On the international stage, Trong was seen as a skilled practitioner of Vietnam’s “bamboo diplomacy” – so called because it bends in many directions – as Vietnam navigated relationships with China and the United States, its most important economic partners, while also building ties with countries such as India and Russia.
His influence within Vietnam was less subtle: His anti-corruption campaign was aimed at boosting public confidence in the Communist party and its rule over Vietnam’s economy, the region’s most dynamic, with sectors that include a thriving entrepreneurial culture.
At the same time, Chung tightened government control over other freedoms, overseeing tougher Communist Party directives aimed at the media, civil society groups and the domestic political agenda.
In May, police arrested Nguyen Van Binh, a Labor Ministry official and advocate for independent trade unions, was charged with leaking state secrets during meetings with UN envoys, a charge many human rights activists interpreted as punishment for his reformist views.
Since the Vietnam War era, the political leadership of Vietnam (then North Vietnam) has evolved into a collegial system with a Communist Party secretary-general, a president, a prime minister and a top member of the National Assembly. Mr. Trong wielded influence in a way rarely seen before.
He was elected secretary-general of the party in 2011 and re-elected five years later. After President Tran Dai Quang’s death in 2018, Trong also took on the role of president, making him leader of the party and the state. Only a few people, including North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, have held both positions simultaneously.
Trong stepped down from his presidency in 2021, but Re-elected Chong was appointed by the party for a third term as secretary-general, becoming the first leader in more than 30 years to serve more than two terms. After the party members’ vote, Chong, 76, said he wanted to take a break because his “health is not very good” but that he respected the decision to stay on as leader.
Hosted by Tron President Biden The White House carefully calibrated the talks during their meeting in Hanoi last September: The two countries value economic ties, the United States is Vietnam’s largest export market and U.S. policymakers see Vietnam as a key regional buffer against Chinese influence in Southeast Asia.
But in those outreach efforts, Biden called attention to Trong’s tough stance. “I also highlighted the importance of respecting human rights as a priority for both my administration and the American people,” Biden told reporters. “And we’ll continue to have an open dialogue about that.”
Human rights groups have been more vocal. Project 88, a watchdog group that monitors Vietnam, said: Depicted Trong rules a “police state” [that] The government has shut down the only independent association of journalists in the country of around 100 million people, while imprisoning scores of human rights activists and dissidents.
Project 88 estimates that around 200 people, including environmental activists, journalists and trade unionists, have been jailed for political reasons under Chung’s rule. Chung’s one-party state has also been successful in putting pressure on tech companies such as Meta. Scrub the criticism Excerpts from the party leaders’ policy platforms.
Still, for many in Vietnam, Trong’s work on foreign policy and the anti-corruption campaign are seen as central to his legacy, said Khanh Vu, a Vietnam studies scholar at Boston University.
“There’s no denying that some of the corruption cases had political motives to control the party and control Chong,” he said in an interview. “But it’s also clear that many officials and businesspeople are treading much more cautiously than before, knowing there may be consequences.”
The corruption investigation began after Trong began his second term as party leader in 2016. Within four years, more than 100 Communist party members, including senior Politburo officials, had been disciplined or faced criminal charges for corruption, illegal business dealings and other irregularities.
In a speech, Chung likened the purge to a “fiery furnace,” which was adopted as the name for the anti-corruption campaign, which extended investigations into military officers, bankers and senior government officials.
Minister of Information Truong Minh Tuan said Fired In 2018, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison for making secret deals to buy a TV station. His predecessor, Nguyen Bach Son, life sentence He was arrested in 2019 for accepting an estimated $3 million in bribes.
One incident even reached the presidential palace.
Top officials of President Nguyen Xuan Phuc are under criminal investigation for alleged abuse of power during the pandemic, including allegations that they accepted bribes in exchange for seats on chartered flights to repatriate Vietnamese citizens stranded overseas during the lockdown.
Mr. Phuc is from the Communist Party. Resign In January 2023, Trong was replaced by his ally, Vo Van Tuong. Resigned A year later, the Communist Party issued a terse statement saying he had “failed to bear consequences for public opinion, the party, the country and his own reputation.”
At another inquest supported by Trong, the chief executive of medical company Viet A said: Bribing officials Contracts to sell inferior quality goods coronavirus The company shipped test kits to hospitals. The scandal led to the arrest of the Minister of Health and the former Minister of Science and Technology in June 2022.
Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, said the fight against corruption was a way for Trong to consolidate his power and pacify other centers of influence.
“This is raw politics of elites trying to consolidate wealth and power,” Abuza said. I have written “The era of collective leadership is over,” he said in a commentary for Radio Free Asia.
Growing up as a “farmer”
Nguyen Phu Trong was born on April 14, 1944, in a rural district outside Hanoi. His official state biography describes his childhood as a “poor peasant.”
In 1967, he earned a degree in linguistics from the Vietnam National University in Hanoi, after which he applied to join the Communist Party, which he was accepted into in 1968 as the Vietnam War raged.
He spent the next 30 years in various positions involved in the implementation and interpretation of Communist Party doctrine, including as editor of the party’s newspaper, Communist Review, from 1991 to 1996. Previously, he studied in Moscow and received a doctorate in history from the Academy of Sciences in 1983.
He became a member of the Politburo in 1997, received leadership training and served as Speaker of the National Assembly from 2006 to 2011.
Shortly after being appointed General Secretary of the Party, he visited China. president Hu JintaoTrong has sought to avoid friction with Beijing while working to strengthen ties with the United States. South China SeaChina claims the area as its territory, but Washington sees it as part of China’s efforts to expand its military presence in the region.
Over the next four months in 2015, Chung made official visits to China and the United States. met He met with President Barack Obama and discussed strengthening economic cooperation, among other things.
Tron said: address Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, he acknowledged that the two countries have different interpretations of political freedom and expression, “but human rights issues should not get in the way of bilateral relations,” he said.
Amid further diplomatic standoff between East and West, Trong said host Russian President Vladimir Putin in June signaled efforts to encourage Vietnam to remain neutral in the Ukraine war.
Trong is married to Ngo Thi Manh and has two children. Complete information about survivors was not immediately available.
Nguyen Thanh Giang, a Vietnamese analyst at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, a Singapore-based think tank, said Trong’s passion for eradicating corruption had also prompted a hard look at Vietnam’s one-party system.
“The campaign was meant to fix the system, but in reality it exposed the pernicious problems of corruption and political decadence in the regime,” Jiang said.
Rebecca Tan contributed to this report.
