~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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[Year 2001]

Celebration cannot mask stagnant party, slowed economic reforms

HANOI - Vietnam's communist vanguard gathered in Hanoi yesterday for what was supposed to be a glorious occasion: the 70th anniversary of the country's Communist Party.
To the strains of martial music, construction workers spun in pirouettes and traditionally clad ethnic minority women sang hymns praising the glory of Ho Chi Minh, the party's founder and Vietnam's treasured revolutionary icon. Many waved the hammer and sickle flag under the watchful gaze of Marx and Lenin.
To the nation's political and military elite who filled the Ba Dinh Meeting Hall, many of whom are genuine battlefield heroes, it may have been a commemoration of personal sacrifice and accomplishment, of battling the evils of imperialism and emerging independent and sovereign.
To foreign observers, it was a stern warning that the "gravediggers of colonialism" will brook no rivals to its political regime.

"We will not accept political hegemony," party General Secretary Le Kha Phieu intoned, elaborating on the various guises international governments and corporations may be employing in their plots to subvert the world's remaining socialist states. Such "hostile forces", he suggested, were looking to wreak havoc on Vietnam's communist idyll. "We should never relax for a minute our vigilance" against them, General Phieu said, claiming that the party's victories, since its inception in 1930, are proof of the correctness of the communist platform. "This reminds me of North Korea," a Vietnamese observer noted during the cabaret-like opening song and dance routine. Many of the foreign envoys listening in on headsets registered similar disbelief.

"I'm dumbfounded," said one Western ambassador after the event. "I kept on pinching myself to realise what century I'm in." General Phieu dwelt on the revolutionary accomplishments of the 20th century, but regularly barked out warnings for the future. "Socialist orientation is still our main measure."

No one is arguing the point these days. Vietnam continues to prop up its lumbering state-owned enterprises, to the detriment of a fledgling private sector chomping at the bit. Promised economic reforms have slowed, and foreign direct investment has taken a nose dive in recent years, amounting to only US$600 million (HK$4.64 billion) last year. The all-powerful Politburo has balked at signing a landmark trade agreement with Washington just as China has inked its own deal with the US for WTO accession.

"This event cements the party's stagnation more than anything else," said another European diplomat. "If you want the party to have a leading role, that's fine, but it should at least lead somewhere," he said.

By Michael Mathes - South China Morning Post - February 3, 2000.