Vietnam

Vietnam: Rising Dragon
By Bill Hayton
Yale University Press £20, 272 pages

Le Duc Tho, the man who outsmarted Henry Kissinger at the Paris peace talks that ended the war in Vietnam, was unusually candid when I interviewed him 20 years ago. He admitted there were differences of opinion and even corruption within the Communist Party, and that “mistakes” had been made. Of particular concern to him was the failure to create viable heavy industries in the immediate postwar period. But, he told me, “Renovating the Vietnamese economy was the common goal of all party members.”

Were he alive today, Le Duc Tho might not be displeased by developments. In January Vietnam’s stock exchange outperformed all other stock markets, “frontier” or otherwise; and an industrial base has been established, though often in the guise of joint ventures with western brand names. Now a member of the World Trade Organisation, Vietnam has also become the second-largest exporter of rice and coffee in the world, even if the products are inferior to those exported by Thailand or Kenya. Vietnam’s main agricultural markets are countries such as Iran and Cuba, not the US, Japan or Europe.

Even so, success has been palpable, lifting millions out of poverty. Yet, as in China, economic liberalisation has not been matched by political reform. If, in this timely book, Bill Hayton returns again and again to the omnipresence of a party whose abiding theme is self-preservation, then that is a reflection of how things are in Vietnam. The only party allowed is essentially indistinguishable from the state, just as many state-owned firms are in fact ministerial enterprises, with endless opportunities to embezzle. Corruption has grown, not dissipated.

The BBC newsman inside Hayton deplores the slowness of progress towards freedom of expression. All media are controlled, and persistent dissidents will sooner or later be locked up, though the number of political prisoners is fewer than in, say, Burma or North Korea. Yet Hayton is too savvy to dismiss the party as a simple Marxist-Leninist anachronism.

The party-state can best be described as a pyramid of factionalised but interactive oligarchies. At the top is the Politburo, at the bottom the village committee, with any number of central, provincial and urban bodies in between. Nor does the Politburo invariably get its way. There is continuous negotiation between levels, so that local interests are not only voiced but often gratified. If a central directive is unwelcome, the chances are it will just be ignored. The party’s rules are there to be evaded.

This may not be democracy but it is not unresponsive to some popular wants. Yet, as Hayton observes, there are downsides. The individual often has only a hazy idea of what is and what is not permitted, and the get-rich-quick mentality of the new, capitalist Vietnamese makes a mockery of half-hearted measures at environmental protection.

Industrial pollution is as deadly as the Agent Orange once bucketed over Vietnam by the US air force. But deadlier still, Hayton warns, will be what happens if sea levels rise by rather less than a metre. The Mekong delta will be inundated, and Vietnam’s agricultural and industrial heartlands wiped out.

In this sense, Vietnam: Rising Dragon is an ironic title. But that should not deter readers. Examining nearly every aspect of Vietnamese politics and society, from the economy and family life, to religion and the plight of indigenous minorities, Hayton gives a balanced, intelligent account of a country whose history so differs from our own.

Justin Wintle is author of ‘Romancing Vietnam: Inside the Boat Country’ (Signal)