Vietnam party targets students, foreign firms
HANOI - Vietnam's ruling Communist Party is stepping up efforts to build support among southern college students and place cadres in key positions in foreign companies, a senior party official said on Wednesday.
The official -- providing an unusually frank insight into party thinking -- said by telephone
from Ho Chi Minh City that standards of ideological and political training for students in the southern city had been allowed to slip.
``This is still weak here because students learn less about politics than those in Hanoi,'' he
said. ``Students like to study several different curricula, so there is often little chance for the
Communist Youth Union and party units to develop.''
The official added that they were making new efforts to place party cadres -- effectively
political officers -- in decision-making positions at foreign-invested companies.
``It's an initial step,'' he said. ``If we can be active at the stage where the management
boards of these companies are being formed, we can ensure that party members are
involved.''
Vietnam's Communist Party announced at a congress in 1996 its intention to establish a
system of ``cells'' -- core groups comprising three or more people charged with monitoring
and ensuring compliance with party wishes -- in foreign firms.
The move was seen at that time as a means of ensuring political control over a sector of the
economy which had grown fast since Hanoi launched its open door and reform policies in
the late 1980s.
Foreign investors criticised the decision because of its underlying implications for trust
and business confidentiality in an environment already plagued with problems of red tape,
corruption, shifting regulations and low returns.
But the official said that the policy had been successfully implemented.
He added that the city's Party Committee would be working with labour unions and the
Communist Youth Union to ensure that party faithful were being recruited by foreign
companies in accordance with politburo directives.
REUTERS News Service - Feb 18, 1998.
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