[Like the
Communist Party leaders in China , Vietnam ’s political mandarins are struggling to reconcile their
party’s message of social justice and equality with the realities of an elite
awash in wealth and privilege. The yawning divide between rural poverty and
urban wealth has become especially jarring, now that a decade of breakneck
growth has come to an end, dimming the prospects for the poor and middle class
to fight their way up the social ladder.]
By Thomas Fuller
 |
To Linh Huong, the daughter of a
member of the Vietnamese
Communist Party’s Politburo, in April, days after she
had
been appointed the head of a state-run construction company.
|
The daughter of a member of the Vietnamese Communist
Party’s Politburo, the country’s most powerful political body, Ms. Huong had
only days before been appointed the head of a state-owned construction company.
Commentators on the Internet expressed outrage that someone so young — she is
reported to be 24 — held such a senior corporate post.
“Taking a little girl who just graduated from journalism
school and making her the director general of a construction company is no
different than making a one-legged man a soccer goalie,” read a comment on Pham
Viet Dao, a popular blog by a Vietnamese writer of the same name. “Sorry to say
— this is so stupid.”
Like the Communist Party leaders in China , Vietnam ’s political mandarins are struggling to reconcile their
party’s message of social justice and equality with the realities of an elite
awash in wealth and privilege. The yawning divide between rural poverty and
urban wealth has become especially jarring, now that a decade of breakneck
growth has come to an end, dimming the prospects for the poor and middle class
to fight their way up the social ladder.
“Up until now, growth has been wonderful, and to be rich
was great,” said Carlyle A. Thayer, a leading expert on Vietnamese politics who
has a database of Vietnamese leaders and their family members. “There’s a
growing resentment, particularly among the have-nots, toward the wealthy.”
Much of the ire has been focused on Vietnam ’s version of crony capitalism — the close links between
tycoons and top Communist Party officials. This criticism has been able to
flourish partly because news of abuses has leaked out as state companies, which
remain a central part of the economy, have floundered, helping precipitate Vietnam ’s serious financial woes. Activists and critics have also
been able to use the anonymity of the Web to skirt tight media controls that
had kept many scandals out of public view.
As criticism has mounted, some of the relatives of
Communist Party officials have stepped back from high profile roles.
Ms. Huong left her state-run company in June, three months
after her appointment, and the daughter of the prime minister recently left one
of her posts, at a private bank.
Government officials, meanwhile, are sounding defensive.
“We should be proud about what we have done,” he wrote,
speaking of the economic boom under Communist leadership, “but in the eyes of
our ancestors, we should also feel ashamed for our weakness and failures, which
have been preventing the growth of the nation.”
On the Internet and social networks, much of the anger about
nepotism and poor economic management has been directed at Prime Minister
Nguyen Tan Dung, who was re-elected to a five-year term last year amid the
turmoil of failing state-owned companies.
“People are concerned that he has too much power — they
feel he needs to be reined in,” said Mr. Thayer, who is emeritus professor at
the University of New
South Wales Canberra , Australia
Mr. Dung’s family was the focus of a diplomatic cable in
2006, the year he became prime minister, written by Seth Winnick, who at the
time was United States consul general in Ho Chi Minh City.
The cable, made public through WikiLeaks, highlighted the
corporate career of Nguyen Thanh Phuong, the prime minister’s daughter. “There
is no doubt that she is talented,” Mr. Winnick wrote. “However, her rapid
advance, and the many doors that opened for her and her two brothers are
indicative of how the Vietnamese political elite ensures that their progeny are
well placed educationally, politically and economically.”
Although her work was in the private sector, the cable
noted how public and private tend to overlap in Vietnam , with its hybrid system of Communist one-party rule and
burgeoning capitalism.
Ms. Phuong runs an investment fund called Viet Capital
Asset Management and a brokerage firm, Viet Capital Securities, both private
companies. In June, amid criticism on the Internet of her wealth and influence,
she stepped down as chairwoman of Viet Capital Bank, a position she had held
for four months.
While Ms. Phuong is among the better known of the so-called
“children of the powerful,” the list is long. It includes her brother, who is
the deputy construction minister, and Ms. Huong, the young woman who headed the
construction company and is the daughter of To Huy Rua, a powerful member of
the Politburo. Others have moved up in the party. The son of Nong Duc Manh, who
retired as general secretary of the Communist Party last year, is a member of
the party’s Central Committee.
Because of tight controls on the media — and severe
punishment for dissent that can include jail terms — criticism of the
leadership has been largely anonymous, on blogs and Facebook pages, often
driven by rumors and unsubstantiated gossip. But as state-owned companies
struggle with scandals and mountains of debt, details of nepotism and shady
dealings have also slipped into the public domain.
In reporting the collapse of one of the largest state-owned
conglomerates, Vinashin, the state-run news media revealed that at least three
family members of the company’s chairman, Pham Thanh Binh, held senior
positions in the company, including his son and brother.
The total cost of these scandals to Vietnamese society
remains unknown. But the billions of dollars in debt are likely to be a huge
burden for the economy for years to come.
Given Vietnam ’s history of revolt, it is perhaps fitting that many of
the bitter comments online about the scandals have often been accompanied by an
ancient Vietnamese poem taught to schoolchildren:
The son of a king will become king
The son of a temple janitor will sweep the leaves
When the people rise up and take over
The son of a king will lose power and sweep the temple.
