A Power Grab in Hanoi

Last month, To Lam, who has served as president of Vietnam since May, became the general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party after the death of his predecessor, Nguyen Phu Trong. Lam’s ascent marks a potential watershed in the country’s governance. The Southeast Asian state is one of a handful of countries overseen by an autocracy dominated by a communist party. But unlike China, the region’s most powerful country, Vietnam is not run by a single leader. Instead, its so-called Four Pillars—the general secretary, the president, the prime minister and the chair of the National Assembly—make up its leadership. Lam, the former head of public security, is believed to still informally control the police and intelligence force despite officially relinquishing that authority earlier this year. As a result, he is likely to become the most powerful figure in Vietnam since the mid-1980s.

Since the introduction of reforms in 1986, more than a decade after unification, power has resided firmly within a small group of Vietnamese Communist Party elites, who through the seamless handing down of control from generation to generation have prevented the individual consolidation of authority by a single leader. This power-sharing arrangement typically slows down decision-making but has also prevented the emergence of a full-fledged dictatorship. Lam’s rise and potential to consolidate power are therefore a shock to that system, the reverberations of which will be felt across Vietnam’s domestic politics and, in all likelihood, foreign policy as well.

Lam, who took the reins of a sweeping anticorruption probe as head of public security, has promised to intensify the campaign as general secretary—a prospect that threatens to curtail citizens’ rights and freedoms at home and risks scaring off the foreign investment on which the modernizing program of Vietnam’s nascent tech industry rests. At the same time, Lam’s reputation as a shrewd pragmatist capable of pacifying political opponents offers some hope that his amassing of power will not fundamentally change the structure of the Vietnamese government or put the country’s hard-fought diplomatic gains at risk.

A career law enforcement official with no direct experience in foreign policy or economic governance, Lam faces a steep learning curve. But he has promised to carry on Trong’s legacy, continuing his domestic anticorruption campaign and pursuing so-called bamboo diplomacy, under which the country seeks to maintain friendly relations with geopolitical rivals. For the next few years, however—at least until the next party congress in 2026—Lam’s foremost preoccupation will be consolidating power at home. Although Lam is unlikely to abandon the pursuit of economic growth through foreign investment, Vietnam still risks losing some of the foreign-policy momentum it has gained in recent years. For the general secretary, however, stable foreign relations will be in service of ensuring maximum bandwidth for domestic control rather than the other way around.

FLEX PLAN

Before his rise to power, Lam was best known for a 2021 incident in which the celebrity chef Salt Bae served him a gold leaf–flecked steak at a high-end restaurant in London. The hedonistic display came as Lam, then minister of public security, was playing an instrumental role in Vietnam’s anticorruption campaign, which has ensnared high-ranking party leaders, business tycoons, and civil activists. Even before Trong’s death, the country has been shaken over the last two years by a wave of arrests, dismissals, and resignations in some of the government’s highest positions, including the ouster of three presidents. Nearly half the members elected to the Politburo, the party’s highest decision-making body, in the 2021 party congress have been removed; five of the dismissed members had been eligible to contend for the general secretary post in the 2026 party congress. But despite the infighting, Vietnam has been strengthening its international position, expanding and deepening relations with major powers, including a “comprehensive strategic partnership” formed with the United States in September 2023. Hanoi has been reaping the benefits of its savvy diplomacy, making the most of the intensifying competition between Washington and Beijing.

Hanoi’s foreign policy successes are relatively new. Its Doi Moi Reforms, introduced in 1986, jettisoned Vietnam’s “friends and foes” paradigm—fellow communist countries were friends, Western imperialists enemies—for a more pragmatic foreign policy. Vietnam normalized ties with former adversaries and started trading with a much wider range of partners. In the 1990s, it joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and worked toward normalization with China and the United States, former enemies in recently fought wars. Breaking out of its diplomatic isolation, it integrated into the international community.

Today, Vietnam is a thriving player in the global economy. It has become one of the Southeast Asian countries most open to trade, second only to Singapore in securing free trade pacts. It has expanded its network of partners, striking comprehensive strategic partnerships with Australia, China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States and joining multilateral trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and a free trade deal with the European Union. Hanoi is one of the more sought-after diplomatic and strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific region and a popular market for companies relocating from China. It is also said to be in talks to join the bloc of major emerging economies known as BRICS, which would strengthen its connection to hubs of the global South and permit access to their rapidly growing markets.

In the midst of intensifying U.S.-Chinese rivalry, Vietnam has proved adept at hedging, positioning itself as an important partner to both China and the West. In 2023, it was the only country to receive state visits from both U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, followed by one from Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2024. While maintaining friendly economic relations with China, Vietnam has resolutely and consistently held its ground and advanced its claims in the South China Sea despite pressure and coercion from Beijing. It was this flexibility that Trong, who governed for 13 years, dubbed “bamboo diplomacy.”

If elasticity has become the guiding principle of Vietnamese foreign relations, the opposite is true of domestic politics. Trong gradually imposed tighter controls on the party cadre and on society at large. His purge targeted rent seekers and cronies who personally benefited from the riches of the country’s new free trade windfalls, most famously Truong My Lan, a real estate magnate with links to state banks and the party who was sentenced to death last spring for embezzling $27 billion, the equivalent of six percent of the country’s GDP.

