Social inequality in Vietnam and the challenges to reform 9789812302540, 9812302549, 9789812302755, 9812302751

Citation preview

Reproduced from Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform, edited by Philip Taylor (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) was established as an autonomous organization in 1968. It is a regional research centre for scholars and other specialists concerned with modern Southeast Asia, particularly the many-faceted problems of stability and security, economic development, and political and social change. The Institute’s research programmes are the Regional Economic Studies (RES, including ASEAN and APEC), Regional Strategic and Political Studies (RSPS), and Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS). ISEAS Publications, an established academic press, has issued more than 1,000 books and journals. It is the largest scholarly publisher of research about Southeast Asia from within the region. ISEAS Publications works with many other academic and trade publishers and distributors to disseminate important research and analyses from and about Southeast Asia to the rest of the world. The Vietnam Update is a series of annual conferences that focus on recent economic, political and social conditions in Vietnam and provide in-depth analysis on a theme of particular relevance to Vietnam’s socioeconomic development. The first Vietnam Update was held at the Australian National University in 1990. In recent years, the series has been organized in conjunction with ISEAS. The Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS) is Australia’s pre-eminent centre for research and postgraduate training on the Asia-Pacific region. Priority areas of the School are Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. There are nine major disciplines represented in the School: Anthropology, Archaeology, Economics, History, Human Geography, International Relations, Linguistics, Political Science and Strategic & Defence Studies. One of the four original research schools that formed The Australian National University when it was established in 1946, RSPAS has maintained a strong record of research excellence.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam Update Series

Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform

edited by

Philip Taylor

INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES SINGAPORE

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

First published in Singapore in 2004 by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Singapore 119614 Internet e-mail: [email protected] World Wide Web: http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. © 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore The responsibility for facts and opinions in this publication rests exclusively with the editor and contributors and their interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the Insititute or its supporters. ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Social inequality in Vietnam and the challenges to reform / edited by Philip Taylor. (Vietnam update series) 1. Equality—Vietnam. 2. Social mobility—Vietnam. 3. Vietnam—Social conditions. I. Taylor, Philip, 1962II. Series. HN700.5 A8S671 2004 ISBN 981-230-275-1 (soft cover) ISBN 981-230-254-9 (hard cover) Typeset by International Typesetters Pte. Ltd. Printed in Singapore by Seng Lee Press Pte. Ltd.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Contents

v

Contents

List of Tables

vii

List of Figures

x

Preface

xi

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

1

Philip Taylor 1

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments

41

David Koh 2

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments: Achievements, Paradoxes, and Challenges

63

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha 3

Behind the Numbers: Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development in Rural Vietnam

90

Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen 4

From Collectivization to Globalization: Social Differentiation in a Muong Ethnic Community of Vietnam

123

Tran Thi Thu Trang 5

Political Capital, Human Capital, and Inter-generational Occupational Mobility in Northern Vietnam Jee Young Kim

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

166

vi

6

Contents

Social Disparities in Vietnam: The Case of Poverty Reduction and Educational Attainment

208

Vu Quoc Ngu 7

Redressing Disadvantage or Re-arranging Inequality? Development Interventions and Local Responses in the Mekong Delta

236

Philip Taylor 8

The Politics of Land: Inequality in Land Access and Local Conflicts in the Red River Delta since Decollectivization

270

Nguyen Van Suu 9

Female Garment Workers: The New Young Volunteers in Vietnam’s Modernization

297

Nghiem Lien Huong 10 Class, Nation, and Text: The Representation of Peasants in Vietnamese Literature

325

Montira Rato 11

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

351

Catherine Earl Index

380

About the Contributors

389

Publications in the Vietnam Update Series

393

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

List of Tables

vii

List of Tables

1.1

Top Three Political Leaders, 1986–2001, and Their Regional Affiliations

45

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9

SOE Roadmap and Actual Transformation Saving and Investment Investment Structure by Ownership Structure of GDP by Ownership Structure of GDP by Economic Sector Employment Structure by Ownership Employment Structure by Economic Sector Merchandise Export and Import Poverty Incidence by Region

69 75 76 76 79 79 80 80 83

3.1

Percentage of Communes with Electricity in Selected Regions Poverty Rate by Region, 1993, 1998, and 2002 Distribution of the Poor by Region, 2002 Income Gap between the Richest and Poorest Ten and Five Per Cent of the Population in Selected Regions of Vietnam, 2001–2002 Gini Coefficient of Income Inequality by Region, 1993, 1998, and 2002 Landlessness among Rural Households Proportion of Agricultural Households in Vietnam by Size of Agricultural Landholding, 1994 and 2001 Proportion of Households in the Southeast Region and Tay Nguyen with Landholdings of Less than

3.2 3.3 3.4

3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

101 105 105

106 106 108 109

viii

3.9 5.1

5.2

5.3

5.4a

5.4b

5.5a

5.5b

6.1 6.2 6.3

6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7

List of Tables

One Hectare, 1994 and 2001 Inter-regional Migration Rates, 1994–99 Occupational Mobility between Fathers and Children: Ha Nam, Nam Dinh, and Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam, 1995 Multinomial Logistic and Logistic Regression Predicting Human Capital: Ha Nam, Nam Dinh, and Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam, 1995 Logistic Regressions Predicting Party Membership: Ha Nam, Nam Dinh, and Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam, 1995 Logistic and Multinomial Logistic Regressions Predicting Self-Employment: Ha Nam, Nam Dinh, and Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam, 1995 Interaction Effect of Party Membership and Wartime Military Service on Self-Employment: Ha Nam, Nam Dinh, and Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam, 1995 Multinomial Logit Regression Predicting Attainment of Elite Occupations: Ha Nam, Nam Dinh, and Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam, 1995 Interaction Effect between Party Membership and Wartime Military Service on Elite Occupations: Ha Nam, Nam Dinh, and Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam, 1995 General Poverty Rates by Geographical Region and Urban versus Rural Distinction Proportion of Trained Workers in the Total Workforce Rate of Economically Active Population Over 15 Who Have Been Underemployed in the Last 12 Months for 2002 Employment Profile of Labour Force Illiteracy Rate by Urban/Rural, Gender, and Ethnicity Total Illiteracy Rates for the Top 12 and Bottom 12 Provinces, 2002 Those Who Have Completed Upper Secondary School Education or Have Obtained Bachelor, Master, or Doctoral Degree

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

109 115

169

178

183

186

190

194

197 213 215

216 217 221 221

222

List of Tables

6.8 6.9 6.10

6.11

7.1

Differences in Education-related Indicators, 1999 Level of Private Spending on Education for the Top 12 and Bottom 12 Provinces, 2002 Proportion of Students Exempted from Making Contributions to Education for the Top 12 and Bottom 12 Provinces, 2002 Private Spending on Different Levels of Education and Share of Exemption between the Rural and Urban Areas, 2002 Educational Enrolments and Incomes in Two Mekong Delta Provinces

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

ix

224 226

228

229 257

x

List of Figures

List of Figures

2.1

GDP Growth Rates and Inflation Rate, 1991–2003

74

4.1 Distribution of Households in Five Groups 4.2 Distribution of Consumer Goods 4.3 Housing Quality

127 128 129

6.1 GDP Growth Rates of Vietnam, 1995–2003 6.2 General Poverty Rates by Ethnicity in Vietnam 6.3 Public Expenditure on Education per Total Population, Schooling-age Population, and Actual Number of Students, 1999

210 214

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

223

Preface

xi

Preface

Changes in the social distribution of wealth are among the most commented-upon consequences of Vietnam’s transition from a centrally planned to a market economy. Yet the scope and significance of these impacts also are among the most difficult to assess. Based on research and analysis of recent conditions in Vietnam, this book provides a detailed description of social inequalities in Vietnam. Analysing evidence drawn from the northern uplands to the Mekong delta, it investigates the growth in disparities between rich and poor, urban and rural communities, and along regional, gender, and ethnic lines. The eleven chapters that make up the work provide critical insights into state policy, examining the adequacy of government responses and outlining local responses to social disadvantage. This book is the outcome of a Vietnam Update conference on the topic “Social Differentiation in Vietnam”, which was held at the Australian National University in November 2003. The Vietnam Updates are an annual forum involving participants from Vietnam and other countries, whose objective is to discuss issues of significance to Vietnam’s development orientation. The considerable turn-out and lively debate at the conference on social differentiation is one indicator of the urgency of this problem in present-day Vietnam. Several features made the conference a unique contribution to exploring the extent and the implications of social inequalities in Vietnam. The paper-presenters came from seven different countries, allowing a scrutiny of the issues from a variety of perspectives. The conference involved Vietnamese state officials, Vietnam-based academics and participants originally from Vietnam, now living abroad, each of whom

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

xii

Preface

sees the issues facing their society in different ways. Such diversity in the speakers’ backgrounds is representative of a trend towards increased decentralization in the social scientific study of Vietnam. The conference also showcased a number of different disciplinary perspectives and methodologies. Because they came from such diverse social scientific traditions the presenters were obliged to find a common language in which to share and defend their results and to reconcile the differences without recourse to disciplinary jargon. This book would not have been possible without financial assistance from the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS), Australian National University, and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore. The generous financial and logistical support provided by these sponsors helped, once again, to facilitate the unique set of exchanges that have become characteristic of the Vietnam Update conferences. My fellow members of the 2003 Vietnam Update organizing committee were Dr Russell Heng and Dr David Koh of ISEAS and Professor Ben Kerkvliet and Professor David Marr of the Australian National University. They were a source of inspiration and expert guidance and their organizational efforts were vital to the success of the conference. Several staff in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies assisted with the many aspects of conference planning, preparation, and realization. Bev Fraser, Oanh Collins, and Pham Thu Thuy worked as an effective support team over many months leading up to the Update. Their dedication and efficiency helped the conference run smoothly. Allison Ley worked wonders with the visual presentations, Luke Hambly of Anthropology, RSPAS, helped with documentation and brochure design, and Lynne Payne developed the website. The Gender Relations Centre, RSPAS, supported some of the speakers’ expenses. Members of the audience, who included officials from the Vietnam Desk at AusAID, development professionals, academics, students, journalists, and members of community organizations contributed challenging comments and questions that helped to further sharpen the contributions made by individual authors. A final word of thanks goes to Triena Ong, the Managing Editor at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, who did a superb job on the production of this volume and to AusAID which provided a subsidy to assist with its publication.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

1

Reproduced from Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform, edited by Philip Taylor (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State1 Philip Taylor

As one of the world’s few states that remains nominally socialist, Vietnam is today caught up in a set of profound changes. These changes are reshaping its society in a manner that the expounders of this nineteenth century doctrine and the founders of the twentieth century states who drew upon it for inspiration could scarcely have imagined. At the forefront of such changes has been the opening up of a substantial role for private economic interests, the intensification of commerce and integration with the global capitalist economy. Political institutions from the National Assembly to mass organizations such as the Farmer’s Association have had to contend with the decentralization of the economic landscape and now serve as venues for the voicing of evermore diverse social interests. The media holds up a mirror to an increasingly pluralist society, and emerging civil society groupings, sectoral interests, and localist emphases have dragged the initiative for setting political and economic priorities away from the bureaucracy and the country’s sole political party. The society has become more urbanized, the popularization of technologies such as motorbikes, the Internet, and

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

2

Philip Taylor

mobile phones has transformed the way people communicate with each other. A flow of human movements both within the country and across borders has refigured people’s relationships to place and home. The growing importance of particularist cultural, ethnic, and religious affiliations, both new and reaffirmed, gives voice to the complexity and dissonance of Vietnamese people’s temporal and spatial experiences and to the tensions and divisions that have opened up within their society. This book is about one of the most challenging of these changes in reform-era Vietnam, the emergence of social inequalities. Social inequality refers to differences between people in their material well-being, their social position, cultural standing, or ability to influence others. It also refers to disparities in people’s ability to ensure that they have a better future and that their children are secure, healthy, and have viable livelihoods. By most accounts such inequalities are growing and becoming more visible, in contemporary Vietnam. That inequality has begun to receive attention as a object of measurement and policy intervention, and as a topic of debate and contestation is a striking development in a country in which such differences were long seen as a legacy of a former more iniquitous era, or imposed upon the country from without. The contributors to this book, many of whom are from Vietnam, are in many respects representative of a growing trend within Vietnam towards scrutinizing patterns of social disparity and identifying their sources. Many of the authors use data generated by the government itself and the aid organizations and foreign research projects with which its officials closely collaborate, indicating that the Vietnamese state too sees social inequality as a significant challenge. This introductory chapter attempts to set the contributions to this book in context by offering an overview of some of the key vectors of inequality in present-day Vietnam. It will then discuss the comparative, cultural, and political significance of these inequalities, before introducing the individual contributions. Getting at the meaning of social inequality is an elusive task, for in a game of comparisons dominated by interventions made by economists and huge development bureaucracies, the terms of the debate are often couched in predominantly numerical terms and mind-numbing equations. Nevertheless, in the discussion that follows I also try to address the interpretive dimensions of this question and attempt to provide illustrations of what inequality means to people in experiential terms.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

3

An Overview of Social Inequalities The picture of social inequality in Vietnam can be captured in a number of quantitative formulae. Let us start with the question of income differences. In 2002 a person among the richest ten per cent of the population earned on average 12.5 times more per month than a person in the poorest ten per cent. Families in the richest five per cent of the population earned on average 20 times more than those in the poorest five per cent (Nguyen Manh Hung 2003).2 This is a substantial disparity. Of course on reflection, this contrast really only addresses income differentials and does not measure all of the non-monetarized transactions, and the significant cultural or intangible factors that affect people’s standing in Vietnam or in any society. However, analyses based upon 1998 data show how much these discrepancies matter.3 Comparative expenditures between the wealthiest and poorest 20 per cent of households differed by a factor of six (Haughton 2001, p. 15). The wealthiest 20 per cent of households spent about seven times more on health care than poor households did (Do Thi Phuong Lan et al. 2001, p. 177). A child born in a poor household was 7.5 times more likely to be severely stunted due to malnutrition than one born in a wealthy household (Koch and Nguyen 2001, p. 67). 43.3 per cent of children from the poorest households dropped out of secondary school compared with just 18.2 per cent of those from the wealthiest households (Vo Thanh Son et al. 2001, p. 162). Forty-four per cent of the poor lived in “temporary” houses (made of perishable and high-maintenance organic materials) compared with nine per cent of the rich (Do Thien Kinh et al. 2001, p. 37). In a country where the motorbike is a valued mode of transport mobility and material status, one per cent of the poorest households owned a motorbike compared with 55.4 per cent of the wealthy (ibid.).4 A wide gap in standards of living exists between urban and rural areas. In 1998, when three-quarters of the population lived in the countryside, annual per capita incomes in urban areas were twice as high as in rural areas (Kinh and Baulch 2001 p. 97). Nearly all (96 per cent) of the poorest 20 per cent of households were to be found in rural areas and 63 per cent of the richest 20 per cent were in urban areas (Do Thien Kinh et al. 2001, p. 40). Rural children were twice as likely as urban children to drop out of secondary school (Vo Thanh Son et al. 2001, p. 166) and had poorer access to clean water (UNDP 2003, p. 223).

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

4

Philip Taylor

Even greater gaps exist between geographical regions. For instance, in 1998 per capita incomes in the wealthiest region in Vietnam, the southeast (which incorporates Ho Chi Minh City), were double those in the Red River delta (which incorporates the capital Hanoi), and nearly three times higher than in the northern uplands (Kinh and Baulch 2001, p. 97). Yet much higher income inequalities are to be found within the southeast region itself where, in 2002 the top five per cent of households (concentrated in inner urban areas) earned nearly 25 times more than the poorest five per cent (found in outer suburbs and rural districts) (Scott and Truong, in this volume). Similarly stark discrepancies between localities are revealed if one compares the capital Hanoi with the northern mountainous province of Lai Chau, the two extremes of a human development indicators study published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 2001. Per capita GDP in Hanoi was 5.5 times greater than in Lai Chau. Hanoi’s adult literacy rate was twice that of Lai Chau, its high school enrolment rate seven times greater, and tertiary enrolment rate 27 times higher. Hanoi’s infant mortality was six times lower and its under-40 mortality rate five times lower (UNDP 2001). Upland areas such as Lai Chau (and elsewhere in the northwest, northeast, and parts of the central highlands) are not only far poorer than the lowlands,5 they are also places where some of the sharpest inequalities between the rich and the poor are to be found (Minot et al. 2003, p. 39; Vu Quoc Ngu, in this volume). According to a recent report compiled by Vietnam’s National Committee for the Advancement of Women, women are half as likely as men to be in salaried employment and thus also miss out on the associated range of workers’ entitlements such as pensions and various types of paid leave. Women who hold salaried employment receive 78 per cent of the average hourly wage earned by men, which in 2002 was about US 20 cents an hour. Women are over-represented among unskilled and manual workers and are less likely than men to be found in senior management positions. Although the gender gap in primary education is very small, women are 11 per cent less likely to be enrolled in secondary school (NCFAW 2002) and 27 per cent less likely to attend university (UNDP 2003, p. 203). According to the UNDP, adult illiteracy among women (13.1 per cent) is more than twice that of men (UNDP 2001). Politics presents a mixed picture. In 2003 the UNDP reported that 27.3 per cent of National Assembly seats were held by women, a better

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

5

parliamentary representation than found in other regional countries with the exception of New Zealand (UNDP 2003). However, the picture dims quickly when one leaves the national capital and descends through the levels of the administrative apparatus to the locales that comprise the most salient political contexts for the majority of people. This is seen in the composition of the local People’s Committees; women constitute only 8.2 per cent of People’s Committee members at the provincial level, 4.8 per cent at the district level, and 4.5 per cent at the subdistrict or commune level. Communist Party committee membership is more similar to the local administration than the national legislature in this regard, with women comprising only 8.3 per cent of the party Central Committee’s members. Paradoxically women’s involvement in party committees increases slightly in significance the farther one goes from the centre, 11 per cent at the provincial level, 13 per cent at the district level, and 12 per cent at the subdistrict level (NCFAW 2002). Ethnic minorities who, according to official statistics, make up about 14 per cent of the population, face many difficulties as revealed in household living standards surveys that describe their lower incomes, much higher rates of poverty, poorer health, lower school attendance, and poorer access to infrastructure and services.6 At the same time it is quite evident that measures such as incomes or school attendance are an unsatisfactory way to understand the well-being of people among whom many relations are non-monetarized, and who have different concepts of well-being, prestige, and status. Indeed one of the most serious problems ethnic minority people in Vietnam have faced is the evaluation of what constitutes the good life in accordance with a set of externally imposed criteria and the consequent attempt to remake them according to that model. On the other hand, many members of ethnic minority groups such as the Khmer in the Mekong delta do regard their unequal access to mainstream institutions and resources as serious problems and the categories of analysis found in such survey data are not entirely foreign to their way of thinking. This is becoming increasingly true as ethnic minorities everywhere in Vietnam face a huge influx of migrants into their traditional lands. Along with markets, aid projects and roads, this influx has displaced the former residents and has brought money, connections, and Vietnamese language literacy into new prominence as necessary factors for one to do well in these parts. Today there is a sense that never before in the nation’s history have

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

6

Philip Taylor

so many people been able to travel, study abroad, accumulate wealth, and build beautiful houses in thriving centres of commerce, industry, and culture. Accounts by journalists, tourists, and academics report the rise in national prosperity evidenced by the growing number of motorbikes, mobile phones, Internet kiosks, schooling options, and an increasingly cosmopolitan lifestyle (Drummond and Thomas 2003). However, these enormous changes are restricted to a relatively few number of those living in urban localities. A far greater number of people, who live in remote and rural areas, struggle to subsist, retain tenure of their land, maintain communal safety nets, and educate their children or cope with the effects of policy changes, development projects, and investments into whose planning they have little input. In rural areas many people face fluctuating commodity prices, rising input costs, mounting fees for health and schooling, and consequently rising debts. Even in the food-rich and rice-exporting region of the Mekong delta a large number of farmers are rapidly losing their land, becoming a landless rural proletariat of a size not seen since the French colonial period. Drifting around depressed rural areas in search of scarce seasonal employment or migrating to the cities to undertake unskilled work as cyclo drivers, construction workers, waitresses, or housemaids, they are one lifetime or many away from being able to enjoy the privileges of their more established urban compatriots. Ethnic minority residents of the central highlands or Mekong delta are not only over-represented in this underclass, their economic marginalization is compounded by their poor educational attainments, weak grasp of Vietnamese, loss of their cultural traditions, and lack of participation in political and economic decision-making. Longitudinal survey data show that in recent years the gap between the haves and the have-nots, in regard to access to the factors that allow one to get ahead has been widening rapidly. While access to economic resources, schooling, and decision-making were not equally distributed in the 1980s (see, for example, Porter 1993), most observers agree that the Vietnam of that era was a more egalitarian society. Up to that time government policies had tried to break up concentrations of wealth, overcome or reverse urban-rural differences and erase the cultural legacies of less egalitarian colonial and post-colonial regimes, producing what has been described as a “common poverty” and a monotonous cultural landscape. Since the liberal reforms gained traction in the early 1990s

