Vietnam’s leadership

Press, 29 December 1986, Page 16

Vietnam’s leadership

The recent changes in the leadership in Vietnam are highly significant, but do not indicate that Vietnam will embark on radically different policies. During the last two years various economic changes have been introduced. These have included the abolition of the subsidised distribution of food, allowing enterprise managers to make decisions (instead of merely following the party line), allowing private enterprises to employ up to 10 people, and a decision to reduce the size of the State’s bureaucracy. These reforms and others were the subject of years of debate. The leadership changes indicate that those favouring further reforms, and a more practical approach to rescuing the country’s hard-pressed economy, will have a bigger say in the government of Vietnam.

The changes occurred at the congress of the Vietnam Communist Party. Various pressures had made changes inevitable. One pressure was widespread resentment against the age of some of the leaders. Vietnamese officials, not generally among the most outspoken of bureaucrats, had been muttering for months about the need for the “old men to leave.”

This dissatisfaction had many causes. The last straw appeared to be a change to a new currency in September, 1985. The Government’s new currency, the “new dong” replaced 10 old dongs. Individuals and families were allowed to replace only certain number of their dongs and the banks would hold the rest. The change was ill prepared: there were not enough notes of the new denominatioin and the annual inflation rate, which had been running at 50 per cent, shot up to 350 per cent. Residents in the capital, Hanoi, claim inflation now may be over 500 per cent.

The Government eventually responded by reintroducing subsidised food for employees in Hanoi, but the resentment which had been generated helped ensure that the party congress would need to provide an opportunity for criticism or dismissals of the old generation of party leaders. In the event, three veteran leaders resigned and three were dismissed.

The climate for change had also been fostered by changes in the leadership of other Communist parties. A number of Cuban Communist Party Central Committee members, for instance, are under 35. One is

only 28. In the Soviet Union itself, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev is projecting a younger image. Particular veneration was given in Vietnam for those who had been associated with Ho Chi Minh and the long war against the Japanese, French, Americans, and anti-communist-Vietnamese. The problem became acute in the public service because it was considered very difficult to force older men to resign. In. the end the Government passed a law making retirement compulsory for men at 60 and women at 55, but it is not always applied.

Vietnam has been looking cautiously to the West for investment, but its relations with many countries are soured by its savage internal policies and by the continuing Vietnamese occupation of Kampuchea. The Soviet Union and East European countries have long been the main sources of investment and, tired of seeing little or no return for their money, have begun imposing stringent conditions. Demands have been made for all the production from jointventure projects. In Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), for instance, a garment factory was contracted to supply 10 million shirts and trousers to Hungary in 1982-1985. In another case, Soviet equipment and advice were provided for a rubber plantation which was required to supply latex to the Soviet Union for 15 years to repay the investment. The Soviet Union provides aid to Vietnam at the rate of about $6 million a day; it no longer believes that aid is being used sensibly.

The Soviet Union benefits in that Vietnam maintains one of the largest armed forces in the world and makes bases available to the Soviet Union in the sensitive South-East Asian region. But other countries in East Asia are developing their economies far more rapidly. Vietnam’s economic changes have been painfully slow, even by communist standards. China, for instance, has changed much more quickly in the last decade.

Now, because ancient leaders have been dumped, Vietnam may have a better prospect of coming to grips with the realities of economic life, instead of stewing over whether policies are correct in terms of Marxist ideology. But the new party chief, Mr Nguyen Van Linh, is 72. For many of the unhappy Vietnamese, the changes may still turn out to be too little and too late.