Blog wars underline Vietnam power struggle
Since early this month the Western press has gotten wind of an extraordinary bit of intra-Communist party bashing underway Vietnam, but most have missed the crux of the story. One after another reporters have filed reports to the effect that Vietnam has launched a new round of repression of the media that populate the vibrant Vietnamese language blogosphere.
Case in point is
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung's September 12 instruction to "responsible officials" to investigate and punish bloggers who are publishing anti-regime news. Posted on the government's website, Dung's circular singled out three political blogs: Dan Lam Bao ('The People Make the News'), Quan Lam Bao ('Officials Make the News'), and Bien Dong ('East Sea') for publishing stories considered "slanderous, fabricated, distorted and false, with the intention of blackening the leadership of the nation, rousing anti-party and anti-state sentiment, giving rise to suspicion and bad opinions within society."
His directive said
the blogs were part of "a wicked plot by enemy forces." Dung instructed the Ministry of Public Security to coordinate with the Ministry of Information, and the latter to work with the Communist Party's Propaganda Section, to ensure the emission of "objective and truthful news about the situation of our country . . . and to crack down on mongers of news that isn't true."
Finally, officials and party cadre were instructed neither to read or disseminate information that is published on “reactionary” websites. A bit of digging by this reporter revealed that two of the blogs were set up a few months ago as vehicles for highly partisan attacks on Vietnam's top leaders by agents of their party rivals.
Quan Lam Bao (QLB) first appeared in early June, vowing in its first post to “wipe out corrupt cliques that monopolize the nation’s economic and political life.” By mid-July, QLB was reporting 10,000 “new visitors” daily. QLB was the first to break news of the banker and Dung crony Nguyen Duc Kien’s arrest on charges of "illegal business activities," 12 hours before the national police made their own announcement. In the next 10 days, daily hits on the site were just short of a million, an unheard of level in Vietnam’s blogosphere.
The Bien Dong blog surfaced on July 3 with a long, mundane account of Vietnam's historic claim to the East Sea and almost immediately segued into ad hominem attacks on President Truong Tan Sang, and detailed speculation that China was dictating the editorial stance of QLB. Unlike the anti-Dung site, however, Bien Dong went almost unnoticed by Vietnamese readers until it was sanctioned in the government's September 12 circular.
Perhaps to underline its neutrality in the intraparty dogfight, DLB on September 14 posted an analysis arguing that if Dung prevails, Vietnam will continue to wallow in corruption and nepotism, and if his rival should topple him, a Sang-controlled government will be Beijing's puppet.
Quoting sources in the Ministry of National Security who had counted "more than 400 reactionary organizations inside and outside the nation" that were posting distorted and defamatory stories on the internet, QDND concluded that weeding out such bad behavior is, literally, a Herculean task.
Sang, according to Vietnamese Communist Party watchers, tried to take down Dung in the build-up to the January 2011 party congress. He ultimately failed; though accused of mismanaging the economy and tolerating scandal, Dung secured another five year term as prime minister. As a consolation prize, Sang was named president, a largely ceremonial role. The third job in Vietnam's leadership troika, general secretary of the Communist Party, went to Nguyen Phu Trong, an ideology expert who'd done a credible job steering the national legislature.
That should have settled internal power struggles for another five years, but it hasn't. It is argued by at least a plurality of analysts that it was Sang who convinced Trong to launch a "party-building campaign" last February that has played a role in exposing recent scandals. Reputedly, Sang played on Trong's well-known concern that the corruption and venality of party members has steadily eroded popular respect for its leadership.
By past form,
there's little chance that the Central Committee will vote either Dung or Sang out of office. Many of its 170 members would probably prefer that the two shake hands and get back to doing their jobs under the fa็ade of party unity. However, the bad blood between Dung and Sang is real, it is public and it overlies genuine differences in intra-party temperament and policy views. But with all the dirty laundry aired in the blogosphere, it may now be impossible to put the genie back into the bottle.
Asia Times Online :: Blog wars underline Vietnam power struggle