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

7

social disparities have grown quickly. The rise in the Gini coefficient for consumption expenditure from .33 in 1993 to .37 in 2002 indicates that wealth is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of fewer people (UNVN 2003, p. 5). The income disparity between the top and bottom ten per cent of households, which was 10.6 times in 1996 and 12.5 times in 2002 shows that the society is becoming increasingly polarized.7 It is now not uncommon to see a new multi-story “villa” of brick, glass, and steel towering alongside neighbouring dwellings made of thatched palm leaves. Child mortality and malnutrition declined sharply between 1993 and 1998, thanks mainly to the much better health enjoyed by wealthier groups, but not for the poorest fifth of the population who saw no improvement at all in their survival prospects and only marginally improved nutrition (World Bank 2003, p. 59). The gap in household expenditures between urban and rural areas is widening, along with access to health and schooling.8 The transition to a user-pays approach to healthcare has hit rural households particularly hard, limiting poor farming families’ access to hospitals and health clinics and significantly contributing to household indebtedness (Segall et al. 2002). Regional differentiation in terms of incomes, capital investment, and access to infrastructure and services is also becoming more pronounced (see Scott and Truong in this volume).9 The liberal reform era has seen gender gaps widen, the feminization of agriculture, the informalization of women’s work in the service sector, the rise of subcontracting in the garment sector, a rapid increase in prostitution and in the trafficking in young women, and the reduction in women’s political participation (Luong 2003a; Werner 2002; Tran 2002; Nghiem Lien Huong, in this volume). To a great extent social differentiation is not simply increasing, it is changing form. In the communist era the decisive factor determining whether one could study abroad or hold office was class background. Those classified by the Communist Party as coming from poor peasant families were favoured over those from wealthier families or with close links to the former colonial regime. In such a context a limited degree of upward mobility was possible through demonstrated loyalty to the communist revolution or participation in wars. For those with negative political capital such as landlords or members of the former regime in the south it could mean exclusion from employment or access to key social services. Large sections of the urbanized entrepreneurial elite left the country in the 1970s because their occupation, economic power, and

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

8

Philip Taylor

foreign connections were liabilities in the eyes of the new regime (Duiker 1989; Thomas 1999, pp. 6–10). Although the early reform era saw a contraction in direct state involvement in the economy, when foreign investment levels peaked in the middle of the 1990s, political office or connections to those in authority were still seen as a decisive basis for accumulating capital through securing deals with foreign investors and using influence to evade the law. In 2004 we can no longer say with confidence that this is the case. If one looks at the richest and most rapidly growing region in the country, the southeast, political capital (such as party membership, or contribution to the war) competes in importance with factors such as access to financial capital, education, entrepreneurial talents, overseas relatives, or advantageous location in an urbanized commercial and industrial centre. In many cases this transition in bases for getting ahead is less a rupture than a conversion of one set of advantages, such as political capital, into new forms of capital such as education, professional training, and economic capital. Many migrants from the north have cashed in on their revolutionary merit or party membership and have mobilized kinship relationships with southern-based relatives to secure a position in a state enterprise or employment in a strategic sector such as banking, security, tourism, or oil. Yet at the same time those with poor political backgrounds have also thrived, drawing on remittances from overseas relatives, educational skills, family entrepreneurial traditions, or ethnic solidarity. The presence of a large foreign investment sector in this region, whose loyalty is to governments or localities that can provide them access to cheap and high-quality labour, mean that professionalism, education, and bicultural experience have become more important than political background for both administrators and citizens alike. The ability to speak foreign languages, use new technologies, and mesh with corporate demands has become increasingly significant for people living in regions where foreign investment predominates. However, globalization has introduced a large element of unpredictability into the system. Fluctuations on global markets have destabilized farmers all over the country. The sharp boom and bust in the central highlands coffee frontier and subsequent religious and ethnic conflicts in the early years of this century made news headlines but the less dramatic collapse in the price of rice since the late 1990s has undermined far greater numbers of people who had been exhorted by the government to produce

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

9

this prestigious export commodity. As Tran Thi Thu Trang in this volume observes is the case for the small Muong community she studied in Hoa Binh province, the early stages of liberalization brought economic rewards to those already advantaged by political and cultural capital in the former collectivized era. Yet globalization has since undone the fortunes of many of these initial beneficiaries, so that members of this local community are increasingly uncertain about how best to plot their futures. At the same time, the relative poverty of this remote rural community shows that deeper structures such as language, ecology, distance from centres of power, industry and trade networks constrain local fortunes in ways that recent steps towards global integration have not fundamentally altered.

Comparative Implications Let us turn to explore the comparative significance of social differentiation in Vietnam. If we look at Vietnam’s ranking in the community of nations, on a per capita basis in 2003 the Vietnamese were twice as well off as the citizens of Chad. People in China were about twice as wealthy as the Vietnamese. Chileans were ten times better off and Norwegians almost 100 times wealthier (UNDP 2003). These staggering aggregate differences in wealth, materialized in dramatic investment and consumption disparities, are well known to people in Vietnam, thanks to news reports, imported films, and soap operas as well as an influx of foreign tourists and return migrants from wealthier countries. Such evidence leads Vietnamese people from widely disparate backgrounds to describe themselves collectively as a poor nation and foreigners as “rich”. On a positive note, Vietnam’s economy grew three times faster than nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) during the 1990s, a decade in which most countries in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia fell further behind these wealthy countries (UNDP 2000).10 As for internal differentiation, Vietnam looks very good in comparison with a wealthy nation such as the United States, where, according to one observer, the top one per cent of the population own 42 per cent of all stocks, 55.7 per cent of all bonds, 44 per cent of all trusts, and 37 per cent of all non-home real estate (Yates 2004, p. 2). However, comparison with the equally wealthy but highly egalitarian Scandinavian countries, shows that national prosperity need not come

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

10

Philip Taylor

at the expense of such pronounced internal inequality. Among former socialist countries, Vietnam is much doing better than its former patron of many years Russia, where inequalities rose sharply in the years following the dismantling of socialist structures (Agder 1999; Milanovic 1999). Comparisons with other developing nations are also pertinent and less flattering for a nation that still calls itself socialist. In 1998, expenditure inequalities in Vietnam were roughly similar to those in Peru, India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, at a time when its gross domestic product (GDP) was also lower than any of these countries (Do Thien Kinh et al. 2001, p. 34; UNDP 1999, p. 180). The inequalities within Vietnam have emerged in the context of widening global disparities that cut across national borders, and divide high-income professionals, urban middle classes, and wealthy political elites from their poorer co-nationals in rural areas and low-income occupations. Inequality in Vietnam needs to be understood in such a global context, one in which the richest fifth of the world’s population earn 86 per cent of its income (UNDP 2000, p. 24). Of course, Vietnam is far from being torn apart by globalization. At a time when the richest fifth of the world’s population spent 16 times as much as its poorest fifth (UNDP 2000, p. 24), the same disparity within Vietnam was only onethird as great. This suggests that unlike most African and Latin American nations (where in several cases the rich spend 30 to 50 times more than the poor; see UNDP 2003) the state still retains considerable initiative in maintaining social equity. But as inequalities continue to grow they challenge the nation-state’s ability to promote cohesive growth. It is noteworthy that Vietnam’s liberal reformers draw inspiration from China’s open door and privatization policies, which have made Vietnam’s neighbour the world’s number one foreign investment destination and fastest-growing economy, but also a place where income disparities and urban-rural and regional inequalities have sharply increased. One scenario plausibly open to Vietnam would be to follow the path taken by other countries in the region such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, which have grown rapidly, industrialized and delivered high standards of living, while remaining relatively equity-based and enjoying high levels of social inclusion, as measured for instance by equitable income distribution and favourable access to education and health. Notwithstanding its problems, China too remains something of a model among the formerly socialist countries. While regional inequalities and

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

11

a sharp decline in relative income in the countryside have emerged in both China and Russia’s transitions from a socialist system to a market economy, as in Vietnam, China has protected its higher education, health care, and science sectors better than Russia (Gailbraith et al. 2003, p. 17), while China’s income disparities remain lower than Russia’s (UNDP 2003). In other areas Vietnam appears to be following the lead of Southeast Asia. The ratio of female to male tertiary students in Vietnam (.73) comes close to the high rate in countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines (where women outnumber men), exceeding the rate in Korea or South Asia (UNDP 2003). Malaysia has dealt with severe ethnic inequalities with affirmative action policies that redress inequality along ethnic lines, while maintaining a high rate of growth, although Malaysia also has one of Southeast Asia’s most pronounced income gaps. But Vietnam is also experiencing many of the same problems as other regional countries. One only need look as far as Myanmar and Indonesia to see cases where a lack of political and economic inclusion have led to severe ethnic and religious conflicts, which have caused widespread human suffering and have devastated their economies. Time will tell whether Vietnam manages to attain the level of inclusion in growth and prosperity characteristic of the East Asian tiger economies although its similarities with China indicates that it may not. Decentralized industrial investments such as the Ca Mau petrochemical complex in southern Vietnam and the Dung Quat oil refinery in central Vietnam, along with poverty reduction and rural development campaigns show the government attempting to balance equity with growth. On the negative side, the rapidity with which education and health have emerged as de facto private concerns, benefiting the minority who have the income to afford quality services, sees Vietnam going in a different direction from that formerly followed by the newly industrializing economies (NIEs). Yet it is still doing better than nations such as Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines at a similar GDP level, where extremely wealthy elite families, large urban slum populations, highly concentrated land ownership, and cultural exclusions nurtured insurgencies and ethnic violence. Where Vietnam may fall in this picture is not entirely certain as in economic terms it remains far behind Thailand and Indonesia and rural-based and ethnic conflicts have already broken out along the socioeconomic faultlines that have recently opened up in the country.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

12

Philip Taylor

Cultural Significance The regional comparison highlights the effect of cultural legacies in the trends evident in Vietnam. Aspects of Vietnam’s social system such as its high rates of educational participation, the cultural valuation of mental over manual labour, and the continued stigmatization of private trade have been traced to the Confucian heritage that Vietnam shares with the countries of East Asia (Luong 1992, p. 68; Malarney 1998, p. 283; Woodside 1976). To some observers, the Confucian cultural heritage, in many ways inimicable to individual wealth accumulation, helps account for why Vietnam’s Communist Party, like that of China and North Korea, formerly legislated against private commerce and individual accumulation.11 Malarney situates the restricted development of commerce in the Red River delta in the context of pre-colonial Vietnam’s Confucian culture, according to which wealth acquisition through commerce was shunned and traders ranked lowest in an occupational hierarchy si, cong, nong, thuong, that placed scholars who were literate in the Confucian tradition at the top of the hierarchy (Malarney 1998, p. 271). Aspects of Vietnam’s communist political culture have also been traced to Confucian traditions of statecraft, which model appropriate political behaviour and statesubject relations on familialist metaphors. In pre-colonial Confucian ideology, individualism was muted by notions of filial responsibility in the family, and the competitively selected bureaucracy was expected to conform to an ethic of disinterested public service (Woodside 1971). During Vietnam’s wars with France and America a strong emphasis was placed on individual and family obligations to make sacrifices for the country. In the post-war era, the party has advanced a paternalistic notion of citizenship as the populace uniting together as the nephews and nieces of their Uncle Ho. To the extent that such cultural orientations have shaped Vietnam’s modern political economic trajectory they have been challenged by recent social realignments in Vietnam, which have transformed the ways people relate to each other. The ethic of sacrifice to the collective is being replaced by notions of individualism, private property, and an increasing importance placed on market-based routes to prosperity. An urbanized civilization has replaced a rural one as a locus of social values and cultural leadership. The twin north/south poles of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are now the critical contexts for enacting and expounding elite lifestyles and values as distinct from the era when the Hue-based

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

13

court calibrated the cultural pulse of the country. In rural areas of the Red River delta off-farm commercial activities, exports, and remittances have become significant new grounds for wealth accumulation and have led to a sharpening in local income differentiation (Adger 1999). These structural transformations are often experienced as bewildering and confronting processes that challenge people’s conventional understandings about their relationship to locality and to each other. Today wealthy urban-based traders, many of them poorly educated, use transnational family networks to buy up property and expensive imported vehicles and deport themselves in ostentatious high-status clothing, eating establishments, households, and vehicles. Many of them make expensive offerings to formerly anonymous prosperity spirits such as Ba Chua Kho in Bac Ninh province, to whom they attribute credit for their success (Le 2001). Such modes and assumptions offend against elite concepts of how societal leaders should behave and challenge Confucian and communist values of rationality and decorum and their stigmatization of commerce and cultural heterodoxy. An efflorescence of books written by local intellectuals about traditional values, which include negative commentary on such commerce-orientated religious practice, show a degree of discomfort among an educated bureaucratic elite at the cultural priorities of an ascendant class of entrepreneurs and consumerist moneyed classes (Taylor 2003). Of course the traditional status system, aspects of which were selectively reinforced by colonial governmentality, modernist concepts of rationality and a mass mobilizing party’s mistrust of the accumulation of private property, is itself an ideological or motivated view of the culture. Constructions of the past which stress a stable system of stratification with the mandarin-scholar at its apex is at heart a statist image of Vietnamese culture derived through the documents produced over the centuries by state-employed scholarly elites. To position scholars at the pinnacle of traditional Vietnamese society would be to overlook the historically dominant role that the military has played in the precolonial state apparatus. According to Cooke’s analysis of the pre-colonial examination system, military officials outranked civil ones in the ruling bureaucracy from the mid-1500s to the 1830s (Cooke 1994). Neither should one too artificially divide “traditional” scholastic or bureaucratic pursuits from “new” economic pathways, for historically degrees and office were very often purchased and power was used to increase the economic

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

14

Philip Taylor

position of families and individuals. In conflict with a centrist view that projects a unified status system as a traditional baseline is the historical evidence of a range of alternative routes to social esteem and privilege. Regional background, kinship, commercial occupations, martial prowess, and religious charisma have all been decisive pathways to power, wealth, and prestige at different times in Vietnam’s history (Choi 2004; Cooke 1998, 1999; Do 2003; Tai 1983; Li 1998). The Vietnamese court had constantly to contend with rival sources of authority and the historical succession of political capitals and cultural centres shows that the preeminent centre of its day has struggled to delimit the power of rival centres, with varying degrees of success (Taylor 1998). In fact if we look at the sub-national level we see a degree of continuity and predictability in the principles that are espoused as the key to social advancement. In the Red River delta, the political centre of the country, kinship or carefully nurtured connections with those holding office are seen as determinate to getting ahead but domestic observers say that this has long been the case in a region where civil service has been the principal route for the children of peasant families to raise themselves and their families out of a subsistence lifestyle. This is in dramatic contrast with coastal regions and ports and the urban riverports of the southern part of the country. In these locales commerce, transport, or cultural translation services have for centuries brought prosperity and prestige to those acting as mediators in a translocal economy (Li 1998, 2004). Long before the doi moi era commenced it was well-established practice among residents of commercial enclaves such as Hai Phong, Hoi An, and Cholon to make offerings to spirits of commerce and travel before embarking on a transaction or commencing a journey, for it was known that prosperity and security came to those who did so (Taylor 2004). In the cosmopolitan, heterogeneous world of the Mekong delta, power and prestige has long gone to monks, priests, Achars, Hadjis, daoists, and mystics, those best able to navigate the delta’s ethno-religious diversity and effect a compelling synthesis or communal charter, on behalf of their fellow residents, that makes sense of the cultural complexity and social flux in which local people live (Brocheux 1995; Do 2003; Tai 1983; McHale 2004, pp. 150–64). A locality-based analysis also helps us understand the dynamics of resistance to social differentiation. Hy Van Luong observes that the rate of landlessness and land concentration in southern Vietnam is currently

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

15

far greater than elsewhere in the country, which he suggests reveals the existence of a widespread ideological premise among locals that treats land as a commodity, a view which he situates in terms of their centuryold familiarity with commercialized agriculture (Luong 2003, p. 99).12 Such a view has its merits, particularly given that the local political elite has been the prime beneficiary of land transactions in the reform era. However, the fact that in the colonial era the south was also a bastion of Trotskyism, which sought to mobilize the proletarianized peasantry against their class exploitation (Tai 1992, pp. 232–43), and that Mekong delta peasants continue to protest against unfair terms in land transfers, suggests that we need to position this ideology even more finely in terms of its exponents’ class position, as well as in terms of locality and ethnicity. For instance, in the former revolutionary heartland of Tien Giang province, where resistance against France was led by the owners of moderate-sized land holdings who were steeped in Confucian norms of civility (Taylor 2001), large-scale industry and commerce have yet to emerge strongly despite favourable transport connections and a large inflow of overseas remittances. Locals attribute the economic stagnation of their province to the conservatism of the local leadership, who retain a principled commitment to equity and revolutionary austerity and nurture a mistrust of outsiders, be they party leaders from other provinces or foreign investors. In sharp contrast, the nearby border town of Chau Doc is home to a dynamic fish-raising industry and thriving pilgrimage economy that suggests a very different orientation among local leaders to economic and cultural innovation. Meanwhile, Khmer communities in the delta have lost their land at a very high rate in the last decade, due to political, social, and cultural exclusions that they describe as longstanding. Many members of this community nurse resentments about these injustices that are similar to those which animated violent protests in the nineteenth century (Brocheux 1995, p. 95; Taylor, in this volume). In important respects contemporary varieties of differentiation are neither continuous with tradition nor complete ruptures with the old, but transformations of previous stratification patterns. In a study of agrarian reform in the northern uplands, Sikkor shows that when market relations were introduced in the late 1980s, economic life continued to be mediated through the social and cultural relations of local Black Thai households. However, what superficially looks like the reproduction of socialist and pre-socialist structures in the face of macro-level economic

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

16

Philip Taylor

change might be seen as the ongoing shaping of Black Thai sociality as a work-in-progress, involving the combined influence of past and present as well as local and extra-local factors in creative tension with each other (Sikor 2001). The significance of commerce as a pathway to success is not novel in Ha Noi’s old quarter or Ho Chi Minh City, but the highlighting of commercial indexes of success in national political culture is reflective of the rising power of these urban contexts as national cultural centres. Professionals who work in the urban corporate sector earn salaries that can exceed US$1,000 per month. Some see themselves as agents of change, bringing a new ethos of transnational modernity to Vietnam. One university graduate working as a human resource manager in a multinational company in Ho Chi Minh City told me he wanted to make his fortune as “an economic man not a political man”, distinguishing himself from that still pervasive breed of “red capitalists” who abuse their power to get rich. However, such white-collar corporate managers rarely handle their companies’ money and they contribute to corporate wealth through research, planning, training, and report writing rather than through transportation or retail sales. This distinction mirrors the mental/material divide and stigmatization of money evident in both the communist movement and former authoritarian regime in the south. Several theorists see the informalization of women’s work to be a recent consequence of Vietnam’s integration into new market structures, a rupture with a pre-existing gender-neutral socialist mode of production (for example, Desai 1995; Werner 2002, p. 34). Another perspective would see this as consistent with an older gendered pattern in the division of labour (Luong 2003a), or as a mode that was substantially unreconstructed in the case of the south (Taylor 2004, pp. 104–7). Still another approach might be to view the female-dominated informal sector as a creative combination of the old and the new. For instance, many women migrate to Vietnam’s cities to work as hospitality providers, petty traders, domestic workers, or sex workers, often servicing the needs of a male migratory workforce. Such economic transactions can be seen as the extra-localization of and commercial elaboration upon patterns of domesticity, intimacy, and gendered household specializations that still pertain in the rural areas where the main protagonists in these transactions come from. Although contemporary patterns of differentiation are not completely novel, the impact upon the losers in the equation is often

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

17

unprecedented. Smaller localized peoples who live in upland regions, far from markets, political capitals, and urbanized centres in which the Viet ethnic group has consolidated itself, are deeply disadvantaged in their interactions with the lowland group by their lack of economic power, weak political power, and unfavourable location in a translocal economy. In many respects, such inter-ethnic group inequalities are not new but have persisted for centuries. However, many of these groups previously enjoyed a degree of autonomy provided by their relatively remote location. In such circumstances, facility in their own language, participation in local social networks, prowess in subsistence agriculture and hunting, or shamanistic pursuits were the salient factors underlying local differentiation (for example, Salemink 1997). Recent years have seen a dramatic acceleration in the disparities these localized communities face in a context where the regions in which they live have been overrun by migrating members of the mainstream group (Rambo and Jamieson 2003). In increasingly diverse, intimate, and powerful ways, not to be culturally Vietnamese, not mainstream, is becoming an extreme liability for certain ethnic groups such as the Ede, the Khmer, and the Tay. The power to define what is at issue in this encounter is also changing. In recent years it has become increasingly common to read in government reports and those issued by Hanoi-based international agencies such as the World Bank and UNDP offices, that “poverty” is a problem disproportionately faced by Vietnam’s ethnic minorities. However, their characterization as “poor” imposes upon Non-Viet ethnic groups a definition of social success that is culturally loaded, emphasizing household monetary incomes and expenditure, remoteness from ethnic Viet markets, and lack of participation in Vietnamese language-based education as indicators and causes of their poverty. It follows that to eliminate poverty means to incorporate them into such mainstream indexes of cultural identity as monetarization and Vietnamese language education. As Taylor (in this volume) argues, attempts to do so risk uprooting longstanding connections to locality and mutual support systems and may well aggravate perceptions of ethnic-based discrimination. Policies that aim at eliminating ethnic difference are by no means new in Vietnam. However, where formerly the peoples living at the frontiers of the Vietnamese polity were regarded as children to be cared for by a paternalistic king or all-knowing party and assimilated

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

18

Philip Taylor

into the mores of lowland society, they are now being assessed as “poor” from an urbanized criteria, and according to the criteria of consultants working for international agencies. This indicates that while in many ways a familiar story, the power to define and intervene in the “problem” of ethnic difference has shifted away from the Confucianized capital of ethnic Viet chauvinism to the urbanized and international contexts that today shape what it means to be Vietnamese.

