The risks and rewards of Vietnam’s strongman era

On 7 April, Vietnam’s National Assembly unanimously elected To Lam, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, as state president for the next five years. It makes him effectively the most powerful Vietnamese leader in decades. The 68-year-old’s election as president was unprecedented, marking the first time in the modern history of Vietnam that a single person has held both the offices of president and general secretary (except as a temporary measure). Lam had previously secured a second term as general secretary in January during the party’s national congress. He now wields unprecedented power over one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, a key manufacturing hub, and a frontline state amid competition between China and the United States in the Indo-Pacific.

A communist one-party state, Vietnam has traditionally operated under a model of ‘collective leadership’, with key positions distributed among different officials to balance power within the party. This principle is embodied in Vietnam’s system known as the ‘Five Pillars’, comprising the president, prime minister, general secretary, chairman of the national assembly and the standing secretary of the party’s secretariat (the system was formerly known as the ‘Four Pillars’, with the last position being a recent addition). Such a system established a measure of internal checks and balances within the confines of autocratic one-party rule.

By holding two of the five pillars, Lam has fundamentally disrupted Vietnam’s political model, with one analyst noting that the country’s political system has now transitioned to a ‘strongman leadership style’. Observers have drawn comparisons with neighbouring China, where Xi Jinping likewise serves as both party chief and president.

The roots of Lam’s rise to power lie in his previous role as Minister of Public Security, during which he oversaw former general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s far-reaching anti-corruption campaign, dubbed the ‘Blazing Furnace’. The campaign saw the indictment of over 4,400 individuals in more than 1,700 corruption cases, with not even members of the Politburo being spared. Among those taken down included two presidents, two deputy prime ministers, and a national assembly chairman. Critics have alleged that Lam weaponised anti-corruption investigations to remove rivals to succeed Trong as general secretary. Following the death of Trong in July 2024, Lam took over as general secretary.

Having been elevated to the role of president, Lam is now in a stronger position to pursue his ambitious pro-business reform agenda. Since becoming general secretary, Lam has carried out widespread administrative reforms, aiming to improve government efficiency and speed up bureaucratic decision-making. Lam has slashed the number of provincial and municipal administrations from 63 to 34, and eliminated the entire district level of governance in favour of a two-tier system comprising provincial and commune levels. He has also abolished eight government ministries or agencies and slashed nearly 150,000 jobs from the state payroll.

Alongside government restructuring, Lam is seeking to develop a new growth model for Vietnam, in which the private sector will drive economic growth (i.e. state-backed national champions). This contrasts with Vietnam’s current economic model, centered on foreign direct investment and state-owned enterprises. Vietnam has set an ambitious annual growth target of 10 per cent, with the larger goal of turning Vietnam into a high-income country by 2045.

At the best of times, such targets would be considered wildly ambitious. However, Hanoi must contend with attempting to achieve double-digit growth at a time of geopolitical flux, which has deeply unsettled the global economic outlook. Indeed, realising Lam’s vision of an ‘era of national rise’ will depend largely on how Hanoi navigates the current US-China tensions.

With Vietnam’s political system under Lam increasingly resembling that of China’s under Xi, it seems only natural that Hanoi and Beijing have become more closely aligned. Indeed, shortly after being elected president, Lam made an official state visit to Beijing. During the visit, both sides signed 32 co-operation documents and agreed to deepen collaborations in areas as varied as railway infrastructure, supply chains, science and technology, and cross-border development. Vietnam has also expressed an interest in cooperating with China in developing Vietnam’s 5G infrastructure, with Vietnamese telecommunications giants Viettel and VNPT signing 5G supply contracts with ZTE and Huawei in 2025. This is despite reservations expressed by Vietnam’s western partners about Chinese vendors joining Vietnam’s 5G rollout due to data security concerns.

Most ominously, maintaining one-party rule in their respective societies has emerged as a new avenue of bilateral cooperation. In March of this year, both Vietnam and China held the inaugural meeting of their ‘3+3’ strategic dialogue, involving not only their foreign and defence ministers, but also their respective public security ministers. The dialogue has been described as the ‘first strategic communication platform of its kind globally’, designed in part to safeguard ‘political system security’. During the dialogue, China’s public security minister called for enhanced efforts in countering so-called ‘colour revolutions’.

It would be easy to argue that an increased emphasis on regime security and economic realities will inevitably see Vietnam move closer into China’s orbit. However, Vietnam’s quiet military build-up in the South China Sea tells a different story. In recent years, Hanoi has been engaged in a rapid expansion and militarisation of its outposts in the disputed South China Sea. Such activities have focused on the Spratly Islands, an archipelago that is claimed to varying degrees by six countries – Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. Its waters are rich in fishing stocks as well as large amounts of untapped oil and gas reserves. Furthermore, it is believed that one third of all global shipping passes through the Spratlys.

China currently asserts sovereignty over 90 per cent of the South China Sea, symbolised by its infamous ‘Ten-Dash-Line’. Among those contesting China’s expansive claims is Vietnam, which has sought to defend its own territorial claims by mirroring China’s aggressive land reclamation activities launched a decade ago. Since 2022, Vietnam has engaged in dredging and landfilling operations across all 21 reefs, shoals and sandbanks it controls in the Spratly Islands, often engaging in serious reef destruction in the process.

