Thayer Consultancy Background Brief:

ABN # 65 648 097 123

Does Vietnam View International
Integration a Threat to National
Security?
February 29, 2024

We have recently viewed a confidential national security policy directive from the
Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Vietnam, known as Directive 24. The
directive outlines threats to national security arising from international commerce and
cooperation.
We request your assessment of the following issues:
Q1. Does Directive 4 provide any insights into Vietnam's leaders' mindset regarding
the country's integration with the world?
ANSWER: Directive 24 reveals that Vietnam’s leaders are deeply obsessed with total
control over all aspects of Vietnam’s “proactive and active integration” with the global
economy. They appear to view any economic, political and social interaction with
foreign countries, entities and persons as holding the potential to challenge the
legitimacy of Vietnam’s one-party state and socialist market economy. Their response
is to exert greater monitoring, management and repression that runs counter to the
interests of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
Q2. What are the potential consequences of Directive 24 on human rights within
Vietnam and the country's image internationally?
ANSWER: Human rights cover a broad area including political and civil rights and
freedom of religion.
Directive 24 does not signal a new wave of repression against civil society and pro-
democracy activists so much as “business as usual,” that is, continued repression
against any independent activity by advocacy groups, civil society and pro-democracy
activists that challenges the party’s monopoly of power.
Directive 24 puts Vietnam at odds with its commitment to labour rights when it joined
the World Trade Organisation in 2007 and through its ratification of the
Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2019 and European
Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement in 2020. Directive 24, when it becomes public,
will prove a sticking point in Vietnam’s negotiations over the Bidens Administration’s
Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity.
For example, the International Labour Organisation’s Labour Rights bans products
made through forced labour. These right are included in the CPTPP and EU-Vietnam
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FTA. This year Vietnam became the main culprit in exporting products to the United
States with material from Uighur minority forced labour camps in China.
Vietnam’s attempts to subvert workers’ rights to form independent trade unions and
collective bargaining will result in blow back from the U.S. and European states.
Q3. Considering this directive and the current situation in Vietnam, how does the
country appear today compared to a decade ago?
ANSWER: Ten years ago, Vietnamese leaders still feared that peaceful evolution or
colour revolutions were major challenges to the party-state. Currently, Vietnamese
leaders hold the same fears. However, Vietnam today is more open to international
integration through free trade agreements. The United States is no longer considered
the “object of struggle” (đối tượng).
Vietnam’s leaders have always taken steps to protect the leading role of the
Communist Party in Vietnam’s state and society. However, under the tutelage of
Nguyen Phu Trong and his “burning furnace” anti-corruption campaign, party control
over state and society has intensified particularly by repressing domestic challenges
to the party.
Also, Vietnam today is more open to foreign influence, especially in the aftermath of
the COVID-19 pandemic. And Vietnam will come under even greater pressure as free
trade agreements impact on society, the structure of the economy, and economic
growth. Vietnam’s leaders will face difficult challenges reconciling the centrifugal
forces that FTAs generate with the party’s attempt to maintain comprehensive over
society.
Q4. In your assessment, what measures should the international community consider
taking concerning Vietnam and the members of Vietnam’s Political Bureau, given the
disclosure of such directive?
ANSWER: Foreign Ministries from the EU, the United States, Japan, Australia and other
likeminded countries should instruct their ambassadors in Hanoi to seek an
explanation of Directive 24 from responsible officials.
All of Vietnam’s new comprehensive strategic partners (CSPs) – South Korea, United
States, Japan and Australia (pending) will have to negotiate a multi-year Plan of Action
with Vietnam to execute the partnership. This will provide an opportunity to press
Vietnam to comply with its commitment to implement ILO labour standards.
Vietnam’s new CSPs should raise Directive 24 during high-level exchanges such as
summits or ministerial-level dialogues. Vietnam’s compliance should be regularly
reviewed. Vietnam’s partners should hold back if Vietnam procrastinates or subverts
its commitments.
The United States Customs is already seizing Vietnamese exports that includes
material from Uighur forced labour camps in China. The EU-Vietnam FTA includes a
democracy clause that empowers the EU to partially or fully suspend an agreement
unilaterally in case of a breach by the other party.
Q5. We have observed parallels between Directive 24 and the Chinese Communist
Party's (CCP) Document No. 9. Could you provide your assessment of this comparison?
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ANSWER: Leaving aside the East Sea disputes, Vietnamese leaders have long viewed
China as a partner of cooperation (đối tác). China was Vietnam’s first comprehensive
strategic partner but holds a special designation not given to any other of Vietnam’s
CSPs – China is designated as strategic and comprehensive cooperative partner
(Vietnam-China Joint Statement, June 1, 2008).
CCP Document No. 9, Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere
(July 2012), contains an elaboration of seven subversive currents that threaten party
rule in China:
1. Western constitutional democracy
2. Universal values (human rights)
3. Civil society and individual rights
4. Neo-liberalism (economic system)
5. Economic liberalisation, privatisation, and marketisation
6. Western ideas of journalism
7. Historical nihilism
8. Questioning reform and opening and socialism with Chinese characteristics
Document No. 9 was written twelve years ago and is unlikely to have been the direct
source for the CPV Politburo’s Directive 24. However, the two documents, Document
No. 9 and Directive 24, run parallel in identifying similar challenges to one-party rule.
They both exhort party cadres to get their act together to suppress these challenges.
The Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of Vietnam regularly hold
theoretical seminars. Public Security officials exchange views on external and
domestic threats to one-party rule. Given the broad convergence of the two
communist parties in promoting socialism (albeit each with its own national
characteristics) it should come as no surprise that they share and learn from each
other’s experiences.

Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, “Does Vietnam View International Integration a

Threat to National Security?,” Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, February 29,
2024. All background briefs are posted on Scribd.com (search for Thayer). To remove
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Thayer Consultancy provides political analysis of current regional security issues and
other research support to selected clients. Thayer Consultancy was officially
registered as a small business in Australia in 2002.