Challenges to the State Is this portrait of widening inequalities consistent with the ideological orientation of a state that calls itself socialist? What has been the state’s response to these yawning inequalities and what motivates it? The Vietnamese Communist Party emerged out of an anti-colonial movement that was directed against the injustices of French colonialism. France had violently seized control of Indochina in the middle of the nineteenth century and for almost a century the former kingdom of Vietnam was governed by this European power to serve its own interests. In their case against France, Vietnamese anti-colonialists exposed the double standards of the colonial regime, its exploitative nature, and the arrogance and corruption of the local elites who served it. Most leading members of this movement were members of the urban petty bourgeois class that had grown up out of colonialism (Marr 1981, pp. 31–32). One theory is that their protest was motivated by frustration at the restrictions placed on their advancement within colonial society (McAlister 1966, p. 323). Far from being the most destitute members of colonial society, their demands for self-determination resonated with those advanced by urban nationalists throughout the colonized world. This is true of the early communist leadership, who were also largely recruited from this class. Ironically, for a party that was to fight both France and then the United States, Vietnam’s communists were inspired by the ideals of the French and American revolutions, in which the demand for equality was paramount. The declaration of independence which President Ho Chi Minh read to the crowd assembled in Ba Dinh Square on 2 September 1945 demanded equal status for the Vietnamese people within the community of nations. Quite significantly for a party that called itself communist, this proclamation did not appeal for equality between all members of the newly declared nation. Indeed in the brutal wars of

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

19

resistance against France and later America the communist leadership was to rely heavily on coalitions such as the Viet Minh that enlisted the patriotic support of Vietnamese from all sectors of society, both wealthy and poor, for the struggle for national independence. Nevertheless, the party’s success against France was substantially attributable to its leaders’ ability to overcome their urbanist bias and harness the discontent of the peasants, who were the real losers in colonial society and who comprised the majority of the population. This orientation distinguished the communists from many other urban-based anti-colonial groups, such as the Nationalist Party. Communist leaders Vo Nguyen Giap and Truong Chinh marked out this agenda early, publishing a report about the exploitative conditions faced by peasants under colonialism in the 1930s (Truong Chinh and Vo Nguyen Giap 1936). Policies such as the 1950s land reform campaign, which eliminated well-off landowners in the north, the promoting of peasants into the party apparatus, and the nationalization of industry in the south after the communist military victory, would appear to constitute further evidence of the communist’s preoccupation with equity concerns.13 However, such policies can also be viewed in a different light, as means to the end of consolidating a strong grip over national territory. Land reform, collectivization, the attack on private commerce in the post-war south effectively undermined the economic and social bases of resistance to the communist’s efforts to centralize power. These moves freed up resources, which were distributed to less well-off members of society to secure their support for the regime’s objectives. According to this analysis, the communist’s primary objective was not necessarily to construct an egalitarian social order (cf. Kolko 1997, p. 119) but to consolidate control over the society. This interpretation would help to explain the party’s toleration of the contemporary accumulation of private wealth combined with an acute sensitivity to instances of this that threaten to undermine the state’s power.14 It also explains the typically rapid moves to muffle demonstrations against regional, ethnic, or religious inequalities, which, despite the validity of the grievances that have generally informed such protests, occur along faultlines that the party is concerned might be exploited by foreign-based groups to promote a politically divisive agenda. Hy Van Luong advances a culturalist interpretation of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s orientation towards inequality. He argues that the

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

20

Philip Taylor

collectivist impulse in Vietnamese communism had its roots in an indigenous social justice ethic such as was manifested in the institution of communal land, a shared resource in Vietnamese villages that was periodically redistributed to the less well-off residents of the village (Luong 1992; see also Scott 1972). The Communist Party’s concern for the problems of rural people has been likened to the strong links that Vietnam’s predominantly rural-based Confucian scholars traditionally maintained with the peasantry and, according to this perspective, the rural orientation of the party belongs within this lineage (Nguyen Khac Vien 1974). Luong considers that rural-based party members enjoyed an esteem similar to that in which the scholar-gentry had been held by the peasants, which he argues aided their mobilization of the peasantry against France (Luong 1992, p. 232). Yet he observes that this same tradition of authority entailed a valuation of hierarchy, which allotted mandarins, the elderly, and males a high social ranking (1992). Hence the revolution’s debt to pre-colonial modes of authority helps to account for the enduring inequalities in post-revolutionary society (ibid., p. 229). Among these iniquitous continuities could be included the ambivalence with which party leaders and intellectuals regarded peasant smallholders, due to their alleged attachment to private property (Montira Rato, in this volume). Certainly the elitism of the leadership clique in the postwar years, manifested in such practices as receiving tribute gifts from locals when on tour, their aloofness from ordinary people and the deferential manner they treated each other, has been linked by one former regime insider to the Confucian influence on the party leadership (Bui Tin, 1995, pp. 102–5). In Luong’s view, such traditional legacies also explain the persistent gender inequalities under the communist state and into the reform era (Luong 1998, 2000, 2003a). Yet another source of these hierarchical tendencies was the colonial context in which many revolutionaries grew up. In the 1920s and 1930s, the French governors general Sarrault and Varenne paternalistically depicted the Vietnamese as children under the wise tutelage of a more civilized race (Tai 1992, pp. 30, 143). Despite the colonial government’s pretensions as a modernizer, during the colonial era people in the north and centre of present-day Vietnam were governed through institutions such as the royalty, the mandarinate and, at the village level, the council of elders, traditional arrangements that were reshaped by France as mechanisms of indirect rule. It is significant that the early leaders of the

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

21

party came disproportionately from the regions that had been under such forms of governance. Many of them came from collaborating mandarin families or had trained in schools set up for colonial era civil servants. Ho Chi Minh was himself a graduate of one such school, the Ecole Imperiale (Quoc Hoc) of Hue (Tai 1992, p. 67). Although the party led the way in throwing off colonial rule, the elitism and paternalism demonstrated by the leaders of the post-colonial communist regime in many respects reprised the hierarchical relations that were embodied in the institutions through which France had exercised its rule. After winning power, some of the revolution’s leaders moved into the luxurious residences and offices built for high-ranking colonial functionaries and maintained large retinues of servants. The journalist Bui Tin reports being disconcerted at the reverence and delight shown by post-war party secretary Truong Chinh at the privilege of being able to sleep in the plush chamber of the Emperor Bao Dai, the last member of the Huebased dynasty to be propped up by France during the colonial era (Bui Tin 1995, p. 110). I have heard Vietnamese people make the criticism that the party regards itself as an aloof and all-knowing mother and father, a charge similar to that made against the French governors in the 1920s and 1930s. The south, the region of Cochinchina, ruled directly by France and set up as an export agriculture colony, experienced far higher levels of economic inequality than evidenced in the centre and north (Henry 1932). Yet urban concentrations and indigenous enterprise were also more developed. Many of those who led resistance against colonialism in the south were from wealthy rural and urban bourgeois backgrounds and were educated in French schools. Influential leaders such as Nguyen An Ninh and intellectuals from the fruit-growing village of Vinh Kim in the Mekong delta, assessed the political economic and cultural inequalities of colonial society against more cosmopolitan standards to which they were exposed in the cities and the metropole (Tai 1992, pp. 72–87; Taylor 2001, pp. 159–91). Thus, in ways that differ from in the centre and north, both the process of social differentiation in southern Vietnam as well as the case against it that was made by its critics, owed a great deal to the region’s colonial-era incorporation within extra-local political, social, and cultural structures (see also Brocheux 1995). Subsequently southern-based leaders have argued that their region’s high degree of integration into broader economic and ideological currents was already evident in pre-

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

22

Philip Taylor

colonial times (for example, Nguyen Cong Binh et al. 1991). Certainly it is in such exposure to extra-local factors that we may understand the dynamics of inequality in the post-colonial south. For instance, the explosion of prostitution under the southern regime during the Vietnam War was an outcome of militarization that was equally evident in the other sites in East and Southeast Asia that hosted large concentrations of troops during the Cold War (Barry 1996). In the reform era, prostitution was again markedly pronounced in the south’s urban centres, an aspect of the highly commoditized social relations in such areas. Attempts by local authorities to combat this included the construction of prostitution as a public health risk and the privatization of responsibility for the maintenance of healthy families (Nguyen Vo 2002). Appeals that placed the onus on women themselves for maintaining their family’s health intact by keeping their husband’s sexual appetites satisfied within the confines of the conjugal bond could arguably be viewed as an administrative attempt to mobilize traditional gender responsibilities in the fights against prostitution. However, as Nguyen Vo Thu Huong convincingly demonstrates, such an approach also drew upon liberal governance practices perfected in capitalist societies and upon discourses of eroticized bourgeois femininity that had circulated in the pre-liberation urban south (2002, pp. 135–37, 146), evidence indeed of the cosmopolitan ideological context of the region in which these solutions have been forged. The state’s response to emerging ethnic inequalities, which could be characterized as the attempt to uplift disadvantaged ethnic minorities materially and inculcate in them the cultural attributes that have served the majority group in their own efforts at self-advancement, are not unprecedented measures for a state that for centuries presented itself as a civilizational centre in relationship to the smaller nations of peoples who lived at its fringes (Woodside 1971, Chandler 1993, p. 114). These peoples made tribute prestations to the Vietnamese centre, although in reality, located beyond the limits of state structures, they remained culturally autonomous. Yet as the Viet people moved south and into the hills where non-Viet people live, these original peoples were not only displaced but also exposed to a more intrusive form of paternalism through policies of assimilation. Both north and south regimes pursued policies of sedentarization, population concentration, and highland development (Hickey 1993; Rambo and Jamieson 2003). Described by

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

23

one observer as internal colonialism (Evans 1992) these policies were also motivated to secure borders. The marginalization of many ethnic minorities has continued apace with rapid migration of lowlanders into the hills and the extension of markets. These processes have dramatically undercut local livelihoods and culture. An acute sense of cultural crisis has led members of some ethnic minorities to convert to Protestantism (Rambo and Jamieson 2003) and others to attempt to insulate themselves from cultural contact and assert innate ethnic differences (Taylor, in this volume). The most overt cases of political protest against ethnic discrimination were riots in the central highlands in the early 2000s (UNHCR 2002) and demonstrations that occurred in the highlands again in April 2004. The state’s response to these was rapid, and in each instance substantial blame was attributed to foreign interference, demonstrating concerns about the threat to national sovereignty to be at the forefront.15 Thus we can say that the current patterns of inequality along class, regional, gender, and ethnic poles do not necessarily fatally undermine the state’s ideology, in which socialism has been admixed with nationalism, and inflected with patriarchal, ethnic, and regionalist biases. When inequalities have threatened social cohesion or the party’s control, the state’s response has been swift. The gap between urban and rural standards of living, which grew wider through the 1990s, is an example of this. Reports by social scientists provided vivid accounts of a countryside being left behind in the reforms (see, for instance, Nguyen Xuan Nguyen 1995; Do Thi Binh and Le Ngoc Lan 1996). Such disparities were not only ideologically awkward for a party that had come to power through mobilizing the peasants. Rural unemployment, school dropouts, mass migration to the cities, and a rise in urban crime and prostitution, which many urban residents attributed to the influx of rural migrants, weakened the party’s grip in rural areas and threatened directly the standard of living enjoyed by those in urban enclaves. In 1996 the government made rural development one of its priority areas, channelling foreign aid and domestic revenue into roads, irrigation, sanitation, electricity, and health clinics in remote and rural areas. Yet this influx of monies into the coffers of the rural bureaucracy only exacerbated another issue that had been exercising the party even before the liberal reforms were promulgated, the corrupt and exploitative behaviour of local government authorities. In Vietnam’s increasingly decentralized economy, local officials have enjoyed widening scope to

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

24

Philip Taylor

use their position for personal gain (Kerkvliet 1995; Luong 2003b, p. 94). In report after report throughout the 1990s, the party acknowledged the gravity of this problem but also its intractability. The party was also under intense pressure from below in this regard. In 1997 people in Thai Binh protested against unfair land compensation decisions, corrupt officials, and mistreatment of petitioners, going as far as to beat and lock up corrupt officials. Protests and demonstrations took place all over the country against the lack of fair and effective government in their countryside (Kerkvliet 2003, pp. 47–48; Nguyen Van Suu, in this volume). Peasants travelled to the city and camped outside the National Assembly, or the Prime Minister’s residences to directly petition national leaders about the abuses they were subject to in their localities. Notably these demonstrations did not question the party’s reform policies themselves nor the gap in incomes and services between rural and urban areas. But they did effectively highlight country-city differences in political representation, and the disproportionate share of the benefits of economic reform accruing to local political representatives in rural areas.16 Pressure of this kind forced a response from the government, which, in the late 1990s, began to implement grassroots democracy reforms at the local level.17 One of the most overt social agendas of the government in the reform era has been its commitment to reduce the number of people living in poverty. In comparative terms the marked decline in the proportion of people living below the poverty line, from 58 per cent in 1993 to 29 per cent in 2003, represented a remarkable achievement (Viet Nam News, 20 February 2004).18 This poverty reduction focus and its successes have been taken by some to indicate the government’s commitment to social equity (International Monetary Fund and International Development Association 2001, p. 2). Prime Minister Phan Van Khai put it differently, equating poverty reduction with building socialism in Vietnam (Voice of Vietnam, 2003, p. 1). Such an equation is revealing for, during a period in which the number of people living below the poverty line did indeed shrink, the gap between the rich and poor yawned ever wider, to the extent that the richest fifth of the population now account for 44.5 per cent of total household consumption (UNDP 2003). The goal of raising people above a poverty line defined in terms of minimum subsistence or a monetary figure such as one dollar a day tells us little that is meaningful about equality or social mobility. Although the number of people living on less than one US dollar a day — at just 17.7 per cent

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

25

— seems like a low figure, it is sobering to note that almost two-thirds of the population (63.7 per cent) live on less than two dollars a day (UNDP 2003). Analytically, the tendency for “poverty reduction” to be addressed as a specialist programme divorces those who are technically defined as “poor” from the society of which they are a part. Interventions to reduce poverty do not address the social relationships that tie the relative losses of the poor to the gains of the rich. The state can claim success against the limited criteria of such a programme, which fail to address the countervailing effects of the new commitment in Vietnam to the market as the ultimate arbiter of human well-being.19 Vietnam’s poverty reduction achievements have won it plaudits from members of the international donor community, while the government’s representatives have in turn bestowed awards upon donor organizations such as the World Bank for their assistance in the attack on poverty (World Bank 2002, p. 1). The adoption of international definitions for poverty, and the co-operative nature of the attack on poverty are significant developments for a party that rose to power in a context in which hunger and poverty were attributed to the intervention of foreign powers. In some respects the regime has been more successful in acquitting itself against a universalistic yardstick of human need and in winning praise from international institutions than it has been in satisfying the aspirations for justice and inclusion of its own citizens. When Vietnam’s leaders assign themselves credit for national poverty reduction accomplishments deemed by one party theoretician “a contribution to the whole of humankind” (Nguyen Tuc 2003), they rehearse a script that Confucianist and nationalist elites before them perfected in claiming, in a language intelligible to a wider audience, the attainment of universalistic parity, or pre-eminence, notwithstanding the jagged social contours that internally divide the populace for whom they speak. The Vietnamese state’s response to inequality-based disputes and its commitment to poverty reduction suggests that its concern is less to attain social equity than to minimize the risks that overt forms of social exclusion might pose to its underlying quest for a strong nation, a cohesive society, and a coherent ideological mandate. In short, it would appear that Vietnam’s socialist state is significantly tolerant of social differentiation. With this tentative conclusion is mind, there is scope to treat social inequalities in Vietnam in a more nuanced manner as both

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

26

Philip Taylor

a target of and consequence of state policy. Another implication is that labels such as socialism, which rank societies according to their position in a supposedly law-like progression of history, do not teach us much about actual conditions in a country that claims for itself such a label. We can similarly question the validity of law-like theories about social differentiation that seek out determinate variables but are weak on the messy local dynamics at play in different places and over time. The neat universalistic models that inform many development theories do not really let us see or explain how social inequality has emerged in local context. This suggests that the institutional interventions that are based on such models may not attend to local realities and may actually exacerbate inequalities. A further implication is that we may miss out on something important if we keep the focus on the state or development institutions as the principle protagonists in the struggle against inequality. Rather, social inequality is a problem that a variety of non-state agents have contended with and contested, according to their own agendas and with varying degrees of success. Finally, as official descriptions of social disparities have all the shortcomings of an arcane numbers science, a language that is accessible to an elect few, we ought therefore to explore other representational genres and registers in which inequalities have been depicted and exhibited in ways that are culturally meaningful to a broader spectrum of people. With these issues in mind we can hence turn to the contribution made by authors in this volume.

Contributions to this Volume The first two chapters in this collection provide insight into the recent political and economic context of social inequalities in Vietnam. David Koh argues that the Vietnamese government, while continuing to push its liberal reform agenda, is consolidating itself in a form of soft authoritarianism that characterizes other states in the region. The party is working to retain its hold on power with a focus on maintaining parity among the different regions from which its leaders are drawn. At the same time politics is becoming more standardized and predictable and the National Assembly has an increasingly significant role in the political process. The party has responded to pressures to promote accountability and transparency by introducing measures to improve

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

27

the quality of state officials and in campaigns such as the grassroots democracy movement. Koh suggests that the state’s poverty reduction campaign is predicated on a sense of ideological unease with the emergence of social disparities. Nevertheless, ordinary people have continued to advance their own interests by forging connections with those in positions of influence. However, the danger that reliance on such informal pathways poses is that the ability to exert influence in this way can corrupt those holding office, and Koh argues that resolving this political dynamic in a context of increasing differentiation represents one of the key challenges that the party faces. Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha assess the government’s twodecade-long economic reform process promoting a multi-sectoral economy, integration with world markets, and market-driven growth as comparatively successful. They provide an account of the key reforms that have been advanced since the Asian financial crisis slowed the economy down in the later 1990s. Although Vietnam’s post-crisis economic recovery has been significant, the authors also outline a number of paradoxes and challenges that planners have to contend with if this encouraging trend is to continue. Among these is the emergence of social disparities, an issue that the remaining chapters in this collection address from a variety of perspectives. The first three chapters dedicated substantively to this theme describe social inequality in terms of how it is spatially manifested and what it means in the context of actual histories. Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen’s chapter provides an overview of the geographic dimensions of social inequality, exploring regional differences, urbanrural divide, lowland-highland differences, and those between localities. In some respects these divisions are a new phenomenon, blurring the stereotyped regional distinctions through which the country has been comprehended. For instance, the hoary north-south division of the country is today complicated by the fact that there is more demonstrable diversity within these regions than those that divide the north and the south. Residents of downtown Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City share more in common with each other than they do with their respective suburban peripheries or rural hinterlands. Scott and Truong’s chapter argues that socio-economic differentiation in Vietnam has opened up opportunities for inter-regional development initiatives at the state level and in more spontaneous ways among the population of different locales. They present

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

28

Philip Taylor

a dynamic account of how a variety of migration trajectories and strategies are being pursued that overcome the geographical disparities opened up by decollectivization and economic liberalization policies. The next chapter, by Tran Thi Thu Trang, offers a nuanced picture of what inequality has meant in local context and over time in a Muong community in Hoa Binh province. Employing a methodologically rich approach that combines ethnographic observation with use of in-depth interviews, she explores the factors that have determined success during different stages in this locality’s recent history — the pre-socialist, collective, liberal reform and globalization eras. While to a certain degree those who benefited from the collectivization era in this Muong community were able to convert their political, economic, and experiential capital into relative advantage in the early stages of the liberal reform era, the unpredictability inherent in their involvement in globalized agriculture make their continuing success far from certain. The unstable and increasingly unknowable factors that affect their economic standing mean that locals are increasingly uncertain as to which strategies to adopt and which to avoid. Using longitudinal data from three provinces in the Red River delta, Jee Young Kim’s chapter explores the intersection of biography and history by examining the effect of different variables in people’s backgrounds such as inherited political or cultural capital on their occupational mobility in the new circumstances of Vietnam’s market economy. By reading what social legacies individuals and families bring from their past into the present, she attempts to identify the factors that have helped them get ahead. She presents some unexpected findings, that in certain instances “political capital” such as party membership or war service, or “human capital” such as high educational attainments, do not automatically confer success to people in the post-war market economy. She also finds that war experience has had a significant and sometimes negative effect on people’s involvement in entrepreneurial activities and argues for the need to distinguish between party membership and varieties of wartime experience as different forms of political capital. These conclusions point up some weaknesses in existing theories about occupational mobility in societies undergoing a transition from socialism to a market-based economy. Her analysis highlights the need to understand existing inequalities in terms of actual histories and biographies. It also reveals problems inherent in the search for universalist