INTO THE FURNACE

Trong provided the ideological justification for the anticorruption campaign, but he needed allies in law enforcement and a cooperative Politburo to gain the leeway to carry it out. The party’s 13th National Congress in 2021, seen by experts as an opportunity to advance the political and economic reforms that had begun to stagnate after their introduction in the 1990s, instead resulted in an exceptional extension of Trong’s third term, along with the largest representation of military and police officials in the Politburo at any point in postwar Vietnam.

By Trong’s death in July, the campaign was increasingly taking out not only corrupt government officials and dissidents running afoul of the Communist Party but also Politburo members and oligarchs with party connections. As the inquiry’s scope broadened, even close allies, including those whom Trong appeared to have groomed as his successors, were not spared: Vuong Dinh Hue, who served as chair of the National Assembly from 2021 until April of this year, and Vo Van Thuong, who briefly served as president before being ousted in March, were targeted. These removals suggest that Trong was not in full control of the purge at the end of his reign.

From his perch as head of the public security apparatus, Lam oversaw investigations and prosecutions and had access to intelligence files, exercising immense power over every arm of the campaign. In his inaugural speech as general secretary, he vowed to continue the effort, popularly referred to as “blazing furnace.” “I will continue to speed up anticorruption … regardless of who the person is,” he pledged.

Under Lam, the country’s diplomatic authority could be at risk.

According to research by the German-based anticorruption coalition Transparency International, some progress has been made toward eradicating the widespread graft in Vietnamese society and politics since the investigation began in 2016. Yet the advances have not translated into a more hospitable investment environment. In fact, according to the World Bank’s “ease of doing business” rankings, conditions in Vietnam have deteriorated since 2017. Whatever the effect of the campaign, it has done little to advance Hanoi’s image among the countries and industries it hopes to attract.

In fact, it may wind up stifling the dynamic diplomacy that has allowed Vietnam to pursue its many alliances and trade deals. Fear of prosecution, or at least scrutiny, could lead bureaucrats to slow down procurement and licensing for foreign businesses. The resulting administrative paralysis could repel companies without preexisting footholds in the country and reduce foreign investment generally over the longer term.

Take investment in the technology sector, which is the linchpin of Vietnam’s plan to become a major hub in the global semiconductor supply chain but stands to suffer most from any chilling effect. The country’s restrictive 2018 Cybersecurity Law guarantees the Communist Party control over information and data localization and presents a potential challenge for Western and multinational tech companies seeking to do business there. If Lam, who as the former minister for public security is intimately familiar with the powers granted by the law, were to institute even tighter controls in his bid to consolidate domestic power, he could create an environment less conducive to both foreign tech investment and domestic innovation, research, and development.

LAM THE LION?

Even though he has acquired unparalleled power, Lam alone will not determine the path forward for Vietnam. A struggle within the Politburo pits reformers—often Western-educated, generally receptive to international engagement, and supportive of a competent technocracy—against conservatives, who tend to be skeptical of challengers to the party line and hew closer to the Chinese style of governance, which stresses loyalty to the party and adherence to socialist ideology. Whoever has the upper hand in this contest will determine whether the country continues to engage internationally or retreats inward. Lam fits into neither of these categories neatly. He understands the importance of economic performance to the regime’s legitimacy and will make it a priority. But his early appointments to the Politburo, including Luong Tam Quang, whose father was a bodyguard for Lam’s father, and deputy prime minister positions betray a preference for anointing allies loyal to him personally rather than to any of the party’s factions. As a result, six of the currently 15-member Politburo hail from the public security apparatus.

Lam’s first foreign trip as head of the party and state was to Beijing. Vietnamese leaders typically take care to establish a rapport with China to maintain continuity and stability in the bilateral relationship. How he will approach the United States remains in question, with little movement likely until after the American elections in November. Like all leaders of Vietnam, he faces the perennial fear captured in a popular Vietnamese saying that could be paraphrased as, “To side with China would be to lose the country, while to side with the United States would be to lose the Communist Party.” Similarly, despite his grand ambitions, the singular circumstances of his rise to power, and his consolidation of authority, Lam faces the same constraints and questions that his predecessors did about balancing great-power relations in an increasingly unpredictable geopolitical environment. How to best deal with a challenging China, with which Vietnam has an ideological kinship, while advancing the newly established strategic partnership with Washington, which once wanted to topple its communist regime, is the puzzle that will shape Lam’s tenure. He will have to contend with the national sentiments of those wary of Beijing but also concerned about overreliance on the frequently changing governments of the United States.

If Vietnam does veer toward authoritarianism under Lam, however, international investors may reconsider their willingness to do business in the country. Hanoi’s relatively newfound leadership in regional diplomacy, including within ASEAN, could be at risk if Lam’s consolidation plunges the country into upheaval and Vietnam cannot promote itself as an exemplar of good governance to other member states as a result. The hard-won gains of the past 40 years could well be jeopardized if Lam prioritizes his own clout.

Lam is the most powerful leader in recent Vietnamese history. Given his public security background and lack of Trong’s ideological drive, the anticorruption campaign may become a blunt instrument for eliminating political opponents ahead of the 2026 party congress. And although Lam is unlikely to change course on foreign policy, that continuity will be made to serve change: continued foreign engagement and investment will legitimize his domestic agenda of unprecedented control. In this way, though he does not represent a threat to Vietnam’s existing systems, his rule may have serious, if not transformative, consequences. Hanoi is unlikely to abandon bamboo diplomacy, to which Vietnam owes much of its international success. But under Lam, the country’s diplomatic authority could be at risk.