What Nguyen Phu Trong's Death Means for Vietnam

The Communist Party announced the death of Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong—the top leader in Vietnam’s political system—at eighty years old this morning. Until recently, the role of party general secretary shared power with several other positions in the Vietnamese leadership structure. However, in the later era of Trong’s rule, he consolidated power, unlike any senior Vietnamese figure in decades. He instituted a tough, politicized anti-corruption campaign resembling Xi Jinping’s in China to isolate and purge political enemies, strike fear in top leaders, and surround himself with acolytes. Those cadres gave him a third term as the top party secretary—unprecedented in recent decades. Trong’s third term showed how much Vietnam, like China, once proud of its consensus authoritarianism, had mostly degraded into one-man rule again. Trong’s power had only diminished slightly in recent years as he suffered from frailty and sickness.

As longtime Vietnam observer David Hutt has noted, the way that Nguyen Phu Trong consolidated power leaves the Vietnamese Communist Party, and thus the country, open to a future leader who is even more of a dictator. In my opinion, a future leader would not even bother with the façade of rule split among several top officials. Hutt also notes, and I agree, that Nguyen Phu Trong’s changes make the military a more powerful actor inside Vietnam after decades of growing civilian control and professionalizing the armed forces. In a region where one country, Myanmar, remains under military rule (at least in areas still controlled by the junta), and the military remains a major political actor in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, and Thailand, the addition of Vietnam to this list is an unwelcome trend.

De facto one-man rule did not prevent Vietnam from accomplishing relatively effective regional diplomacy. Nguyen Phu Trong picked up and pushed forward the longstanding goals of Vietnamese foreign policy, and the region’s major powers were anxious to cultivate a rising power with a professional armed force nestled right by the South China Sea. Nguyen Phu Trong also improved Hanoi’s relationship with Washington while ensuring that Vietnam never wholly abandoned its close links with Beijing and its historical and defense ties to Moscow. As multinational companies have increasingly looked for backups to their manufacturing in China or pulled out of China altogether due to better local competition and safety concerns, many have moved operations to Vietnam, which has a sizable and hungry labor pool without the concerns for multinationals operating in China.

Nguyen Phu Trong kept a personalized, tight hold on power until his last days. Although Vietnam was hardly known for its freedoms under the consensus authoritarianism preceding his consolidation, it had made modest strides in religious and civic freedoms. Under Trong, Vietnam allowed some minor degree of civil society and gradually smoothed ties with the Vatican, which ultimately led to a plan for a Vatican permanent representative in Hanoi. Yet overall, an already harsh state grew much more authoritarian towards its people under de facto one-man rule. The government crushed civil society and labor movements, and despite the papal agreement, religious freedom was even more curtailed in recent years, leading the U.S.-based International Commission on Religious Freedom to place Vietnam on its Special Watch List for its growing and egregious violations of religious liberty.

Nguyen Phu Trong’s legacy leaves a Vietnam that is a skilled diplomatic operator, one attracting investment with its vital workforce, but also a place with a populace increasingly knowledgeable about the world and increasingly angry about pollution, corruption, religious crackdowns, and an overall lack of freedom. It may be an unappreciated tinderbox.