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

29

indicators and theories of change that might see rising differentiation as an inevitable, naturalistic or law-like process, and confirms the value of trying to see what differentiation has meant in the context of local histories. As the next two contributions make clear, the state’s attempts to advance collective well-being and redress inequality through judicious policy interventions have not always brought the intended results. The chapter by Vu Quoc Ngu in this volume argues that the attempt by the state to provide financial support for education has not been sufficiently sensitive to local conditions. As his analysis of recent socio-economic data reveals, Vietnam’s most disadvantaged groups live in rural and remote areas, where economic opportunities and access to services are poor. Access to education is one of the areas where their disadvantage is most marked. Vu Quoc Ngu argues that public spending on education aimed at boosting educational participation has not helped people in such areas; in fact, it has tended to increase disparities. This is because the criteria used to allocate state funding do not take into account determinate factors such as the actual number of students in a given locality or the ratio of teachers to students. Furthermore, given the high degree of school fee contribution exemptions in such poor and remote localities, central educational funding needs to be increased to make up for the deficit in private funding that schools in such areas receive. Taylor ’s chapter takes issue with the assumptions informing institutional interventions to redress perceived economic and social disadvantages in the Mekong delta. The chapter focuses on four development interventions: the liberalization of access to land, the construction of roads, the emphasis on formal schooling and efforts to extend the purported benefits of such policies to the delta’s Khmer Krom ethnic minority communities. These have, in many cases, accentuated inequalities within the region. In contrast to these institutional interventions, locals have recourse to a variety of informal pathways to overcome their problems. Many of these local responses are more effective in improving people’s socio-economic well-being than measures advocated by the state and development agencies. However, Taylor argues that in failing to take local conditions and responses into account, existing patterns of inequality have been accentuated and local solutions to overcome inequality have been undercut. He suggests that development planners should recognize the strengths of local economic,

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

30

Philip Taylor

ecological, and cultural adaptations and work to strengthen them as contextually relevant responses to the problems locals face. These contributions indicate that the state is not the only, nor indeed the most effective protagonist in the identification and challenging of social inequalities. The next two chapters look beyond the state to explore other loci of agency. Nguyen Van Suu provides an account of the barriers in access to land facing farmers in Bac Ninh province. By investigating villagers’ own experiences he discovered that they were concerned about inequality in access to land use, communal land output, and in decisionmaking over land. Nguyen Van Suu shows these to be the concerns animating local disputes as villagers actively contested their position. His account of a number of conflicts over land explores farmers’ different responses, which included discussions, holding meetings, circulation of petitions, the denunciation of corrupt cadres, the deferral of tax payments, and representations made to higher-level state authorities. He also shows that in some cases this active agency elicits a response from the state to intervene and resolve problems as locally defined. Nghiem Lien Huong’s chapter focuses on migration as another of the strategies rural people use to redress inequality. Her chapter is about female garment workers whose migration to an industrialized zone outside Hanoi comprises an attempt by women from rural backgrounds to overcome the hardship of agricultural work and the pressure to marry early. Yet the emancipation they seek is at best qualified. Many are drawn to urbanized areas by the romance of an urbanized modern life, although the stressful routines of garment work are anything but romantic. The promises of self-realization through consumerism prove elusive, while garment workers feel nostalgia for the rural life they have left behind. Marriage is a dilemma as garment workers are caught between the opposing trends of early rural marriages and increasingly late marriages in urban areas due to the pressures of industrial life. As state discourse and urban popular culture shift to place, increased emphasis on feminine self-actualization through romantic love and domestic wedded bliss, garment workers’ difficulties in finding self-realization through such dominant scripts compounds their sense of marginalization and of their betwixt-and-between status. Nghiem draws out the parallels between the liminal status of migrant workers and the female volunteers of the war years, whose personal sacrifices for the country ironically have begun to receive public attention as the meanings of femininity, and indeed of

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

31

the war against America, shift from an emphasis on collective to personalized forms of self-actualization. The tension between ideals and the realities of peasant lives also provides the topic of the next chapter in this collection. Montira Rato argues that the figure of the peasant in the writings of bourgeois intellectuals has been one of the most critical relationships in the cominginto-being of the modern Vietnamese nation. Depictions of the exploitation of peasants under colonialism were crucial to their mobilization by intellectuals against the French. The peasants bore the largest sacrifices of the wars only to find, in a market economy, that the urban bourgeoisie had reaped the largest benefits of the urban-centric society of the reform era. Rato’s chapter shows the paternalism and ambivalence inherent in the representation of the peasantry by urbanbased writers and in the attempt by central planners to construct a society free from external oppression but also the purported pettiness and acquisitiveness of peasant culture. Yet this devastating portrait of a peasantry betrayed is qualified by the success of some writers of peasant background in portraying a more objective view of their lives and of some urban writers in honestly confronting the harm wreaked upon the peasantry by the failure of idealistic attempts to remake their lives. Like the more perspicacious authors whose work she skilfully interprets, Rato’s narrative is a sobering reminder of the wide gap that still pertains between agents of development and those whose lives they aim to improve and of the high stakes involved when politicized representations of social inequality become the building blocks of a project of social transformation. If Rato’s chapter brings into relief the key categories through which Vietnam’s momentous modern history has been played out, the final chapter shows the play of symbolic representations in the fashioning of contemporary Vietnamese lives. Catherine Earl’s chapter describes the domain of leisure as an arena in which urban middle-class women attempt to maintain and exhibit their elite status. In their migration to the city, female intellectuals in Ho Chi Minh City negotiate a gendered urban space that is at the same time liberating and enabling, yet potentially domesticating and dangerous. Converting horizontal mobility into socially upward mobility takes some work, as the women in Earl’s account secure status through leisurely practices of consumption and travel, and socialize in spatial enclaves such as cinemas, shopping malls,

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

32

Philip Taylor

and cafés, where their command of symbols of high status can be affirmed and displayed. Earl’s account provides striking insights into the energy that is invested in the production of social distinctions in modern-day Vietnam. She also shows the categories of social inequality to be both dynamic and lived. Distinction is attained and reproduced through social actors’ skilled performance of leisure, a form of agency that charges the new symbols of status in Vietnam’s urban landscape with an aura of inaccessibility and, for those who secure endorsement through such practice, the authenticity of their own experience.

NOTES 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Support for writing this chapter was provided by the Anthropology and the Political and Social Change departments of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. I would like to thank David Marr, Ben Kerkvliet, Nola Cooke, and Kathryn Robinson for their constructive comments on a draft of this chapter. These figures come from a preliminary analysis of a households living standards survey conducted in 2002 by Vietnam’s General Statistics Office. At the time of writing, the most sustained analyses available of social disparities in Vietnam employed figures from the 1998 Living Standards Survey. This survey was the second of its kind conducted by the General Statistical Office (GSO). The first was conducted in 1993. After 1998, a large number of relatively affordable Chinese-made motorbikes began to pour into Vietnam making household motorbike ownership more ubiquitous in both urban and rural areas. According to Vietnamese news reports in February 2004 the proportion of those living under the poverty line in Lai Chau stood at 75 per cent, or 32 times higher than the poverty rate in Ho Chi Minh City (Lao Dong, 19 February 2004, p. 4). For a recent discussion of some indicators of inequality among ethnic minority peoples and residents of upland areas, see Baulch et al. (2002), Rambo and Jamieson (2003), and Scott and Truong, Taylor, Tran Thi Thu Trang, and Vu Quoc Ngu (in this volume). The sharp increase in income polarization from 1996 to 2002 is even more obvious if we look at the income disparity between the highest and lowest 5 per cent of households, which grew from 15.1 times in 1996 to 19.85 times in 2002 (Saigon Times, 2003; Nguyen Manh Hung 2003). Haughton cites GSO figures that show that between 1993 and 1998 urban expenditures increased at twice the rate of those in rural areas (2001, p. 16).

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State 9

10

11

12

13

14

15

33

Between 1995 and 1998 the GDP in the southeast grew twice as fast as in the north central coast (UNDP 2001, p. 109). At current rates of economic growth it will be generations before Vietnam converges with the OECD nations. And the gap with its neighbour China is widening. Between 1990 and 2001 Vietnam’s per capita annual GDP growth rate was 6 per cent, slower than China’s, whose economy grew 8 per cent during the same period (UNDP 2003, p. 73). The equitable growth in the East Asian states that did not follow a communist path also attracts analysis that attributes these twin accomplishments to Confucianism. Weberian analysts believe that a cultural emphasis on the deferral of individual rewards is key to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan’s extraordinary economic growth in recent decades. At the same time the value placed on enduring social relationships and paternalistic responsibility is evident in the workings of the large conglomerates, chaebol in Korea and keiretsu in Japan, which employ a large proportion of the workforce in these two countries. These organizations reward the staff who exhibit loyalty to them with lifelong employment and cradleto-grave social services. The workforce enjoys a relative parity of income that was uncommon among the societies that embarked earlier upon a similar process of industrialization. Promotions to senior management are allotted on the basis of age seniority, a practice that distinguishes Japanese and Korean corporate modernity from that shown in other capitalist countries. Recent studies by Tana Li (1998, 2004) and Choi Byung Wook (2004) demonstrate that southern Vietnam’s history of commercialized agriculture is at least two centuries old. Christine White demonstrated that concerns for the plight of poor peasants informed debates leading up to the policy of collectivization in the late 1950s (White 1981). Corruption is one of these trigger points. Its description by state leaders as a threat to national security and as a “national disaster” are informed by the concern that corruption not only undermines the party’s legitimacy but also allows those who bribe cadres to effectively derail implementation of the laws of the country. The ability of large business conglomerates such as Minh Phung and Tamexco and criminal networks such as that headed by the gangster Nam Cam to buy the connivance of the highest levels of state officialdom in their illegal activities spread alarm through the party apparatus and accounts for the severity of the treatment meted out to them and the officials they bribed, a number of whom were dealt the death penalty. Another approach, with long roots in the socialist polity, has been to assert

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

34

16

17

18

Philip Taylor

that Vietnam is a multi-cultural nation, all of whose official 54 ethnic minorities enjoy the right to preserve their cultural integrity (for a historical contextualization of this discourse see Pelley [2002]). However, the evenhanded representations of ethnic minority culture in the internationally renowned Museum of Ethnology in the national capital are a far remove from the political, economic, and cultural exclusions that many non-Viet groups experience as the local everyday reality. Notably many of the people who lead these movements were very often themselves former officials, military officers, and party members, whose reserves of political capital, prestige, and organizational experience helped them to effectively mobilize opposition against corrupt local cadres, whose excesses were compared unfavourably with the sacrifices made by all sectors of society during the war years. At the same time this possibly explains why protests of such kind rarely extended into challenges to the legitimacy of the party, although some who were sympathetic to such movements, such as former head of the Party Central Committee’s Culture, Literature and Art Commission General Tran Do, did go as far as to voice doubts about the validity of the communist path he had for so long supported (Agence France Presse 2002). In stark contrast, the Khmer Krom of the Mekong delta, although their feelings of exclusion from society are pronounced and certainly not diminishing in recent years, have not mounted sustained protests that publicly articulate such sentiments. Indeed the severity of their political, economic, and cultural marginalization as well as their dispersed settlement among the ethnic majority have made protest logistically difficult for them. In my own reading of Vietnam’s urban-centric media, the government has come under relatively little pressure from the urban middle classes on urbanrural disparities. Certainly many stories have been published about the hardship and misery faced by people and localities in rural and remote areas. However, in recent years the issues that have drawn the hottest debates among the urban middle class relate to threats to cultural or national sovereignty, such as the “social evils” (te nan xa hoi) issue, the purported loss of cultural identity (ban sac dan toc), and territorial quarrels with China. Equity-related issues such as exploitative industrial labour conditions, the rise of prostitution and marriages to foreigners have also been prominent topics of debate. Yet even these debates, in which the theme of humiliation features large, exhibit a pronounced nationalistic or ethnic bias. Stories about workers who are beaten by their bosses or women from poor families who marry a Taiwanese frequently emphasize the role of foreigners in the exploitation of Vietnamese workers or women rather than highlighting domestic factors such as the state’s reform policies. The poverty line used here is calculated at the expenditure level that would

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

19

35

ensure a person can buy enough food to provide them with 2,100 calories a day plus some non-food items that satisfy basic needs (see Haughton 2001, p. 13). In recent years some party thinkers have lent their voice to ethical orientations, which, like poverty reduction itself, emphasize the mitigation rather than the eradication of market-based inequalities. See, for instance, the late party secretary Nguyen Van Linh’s profession to the journalist Neil Sheehan that in fighting colonialism he had been inspired more by the humanistic compassion evidenced in the novels of Victor Hugo than by the critique of capitalist exploitation in the writings of Karl Marx (Sheehan 1991, p. 75). The party’s poverty reduction campaign has also been equated by elite party theoreticians with the Christian ethic, “love others as one would love oneself”, which is claimed as a Vietnamese tradition (Nguyen Tuc 2003).

REFERENCES Adger, Neil. “Exploring Income Inequality in Rural, Coastal Vietnam”. Journal of Development Studies 35, no. 5 (1999): 96–119. Agence France Presse. “Vietnam’s Most Influential Dissident Dies Aged 78”. Saturday, 10 August 2002. Barry, Kathleen. Vietnam’s Women in Transition. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1996. Baulch, Bob, Truong Thi Kim Chuyen, Dominique Haughton, and Jonathon Haughton. “Ethnic Minority Development in Vietnam: A Socio-Economic Perspective”. Working Paper 2836. Washington: World Bank, 2002. Brocheux, Pierre. The Mekong Delta: Ecology, Economy and Revolution, 1860–1960. Madison, WI: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of WisconsinMadison, 1995. Bui Thai Quyen, Cao Nhu Nguyet, Nguyen Thi Kim Dung, and Tran Bich Phuong. “Education and Income”. In Living Standards during an Economic Boom: The Case of Vietnam, edited by Dominique Haughton, Jonathon Haughton, and Nguyen Phong, pp. 79–94. Hanoi: United Nations Development Program and Statistical Publishing House, 2001. Chandler, David P. A History of Cambodia. 2nd edition. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1993. Choi Byung Wook. Southern Vietnam under the Reign of Minh Mang (1820–1841): Central Policies and Local Response. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2004. Cooke, Nola. “Nineteenth-Century Vietnamese Confucianization in Historical Perspective: Evidence from the Palace Examinations (1463–1883)”. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 25 (1994): 270–312.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

36

Philip Taylor

———. “Regionalism and the Nature of Nguyen Rule in Seventeenth-Century Dang Trong (Cochinchina)”. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 29 (1998): 122– 61. ———. “Southern Regionalism and the Composition of the Nguyen Ruling Elite, 1802–1882”. Asian Studies Review 23 (1999): 205–31. Desai, Jaikisahn. Vietnam through the Lens of Gender. Hanoi: United Nations Development Project, 1995. Do Thi Binh and Le Ngoc Lan. Phu Nu Ngheo Nong Thon Trong Dieu Kien Kinh Te Thi Truong. Hanoi: Nha Xuat ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia., 1996 Do Thi Phuong Lan, Nguyen Thi Loan, Tran Thi Bich Van, and Vu Than Nam. “Health”. In Living Standards during an Economic Boom: The Case of Vietnam, edited by Dominique Haughton, Jonathon Haughton, and Nguyen Phong, pp. 171–84. Hanoi: United Nations Development Program and Statistical Publishing House, 2001. Do Thien. Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Do Thien Kinh, Le Do Mach, Lo Thi Duc, Nguyen Ngoc Mai, and Tran Quang. “Inequality”. In Living Standards during an Economic Boom: The Case of Vietnam, edited by Dominique Haughton, Jonathon Haughton, and Nguyen Phong, pp. 33–46. Hanoi: United Nations Development Program and Statistical Publishing House, 2001. Drummond, Lisa and Mandy Thomas, eds. Consuming Urban Culture in Contemporary Vietnam. London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003. Duiker, William. Vietnam since the Fall of Saigon. Updated edition. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Centre for International Studies, 1989. Evans, Grant. “Internal Colonialism in the Central Highlands of Vietnam”. SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 7, no. 2 (1992): 274–304. Gailbraith, James Ludmila Krytynskaia, and Qifei Wang. The Experience of Rising Inequality in Russia and China during the Transition. UTIP Working Paper No. 23. Houston: University of Texas, 2003. Haughton, Jonathon. “Introduction: Extraordinary Changes”. In Living Standards during an Economic Boom: The Case of Vietnam, edited by Dominique Haughton, Jonathon Haughton, and Nguyen Phong, pp. 9–32. Hanoi: United Nations Development Program and Statistical Publishing House, 2001. Haughton, Dominique, Jonathon Haughton, Le Thi Thanh Loan, and Nguyen Phong. “Shooting Stars and Sinking Stones”. In Living Standards during an Economic Boom: The Case of Vietnam, edited by Dominique Haughton, Jonathon Haughton, and Nguyen Phong, pp. 121–40. Hanoi: United Nations Development Program and Statistical Publishing House, 2001. Henry, Yves. L’Economie Agricole de L’Indochine Francaise. Hanoi: Ecole Francaise de L’Extreme Orient, 1932. Hickey, Gerard. Shattered World: Adaptation and Survival among Vietnam’s Highland

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

37

Peoples during the Vietnam War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993. International Monetary Fund and International Development Association. Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper: Joint Staff Assessment 22 March 2001. Hanoi, 2001. Kerkvliet, Benedict J. Tria. “Politics of Society in the Mid-1990s”. In Dilemmas of Development: Vietnam Update 1994, edited by Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet. Canberra: Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University, 1995. ———. “Authorities and the People: An Analysis of State-Society Relations in Vietnam”. In Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a Transforming Society, edited by Hy Van Luong, pp. 27–54. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003. Kinh, Hoang Van and Bob Baulch. “Determinants of Earned Income”. In Living Standards during an Economic Boom: The Case of Vietnam, edited by Dominique Haughton, Jonathon Haughton, and Nguyen Phong, pp. 95–120. Hanoi: United Nations Development Program and Statistical Publishing House, 2001. Koch, Stephanie and Nguyen Bui Linh. “Child Malnutrition”. In Living Standards during an Economic Boom: The Case of Vietnam, edited by Dominique Haughton, Jonathon Haughton, and Nguyen Phong, pp. 63–78. Hanoi: United Nations Development Program and Statistical Publishing House, 2001. Kolko, Gabriel. Vietnam: Anatomy of a Peace. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. Lao Dong. “Vietnam Faces Challenges Despite Good MDG Performance”, 19 February 2004, p. 4. Le Hong Ly. “Praying for Profits: The Cult of the Lady of the Treasury”. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Chicago, 23 March 2001. Li, Tana. Nguyen Cochinchina: Southern Vietnam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Ithaca: Southeast Asian Program, Cornell University, 1998. ———. “The Late-Eighteenth- and Early-Nineteenth-Century Mekong Delta in the Regional Trade System”. In Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750–1880, edited by Nola Cooke and Li Tana. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. Luong, Hy Van. Revolution in the Village: Tradition and Transformation in North Vietnam, 1925–1988. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992. ———. “Engendered Entrepreneurship: Ideologies and Political-Economic Transformation in a Northern Vietnamese Center of Ceramics Production”. In Market Cultures: Society and Morality in the New Asian Capitalisms, edited by Robert Hefner, pp. 290–314. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 1998. ———. “Gender Relations: Ideologies, Kinship Practices and Political Economy”. In Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a Transforming Society, edited by Hy Van

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

38

Philip Taylor

Luong, pp. 201–24. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003a. ———. “Wealth, Power and Inequality: Global Market, the State, and Local Sociocultural Dynamics”. In Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a Transforming Society, edited by Hy Van Luong, pp. 81–106. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003b. Malarney, Shawn. “State, Stigma, Family Prestige and the Development of Commerce in the Red River Delta of Vietnam”. In Market Cultures: Society and Morality in the New Asian Capitalisms, edited by Robert Hefner, pp. 268–89. Boulder: Westview, 1998. Marr, David G. Vietnamese Tradition on Trial 1920–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. McAlister, John. The Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966. McHale, Shawn. Print and Power: Confucianism, Communism and Buddhism in the Making of Modern Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004. Mekong Delta Poverty Analysis (MDPA). Mekong Delta Poverty Analysis First Milestone Report, Stage One (English version), 26 May 2003. Ho Chi Minh City: Mekong Delta Poverty Analysis Project, 2003. Milanovic, Branco. Income, Inequality and Poverty during the Transition from Planned to Market Economy. Washington, DC: World Bank, 1999. Minot, Nicholas, Bob Baulch, and Michael Epprecht. Poverty and Inequality in Vietnam: Spatial Patterns and Geographical Determinants. Washington and Brighton, UK: International Food Policy Research Institute and the Institute of Development Studies, 2003. National Committee for the Advancement of Women. Gender Differences in the Transitional Economy of Viet Nam. Hanoi: National Committee for the Advancement of Women, United Nations Development Program and Food and Agriculture Organization, 2002. Nguyen Cong Binh et al., eds. Van Hoa va Cu Dan Dong Bang Song Cuu Long. [The culture and population of the Mekong delta]. Ho Chi Minh City: Nha Xuat Ban Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi, 1990. Nguyen Manh Hung. Kinh Te-Xa Hoi Viet Nam 2002 [Vietnam socio-economy of 2002]. Hanoi: Statistical Publishing House, 2003. Nguyen Tuc. “Xoa doi giam ngheo: mot cong hien to lon cua Ho Chi Mih cho nguoi ngheo nuoc ta va the gioi” [Poverty reduction: Ho Chi Minh’s great contribution to the poor in Vietnam and the world]. Tap Chi Cong San 39 (2003). www.tapchicongsan.org.vn. Nguyen Vo Thu Huong. “Governing Sex: Medicine and Governmental Intervention in Prostitution”. In Gender, Household, State: Doi Moi in Viet Nam, edited by Jayne Werner and Daniele Belanger, pp. 129–51. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2002.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Introduction: Social Inequality in a Socialist State

