Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific
Author: Le Hong Hiep, Vietnam National University
Vietnam is arguably the most ‘sinicised’ country in Southeast Asia, a distinctive result of more than 2000 years of intense interaction between Vietnam and China.
But the Vietnamese absorption of Chinese culture is neither a straightforward process nor an inescapable outcome of geographical proximity; it is much more nuanced. Read more…
Author: Doan Hong Quang, World Bank
Consensus-based policy making is a salient feature of Vietnam, where important decisions are collectively made.
Consensus is needed not only for the formulation of a reform vision but also for the elaboration and implementation of this vision. Read more…
Author: Le Hong Hiep, Vietnam National University
Some researchers liken China to a rooster, with Korea as its beak and Vietnam its leg.
The analogy highlights the strategic importance of Vietnam toward China, especially in terms of security, while also suggesting that Vietnam must live under China’s weight. Vietnam is therefore, in Carlyle Thayer’s words, condemned to a ‘tyranny of geography’ where it has no choice but to learn to share its destiny with neighbouring China. Read more…
Author: John Gillespie, Monash University
After the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, most Asian states moved towards a regulatory model that gave judges a greater role in resolving contentious social issues such as land disputes.
This policy of judicialisation, submitting new social and economic problems to regulation by courts, faced considerable hurdles in transforming socialist Asia, particularly in China and Vietnam. Read more…
Author: Aileen S.P. Baviera, RSIS
In the last several months, a number of incidents occurred that highlight what appears to be a growing willingness on the part of China to use its armed strength to pressure and influence rival claimants, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam, in the disputed South China Sea.
In February, there were reported incidents of Filipino fishermen being threatened and fired on by Chinese vessels. On 2 March 2011, two Chinese patrol boats confronted a Philippine oil exploration vessel, MV Veritas Voyager, and ordered it to cease activities in the Reed Bank area, which they said was under Chinese jurisdiction. Read more…
Author: Jennifer Chen, Georgetown University
How do we resolve the territorial disputes in the South China Sea (SCS)? There is no clear answer, but the first step to settling any argument is to examine all sides of the story.
Media outlets tend to depict China as the aggressor infringing on the sovereign rights of other nations.
Author: Suiwah Leung, ANU
In a previous article I emphasised the urgent need to address the risks to macroeconomic stability in Vietnam.
Indeed, action was taken after the Party Congress and the Tết holidays in January this year, beginning with a large devaluation (9 per cent of the central rate plus reduction of the band around the central rate from 3 to 1 per cent). Read more…
Author: Derek Pham, CSIS
This May, Vietnam’s National Assembly will confirm the selection of a new executive ‘troika’ to guide the country’s development for the next five years.
Current chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Phu Trong will take the top spot as General Secretary of the Communist Party; Truong Tan Sang, a prominent Politburo member, will assume the role of State President; and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, re-elected, will keep his post as head of government. Read more…
Author: David Dapice, Harvard University
Vietnam recently devalued its currency to about 21,000 dong to the US dollar. At the end of 2008, the rate was 17,000 — a decline of 24 per cent in about two years. In fact, it is worse since the ‘free market’ rate is over 22,000, and many people wanting dollars need to pay that rate. That rate would make it nearly 30 per cent depreciation. Since interest rates on dong bank deposits are only about 15 per cent, it seems safer to keep dollars under the mattress than dong in the bank.
While most Asian nations are worrying about excessive capital inflows and currencies that will be too strong to support exports, Vietnam is in the unenviable position of having almost run out of foreign exchange reserves — the exact amount is secret but probably worth six weeks of imports and half of reserves a year or so ago. Read more…
Author: Jennifer Chen, CSIS, Washington DC
Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay has opened up to foreign navy vessels after eight years of closure. Read in context, this decision is neither sudden nor unexpected. Why? Because the bay’s opening is part of Vietnam’s strategy to counteract Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea.
At the ASEAN Regional Forum in July 2010, Secretary Clinton offered to facilitate a multilateral dialogue between ASEAN and China to solve territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Read more…
Author: Long S. Le, University of Houston
The IMF’s World Economic Outlook suggests the ‘miracle’Asian economies have been resilientpost-financial crisis, whereas the US and Europe are still experiencing lacklustre growth. The newer ‘miracle’ economies of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand (known together as ‘MIT’) demonstrate that other countries with no development for over a generation might well be able to create Confucius, Islamic and Buddhist forms of modernity.
The new cycle of economic growth in these Southeast Asian tigers has been accompanied by a measure of economic and political freedom, and brought with it a relatively high standard of living. Read more…
Author: Suiwah Leung, ANU
A new generation of leadership is expected to emerge from the 11th national congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party in January 2011. Both the President and the Secretary-General of the Vietnamese Communist Party are expected to be stepping down, and a question mark hovers over the re-appointment of the current Prime Minister, Mr Nguyen Tan Dung.
After leading the country into the WTO, amongst other market-oriented reforms, Mr Dung’s personal standing within the Party has been tarnished in recent months by the near-collapse of the large state-owned shipbuilding conglomerate, Vinashin. Read more…
Author: Vu Minh Khuong, NUS
In her recent article ‘Vietnam – the next BRIC?‘, Suiwah Leung pointed to macroeconomic instability as a major obstacle for Vietnam as it seeks realise its economic potential. This point is valid. Vietnam’s macroeconomic instability has significantly weakened the country’s economic competitiveness and performance. And Vietnam’s macroeconomic instability is not only short-term turbulence but rather a significant system-wide problem caused by the country’s deficiency in fundamental development concepts and a lack of strategic effort to build good governance.
Evidence of the seriousness of Vietnam’s macroeconomic instability and its adverse effect on the country’s performance abounds. Read more…
Author: Ron Huisken, ANU
The first meeting of Defence Ministers from ASEAN, plus the US, China, Russia, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, was held in Hanoi on October 12. Judging from the exceedingly anodyne joint declaration, ASEAN was content with the fact of the meeting. And that is not unreasonable. Getting these 18 defence ministers together is no small feat: Collectively, they ‘command’ defence resources comparable to the members of NATO, and unlike NATO, there is no past war or crisis or common threat to drive them together.
The ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM) is itself a recent creation. Read more…
Author: Suiwah Leung, ANU
With an estimated GDP growth of 5.3 per cent in 2009 and a forecasted growth rate by the ADB of 6.7 per cent for 2010, Vietnam has not only survived the GFC in better shape than countries of comparable size in Asia, but has joined the ranks of middle-income countries by having its per capita GDP in excess of USD 1,000. This is certainly a remarkable achievement in two decades of economic reforms. With the leadership setting its sights on having Vietnam develop into an industrialised market economy by 2020, there are expectations in some quarters that foreign investors will again find Vietnam a very attractive investment destination after Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC).
Vietnam is no stranger to foreign investors. During the last two decades, the country has had an average FDI/GDP ratio of 5.9 per cent; the highest among many ASEAN countries during their respective periods of rapid growth from the mid-1970s to mid-1990s. Read more…