Vietnam’s new ruler: hardman, capitalist, hedonist | To Lam, the Communist Party’s new leader, has just met Xi Jinping. America is next

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>What should you make of To Lam, the enigmatic new leader of Vietnam’s Communist Party, who has emerged victorious from a savage power struggle over the past year? On his first trip abroad Mr Lam (pictured, left) met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on August 19th. The two signed 14 documents on everything from Communist Party schools to crocodile exports. Mr Lam reaffirmed the importance of Vietnam’s biggest trading partner. Next month he will head to America. It is a sign that he intends to continue Vietnam’s “bamboo diplomacy”, swaying between the two.

>Mr Lam was implicitly celebrating capitalism, not socialism. To understand why, you have to grasp Vietnam’s troubled past decade. The country is a burgeoning powerhouse, with 100m people, a young population and labour costs that are half those of Chinese coastal areas. It is being wooed by China and America. Vietnam has benefited from America’s effort to “de-risk” supply chains. And facing higher tariffs in America, many Chinese firms are relocating some stages of production and assembly to Vietnam, which has become integrated into the supply chains of suppliers in Guangdong, and through them, to the rest of the world.

>Yet Vietnam’s potential has been throttled in a wave of crackdowns. As general secretary from 2011 until his death, Trong implemented a “blazing furnace” anti-corruption drive that has paralysed officials. Some 200,000 were disciplined; from 2021 to 2023 another 60,000 resigned. Public services have suffered, from health to education. Proposals for new infrastructure or industrial projects have languished on the desks of officials who are terrified their decisions will be scrutinised by graft-busters. Though the campaign was devised by Trong as a means of preserving the party’s legitimacy through a cleansing fire, it has instead begun to consume its most important source of legitimacy: economic growth. Delays to power-sector projects have meant that factories looking to increase capacity cannot get reliable electricity. Improvements to transport infrastructure have been too slow to keep up with the increase in industrial output.

>In his first meeting as general secretary with the party’s graft-busters on August 14th, a newly ascendant Mr Lam told them that the anti-corruption push must not stand in the way of the country’s development, even as he pledged that it would continue. Perhaps it will, as a means of extending his control of the party.

>But Mr Lam’s connections to the private sector suggest that he may be sensitive to the concerns of the bourgeoisie. The austere Trong developed few links with business, preferring his ideological obsessions. In contrast the Ministry of Public Security that Mr Lam ran until recently is a player in the economy, owning several conglomerates and a telecoms firm. And To Dung, Mr Lam’s brother, is a business owner who has acquired interests in several industries including property, energy and rare earths, as well as the Piaggio distributorship in Vespa-mad Vietnam.

>American officials, for their part, are likely to push for stronger security co-operation. Last year, the two signed a comprehensive strategic partnership. They are unlikely to raise Mr Lam’s history of repression. While the new general secretary may unleash a new era of economic dynamism, the crackdown on civil society is likely to continue. He had more than 330 activists and journalists rounded up during his time as minister for public security, according to the 88 Project, a rights group. With his experience of repression, conspicuous consumption and diplomatic balancing, Mr Lam is well qualified for his new job.

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