39

Nguyen Xuan Nguyen, ed. Kuynh Huong Phan Hoa Ho Nong Dan Trong su Phat Trien San Xuat Hang Hoa. Hanoi: Nha Xuat ban Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 1995. Pelley, Patricia. Postcolonial Vietnam: New Histories of the National Past. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Porter, Gareth. Vietnam: The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993. Rambo, A. Terry and Neil L. Jamieson. “Upland Areas, Ethnic Minorities and Development”. In Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a Transforming Society, edited by Hy Van Luong, pp. 139–70. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003. Saigon Times. “Improved Household Living Standards”, 25 July 2003. Salemink, Oscar. “The King of Fire and Vietnamese Ethnic Policy in the Central Highlands”. In Development or Domestication? Indigenous Peoples of Southeast Asia, edited by Don McCaskill and Ken Kampe, pp. 488–535. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1997. Scott, James. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976. Segall, M., G. Tipping, H. Lucas, T.V. Dung, N.T. Tam, D.X. Vinh, and D.L. Huong. “Economic Transition Should Come with a Health Warning: The Case of Vietnam”. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 56 (2002): 497–505. Sikor, Thomas. “Agrarian Differentiation in Post-Socialist Societies: Evidence from Three Upland Villages in North-western Vietnam”. Development and Change 32 (2001): 923–49. Tai, Hue-Tam Ho. Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1983. ———. Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992. Taylor, Keith W. “Surface Orientations in Vietnam: Beyond Histories of Nation and Region”. Journal of Asian Studies 57 no. 4 (1998): 949–78. Taylor, Philip. Fragments of the Present: Searching for Modernity in Vietnam’s South. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001. ———. “The Goddess, the Ethnologist, the Folklorist and the Cadre: Situating Exegesis of Vietnam’s Folk Religion in Time and Place”. Australian Journal of Anthropology 14, no. 3 (2003): 383–401. ———. Goddess on the Rise: Pilgrimage and Popular Religion in Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004. Thomas, Mandy. Dreams in the Shadows: Vietnamese Australian Lives in Transition. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 1999. Tran, Angie Ngoc. “Gender Expectations of Vietnamese Garment Workers: Viet Nam’s Reintegration into the World Economy”. In Gender, Household, State:

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

40

Philip Taylor

Doi Moi in Viet Nam, edited by Jayne Werner and Daniele Belanger, pp. 50– 71. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2002. Truong Chinh and Vo Nguyen Giap. The Peasant Question. Translated by Christine White. Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, [1936] 1974. United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Human Development Report 1999. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2000. ———. Vietnam Human Development Report. Hanoi: United Nations Development Program, 2001. ———. Human Development Indicators 2003. www.undp.org/hdr2003/indicators. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Vietnam: Indigenous Minority Groups in the Central Highlands. WriteNet Paper No. 05/2001. Geneva: UNHCR Centre for Documentation and Research, 2002. United Nations in Vietnam (UNVN). Millenium Development Goals: Closing the Millenium Gaps. Hanoi: United Nations Country Team Vietnam, 2003. Viet Nam News. “Vietnam’s Support of MDG’s Reiterated”, 20 February 2004. Vo Thanh Son, Truong Thi Kim Chuyen, and Nguyen Thi Thuy. “School Enrolments and Drop-outs”. In Living Standards during an Economic Boom: The Case of Vietnam, edited by Dominique Haughton, Jonathon Haughton, and Nguyen Phong, pp. 157–70. Hanoi: United Nations Development Program and Statistical Publishing House, 2001. Voice of Vietnam, Hanoi. “Vietnam Determined to Reduce Poverty Rate to Below 10 Percent”. Broadcast 10 April 2003. Transcript on VOV website: www.vov.org.vn. Werner, Jayne. “Gender, Household, and State: Renovation (doi moi) as Social Process in Viet Nam”. In Gender, Household, State: Doi Moi in Viet Nam, edited by Jayne Werner and Daniele Belanger, pp. 29–48. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2002. White, Christine Katherine Pelzer. Agrarian Reform and National Liberation in the Vietnamese Revolution: 1920–1957. Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, 1981. Woodside, Alexander. Vietnam and the Chinese Model: A Comparative Study of Vietnamese and Chinese Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1971. ———. Community and Revolution in Modern Vietnam. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. World Bank. “World Bank Recognized for Supporting Poverty Reduction and Social Development in Vietnam”. Press Release, 19 December 2002. Hanoi: World Bank, 2002. Yates, Michael. “Poverty and Inequality in the Global Economy”. Monthly Review 55, no. 9 (2004): 1–9.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments

41

Reproduced from Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform, edited by Philip Taylor (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

1 Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments David Koh

In the early years of the twenty-first century, political forces in Vietnam continued to maintain the same power balance founded since the 1986 6th Party National Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP). This balance is manifested in leadership succession at the top echelons of the VCP, and in the fact that succession is now decided more or less on autopilot according to a formula that has been laid down. This balance is the source of the current political stability. There has also been a generational change in leadership that impacts on policy. It is difficult to imagine present policies being put in place by past leaders of the early and mid-1980s; it is also difficult to imagine the country bearing the fruits of its economic growth and development strategies without the political balance — and stability — achieved within the VCP. At one point in the late 1980s, it appeared that other elites in the VCP might emerge and triumph in a divisive atmosphere in the uncertainty thrown up by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the motherland of socialism. The party has overcome that divisive period, and it is now the sole political force in the country, through which various political forces of the country

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

42

David Koh

have over the years learned to exercise influence, to lobby, and to carry out their political objectives. This chapter argues that the present political balance is likely to remain for years to come, with two conditions. First, the good economic times are maintained. Second, the unresolved contradictions in the economic and social environment do not create overly intense pressure for changes in the political arena. On the other hand, however, there are other developments that alter the nature of the regime and which are happening incrementally, although they do not promote regime change in the sense of the VCP giving up political power to another political party. For one, in the last few years there have been internal reforms within the VCP in favour of greater transparency, greater meritocracy, and greater accountability. These positive changes will alleviate pressures for regime change in this one-party political system; they will also somewhat reduce social differentiation based on political dynamics because they increase opportunities to everyone, although total eradication is impossible. After all, party membership opens doors that are otherwise closed, and certain government positions are still reserved for party members. That happens in a large number of other countries and Vietnam is certainly not on the high end of such practices in political nepotism. This chapter will first examine recent issues in political succession, especially how they are affecting the power balance. It will then examine recent developments in the management of the bureaucracy, portraying such changes as buttressing the governance credentials of the VCP. The third part of this chapter then looks at how the VCP has also been trying to democratize as well as achieve more discipline and compliance among its ranks. The main instrument used has been institutionalization, mirroring similar efforts in state-society relations. The last and fourth part of this chapter argues that institutionalization has reduced differentiation based on political dynamics and in general people are less discriminated by politics now than they were a decade or two ago.

1. The Leadership Succession and Power Balance Monopolization of political power in the North and, later, unified Vietnam has allowed the VCP to operate what has been called “monoorganizational socialism”, which incorporates all political and social forces

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments

43

into a state structure commanded by the VCP.1 Much is now known about how the VCP uses mono-organizational socialism to dominate society, through concentration of power in selected pairs of hands controlled by party membership and hierarchy. Too little is known and written on what those who participate in this mono-organizational socialism have received in return as privileges. Even less is known about how the VCP has maintained solidarity among its ranks in the post-1975 years, when the concentration of power in a few pair of hands increasingly became an unattractive arrangement to leaders outside the loop, especially when the top leaders did not have the same degree of moral authority as those of past leaders. The story of leadership succession in Vietnam after 1986 is about the maintenance of that solidarity among a larger group of contending leaders than before. Leadership positions in Vietnam have in the past 17 years been distributed on the basis of a regional balance formula. The origin of this formula is to ensure that posts are fairly shared to encourage solidarity among regions. Inspiration for this formula could be related to two features of post-war politics. During the war and after the death of Ho Chi Minh, political power had in general been concentrated in the hands of two persons, Le Duan, the Party General Secretary (1960–86) and Le Duc Tho, Head of the Party Commission for Organization and Personnel. Duan died before the 1986 6th Party Congress, and the sentiment then was that political power had been overly concentrated in the hands of a few and had to be more evenly distributed. Second, this sentiment coincided with the post-war need to mobilize the area south of the 17th parallel, which was newly reunited with Northern Vietnam, for postwar construction. The party faced enormous difficulties having socialist agricultural policies implemented in the South, especially agricultural collectivization. They had to rely on elites in the South to mobilize the Southern population. The Southern leaders had to be incorporated into the ruling strata, this being a long-term political requirement. In short, the top three leadership positions — party general secretary, president, and prime minister — are supposed to be distributed equally among the three regions of the country — North, Central, and South — three distinct but also internally heterogeneous groups of Vietnamese. Further, Vietnamese themselves have strong stereotypes about the personalities of people from different regions, and as a consequence they have also decided that the general secretary should be from the North, the president

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

44

David Koh

from the Central, and the prime minister from the South. Please refer to Table 1.1. This formula has been adopted since the 6th Party National Congress in 1986. It has come up against important realities. For one, since the mid-1990s the National Assembly has become a new centre of power and its leaders are to be reckoned with in the formal balance of power. The VCP has been promoting the rule of law, which gives to the National Assembly a fundamental role in passing laws, a role that encompasses the right to ask the executive the ultimate questions of governance. Throughout the 1990s, under the leadership of Nong Duc Manh, the National Assembly adopted innovations that resulted in a much higher public profile and a stronger voice in the political system.2 It should be emphasized, however, that the National Assembly could only retain its larger powers with the assent and continued commitment of the top leaders within the VCP, and a top echelon leader of the VCP occupies the top Assembly position to ensure party control. This is still the case today. Nevertheless, in attempting to make the rule of law credible, the VCP has moved further to empower the National Assembly over the top executives of the government. In changes to laws passed in 2002, the Standing Committee of the National Assembly has the power to dismiss any minister. Thus the chairman of the National Assembly and key members of the Standing Committee — most senior party members and military representatives — are to be reckoned with in the elites’ power game. This increases the number of consequential top leadership positions in Vietnam from three to four, the addition being the chairman of the National Assembly, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the VCP. In addition, a law passed in May 2003 gives the National Assembly more powers to monitor and review the work of the executive in specific areas that the National Assembly chooses (Law on Supervisory Powers of the National Assembly). The current chairman of the National Assembly, Nguyen Van An, was head of the Party Commission of Organization and Personnel before he switched over to the National Assembly. His previous position offered him many opportunities to grow his faction within the VCP, and therefore he is still an important player in the power game. He has also brought a strong personality to the position in the National Assembly, pushing a very active legislative agenda. But the new powers of the National Assembly are now institutionalized and will last beyond strong personalities like Nguyen Van An.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

——— New Constitution provides three instead of two top posts ——— General Secretary (Do Muoi) General Secretary (Le Kha Phieu) General Secretary (Nong Duc Manh)

1996 (8th Party Congress — half term)

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

1997 (Mid-term Party Congress — half term)

2001 (9th Party Congress)

President (Tran Duc Luong)

President (Tran Duc Luong)

President (Le Duc Anh)

Prime Minister (Phan Van Khai)

Prime Minister (Phan Van Khai)

Prime Minister (Vo Van Kiet)

Prime Minister (Vo Van Kiet)

1992

President (Le Duc Anh, after 1992)

General Secretary (Do Muoi)

Head, Council of Ministers (Pham Hung)

1991 (7th Party Congress)

Head, Council of State (Vo Chi Cong)

South (Government)

General Secretary (Nguyen Van Linh) Chairman, State Council, equivalent to Prime Minister (Do Muoi)

Central (State)

1986 (6th Party Congress)

North (Party)

TABLE 1.1 Top Three Political Leaders, 1986–2001, and Their Regional Affiliations

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments 45

46

David Koh

Second, it has become increasingly difficult for the Communist Party to be able to always pick the required person from the right region. For starters, all four men at the top must be from the Political Bureau. Furthermore, a person with the right regional background may not have the right skills or temperament for the job. For instance, what if there is a Northerner who is a good candidate for the prime ministership, while there is a Southerner who is careful and can excel in the ideological callisthenics expected of the general secretary? Phan Dien, a leader from the central region, had done a good job as party secretary in Da Nang. He is now a rising star, having become a standing member of the Central Committee Secretariat, which is the top party body that oversees the daily affairs of the party. In effect, he wields enormous powers as a permanent representative of the Political Bureau within the Secretariat. With such experience in administering the party, he can be effectively deployed later on as general secretary of the party. According to the formula, however, he would become the state president, which is mainly a ceremonial post. This would perhaps be an underutilization of his experience and the party would do better to deviate from the formula, with compensating moves for candidates from other regions. The inflexibility of the formula has been demonstrated in the search for a successor to Phan Van Khai, the Prime Minister who is due to retire in 2006. A few second-line leaders are possible successors to Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, but the lack of a clear leader in the race at present demonstrates the limitations of the regional distribution formula. Southerners Nguyen Minh Triet and Nguyen Tan Dung are also possible candidates. The support for Nguyen Tan Dung as successor to Phan Van Khai as prime minister is not that strong, because he has not performed up to expectations in his job. But he is the most senior Southerner in the running and this factor weighs heavily in his favour. Nguyen Minh Triet is party secretary of Ho Chi Minh City. He has experience in the provincial government but not at the national level. Nevertheless, he could be the only Southerner who is sufficiently senior in ranking to succeed Phan Van Khai, if Nguyen Tan Dung drops out of the race. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan is currently one of three deputy prime ministers and a very experienced hand in government. If he succeeds Phan Van Khai, Vietnam’s doors can be expected to be opened even wider. But Khoan will find it difficult to race against Nguyen Tan Dung and Nguyen Minh Triet because he is a Northerner and he is also not in the Political Bureau.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments

47

Given the policy to promote younger leaders, his chances of entering the Political Bureau in the coming years are not that good. Such restrictions in the eligibility criteria for posts by regional origins and by seniority are cumbersome and add inflexibility to leadership succession choices. The lack of a clear successor and the fact that the incumbent Phan Van Khai has performed well on the job has allowed Khai to stay on despite rumours that he will retire before completing his full term. He could possibly go the full term and stay on till the year 2006. Leadership change had occurred the last time a mid-term Party National Congress took place in December 1997. Thus, as the mid-term of the current cohort (end of 2003) approached, there was much speculation on whether Phan Van Khai and Tran Duc Luong would step down. The reason for this speculation was that both men started their office at half-term and most leaders are pressured by others to step down after one term of five years. One reason for this pressure is age, because these men usually reach their pinnacle around 60 years old. Not discounting the fact that the two men’s opponents could have started the speculation, in the end the party leaders decided not to hold a midterm Party National Congress. Instead, it held a normal plenary meeting of the Central Committee. Not only did that meeting not discuss leadership personnel changes, it also chose to focus on another matter — the fulfilment of the 9th Party National Congress resolutions. The current impasse in leadership succession, while not considered a crisis, would take time to resolve. The reason is that the post-war political leadership in Vietnam is collective in nature and consists of many power centres. This system frowns upon and even ejects leaders who want to decisively dominate all factions and regions. Le Kha Phieu, General Secretary in 1997–2001, tried to be such a strongman by breaking out of a strong consensual, pluralistic mode of leadership so as to produce effective thrusts in direction and governance. But he failed, and his failure was full of irony. He brought too many people from his own home province into the leadership and sub-leadership level, and he undercut his own position by threatening those who elevated him and who had remained the final arbiters of politics in Vietnam. He also offended everyone in the top leadership, even those who were from the military and logically should have aligned themselves with him. It was said that when he was voted out of the office by the Political Bureau months before the 9th Party National Congress in 2001 officially dethroned him,

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

48

David Koh

he only received one vote, that of himself. After Phieu stepped down, several heads of department in the party hierarchy appointed by Phieu to consolidate his power were replaced. The VCP’s Central Committee also disciplined one of its members, a government minister from Phieu’s home province, for involvement in a business-politics scandal. The regional balance formula also produces regional caucuses that are powerful, whose members vote in leaders from their regions or their sectors so that eventually they would be able to lobby successfully by citing their support for the leader. An institutional sort of patron-client relationship is thus set up. Large urban centres and provinces that have had a history of producing revolutionary leaders are the most important caucuses; they included Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, and the province of Nghe An, just to name the most obvious four. These groups are not warlords but given the numbers of their bloc, their voices and opinion, especially those of the bloc’s senior politicians, are significant. It is also not assumed that the blocs act unanimously and in united fashion. Two current top leaders who had both originated from Ho Chi Minh city — one still in office and the other retired — are famous for being highly at odds with each other. In the last two years, there has been a continuing rumour that theoreticians and decision-makers of the Communist Party are toying with the idea of further tweaking the structure of the leadership group. They want to make it slimmer and capable of making quick and effective decisions. A suggestion is to restructure it into a two-leader system, with the general secretary concurrently being the state president. He would have control over the VCP, state functions, such as supreme command of armed forces, ceremonial duties, and key state appointments. The prime minister would control the legislature. It would be a combination of features of the parliamentary system (the prime minister being in control of the legislature, and the president or his representative incharge of regulation of debate and procedures) and the presidential system (the head of the political party, the general secretary, is the president; he appoints the executive with majority support in the legislature but retains overall control of party and state institutions). There would, of course, be no competitive party elections. That the idea has been floating around shows the persistence of those who want it implemented, but its hitherto lack of adoption shows that resistance to the idea is also strong. That there is a strong constituency against it is

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments

49

understandable: fewer top leaders means a slimmer political structure and more political power concentrated in fewer hands. In this scheme of things, the National Assembly chairman would be relegated to being a speaker in his role. He and the current state president, as well as their clients and caucuses in the VCP, would probably object to the proposal for reform. Confirming the political system’s ability to produce ironies, nevertheless, adoption of the system would prove that Le Kha Phieu’s motive was right, although his methods were despised. The top stratum of national leadership, however, is not the only place where structural changes need to take place. At lower strata in the government, many changes in the past year have been low in profile.

