Vietnam: Facing the Challenge of Integration

Southeast Asian Affairs 2004 VIETNAM Facing the Challenge of Integration Nguyen Manh Hung The year 2003 began with Vietnamese leaders taking decisive steps to combat corruption by censuring two members of the all-powerful Politburo of the Communist Party ofVietnam (CPV) for being implicated in a corruption case. It ended with a nine-day whirlwind tour of the United States by Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan to promote trade with "the largest market in the world" and 'Vietnam's largest trade partner", and frantic efforts to seek integration into the world's economy through the seventh round of negotiations in Geneva on Vietnam's application to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). Combating Corruption Since the mid-term congress of the CPV in 1994, Vietnamese leaders have identified corruption as one of the four dangers facing Vietnam.1 It continues to be a major problem that deters foreign investments and undermines the people's trust in the party and government. Phan Dien, Politburo member and permanent secretary of the Central Committee of the CPV, told a meeting in March that "widespread corruption, red tape and the poor knowledge of Party members and Government officials are the main reasons for the people's distrust of the Party's ruling role".2 Very early in 2003, the government had taken steps to move against this social ill. In a meeting with the country's leaders on 29January to welcome the Lunar New Year, General Secretary Nong Due Manh pledged, among other things, to "rigorously combat corruption".3 The 7th Plenum of the Central Committee (CC) of the CPVwhich ended aweek earlier had taken an unprecedented step by relieving Le Hong Anh, Politburo member and minister of public security, of his post as director of the CCs Inspection Commission, and reprimanding another Politburo member and director of the party's Economic Commission, Truong Tan Sang.4 The following month, the long-awaited trial of Nam Cam, Vietnam's most powerful organized crime boss, opened in Ho Chi Minh City. The court handed Nguyen Manh Hung is Associate Professor of Government and International Affairs at George Mason University, United States of America. 298Nguyen Manh Hung Nam Cam a death sentence, and prison terms ranging between four and ten years to three senior government officials including one former vice-minister of public security and two members of the CPV Central Committee, Pham Sy Chien and Tran Mai Hanh.5 Then, in another trial in November involving corruption in a state-owned company under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, a death sentence was handed out to its director, La Thi Kim Oanh, and prison terms were given to two former deputy ministers. Combating corruption is a long-term and difficult battle. While these actions were bold and encouraging, corruption in Vietnam continued unabated in 2003, which prompted Prime Minister Phan Van Khai to lament, in a speech to the National Assembly on 21 October, that the people were "fed up and disillusioned with graft".6 In the same month, Transparency International made public its second global corruption survey ranking Vietnam among the most corrupt countries of those surveyed. Vietnam ranked 100 out of 133 nations (with an index of 2.4) compared with 75 out of 99 countries in its 1999 survey (with an index of 2.6),7 the year when former general secretary of the CPV launched a twoyear campaign to combat and eradicate corruption. Thus, corruption was getting worse, not better. By the end of the year, corruption had become a hot issue in talks between Vietnam and its international donors. World Bank country director in Vietnam Klaus Rohland warned that government corruption and slow progress in reforming the financial sector willjeopardize Vietnam's economic and social development unless immediate steps were taken. The World Bank's Vietnam Development Report 2004 issued on 26 November went further by pointing out that failure to combat corruption and carry out financial sector reform could lead to "the emergence of a variant of crony capitalism already seen elsewhere, not the development ofa vibrant market economy with a socialist orientation".8 Warning against "rampant corruption" was also raised at the Consultative Group of...