The Ongoing Anti-corruption Movement in Vietnam
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On January 17, 2023, Vietnam President Nguyen Xuan Phuc resigned and retired due to the corruption of many subordinate officials in handling COVID-19 during his tenure as Prime Minister. In socialist countries, including Vietnam, it is extremely rare for a senior official , especially an official as high as the President, to resign before the end of their term because of corruption.
Nguyen served as Vietnam's Prime Minister from 2016 to 2021. During his time as Prime Minister, he drove Vietnam's economic growth to an average of 6% per year and established the country as one of the world's major centers of manufacturing. In April 2021, Nguyen became the President of Vietnam, meaning his term was initially scheduled to last until 2026. Without this unexpected resignation, Nguyen is widely considered the candidate to succeed in Vietnam's most powerful position – the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. However, Vietnamese journalists stated that Nguyen's resignation was not entirely unexpected. His political career was on a downward spiral when he was turned from a powerful Prime Minister to a more nominal President last year. Despite his downfall, the government praised Nguyen Xuan Phuc's achievements, particularly his leadership in fighting COVID-19 outbreak.
Nguyen Xuan Phuc is the highest-ranking official targeted in Vietnam's crackdown on corruption. At present, Vietnam is undergoing a profound anti-corruption campaign. Despite rapid economic growth, Vietnam has faced a lack of supervision of officials and has few mechanisms to address corruption when it happens, resulting in damaging the government's authority. To solve this problem, Vietnam has carried out a large-scale anti-corruption campaign. In the past ten years, more than 7,000 party members have been investigated for corruption. One of the most notorious corruption investigations was launched to examine the government’s reaction to COVID-19.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the Vietnamese government designated airlines and arranged quarantine measures to take their citizens around the world back to Vietnam. There were nearly 2,000 "government-chartered planes" over two years to bring back more than 200,000 Vietnamese citizens from more than 60 countries and regions. However, the goodwill of the Vietnamese government has been severely eroded by corrupt officials. According to the current investigation, these Vietnamese citizens who took the "government-chartered planes" spent astonishing money on returning home procedures, buying air tickets, and quarantine. They paid five to eight times more than what they would have for a normal airline ticket.
Moreover, in 2021, Vietnam uncovered the corruption scandal of Việt Á Technology Corporation, a company that produces RT-PCR tests. The company, through purchasing test cases abroad and falsely marketing them as locally made, sold test cases that cost about 1 USD at a price of up to 20 USD. In the end, more than 60 officials, including the former Minister of Science and Technology and Minister of Health, were removed because of the PCR tests scandals.
Corruption cases related to COVID-19 have been extended to the level of the Politburo. In January 2023, two Vietnamese deputy prime ministers, Pham Binh Minh and Vu Duc Dam, were successively removed due to corruption issues. It is worth noting that their assistants were arrested before them in 2022.
Vietnam's anti-corruption efforts have been effective over the past few years. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, Vietnam's ranking was 129 in 2012, reaching 87 in 2022. Nonetheless, Vietnam's corruption perception index is still relatively low, and there is much room for improvement.
Behind the cleansing of the country's corruption problem, there are also some political implications. Traditionally, Vietnam's political system is composed of four pillars. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the President of Vietnam, the Prime Minister, and the Chairman of the National Assembly form the country's highest decision-making system. Among them, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam has the greatest power. The current general secretary is Nguyen Phu Trong, who became the first leader of Vietnam to serve as the General secretary for three terms after the reform in 1986. Nguyen Phu Trong is the prominent leader in promoting this anti-corruption campaign, and his ideology was more socialist than the other economic bureaucrats in the elite system. It is worth noting that the President and the two Vice Premiers who stepped down this time had more previous experience with international affairs and were more considered as pro-Western.The two removed deputy Prime Ministers, Pham and Vu, were both fluent in English, had studied abroad and had long worked in the diplomatic service. Nguyen Xuan Phuc also has established close ties with Western countries and pushed for further liberalization of Vietnam's economy, including madeing trade agreements with the European Union and Japan and joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).Some observers see the removal of senior officials this time as the result of an internal power struggle in Vietnam. But simply using the traditional "South" versus "North" or "socialist" versus "pro-Western" dichotomy in Vietnamese politics is an oversimplification. As for whether Vietnam's anti-corruption campaign involves internal factional struggles, there is no clear evidence yet. The outside world has this view, but Vietnamese officials deny that the anti-corruption campaign is factional suppression.
The change of senior officials is unlikely to change Vietnam's overall development trajectory, as the country’s party system has been consistently focused on encouraging foreign investment in order to sustain economic growth and navigating a delicate diplomatic path between China and the United States. As long as the leadership change does not lead to fundamental shifts in policy, the impact on the economy and policy will also be limited. General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong said that for those officials who resign of their own accord, they will be treated leniently by the authorities. And it is in the best interest of the party and the country not to punish officials who resign violently. Because of the voluntary resignation of President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, he should be able to leave the political scene safely.
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