2. Changes in Management of the Bureaucracy In the past one-and-a-half years, public administration reform has deepened even further. Two notable changes have been the rotation of senior officials and a new emphasis on meritocracy. Under the rotation policy, senior officials of each and every level rotate occupancy of positions among themselves so as to acquire experience in all aspects of administration work — in different sectors and localities and at the central level. This policy is reserved for officials deemed to have potential for higher office and who have not shown shortcomings, and who are below 50 years old. They have to stay in the new post for at least three years and would have served in an existing post for three years.3 The reason for the policy, according to Head of the Party Commission on Organization and Personnel, Tran Dinh Hoan, is that most up-andcoming cadres are from the post-1975 generation, while the war veteran generation is slowly but definitely fading away.4 But there may be other reasons in the background, which are found in the important political past. One is to make sure that officials at the central level are aware of the problems and potential at the grassroots, and vice versa. The need for such exposure became clear after the 1997 peasant unrest in Thai Binh province. A criticism that emerged from the unrest in Thai Binh was that senior officials did not know the problems of localities and of the ordinary people. It is therefore useful for them to do a term of office at the local level. The policy is also a mechanism to test officials’ mettle and see if they can also handle challenges of different kinds. The policy

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

50

David Koh

is also supposed to allow managers of state enterprises and senior bureaucrats to cross between either sector. Another purpose is probably to reduce corruption by preventing long terms in office that would allow office holders to dish out favours that can compromise the integrity of the system. Up till April 2003, the policy had rotated 1,010 officials across provinces and between provinces and lower levels.5 Up till May 2003, 42 senior officials had been rotated between provincial administrations and the central level.6 However, it appears that this policy does not apply to the Political Bureau; none of its members have been rotated. None of these changes have been earthshaking but ultimately the rotated senior officials are expected to return to the central government to continue their career. The policy has given rise to some apprehension among senior officials, who would naturally prefer to work at the central level because of the greater opportunities for advancement. This was the view communicated to me by a number of my interviewees who were mid-rank officials. Although insufficient information is available, one of the problems that the rotation of cadres would have caused is turf competition between the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Government Affairs on the one side, and the Party Commission for Organization and Personnel on the other. The Ministry of Government Affairs decides on provincial government appointments and nominates people for vice-ministerial appointment.7 The Party Commission for Organization and Personnel does have a say as well. But given the post-1986 environment of multiple power centres, who would have the final say? The answer to this question depends on the power to persuade, bargain, and coerce. Any appointment of the level of vice-minister and above would have to receive the approval of nine bodies within the party-state machinery. The plot gets thicker when economic benefits of positions vary greatly and rotation could mean a few years of very low income for the loser. This loss of income depletes a person’s “war chest” for career advancement. The plot becomes thickest when third parties interfere, such as veteran leaders who, when occupying positions of decision-making power, had put into position those who were about to be rotated.8 With a strong leadership, as in the past, especially during the war, such personnel matters could be decided top-down. Increasingly, every appointment at an important level, especially if it brings enormous financial benefits, would have to be discussed and consensus achieved among different parts of the regime

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments

51

— party, government, and localities. Thus the policy is also not popular because it reduces the autonomy that many local leaders have always enjoyed in deciding on personnel issues within their locality. Instead of deciding among themselves, they now have to plan for rotation and have this plan approved by a larger group of elites other than themselves. Most important, the person being rotated can have his opinion heard, and it is unlikely that anyone would want to move away from a good position unless he is promised a higher appointment in the next round of rotation. In such a political environment, however, IOUs are high-risk investments.9 The other policy is that of promoting younger people into senior positions quickly. Tran Dinh Hoan has said that soon it will become possible for persons below 40 years old to become heads of provincial administration and government ministers.10 The plan involves recruiting fresh graduates who have the potential and training and testing them so that they can reach those posts within fifteen years. Tran Dinh Hoan cited the example of Industries Minister Hoang Trung Hai, who was 43 years old and took nineteen years to reach where he was. Tran Dinh Hoan himself took twenty years. Some people have cast doubts on this declaration, given that the system is still entrenched in a seniority-based niche. But if Tran Dinh Hoan is serious, then it is a move towards meritocracy in combination with the rotation policy. When he was asked if the seniority system would be a big obstacle for the promote-young policy, Tran Dinh Hoan said that in that case the policy of rotation would be used so that older people could make way for the young. The explanation is neat, but as in the case of many developing countries, policy implementation is a critical part of the policy process. Policy implementation failures are often fatal to the policy itself. It remains to be seen how these interesting personnel policies, which are in the right direction as far as best practices go, can be implemented. The Vietnamese system does not operate only on logic and rationality, and the system at present is different from that during the war era when anything the VCP General Secretary or the head of Party Commission for Organization and Personnel ordered would be done, especially if the person concerned did not come under his direct command. To succeed in the two policies of rotation and promoting the young, it would be helpful to create more staff positions so that people can be transferred laterally instead of being asked to leave without a compensating post

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

52

David Koh

that is equal in status and perhaps better in material benefits. This is to “save face” for the person and retain the support of the person for the regime.11

3. Upwards and Downwards Accountability within the VCP The VCP has a political structure that is in general top-down and highly controlled. This structure was effective in the war against colonialists and imperialists. No doubt their success was in part due to such a structure. Under this arrangement, power tended to be concentrated in the hands of a few persons only. Within the VCP, leadership from 1930 to the 1950s lay in the hands of Ho Chi Minh, Truong Chinh, and Vo Nguyen Giap, and to a lesser extent in Pham Van Dong. This coterie inducted new members in 1960, allowing Le Duan to come to the fore. Le Duan brought in Le Duc Tho as head of Party Commission on Organization and Personnel, and basically struck a close alliance with him. Gradually these two men came to dominate the political scene. Although they still regarded the other veteran leaders with considerable respect, behind-the-scene manoeuvres saw these two men consolidating their political positions after 1975 when the war was over. In the process they sidelined a number of senior leaders who had been in the core of the revolutionary group for decades and who had strong differences with them over post-war economic and foreign policies. The Le Duan– Le Duc Tho legacy is one that is remembered with much regret, because of the arbitrariness and the all-powerful positions of the few at the top.12 This is the context in which post-1986 reforms in elite politics, in the direction of divestment of powers to more people, should be read. Le Duan had died several months before the 1986 congress took place and Le Duc Tho agreed to retire and be made Party Adviser together with two of his contemporaries, Truong Chinh and Pham Van Dong. Some nascent democratization among the elites then emerged. The period during and immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted a rethink and a back-track in terms of liberalization in state-society relations, but the process of diffusion of power into the hands of more actors did not reverse. Resulting from there was also the call for the separation of party and state roles. More people came to have a role to play in politics; a greater variety of people were coming to have more

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments

53

control over resources, affairs, and power. Throughout the 1990s political reforms concentrated on keeping the party machinery focused and limited to party affairs, although in actual fact party leaders at any level still have the ultimate say over how things should be done, because many party members are regularly appointed to leading government positions. Political reforms also focused on reliance on institutions rather than on personalities for leadership and arbitration over power and authority. Thus we have seen the emphasis on the need to create laws as the basis for all aspects of life, and to make sure the National Assembly is respected in its right to create laws, review them, and have the government answer to it. To a very large extent, compared with the 1980s, arbitrariness in the system has been greatly reduced. There is greater sharing of power and greater scope for negotiation, compromises, and a greater readiness to strike consensus rather than rely on strong leadership. In the past year-and-a-half, the most notable progress on the matter of institutionalization is the passing of by-laws for the top leadership within the party and the second rung of collective leadership, the Central Committee Secretariat and the Central Committee. There have also been new demands placed on the performance of Central Committee members. These changes are with a view to greater accountability of office holders at the top echelons of the party. The Third Central Committee Plenum held in late 2001 decided on establishing a Members’ Responsibility System, under which every member of the Central Committee would be put in charge of one area of work (for instance, trade) and would have to take responsibility for successes and shortcomings. Each member would take the lead in making sure that party decisions were well implemented as policies by the state apparatus. Each member is also supposed to conduct grassroots work, as well as be accountable for corruption and other ills that occur in their area of responsibility. There are also new demands by the party on their personal behaviour and moral standards.13 Also refreshing is that the same 3rd Plenum discussed and revised a number of by-laws for the Political Bureau, the Central Committee, Central Committee Secretariat, and other top-level party organs. The above by-laws had probably existed in the past but in a closed tradition. This time the revisions were given stronger emphasis and publicity than in the past, although the exact clauses of the by-laws are still a secret. They could resemble the Nineteen Don’ts for party members

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

54

David Koh

issued in 1999,14 but I expect these by-laws to include clauses that regulate behaviour within these bodies, especially after Le Kha Phieu’s attempt to bug the whole Political Bureau. The first thing that was significant was that the Central Committee was asked to scrutinize and pass the written by-laws for the Political Bureau, bringing concrete meaning to the often repeated point that the Political Bureau is accountable to the Central Committee. Of parallel significance is the fact that there is political will to install similar regulations at all levels of the party organization.15 This should serve to set out more clearly on paper, which will have a stronger binding effect, the scope of powers of party officials at every level. On a side note, similar regulations are also being erected for the National Assembly.16 Plenty of institutionalization is going on. What are the reasons for this institutionalization to circumscribe and define clearly the dos and don’ts of leadership? The legacy of the Le Kha Phieu era partly explains it. But another factor is that setting out the out-of-bounds markers also means constructing an institutional basis to the powers of the leaders, which should confer them with more authority, and thus make them less challengable. I think there is frustration at the top over the increasing lack of control over some important matters on a routine basis, although there is no doubt that ultimately the party can put its foot down if it wants to. That would, however, increase the stress to the political system. Setting out rights and responsibilities clearly on paper would reduce the scope for argument and arbitrariness, strengthen discipline, and make affairs more accurately reflect the will of the top leaders. Personnel appointment appears to be one such matter in a system that I have described elsewhere as a Parkinson’s State.17 The VCP has pointed out that it needs to institutionalize the leadership of the party on personnel issues in the National Assembly.18 In theory, VCP leaders are supposed to have this power because an overwhelming majority of the members of the National Assembly are VCP members. Party discipline is weak, however, as witnessed in the lack of overwhelming vote in support of Nguyen Van An assuming the post of Chairman of the National Assembly. The top leaders also suffer the same lack of total control over personnel issues within the government and state-owned enterprises, as the above party source readily admits. Perhaps the problem is not just indiscipline of members, but factional fighting.19

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments

55

4. Social Differentiation since the Socialist Era: Political Dynamics and Political Challenges On the social front the changes in Vietnam in the past 15 years have been tremendous. I have often been reminded by Vietnamese friends of the great uniformity that used to exist in Vietnamese society. Up to 1990, women in Hanoi were still wearing drab, black-coloured pants. Not only was there a shortage of colourful clothes, but people also did not want to stand out from the crowd. With economic development, we see Vietnamese women dressed in a variety of colours that is unmatched in history. Social differentiation in Vietnam has come not just in the colours of things, but also in many other ways. It has come in terms of income, wealth, consumption, access, connections, opportunities, and impermeable social class divisions. Certain dynamics tend to exaggerate differentiation, economic growth being one of them. Some of these dynamics, however, are due to the political system, and they have not been adequately presented in analyses of social differentiation here,20 although Jee Young Kim will address the issue of political capital in occupational mobility later in this book. In brief, two political dynamics affect social differentiation: personal connections, and political and bureaucratic power. Together, they can be called political capital. As governance in Vietnam is increasingly meritocratized and becoming more egalitarian in terms of opportunities, the role of political capital will become correspondingly less important. To begin, social differentiation was seen during the communist era through the state’s differentiated treatment for ideologically defined good and bad classes of people. The state ideology then was that social differentiation, especially the extreme form, was a result of oppression by the higher social classes of the lower classes, and this inflicted hardship and suffering. Social differentiation should therefore be done away with as much as possible. This politics remade the old social structures. What replaced it was a new structure that was not only flatter, but intra-class differences also became less pronounced. The new structure also promoted the interests of previously “exploited classes” over the rest. Such a policy was based on a fixed power view of social and economic history and the future. Therefore, it was also state practice to make arbitrary decisions as to who was exploited, and the differentiation in treatment would be more or less permanent. People were treated

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

56

David Koh

differently under various ideological reform exercises depending on which social class one was assessed as belonging to. The criteria for assessment were family background, wealth, assets, occupation, and ideological orientation. Further, how much food was rationed to a person depended on one’s class and occupational status. This differential treatment extended over physical resources, which were almost totally provided by the state. There were private resources available but these came at much higher prices and were much harder to come by. With a little bit of ingenuity, ways to get around the difficulties soon became clear to those who were sensitive to the role of political capital in such a hegemonic system. One way was to use connections and friendship to boost one’s limited resources. Working in the right place, for instance, could get one a free allotment of a ground floor flat that could be used to conduct petty trade. In the 1980s and 1990s, connections could get you the offer to go overseas to work in the Soviet Union, where one could earn much more than at home. People used their connections and ingenuity to trade their surpluses for goods they desired. These were a few examples of how people used connections to survive and to thrive. Connections do not all come naturally but they have to be inculcated. To have the right connections, one has to be in the right place at the right time, or have the right personal requisites. The poor usually do not have the opportunity, for instance, to be in the city where the rich and powerful usually are located. The facts speak for themselves. Today, two-thirds of the rich in Vietnam are found in the urban areas, and only ten per cent of rural residents are rich.21 The attraction of the urban areas to the poor in Vietnam has been constant, in war and in peace. Therefore, measures of the past that banned migration to the city made social differentiation based on location hard to eradicate, although in fact many people were able to get around such restrictions.22 The laxity in application of rules and regulations in everyday urban life means that connections and personal relationships are important. This is the reason many Vietnamese are so hung up on having connections and doing what is necessary to establish, preserve, and build on social relationships. This is not to say that Vietnamese make friends only because they are after material benefits. But there are various types of friends and social relations, and some of them are merely based on material benefit. The second set of political dynamics that relate to social differentiation

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments

57

come from a bureaucratic state. In Vietnam many bureaucrats utilize the powers given by the state to enrich themselves. These powers control, regulate, and issue licences for all sorts of activities. In a very important way, we must be understanding of the difficulties bureaucrats face, as their official salaries are often meagre. How could these bureaucrats have survived? Bureaucrats therefore do their best to protect their turfs. From there a market for positions in the bureaucracy and a preference to keep in place licensing requirements or state approval for any kind of societal activity arises. Political Bureau member Le Hong Anh, formerly head of the State Inspectorate but now Minister for Public Security appointed with a view to shake up the ministry, said openly that for long the bureaucracy has sold positions for money and accepted bribes from law offenders. The bureaucracy is the centre through which grease money has been paid for all sorts of special permissions and mercies.23 The bureaucracy also has access to state resources that can be redistributed through embezzlement, garage sale, and favours. Social differentiation can have political consequences. When the vast majority of people are poor and most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, the majority can feel alienated. The situation in Vietnam, however, is not so drastic. The government has been highly praised for eradicating hunger and reducing poverty over the past decade. Overall, living standards have improved, and Vietnam’s ranking on the UN Human Development Index has steadily improved: from 122/174 in 1995, to 113/174 in 1998, 110/174 in 1999, and 109/175 in 2003.24 The unemployment situation has also been steadily improving in the last four years, in both urban and rural areas.25 In 2001 a group of government academics, in collaboration with an American university, conducted a survey of political and social attitudes in 29 of the 61 provinces of Vietnam. The survey found most respondents to be happy with their lives, and importantly, happy with and confident of their government.26 But there are some faultlines that the government watches out for. These are urban-rural differences,27 and ethnic minorities and ChineseKinh differences. Fifty per cent of ethnic minorities (14 per cent of the population) are now considered poor. In Vietnam, two-thirds of all Chinese (two per cent of the population) are regarded as rich.28 In this era, what is more worrying for the VCP is that social differentiation may give birth to a new class of business interests that

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

58

David Koh

can imperil the party. Business interests are often seen as morally corrupting its cadres, which compromise party objectives in governance. But it is more likely that the game is about these business interests lobbying the government at all levels. And the stakes of the game are big — in the range of millions of dollars. Since the mid-1990s no less than five big scandals have exposed a nexus between bureaucrats and business interests: the Minh Phung affair, Tamexco affair, Nam Cam affair, Dong Nam affair, and the La Thi Kim Oanh affair. Besides Nam Cam also being a criminal gang leader, business interests in all four affairs collaborated with bureaucrats to cover up wrongful corporate practices and illegal activities. An analyst has considered social differentiation as jarring to the equalitarian ideology of the Communist Party and which may have important consequences.29 My view on this is different, however, after having heard numerous Vietnamese discuss the system and thinking about what they said. On the surface, the Vietnamese may privately criticize the disjuncture between ideology and reality. They wish things could be different, but they have coped. I believe the party leaders experience a degree of guilt about the emergence of inequalities in their society. Huge social differentiation is jarring to the party itself because the party is expected to be coherent in thought and behaviour. On another plane, social differentiation is analysed and studied by academics and policy-makers and there is a constant pledge by policy-makers to lessen the income gap. This means the reality is accepted and the guilt is reduced by a commitment to address the inequality. In this system, any amount of reduction in poverty and the income gap will be regarded as a success and proof of the party being a political party of the people. The ordinary people, however, are less likely to challenge the party on its record of inequality, as they live in awe of the security machinery of the party. They are more likely to want to work around the system so that the inequalities work in their favour. In other words, there is a mixture of morality and rationality.

Conclusion The political system of Vietnam will continue to face the challenge of growing social differentiation caused by the market economy. To date, state policies have achieved some recognition in ameliorating the

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments

59

extremes. Now, in contrast with the past, the party does not consider social differentiation itself as a vice, nor does it actively seek a vendetta against those who are rich and are becoming emergent social classes, unless these classes damage or seek to topple the state. Yet, some state policies in Vietnam, even during the subsidy period, have given those people with good connections and special status more chances than others to accumulate wealth. While there are political dynamics that drive social differentiation, at the top of the political power game the leaders are pretty much undifferentiated as their space for manoeuvres is constrained by institutional demands of collective leadership and consensus decisionmaking. There is a formula that decides who can become the top leaders, and the formula does not seem set to alter unless there is consensus for change. In the past year, there have been changes to try to bind the two top echelons of political leadership to standards of reasonable behaviour. The bureaucrats’ stake in this political system is to extract as much rent as possible while at same time facing up to the demands of the population for good governance, and the politicians’ increasing demand for accountability so as to consolidate performance legitimacy.

NOTES 1

2

3

4

5

Carlyle Thayer, “Mono-Organizational Socialism and the State”, in Vietnam’s Rural Transformation, edited by B.T. Kerkvliet and D.J. Porter (Boulder, CO: Westview Press; and Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995). Structurally, the National Assembly has also been strengthened with more resources and more capabilities. See the draft paper by Matthieu Saloman, “Political Reforms at the Crossroads: A Tentative Analysis of the Evolution of the National Assembly of Vietnam”. “PM Issues Decision on Appointment, Rotation and Suspension of State Cadres”, Vietnam News Briefs, 21 February 2003. Tran Dinh Hoan, “Qua mot nam thuc hien Nghi quyet cua Bo Chinh tri ve luan chuyen can bo” [Resolution of the political bureau on cadre rotation after one year of implementation], Tap Chi Cong San, December 2003, pp. 8–12. Nguoi Lao Dong, “Luan chuyen can bo la khau dot pha ve cong tac can bo” [Cadre rotation is a breakthrough in personnel policy], Lao Dong Dien Tu, 20 March 2003. http://www.laodong.com.vn/pls/bld/folder$. view_item_detail

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

60

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14 15

David Koh

(60459). Vietnam News Agency, “Cac tinh thanh phia Nam trao doi kinh nghiem cong tac luan chuyen can bo lanh dao” [Southern cities and provinces exchange experiences on cadre rotation], Lao Dong Dien Tu, 8 April 2003. http://www.laodong.com.vn/pls/bld/folder$.view_item_ detail(62492). Pham Hieu, “Nhung can bo co khuyet diem khong nam trong dien luan chuyen” [Cadres with shortcomings will not be rotated], Lao Dong Dien Tu, 15 May 2003. http://www.laodong.com.vn/pls/bld/folder$.view_item_detail(66285). However, the Ministry of Government Affairs must pass the personal file of the nominee to eight other party and government departments to ask for their opinion. A few years after his retirement in 2003, an ex-leader was known to have interfered in a district-level top appointment within Hanoi City. B.B.D., “Quy che ve luan chuyen, tu chuc, mien nhiem can bo, cong chuc” [Regulations on rotation, resignation, and dismissal of cadres and public servants], Lao Dong Dien Tu, 28 April 2003. http://www.laodong.com.vn/ pls/bld/folder$.view_item_detail(64636). See also “Vietnamese Politburo Member Urges Speeding Up of Cadre Rotation”, Vietnam News Briefs, 10 April 2003. Nghia Nhan, “Se co chu tich tinh, bo truong chi 40 tuoi” [Will have provincial heads, ministers who are only 40 years old], VnExpress, 30 May 2003. http://vnexpress.net/Vietnam/Xa-hoi/2003/05/3B9C84B6/. There is as yet to be systematic research on the matter of what senior politicians and bureaucrats do when they retire or make way for younger people. Nevertheless, information available so far suggests they are usually “recycled” into less critical and advisory roles that carry a high social status. The various research commissions of the Prime Minister’s Office, for instance, are frequently staffed and even led by former heads of department or ministers. Dissidents have written on the subject, producing books such as Dem giua ban ngay, by Vu Thu Hien, and Doi Moi: Niem vui chua tron, by the late General Tran Do. “Thong bao Hoi nghi lan thu 3 Ban chap hanh Trung uong Dang Cong san Viet Nam” [Communique of the Third Plenum of the Central Committee, Vietnamese Communist Party], Tap Chi Cong San 17 (September 2001): 3–5. Associated Press Newswires, 10 June 1999. “Ket luan ve viec tiep tuc thuc hien Nghi Quyet Trung Uong Ba (khoa VII), Nghi Quyet Trung Uong Ba va Nghi Quyet Trung Uong Bay (khoa VIII) ve Cong tac to chuc va can bo” [Conclusions regarding continuing implementation of Resolution 3 (7th Central Committee) and Resolutions 3 and 7 (8th Central Committee) on organization and personnel], in Tai lieu

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Political Developments

16

17

18

19

20

61

phuc vu nghien cuu cac ket luan Hoi nghi lan thu sau Ban chap hanh Trung uong Dang (khoa IX) [Documents for research on conclusions of the 6th Plenum of the 9th Central Committee] (Nha xuat ban Chinh tri Quoc Gia, Ha Noi, 2002), p. 158. Vietnam News Briefs, “President promises further admin reform”, 23 August 2002. David Koh, “The Politics of a Divided Party and Parkinson’s State in Vietnam”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 23, no. 3 (December 2001): 533–51. “Ket luan ve viec tiep tuc thuc hien Nghi Quyet Trung Uong Ba (khoa VII), Nghi Quyet Trung Uong Ba va Nghi Quyet Trung Uong Bay (khoa VIII) ve Cong tac to chuc va can bo” [Conclusions regarding continuing implementation of Resolution 3 (7th Central Committee) and Resolutions 3 and 7 (8th Central Committee) on organization and personnel], in Tai lieu phuc vu nghien cuu cac ket luan Hoi nghi lan thu sau Ban chap hanh Trung uong Dang (khoa IX) [Documents for research on conclusions of the 6th Plenum of the 9th Central Committee] (Nha xuat ban Chinh tri Quoc Gia, Ha Noi, 2002), pp. 151, 167. As has been the case for many years, political differences among top political institutions and actors are usually put forward in very subtle and indirect terms in party documents. For evidence on this tension between the VCP and the National Assembly, see the Resolution of the 9th Plenum of the 9th Central Committee. In the Resolution, the party resolves to “perfect the mechanism of Party leadership of the National Assembly and People’s Councils at all levels”. “Chi dao quyet liet hon cuoc van dong xay dung, chinh don Dang” [Direct more decisively the party building and rectification campaign], Lao Dong Dien Tu, 6 February 2004. http://www.laodong. com.vn/ pls/bld/folder$.view_item_detail(91932). Hy Van Luong is of the view that “political power and class background were not as important in rural Vietnam as in China as a basis for socioeconomic differentiation due to the wartime conditions in northern Vietnam … and the state’s emphasis on political unity during this period” (author’s emphasis). For me, the key here may be the different conditions between rural and urban areas. See pp. 84–85 in Hy Van Luong, “Wealth, Power and Inequality: Global Market, the State, and Local Sociocultural Dynamics”, in Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a Transforming Society, edited by Hy Van Luong (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003), pp. 81–106. Hy Van Luong also thinks that in the urban setting “[s]mall differences existed primarily due to the rank and privilege differences within the state bureaucratic system, and to the remittances from Vietnamese workers in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe”. A Vietnamese interviewee who

