Prominent Vietnamese Politician PASSES AWAY
The most prominent politician in Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong, was the general secretary of the ruling Communist Party and passed away on Friday following several months of illness, according to official media. He was eighty.
“General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party Nguyen Phu Trong passed away at 13:38 on July 19, 2024, at the 108 Central Military Hospital due to old age and serious illness,” according to the Nhan Dan newspaper.
There will be a state funeral, according to official media.
Ever since he was chosen as the party chairman in 2011, Trong has controlled Vietnamese politics. He aimed to strengthen the Communist Party’s position in Vietnam’s one-party government throughout his time there. The governmental wing, headed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at the time, had gained significant ground in the ten years prior to his ascent to the top of Vietnamese politics.
From 1981 to 1983, Trong studied in the Soviet Union, and there was conjecture that Vietnam would become more integrated with China and Russia under his direction. However, the nation of Southeast Asia used a practical approach known as “bamboo diplomacy,” a term he invented to describe the plant’s ability to bend but not break in the face of altering geopolitical gusts.
Vietnam disagrees with China over sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, but it has maintained long-standing relations with the larger country. However, it also became closer to the US, raising its diplomatic relations with the US from its previous adversary in the Vietnam War to the greatest level—that of a complete strategic alliance.
The anti-graft campaign’s unexpected result, according to Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow in the Vietnam Studies Program at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, is the weakening of Communist Party institutions. Trong’s legacy is thus ambiguous.
On July 18, Vietnamese President To Lam was named the party’s caretaker while Trong got medical attention for his illness. Prior to taking office as president in May after his predecessor resigned due to being embroiled in graft, Lam had spearheaded the anti-graft drive as Vietnam’s top security official.
In a statement from its central office, the party’s Politburo asked Lam to “preside over the work of the Party Central Committee, the Politburo, and the Secretariat,” marking the first formal acknowledgement of Trong’s deteriorating health.
Ever before his initial hospitalization in 2019 and, more recently, when he looked incredibly weak during a meeting with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin, there have been rumors regarding his health in Vietnamese politics.
Vietnam now faces a massive political vacuum following Trong’s passing. Giang foresaw “a very uncertain time” in Vietnamese politics despite Lam being the front-runner to become the party’s leader. This is because the structures and conventions that govern the nation are “very shaky.”
