Analysis: Nguyen Phu Trọng's Legacy and the Future of Vietnam
A two-day state funeral for Vietnam’s late leader Nguyen Phu Trong has concluded. To learn more about Trong’s legacy and what comes next for Vietnam, reporter Chris Gorin spoke with Nguyen Khac Giang, a Vietnamese political researcher at ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute.
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00:00What has been the significance of Trung's period of rule?
00:03Well, I think it's very important to note the context of Trump's rise in Vietnamese politics.
00:09What he has been doing until his death was trying to strengthen the party rule,
00:14especially by rooting out corruption within the party.
00:18And secondly, I think it's very important to note that despite the fact that he's
00:22kind of like a strongman leader like Xi Jinping in China,
00:25he didn't really intervene into foreign policy or economic policy.
00:29It also achieved great successes, especially in balancing the great power rivalry between
00:35China and U.S. and also extending Vietnam free trade agreements with a lot of countries.
00:40So I think there is kind of like a mixed legacy during Trung's rule.
00:44What about other areas such as political rights,
00:47you know, freedom of expression? What is Trung's legacy in those areas?
00:52In the past 10 years under his rule, I think Vietnam has become, you know,
00:57kind of like more China-like environment in terms of media and civil society control,
01:03where actually we have less press freedom and less freedom on the Internet.
01:08Under Vietnam, we have more crackdown on activities which were considered as safe
01:14areas like environmentalism and the labor rights movement.
01:19What's been your sense of the reaction among everyday people in Vietnam to his death?
01:24I think Nguyễn Vũ Trọc was a really popular politician in Vietnam,
01:29not least because he was seen as a very clean and very dedicated politician.
01:35So if you come to Vietnam at the moment or you just, you know,
01:38go around the social media in Vietnam, there is an outpouring of grief over his death.
01:44And for now, I think nearly 100,000 people came to Hanoi or came to Ho Chi Minh City
01:50to attend the funeral and to show their respect to Nguyễn Vũ Trọc.
01:54There is also the concern among the population in Vietnam.
01:58They're worried that the next generation of leadership would not,
02:01you know, stand up to the standard of Nguyễn Vũ Trọc, would not be as clean as Nguyễn Vũ Trọc.
02:06Well, on that point, from your point of view,
02:09what do you see as being the next steps for the Communist Party in Vietnam?
02:13I think it's very important that Nguyễn Vũ Trọc passed away midterm,
02:17so he didn't really have a really strong plan for succession,
02:21which is very important because, as you know, in one party regime like Vietnam,
02:25succession plays a really important role in upholding the resilience and the stability of
02:32the regime, which I think would be a very uncertain period in Vietnamese politics where
02:39internal fighting might continue.
02:42But I think more to come, because it's very important to note that it's still very new.
02:46And for the past week, the leadership in Vietnam only focused totally on the funeral of Nguyễn Vũ Trọc.
02:52And so after this week, they might have to think about the new leadership transition,
02:57how to negotiate a balance of power among different factions.
03:01I think that's very important for the future of Vietnam, because they will define
03:07what Vietnam will look like in the next decade.