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

62

21

22

23

24

25 26

27 28 29

David Koh

stayed in the Soviet Union for almost two decades said to me that in the years of the Soviet Union and when Vietnamese labourers began to be exported there, people were bribing their way for such opportunities to work in the Soviet Union. The reason was they could earn many times what they would have earned if they had stayed in Vietnam. Returning Vietnamese multiplied their earnings exponentially by buying consumer goods with rubles and selling these goods back in Vietnam. For instance, a student in the late 1970s received a stipend of 70 rubles per month. One hundred rubles could buy a refrigerator, an item very much sought after in Vietnam in the early 1980s, which no doubt would have earned the importer lots more Vietnamese dong than the official ruble-dong exchange rate. Furthermore, the difference in rank did result in significant differences in entitlement and privileges during the subsidy period. Consider the differences in amount of entitlement between the A and E classes. From anecdotal evidence, for instance, the difference in meat entitlement amount to at least three to four times. Much more research is still required, nevertheless. Do Thien Kinh et al., “Bat binh dang” [Inequality], in Muc song trong thoi ky bung no kinh te Viet Nam [Living standards during the economic boom of Vietnam], edited by Dominique Haughton, Jonathan Haughton, Nguyen Phong (United Nations Development Program and Tong Cuc Thong Ke, Ha Noi, 2001), pp. 39–54. Andrew Hardy, “Rules and Resources: Negotiating the Household Registration System in Vietnam under Reform”, SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 16, no. 2 (October 2001): 187–212. Lao Dong Dien Tu, “Phai tap trung lam lo dien the luc ngam” [Should concentrate on exposing the clandestine influences], 11 November 2003. http://www.laodong.com.vn/pls/bld/folder$.view_item_detail(84592). Tong Cuc Thong Ke, Kinh te — Xa hoi Viet Nam: 3 Nam 2001–2003 [Three years of economy and society in Vietnam: 2001–2003] (Nha xuat ban Thong ke, Ha Noi, 2003), p. 17. Ibid., p. 127. Scott Martelle and Mai Tran, “Vietnamese Happy with Life, Poll Says”, Los Angeles Times (Orange County edition), 29 November 2001, part 2, p. 1. (Courtesy of vnnews-l) Do Thien Kinh et al., Bat binh dang [Inequality], p. 43. Do Thien Kinh et al., Bat binh dang [Inequality], p. 45. Regina M. Abrami, “Vietnam in 2002: On the Road to Recovery”, Asian Survey 43, no. 1: 91–100.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

63

Reproduced from Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform, edited by Philip Taylor (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

2 Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments: Achievements, Paradoxes, and Challenges Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

Economic reform in Vietnam was initiated in the early 1980s. However, the real turning point in the history of Vietnam’s economic development came with the renovation (doi moi) reforms in 1986 and especially the radical market-oriented reform of 1989. As for other economies in transition, Vietnam has had to deal with three key sets of reforms: liberalization and stabilization; institutional changes that support market exchange and shape ownership; and the establishment of social programmes to ease the pain of transition (World Bank 1996). Vietnam’s reform process has also been uneven. It was recognized even in 1996 that the reforms were limited and were not keeping pace with economic development. Moreover, the reform process in general slowed down during the period 1996–99, especially after the Asian crisis. The years 2000–2003 witnessed new commitments to continue with the reforms

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

64

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

and some progress was made, especially in the development of private sector and trade liberalization. Meanwhile, the reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the banking system, and public administration were slower than expected and this has limited the effectiveness and efficiency of other reforms. Since the 1989 reforms, the face of Vietnam’s economy and society has changed significantly. Vietnam has recorded remarkable achievements in terms of growth in gross domestic product (GDP), control of inflation, export expansion, and poverty reduction. It is now generally recognized that Vietnam is among the best developing countries in terms of having achieved relatively high economic growth while reducing poverty incidence. But some are of the view that in international comparison Vietnam’s performance is not really spectacular and that there are problems in sustaining economic growth and ensuring quality of development.1 This chapter is about the reform process in Vietnam with particular focus on recent developments. It also identifies some key problems and even “paradoxes” associated with structural changes in the economy. Paradoxes are understood in the sense that these changes are not to be expected of an economy in transition that also has a prolonged and high economic growth. The remainder of the chapter is structured in three sections. Section 1 highlights the process of economic reform and its achievements in Vietnam, especially during the period of 2000–2003. Section 2 analyses the major structural changes and the remaining problems or “paradoxes”. Section 3 ends the chapter with concluding remarks on the key lessons learnt from the reform process as well as the major challenges Vietnam faces in achieving the ambitious targets set in its socio-economic development strategy.

1. An Overview of the Reform Process and Its Achievements2 Prior to the 1980s, the characteristics of Vietnam’s economy were essentially those of a centrally planned economy (CPE). The economy was heavily distorted in resource allocation with poor incentives and restricted information flows. As a result, the economy suffered from persistent shortages with low levels of per capita consumption and inefficiency of investments. By the end of the 1970s, the failure of the

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

65

centrally planned system had become apparent and pressures for reform increased substantially. During the period 1980–88, Vietnam’s economy was modified to respond to depletion of the economy. Some microeconomic reforms were introduced in 1981 to recognize and legalize spontaneous measures, such as “illicit contracting” in agriculture and “fence breaking” in the manufacturing sector. These micro reforms enhanced voluntary and decentralized interactions between individual agents and created new incentives for producers to raise outputs during the period 1982–85. The economy became more dynamic, and as a result Vietnam enjoyed a high rate of economic growth in the first half of the 1980s. However, growth was not sustainable and tended to decline owing to macroeconomic imbalances such as excessive demand for consumption goods and a huge fiscal deficit. The financial reform implemented in 1985 in an attempt to reverse the situation also failed since it was introduced without addressing the fundamental problems of resource misallocation and macroeconomic imbalances in the economy. In the mid-1980s, the inflation rate accelerated to several hundred per cent. The 6th Party Congress in December 1986 was a turning point in Vietnam’s economic policies. It recognized the existence and the essential role of a multi-ownership structure in Vietnam’s economy. However, significant changes in this direction occurred only some time after the approval of the doi moi (renovation) programme by the Congress. In March 1989, Vietnam adopted a radical and comprehensive reform package aimed at stabilizing and opening the economy, and enhancing freedom of choice for economic units and competition so as to fundamentally change the economic management system in Vietnam. The measures undertaken hereafter included: • • • • •

almost complete price liberalization; large devaluation and unification of the exchange rate; increases in interest rates to positive levels in real terms; substantial reduction in subsidies to the SOE sector; agricultural reforms through replacement of co-operatives by households as the basic decision-making unit in production and security of tenure for farm families; • encouragement of the private sector, including FDI; • removal of domestic trade barriers and the creation of a more open economy.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

66

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

Macroeconomic stabilization was successful in conjunction with price liberalization, changes in interest rate and exchange rate policies, and at the same time the relief of the fiscal burden. The monetary policy has also improved and the use of changing monetary instruments has become more effective in cutting down inflation. Several measures to increase private sector participation in production and distribution have been undertaken, including the creation of a legal framework for private business. The recognition of the farming household as a basic economic unit and long-term land-use rights provided by a new Land Law in 1987 and Amended Law in 1993 created strong incentives for farming households to make long-term investments and expand agricultural production. Agricultural production has become much more diversified under market and foreign trade development. The reform of the agricultural sector was essential to poverty reduction as it is the largest sector of the economy and provides income to some three-quarters of the population. Rapid growth in services and construction during the 1990s came mainly from a quick response from private entrepreneurs. Nearly 2 million newly established household businesses in urban areas helped to enhance the performance of the economy and considerably improve the retail sales and service network. During 1990s, about 45,000 private enterprises were registered under the Law on Private Enterprises and Company Law approved in 1991. The private sector became a major source for employment in the economy. In an attempt to make the operation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) viable, the government substantially reduced subsidies, diminished “cheap” credit to these enterprises and gave them greater autonomy. Furthermore, inefficient and money-losing enterprises were liquidated. From 1990 to 1994, the number of SOEs fell from 12,000 to about 6,300 and 1.5 million SOE workers (out of the total of 4.05 million SOE employees) retired or were converted to part-time workers. These reforms led to some positive improvements in the growth performance of the SOE sector in the first half of the 1990s. To facilitate the development of trade and investment, the government has also introduced reforms in the banking sector. The mono-banking system was replaced by a two-tier system, which could function in 1990, when the laws on banking authorized the State Bank of Vietnam to assume traditional central bank functions such as the conduct of monetary policy and the supervision of the financial system. Furthermore, sectoral

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

67

restrictions on specialized banking activities and entry barriers were abolished. At present, in addition to the five state-owned commercial banks (SOCBs), a number of joint-stock banks, credit co-operatives and funds, joint-venture banks, and foreign banks are in operation in the country. Vietnam has substantially liberalized its trade and investment policies since the late 1980s. In an attempt to integrate its economy with the rest of the world, Vietnam has entered into trade agreements with about 60 countries and has trade relations with some 170 countries. It has implemented a preferential trade agreement with the European Union since 1992. In addition, Vietnam has been a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since June 1995 and joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) grouping in 1998. Liberalization of the investment climate resulted in a rapid growth in foreign investment between 1993 and 1997. The country has received foreign investment from some 60 countries. The Law on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) promulgated in 1987 and subsequent amendments enabled Vietnam to attract a large volume of capital and technologies to expand production and markets. FDI has indeed become an integrated part of the Vietnamese economy. It was a driving force for economic growth in Vietnam during the 1990s. Despite broad and fast liberalization, it was recognized even in 1996 that significant restrictions remained, for instance, in the areas of trade and market entry. The reforms of SOEs and the financial sector have been limited and have not kept pace with economic development (World Bank 1997). After 1997, economic growth tended to decline and there was a deep concern with sustainable economic growth and development, especially during and after the Asian crisis. However, during 1997–99 Vietnam was reluctant to undertake a decisive reform programme. The years 2000–2003 witnessed the implementation of a demand stimulus policy to revitalize the economy and stronger commitments to structural reforms, international economic integration, and administrative reform. The reforms have accelerated somewhat but with uneven performance. The Demand Stimulus Policy A demand stimulus policy has been implemented since mid-1999 with loose monetary and fiscal policies to recover economic growth. In particular, this policy has included several measures such as public

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

68

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

investment in infrastructure projects, financial support for SOEs to deal with their mounting inventories, a budget injection for poverty reduction programmes, raising wages and salaries to encourage people to consume, and partially supporting enterprises to expand exports (Le Xuan Sang 2002). The demand stimulus policy has had a positive impact on the economy, minimizing the deflation effects and economic stagnation, but it has been partially contrary to the process of structural reforms and administration reform. The Slow Pace of Reforms of the SOEs The equitization process began in 1994, but there were only three completed equitizations as of the end of 1995 and 17 by the end of 1997. In early 1998, equitization targets were announced for a total of 1,550 enterprises during 1998–2000 and equitization procedures were further clarified and simplified. However, progress was slow as actual equitizations numbered only 404. A five-year SOE reform plan was adopted by the government in 2001, providing a comprehensive programme and roadmap for SOE reforms over the 2001–2005 period. Two key components of the programme are to diversify, divest, and even liquidate small and medium-sized and non-strategic SOEs and to restructure large corporations to improve their efficiency and competitiveness. The plan specifies annual targets for SOEs subjected to transformation, mostly in the forms of equitization, divestiture, and liquidation, for 2001– 2003. Around 2,000 SOEs (accounting for 31 per cent of total SOE employment, 11 per cent of state capital, and ten per cent of SOE debt) were to be transformed during this period. 3 The progress in transformation of SOEs, however, has been behind schedule (Table 2.1). A new SOE reform roadmap issued in 2003 identifies the specific names and timetable of SOEs under transformation and annual targets over the 2003–2005 period. About 2,300 enterprises are to be transformed by the end of 2005, entailing 1,747 equitizations, 151 divestitures, and 91 liquidations. These enterprises account for 24 per cent of SOE employment, 14 per cent of capital, and three per cent of debt. However, most of these enterprises (again) are small and medium ones with an average of 170 employees and average state capital of 8 billion Vietnamese dong. The conversion of general corporations into holding companies would provide more autonomy to enterprises as financial

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

69

TABLE 2.1 SOE Roadmap and Actual Transformation 2001

2002

2003

Roadmap

Actual

Roadmap

Actual

Roadmap

Actual

Equitization Transfer, sale Liquidation Other

487 55 90 87

204 57 21 0

460 49 68 74

164 44 6 0

473 38 61 64

101 21 11 32

Total

710

282

651

214

636

165

Source: National Steering Committee for Enterprise Reform and Development.

and operation decision-making will be shifted from state agencies to the board of directors of the holding companies. Conversion into holding companies is being tried out in a pilot scheme involving three large general corporations, namely Seaprodex, Vinacafe, and Vinatex. The (revised) SOE Law promulgated in November 2003 became effective in July 2004. It mostly regulates the relations between owners (the state) and enterprises, while more operational matters are governed by the (new) Enterprise Law. The revised law also provides clearer guidelines for the appointment, duties, powers, and remuneration of SOE directors and boards of management. The current plan is to draft a unified enterprise law and a single investment law and these new laws are expected to be passed in 2005. The Sluggish Reform of the Banking System At present, SOCBs dominate the banking system, accounting for more than 70 per cent of all bank credits and deposits. However, these SOCBs have weak balance sheets with their accumulated non-performing loans (NPLs) totalling 23 trillion dong at the end of 2000, which was equivalent to about twice their capital, five per cent of GDP, and 15 per cent of total credit to the economy (IMF 2001). This high degree of NPLs, together with high interest rates and exchange risks and weak supervision, creates a very fragile banking system. The expansion of credits to big and highcost projects during 2002–2003 may aggravate the situation. The banking reform programme launched by the State Bank of Vietnam in April 2001 aims at strengthening the regulation and

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

70

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

supervision of banks, enhancing transparency and accountability, and improving the soundness of the banking system.4 But progress with implementation of this programme has been uneven. There were some initial improvements in resolving collateralized NPLs, which are typical of the private sector, but results were sluggish in resolving uncollateralized NPLs, mainly provided to SOEs. New rules on loan classification and loan provisioning that are closer to international standards have been made but their implementation is still not transparent. International Accounting Standards audits of the financial statements based on year 2000 accounts have been undertaken but the plan to address key audit qualifications has not been carried out. Responsibility for preferential and policy-based credit activities shifted from the SOCBs to two newly established specialist institutions, namely, the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (in 2003) and the Development Assistance Fund (DAF) (in 1999). However, there is a call for DAF reform or transformation as its operational efficiency has been doubtful. A Surge in Development of the Private Sector Due to the Implementation of the New Enterprise Law since 2000 Under the new law, the simplification of administration procedures, especially the removal or the modification of business licences in a great number of sub-sectors, has significantly reduced business registration costs and shortened the approval process. As a result, 72,600 private enterprises were registered under the new law during the period from 2000 to September 2003 compared with only 45,000 private enterprises established during the whole period of the 1990s. Their total registered capital was approximately US$9.5 billion, this being much higher than the FDI during the same period and four times higher than that of private enterprises established during the 1990s (CIEM 2003a). The new Enterprise Law is regarded as a second turning-point in the development of the private sector in Vietnam. The remaining obstacles to the development of the domestic private sector are a non-level playing field, difficult access to resources such as land, credit, and the monopoly status of state enterprises in some key sectors. Some Improvements in the Environment for FDI Attraction The amended Foreign Direct Investment Law promulgated in 2000 provided some improvements in the environment for attracting FDI by

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

71

streamlining licensing and administrative procedures for foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs), especially automatic registration for export-oriented FIEs, and levelling the playing field with domestic enterprises, especially in allowing FIEs to buy foreign exchange from commercial banks in Vietnam to pay for their imports. There has been also some progress in phasing-out dual pricing for public utilities.5 A resolution by the government in 2001 required speeding up the elimination of the dual price system for almost all charges and fees, a common and simplified legal framework for both domestic and foreign investors, further expansion of FDI in some sectors such as agribusiness, fisheries, retail sales, and distribution, and addressing land problems such as land clearance procedures, land-use rights certification issue, and land-use rights transfer. There was a hope that FDI inflows, especially those from Japan, would surge after the approval of the Investment Protection Pact signed by Vietnam and Japan in November 2003. However, there were major obstacles: cumbersome administrative procedures and corruption, an inconsistent and barely transparent system of legal documentation, unpredictability of policy changes, and the high cost of infrastructure services to facilitate business. A More Liberalized Trade Regime and the Stepping Up of International Economic Integration Like many other developing countries, Vietnam’s trade regime has operated within a rather comprehensive framework of regulations on trading rights and trade barriers such as tariffs and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) with efforts to promote exports as well as protect importsubstituting production. But the monopoly position of the SOEs in foreign trading activities has been gradually weakened and the abolishment of trade licences in 1998 (and further relaxation in 2001) was a most significant step forward in trade liberalization. The number of enterprises registered for trading activities increased from 2,400 in early 1998 to more than 16,000 in early 2002. However, during 1997–99, regulatory changes, especially those relating to NTBs and practical implementation, can be seen as a process of “two steps forward and one step back”. At that time, according to the IMF’s index of trade restriction, Vietnam was one of the most restrictive of the Fund members (IMF 1999). The years 2000–2003 witnessed major positive changes in trade policy and international economic integration.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

72

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

A trade policy roadmap for the period 2001–2005 (Decision 46/2001/ QD-TTg in April 2001) was announced for the first time in place of the earlier practice of announcing one-year regimes, making a more transparent and predictable export-import environment. The roadmap provides for quantitative restriction elimination, tariff reduction, and other trade measures. In particular, the quantitative restrictions on six items (paper, clinker, construction glass, granite and ceramics tiles, steel products, vegetable oil) were removed in 2001 ahead of schedule. Three additional items (alcohol, motorcycle, and passenger vans) were also removed. Quotas on rice exports were eliminated and the share of garment export quotas to be auctioned was raised to 25 per cent, in line with the commitment. Furthermore, the foreign exchange surrender requirement was gradually reduced from 80 per cent in 1998 to 50 per cent in 1999, 40 per cent in 2001, 30 per cent in 2002, and 0 per cent in May 2003. Vietnam has mostly fulfilled its commitments under the ASEAN FreeTrade Area (AFTA). During 2001–2003 nearly 2,000 items were transferred from the Temporary Exclusion List (TEL) to the Inclusion List (IL), increasing the number of items in the IL to 10,143 (or 97.1 per cent of total tariff lines compared with that of about 39 per cent in 1996). The maximum tariff rate of the items in the IL has been reduced from 50 per cent in 2000 to 20 per cent in 2003 and is expected to be further lowered to 5 per cent in 2006. Among the ASEAN countries, however, Vietnam still has the highest number of items in the TEL and in the Sensitive List (SL) (CIEM 2004). The Vietnam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) signed in July 2000 and which came into effect in December 2001 covers commitments in a wide range of issues that are in conformity with WTO norms such as trading rights, tariffs, quantitative restrictions, intellectual property rights, liberalization in some service sectors, trade-related investment measures, and transparency. Implementing the Vietnam-US BTA, Vietnam will cut tariff rates and reduce non-tariff barriers over a wide range of products over a period of three to seven years. The effective implementation of these commitments therefore pushes up the prospects of WTO membership, which the government wants to enjoy as soon as possible. Vietnam’s efforts now focus on bringing domestic laws in line with WTO practices and undertaking bilateral WTO negotiations with the objective of becoming a WTO member in 2005. Recently, Vietnam also

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

73

joined regional integration clubs such as the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area and the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership. The Slow Pace of Administrative Reform The pace of administrative reform has not only been slow, but more importantly, it seems that a breakthrough in this undertaking has not been found. The government established its Public Administration Reform Master Program 2001–2010 in the year 2001, with key reforms to the legal and institutional framework, public organization, human resources, and public finance. The year 2002 was set as the year for the correction of rules and discipline in the administrative system. For simplification of administrative procedures, the one-stop-shop model was introduced in 35 provinces and the intention was to expand this to remaining provinces by the end of 2004. Lump-sum schemes which are expected to provide incentives to saving public spending have been implemented in 37 provinces. Several pilot policies have recently been promulgated. But so far the reforms and the fight against corruption have seen limited results. Administrative reform is to be considered as a central task for 2003–2004. Renovation in 1986 and especially the market-oriented reform of 1989 marked a turning point in the history of Vietnam’s economic development. Vietnam escaped from crisis in the mid-1980s and the face of Vietnam’s economy and society has changed significantly. In 1989 inflation was under control and since then it has stood at a low rate (in 2000: –0.6 per cent; 2001: 0.8 per cent; 2002: four per cent; and 2003: four per cent). From 1990 to 1997, the GDP growth rate was maintained at around eight per cent per annum on average. The GDP growth rate, however, went down between 1997 and 1999, partly because of the Asian financial crisis, and partly because of the dissipation of reform effects. Since 2000, the economy has regained its high growth rate at seven per cent per annum (Figure 2.1). As a result of the implementation of demandstimulus policy, the annual fiscal deficit widened to about five per cent of GDP, but it seems controllable. At present, with a total external debt of less than 40 per cent of GDP and with debt services of much less than 10 per cent of export, it is believed that there is no problem of external debt sustainability, at least in the medium term (CIEM 2003b). In 2003, despite the wider current account deficit, foreign reserves are estimated to rise to about US$4.6 billion (nine weeks of imports) from US$3.7

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

74

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

FIGURE 2.1 GDP Growth Rates and Inflation Rate, 1991–2003 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

80.0 60.0 40.0 20.0 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 19 20 20 20 20

GDP Growth (%)

0.0

Inflation (%)

Source: GSO (various issues); CIEM (2004).

billion in 2002 (CGM 2003). Successful economic development has resulted in overall improvement of people’s welfare and significant poverty reduction irrespective of measurement methods. The food poverty incidence in Vietnam declined from 25 per cent in 1993 to 15 per cent in 1998, and to about 11 per cent in 2002, while the total poverty incidence, which is measured by adding the minimum non-food expenditures to the amount of the food poverty line, also declined from 58 per cent to 37 per cent, and to 29 per cent, respectively, over these same years (SRV 2003). Vietnam has also achieved notable results in human development. There has been a significant increase in Vietnam’s human development index (HDI)6 (from 0.623 in 1994 to 0.688 in 2001, and correspondingly, the Vietnam’s HDI ranking has improved from 121 to 109). Vietnam now ranks fifth among the ASEAN countries (after Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines) in HDI.