According to a report by the US-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) released on 8 May, Vietnam added an additional 534 acres of land across the Spratlys in the last 12 months. Following earlier rounds of reclamation work, Vietnam began smaller expansions at several new features beginning in the second half of 2025. These new dredging activities have brought Vietnam’s total area of artificial land reclaimed to approximately 2,771 acres. Vietnam has also been constructing military infrastructure on the features where reclamation activities have been largely completed, with satellite imagery identifying harbours, munitions storage, barracks and/or administrative buildings, possible firing positions for artillery or rocket systems, trenches and a communications structure. On Vietnam’s largest feature in the Spratlys, Barque Canada Reef, a 3.2-kilometre-long airstrip is currently being constructed.

Earlier analysis by AMTI had observed that Vietnam’s island-building activities appeared to be catching up with China’s. However, a recent burst of reclamation ‌activities ⁠at the Chinese-held Antelope Reef has now widened the gap, with China’s total amount of reclaimed land now standing at about 5,460 acres. Nonetheless, as noted by AMTI, with China’s recent island-building activities being solely focused on one feature, Vietnam’s more widespread expansion of its outposts in the Spratlys is expected to have a larger impact on the South China Sea’s operating environment. Indeed, commentary released by Chatham House earlier this year argued that Vietnam’s island-building activities may have already opened a ‘Pandora’s Box’ that will lead to competitive island-building across the South China Sea by other South-east Asian claimants.

Ultimately, as recently argued by Khang Vu in the Diplomat, reductionist narratives of Vietnam’s alignment with China misconstrue Hanoi’s improving relations with Beijing as operating within a zero-sum geopolitical game. In reality, they are part of a denser web of partnerships that Hanoi must constantly calibrate and adjust to prevent its relationship with other great powers from being hampered. As Vu stresses, Hanoi constantly balances its moves with one power against another to maintain its foreign policy of non-alignment.

In particular, Vietnam will be keen to convince the United States that it is not siding with Beijing against it. The US remains a key economic partner for Vietnam, with exports accounting for close to 30 per cent of Vietnam’s GDP. In January of this year, Vietnam’s trade surplus with the US reached USD 19 billion, with its exports rising 53 per cent year-on-year to exceed USD 20 billion. It was the largest dollar surplus of all the US’ trading partners, followed by Taiwan, Mexico and China. This was in spite of a 20 per cent tariff placed on Vietnamese imports by the Trump administration (after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs in February of this year, the White House imposed a 10 per cent global tariff for 150 days). In 2025, Vietnam’s trade surplus with the US reached USD 178 billion.

This is attributable in part to Vietnam having emerged as one of the main beneficiaries of the ongoing decoupling of the American and Chinese economies, as companies shifted their China-based operations to countries such as Vietnam in order to avoid US tariffs and export controls on Chinese goods.

That Vietnam now serves as a ready alternative production base to China for global manufacturers has not escaped notice by the US. In February, US President Donald Trump made the notable decision to remove Vietnam from the US’ strategic export control lists, where it had been placed alongside other countries such as China and Russia since the Cold War. This now grants Vietnam access to high-end American tech, with analysts believing that Washington aims to foster Vietnam’s semiconductor industry as an alternative to China. For Vietnam, elevating its semiconductor sector from low-value assembly, testing and packaging towards higher-value segments, such as integrated circuit (IC) design and localised fabrication aligns with its goal of becoming a high-income country.

Nonetheless, Vietnam’s persistently high trade surplus with the US is expected to remain a source of friction in bilateral relations, given the Trump administration’s protectionist sentiments. US officials have frequently accused Vietnam of facilitating the trans-shipment of Chinese goods into the US market, referring to the rerouting of Chinese goods through third parties in order to avoid US tariffs and export controls. While part of the increase in Vietnam’s trade with the US can be attributed to legitimate trade in which Vietnam assembles final goods using raw materials and sub-components imported from China, investigations by the media have also found evidence of fraudulent trade practices, including redirected exports.

Indeed, while the US Supreme Court struck down most of Trump’s tariffs in February, his administration is evidently using alternative legal tools to exert pressure on trading partners. On 30 April, the US Trade Representative (USTR) classified Vietnam as the only ‘priority foreign country’ in its annual report on intellectual property abuse, pointing to the country’s ‘persistent failure’ to tackle intellectual property infringement. This is the first time in 13 years that a country has been placed in that category. Using the ‘priority foreign country’ label grants the USTR until 30 May to decide if the IP practices warrant a Section 301 probe. Should investigators conclude there have been violations, Washington may impose tariffs.

Such are the opportunities and threats facing Vietnam, now under the near-absolute control of To Lam. Some have argued that such a concentration of power will permit faster, bolder and more efficient policymaking. However, it is just as likely that Lam’s consolidation of power backfires, given the erosion of internal checks and balances within the party. A reduced space for internal policy deliberations and its replacement by a China-style culture of paranoia and yes-men ultimately risks creating an echo chamber, thereby affecting the long-term quality of policymaking within the party.

To Lam may think that strongman politics will help him forge ahead with his transformative plans for Vietnam, but it may undermine them in the end.