The Era of Rising Up sounds so grand. This is the slogan that the state-run newspapers and communist officials under General Secretary To Lam always chew on, as if they are determined. However, to make the so-called “era of rising up” a reality is not easy. Does a person like the Vietnamese communist chief have enough intelligence to recognize the objective truth, dare to recognize the systemic errors of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in order to perform a major repair?
If we look at the countries that have successfully risen up, not a single country is a Communist country. In Asia, there are South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan. In Europe, there are Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, etc., which have also risen strongly to become rich countries. All of those countries that have successfully risen up are either not communist, or have abandoned communism.
Abandoning communism is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. Because many Eastern European countries have abandoned Communism but they have fallen back into another form of dictatorship that has made the country miserable and the people miserable, of which Russia is the clearest example.
Having just become General Secretary, To Lam is still loyal to the Communist ideology, which is a sign that he is not brave enough and perhaps not capable enough to recognize the problem. His reform of the administrative apparatus is just the struggle of a “bird in a cage, fish in a bowl” because even if he wants to cause chaos, To Lam is still locked in the cage of Communist ideology. Even if there is a reduction in provincial administrative units, a reduction in ministries and ministerial-level agencies, the Communist nature is still there. The old mechanisms that have operated the apparatus for so long still play a core role. The apparatus will work in a way that exploits, blames, and escapes responsibility, but no one really wants to work with a pure heart and responsibility.
In fact, even if To Lam is brave enough to break the Communist cage that is holding Vietnam captive, he will still face another cage, the North Korean cage. This is the cage that To Lam fears the most.
In fact, the Communist cage is also a type of cage held by Beijing. The action of the Nguyen Van Linh-Do Muoi-Pham Van Dong group handing over the power of life and death to the North Koreans at the Chengdu Conference in 1990 was an extremely wrong move. Since then, the Communist Party has no longer been politically independent from Beijing.
The recent 11th Plenum of the CPV’s Central Committee has said many things. To Lam was worried that Xi Jinping would redraw the power map of the political elite, so he called a hasty meeting to divide it up early. That is what internal information said.
And if this is true, it shows that even if To Lam does not want to depend on China, he is afraid of Xi Jinping. To Lam is not confident enough to lead his group to be politically independent from Beijing.
To Lam holds the position of General Secretary, he is the head of the party. But will the entire party be united with him on the path of reform? To have an era of rising up, there must be the unity of the entire party, but unity is not enough, unity combined with the right strategy, high determination and most importantly, a clean apparatus. In all of these conditions, each condition is beyond the General Secretary’s ability.
Currently, Defense Minister General Phan Van Giang’s faction is trying to get out of the control of To Lam’s faction. Giang wants to show his own submission to Beijing to seek political benefits. That is a sign that the Communist Party cannot rise up.
In general, To Lam is struggling to create an “era of rising up” but the more he struggles, the more he is tied up in a tangled mess that he cannot escape. Among them, the rope is called “China” is too strong. To Lam will not be able to do anything.
Thai Ha -Thoibao.de
