’s personal confidence that he will be elected to a full term at the 14th Congress in early 2026.
Empowering technocrats
Lam has called on all party organizations to complete their internal review and draft guidelines for reform by the end of the year.
The reports will be studied in mid February, and submitted by the steering committee to the Politburo in early March ahead of the next Central Committee Plenum scheduled for mid March.
But that also means no government body will be working until at least March 2025.
There is not just efficiency at play with the government and party reorganization. This is clearly a way to get rid of some dead wood and neutralize some rivals.
But more importantly, the reorganization can be seen as a way for Lam to empower close allies and true technocrats.
It is believed that the head of the Central Committee’s External Relations Committee, Le Hoai Trung, who sits on the CPV Secretariat and is a close advisor to Lam, will become the next foreign minister.
Hung is clearly being set up for a key economic position. While many had seen him being groomed for the prime ministership, the consolidation will turn the Ministry of Finance into a super-ministry, which he would be well poised to lead.
After Trong’s war against technocrats, Lam is empowering them, aware that they are needed to take Vietnam to its next stage of development.
A clear winner in this is the Ministry of Public Security, which not only came out unscathed, but with some additional autonomy.
But while this reorganization may look good to foreign investors, Vietnamese citizens don’t see how the reforms will impact or improve their day-to-day interactions with the government. Shouldn’t they be the primary beneficiaries?
Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia.
https://www.rfa.org/english/opinions/2024/12/14/opinion-vietnam-to-lam-communist-party/
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