2. Structural Changes and Major Problems and Paradoxes Since 1990, Vietnam’s economy has been undergoing significant structural changes. Some of those changes are considered very positive as they in turn can contribute to achieving sustained economic growth and development. But the effectiveness of some structural changes are questionable. By looking at the structural changes by economic and

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

75

institutional sector in terms of saving and investment, GDP, employment, and trade, this section attempts to clarify the nature of Vietnam’s economic development. Given the strong commitments of Vietnam to implement the Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS), poverty reduction is also a focus of our consideration. Saving and Investment Investment as a share of GDP increased greatly from 15.0 per cent in 1991 to 34.5 per cent in 2003. During the same period, we can observe a similar pattern of gross domestic saving (Table 2.2). As reflected in the investment-saving gaps, the role of foreign saving on investment financing was very important during the period up to 1998 and less important more recently, especially in 2000 and 2001. There was a significant decrease in capital productivity. The incremental capital-output ratio (ICOR) increased from below 3 in the first half of 1990s to about 5 during 2001–2003, suggesting that economic growth before 1996 resulted from efficiency gains while thereafter it was mainly driven by factor accumulation. Therefore, the major existing problem is not low domestic saving, but the channels for investing the saving. From the ownership perspective, the investment share of the state sector rose sharply from 35 per cent in 1991 to 61.9 per cent in 2000 and steadily declined from 2001 though it remains the main source of investment (Table 2.3). In contrast, the non-state (domestic) sector share decreased substantially over the period 1991–2000, from 50 per cent to 19.5 per cent, and has begun to rise steadily since 2001, thanks to the TABLE 2.2 Saving and Investment (Percentage of GDP in current price) 1991 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Gross investment 15.0 Gross domestic 10.1 saving S-I gap –4.9 ICOR 2.8

27.1 28.1 28.3 29.0 27.6 29.5 30.1 32.1 34.6 18.2 17.2 20.1 21.5 24.6 27.0 29.0 29.0 29.3 –8.9 –10.9 –8.2 –7.6 –3.1 –2.5 –1.1 –3.1 –4.6 2.8 3.0 3.5 5.3 6.2 4.5 4.9 4.8 4.9

Note: All data for 2003 from now on are estimated. Source: Data provided by the GSO, Ministry of Planing and Investment (MPI) and authors’ estimates.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

35.02 50.00 14.98

100.00 38.28 29.39 32.33

100.00

1995

45.23 26.17 28.60

100.00

1996

48.07 20.65 31.28

100.00

1997

53.97 21.06 24.97

100.00

1998

61.60 20.21 18.19

100.00

1999

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

31.17 22.16 68.93 0.00

100.00

40.18 30.33 53.52 6.30

100.00

1995

Source: GSO (various issues); CIEM (2004).

State SOEs Non-state Foreign-invested

Total

1991

39.93 30.54 52.68 7.39

100.00

1996

40.48 31.38 50.45 9.07

100.00

1997

40.00 30.93 49.97 10.03

100.00

1998

38.74 30.36 49.02 12.24

100.00

1999

TABLE 2.4 Structure of GDP by Ownership (Percentage of GDP by current price)

Note: State sector includes: state budget, state credit, and owned outlays by the SOEs. Source: GSO (various issues); CIEM (2004).

State Non-state Foreign investment

Total investment

1991

TABLE 2.3 Investment Structure by Ownership (Percentage of total by current price)

38.52 27.73 48.20 13.27

100.00

2000

61.94 19.49 18.57

100.00

2000

38.40 27.29 47.84 13.76

100.00

2001

58.20 23.50 18.30

100.00

2001

38.31 27.15 47.79 13.90

100.00

2002

56.20 25.30 18.50

100.00

2002

38.33 27.20 47.67 14.00

100.00

2003

54.91 26.91 18.22

100.00

2003

76 Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

77

implementation of the new Enterprise Law. The share of the FDI sector grew rapidly from about 15 per cent in 1991 to the recorded share of 31.3 per cent in 1997, and dropped to 25 per cent in 1998 due to the Asian financial crisis, and then stayed around 18–19 per cent up to 2003.7 GDP Composition from an Ownership Perspective The share of the state sector in gross domestic product (GDP) increased significantly from 31.2 per cent in 1991 to about 40 per cent in 1995 and it has hovered within this range since 1996. The GDP share of the SOEs during the period 1995–99 changed in the range of 30–31 per cent, eight to nine percentage points higher than that of 1991, but experienced a slight decline to around 27 per cent in recent years (Table 2.4). Unlike the state sector, the GDP contribution by the domestic private sector steadily declined over the period 1991–2003 from nearly 69 per cent to about 48 per cent. The foreign-invested sector has become an integrated part of Vietnam’s economy with an increased share in GDP from 6.3 per cent in 1995 to 14.0 per cent in 2003.8 The changes in ownership share of total investment and GDP raise some concerns, which can be seen as paradoxes for an economy regarded as being successful in the process of transition to a market economy. First, the private sector, which is a dynamic sector, quickly responding to changes in the economic institutions, and which is considered a major sector in a market economy, still has a small share of total investment and a declining share of GDP. Secondly, GDP growth has been heavily dependent on the SOEs’ performance and has been driven by state investment, and this is likely to continue in the coming years. However, both state investment and the SOE sector have been recognized as inefficient. Corruption has been widespread in connection with state investment and there are estimates that leakage in state investment is high, at 20–30 per cent of total investment. Increasing state investment has also led to greater pressure on the state budget and more vulnerability in the financial system. Moreover, the inefficiency of the SOE sector is reflected in the fact that only 40 per cent of SOEs are reportedly profitable, although they have been granted privileges over the private sector and that the cost for SOE and bank restructuring has reached 12 per cent of GDP (IMF 2001). The ratio of the public debt to GDP may increase significantly, from around 36 per cent in 2002 to around 51 per cent in 2007. The major factors

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

78

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

driving this trend are sizeable on-lending operations and debt issuance for SOE and SOCB restructuring (CGM 2003). GDP Composition by Sector The GDP contributions by various economic sectors have changed in a different manner. The share of agriculture in GDP gradually declined from 40.5 per cent in 1991 to 22.3 per cent in 2003. Over the same period, the share of GDP accounted for by industry in general and by manufacturing in particular increased steadily, from 23.8 to 39.9 per cent and from 13.1 to 20.7 per cent respectively (Table 2.5), reflecting a similar pattern of industrialization in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand during 1970–90. The service sector reached its maximum contribution to GDP of about 44.1 per cent in 1995 and then declined continuously to 37.8 per cent in 2003. Several high value-added and professional services are still underdeveloped, hence limiting the improvement of the economy’s competitiveness. Employment Composition from an Ownership Perspective Over the period 1991–2003, the share of labour in the state sector stagnated in the 9–10 per cent range, and that of the domestic private sector had a slightly decreasing tendency while that of the FDI sector had an upward trend (Table 2.6). However, with a labour share of around 90 per cent, most new jobs were created by the domestic private sector; for example, about 4 million jobs were created by this sector during the period 2000–2003. By the end of 2003, the labour force working in the private sector, excluding those in agricultural production, accounted for 17 per cent of the total labour force. Noticeably, the state and foreigninvested sectors could absorb directly less than 12 per cent of total labour force, while accounting for more than 75 per cent of all investment outlays (during 2000–2003). Employment Composition by Sector Over the period 1991–2003, the share of labour in the agricultural sector has gradually decreased, from 72.7 to 59 per cent, while that of the industrial sector has been moderately growing, from 13.6 to 16.4 per cent. The share of the service sector in employment reached a peak of 24.6 per cent in 1998 from the low level of 13.7 per cent in 1991 and since then has fluctuated at around 24–25 per cent (Table 2.7). The expansion

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

40.49 23.79 13.1 35.72

100.00

27.18 28.76 15.0 44.06

100.00

1995

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

30,572

10.1 6.5 89.9 0.0

Total (’000 people)

State sector SOEs Non-state Foreign-invested 8.7 5.1 90.9 0.4

33,667

1995

25.77 32.08 16.5 42.15

100.00

1997

25.78 32.49 17.2 41.73

100.00

1998

25.44 34.49 17.7 40.07

100.00

1999

8.8 5.1 90.6 0.6

33,978

1996

8.8 5.2 90.5 0.7

34,352

1997

8.7 5.2 90.5 0.7

34,800

1998

9.0 4.8 90.2 0.8

35,680

1999

TABLE 2.6 Employment Structure by Ownership (Percentage of total)

27.76 29.73 15.2 42.51

100.00

1996

10.1 5.0 89.1 0.8

36,205

2000

24.30 36.61 18.7 39.09

100.00

2000

9.1 5.0 89.0 0.9

39,489

2001

23.30 37.70 19.6 39.00

100.00

2001

Source: Data provided by Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA) and the author’s estimates.

1991

Sector

Source: GSO (various issues); CIEM (2004).

Agriculture Industry Manufacturing Services

Total

1991

TABLE 2.5 Structure of GDP by Economic Sector (Percentage of GDP by current price)

10.2 5.0 88.7 1.1

40,694

2002

22.99 38.55 20.4 38.46

100.00

2002

10.4 — 88.3 1.3

41,179

2003

22.26 39.94 20.7 37.80

100.00

2003

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments 79

72.66 13.62 13.72

100.00

69.74 13.24 17.02

100.00

1995

69.20 10.94 19.86

100.00

1996

65.84 12.38 21.78

100.00

1997

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

2.338 26.88

50.88

Imp (US$ billion) Imp (% GDP)

Total (% GDP)

65.44

8.155 39.23

5.449 26.21

1995

Source: GSO (various issues); CIEM (2004).

2.087 24.00

Exp (US$ billion) Exp (% GDP)

1991

63.49 11.93 24.58

100.00

1998

63.60 12.45 23.95

100.00

1999

74.58

11.144 45.17

7.256 29.41

1996

73.72

11.592 41.13

9.185 32.59

1997

70.51

11.500 38.87

9.360 31.64

1998

79.89

11.622 40.09

11.540 39.80

1999

TABLE 2.8 Merchandise Export and Import (US$ billions, Percentage of GDP)

Source: Data provided by MOLISA and the authors’ estimates.

Agriculture Industry Services

Total

1991

94.04

15.200 48.44

14.308 45.60

2000

63.05 13.19 23.76

100.00

2000

TABLE 2.7 Employment Structure by Economic Sector (Percentage of total)

95.16

16.000 48.96

15.027 46.20

2001

62.61 13.10 24.29

100.00

2001

104.57

19.730 56.68

16.706 47.5

2002

60.67 15.13 24.20

100.00

2002

109.38

24.000 60.35

19.500 49.03

2003

59.04 16.41 24.55

100.00

2003

80 Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

81

of the textile and garment sector due to the implementation of the Vietnam-US BTA explained a rather significant change in employment in the industrial sector over the last two years. However, in general, a rapid change in the share of industry did not lead to a corresponding increase in employment because huge investments have gone to highcost and capital-intensive industries. As a result, the structural changes by economic sector did not reveal many gains from exploiting Vietnam’s comparative advantage in low labour cost. The development in job creation in the past indicates two problems. First, jobs were created without a significant improvement of employment quality. The relatively unproductive service sector has been a major source absorbing redundant labour from rural areas. Moreover, there is a mismatch between demand and supply in terms of the quality of labour, partly due to weaknesses in Vietnam’s education and training system. In 2003, for instance, only about 11.8 per cent of the total labour force graduated from high secondary vocational training schools or higher levels of education (CIEM 2004). Second, the so-called “Weird Dualism” situation exists in Vietnam as the “modern” sector such as manufacturing and higher-level services which are dominated by SOEs and FDI could not absorb labour from the traditional sector such as agriculture (Dapice 2003). This seems to be an another paradox in Vietnam’s economic development. International Trade Vietnam’s international trade has expanded dramatically since the market-oriented reforms in 1989. The total merchandise trade value to GDP has been growing rapidly and steadily, making Vietnam one of the most open economies on the basis of trade as a percentage of GDP (Table 2.8) despite its mixed trade regime both facilitating exports and protecting import-substituting industries. Exports increased almost tenfold during the past 13 years, from US$2 billion in 1991 to US$19.5 billion in 2003. Strong export growth has been one of the main forces contributing to the high GDP growth over the past 13-year period. Together with the rapid expansion of exports, export merchandises have become more diversified. The share of the mining industry and agriculture in total exports fell from 85.6 per cent in 1991 to 60 per cent in 2003, while that of manufactures went up from 14.4 per cent to 40 per cent during the same period. However, there are

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

82

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

still some concerns about Vietnam’s exports. First, primary commodities, whose prices are volatile, still account for a large portion of exports, making Vietnam’s exports vulnerable to changes in world commodity prices. Second, the increasing export shares of manufactured goods that have very low value-adding, such as garments and footwear, could result in a low value-added ratio in the total export earnings resulting in Vietnam becoming marginalized at the lower end of the production supply chain and falling into the “low cost labour trap”. Of course, this will not be in the economy’s best long-term interest. Third, except for crude oil and small power diesel engines, almost no export items have been produced by the SOEs or come from the industries dominated by the SOEs. This fact indicates the import-substitution-oriented investments in, and low competitiveness of, many SOEs. The export market has also gradually expanded and diversified. Until now, Vietnam has established trade relations with more than 170 countries and territories. There have been large shifts in Vietnam’s regional export markets; the export share of the East Asian region, in particular, fell by half, from 89 per cent in 1991 to about 44.3 per cent in 2003, while that of the EU countries rose from 5.7 to 18.7 per cent over the same period and that of US market increased significantly, especially after the VietnamUS BTA became effective. Vietnam’s export share accounted for by the US market increased from almost nil in 1991 to 5.2 per cent in 2000 and to 20.5 per cent in 2003. In 2003, the ten largest export markets, accounting for 74 per cent of total export earnings, in order are the United States, Japan, China, Australia, Singapore, Germany, Taiwan, United Kingdom, France¸ and Indonesia (CIEM 2004). Similar to exports, import values increased tenfold but not steadily from 1991 to 2003. Imports experienced an average annual growth rate of 37.5 per cent during the period 1991–96, reflecting the need for importation of machinery, equipment, and inputs for domestic production and export expansion and large FDI inflows. Import growth declined significantly over the three years 1997–99 because of the negative impact of the Asian crisis, especially the decrease in FDI inflows and related policies to control imports (such as tightening foreign exchange controls and the imposition of quantitative restrictions). The fluctuations in import value after 1999 mirror developments in export and domestic production: imports rebounded at a rate of 30.8 per cent in 2000 because of the economic recovery, followed by low import growth at about 5.3 per cent in 2001 as a result of a slowdown in exports. Import values started

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

83

increasing in the past two years, reflecting the strong expansion of exports and the economy as a whole and the easing of import restrictions. It can be seen that fluctuations in imports have been closely linked with economic growth, exports, and FDI inflows. Vietnam’s import structure did not change much over the 1990s or in recent years, with about 90 per cent of total import value accounted for by machinery, equipment, fuels, and raw materials. Poverty Reduction As mentioned before, the reform process has achieved remarkable progress in reducing poverty in Vietnam. But the progress is still fragile and this could be a reason for socio-economic instability. Several problems of poverty need to be addressed. First, around 95 per cent of the poor are now living in rural areas, a higher percentage than the 90 per cent in 1998. The poor households and those with incomes around the poverty line are very vulnerable to shocks such as illness, crop loss, typhoons, and floods. Moreover, it seems that the lower the poverty incidence, the harder it is to achieve poverty reduction (Table 2.9). This may be because fighting against “hardTABLE 2.9 Poverty Incidence by Region Region

1992/93

1997/98

2001/2002

Whole country Urban Rural

58.1 25.1 66.4

37.4 9.2 45.5

28.9 6.6 35.6

Area Red River delta Northern uplands North central coast South central coast Central highlands Southeast Mekong delta

62.7 81.5 74.5 42.7 70.0 37.0 47.1

29.3 64.2 48.1 34.5 52.4 12.2 36.9

22.4 43.9 43.9 25.2 51.8 10.6 23.4

Ethnicity Kinh and Chinese Others

53.9 86.4

31.1 75.2

23.1 69.3

Sources: UNVN (2003); World Bank (1999, 2003).

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

84

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

core” poverty needs to be undertaken under a more comprehensive framework, implying an increasingly important role for specific programmes targeted at poverty reduction. Second, the poverty situation has spread unevenly among regions and poverty is worst in areas with high ethnic minority populations such as the northern uplands, the central highlands, and the north central coast. During 1993–2002, the progress in poverty reduction among ethnic minorities was much slower than that among the Kinh and Chinese majority. In 2002 the poverty incidence among the Kinh and Chinese majority (23.1 per cent) was three times lower than that of ethnic minorities (69.3 per cent). This figure was 1.6 times and 2.4 times higher in 1993 and 1998 respectively (Table 2.9). Third, the gap between the rich and the poor has tended to widen. The Gini coefficient for consumption expenditure went up to 0.37 in 2002 from 0.35 in 1998 and 0.33 in 1993. Moreover, the real expenditure per capita of the richest 20 per cent of households in Vietnam in 2002 is some six times higher than that of the poorest 20 per cent, up from some 4.6 times higher in 1993. The increase in inequality is especially worrisome in light of Vietnam’s low per capita income (UNVN 2003).

3. Concluding Remarks: Lessons of and Challenges to Reforms In general, economic reform in Vietnam has been a process of “learning by doing” and it is characterized by gradualism. The gradualist approach has several advantages since it can avoid a crisis or collapse of the economy, as well as gradually gaining the confidence and support of the people as they see the success of the reform. However, an examination of Vietnam’s reform process could hardly be insightful without an understanding of the “turning points” in the transformation of economic institutions. The gradualist approach seemed not to work well in Vietnam until the radical 1989-reform package was launched under the pressures of macroeconomic instability and the “drying up” of aid from the former socialist bloc. So far the 1989 economic reform package is considered the most successful since the basic conditions were created for the transformation of Vietnam’s economy into a market-oriented economy. The socio-economic achievements in Vietnam can be attributed to three major factors: (a) the acknowledgment of private business rights

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

85

and the market-oriented reforms; (b) the opening (mostly in terms of trade and FDI) and integrating of the economy into the regional and world economy; and (c) the maintenance of macroeconomic and sociopolitical stability. There are several interrelated lessons that can be drawn from Vietnam’s experience. First, effective and successful reforms require not only political will, but also a mindset among policy-makers that reflect the dynamics of real life. Second, the key to reform is to grant rights and to expand opportunities for people to choose and decide the directions and forms of their production and business activities. Thirdly, partial and sectoral reform measures could be good though they are not of themselves good enough. They should be undertaken within a more comprehensive reform package, especially in conjunction with macroeconomic reforms and the opening up of the economy. The development objectives of Vietnam over the period of 2001–20 are ambitious. The overall goal of Vietnam set in the Strategy for SocioEconomic Development 2001–10 is to accelerate the industrialization and modernization process in order to bring the country out of underdevelopment and create a foundation so that by 2020 Vietnam will become “a modern-oriented industrialized country” (CPV 2001). Vietnam expects to achieve high economic growth with poverty elimination during the period 2001–10.9 However, Vietnam is currently facing great challenges. It is a lowincome transitional economy striving for industrialization in order to catch up with the more advanced economies in the region. While Vietnam has recorded remarkable achievements in socio-economic development, imbalances in growth have emerged. The economy has recently exposed weaknesses and vulnerabilities in several areas such as the SOE sector, the financial system, public investment, and the education and training system. Poverty and income inequality also add to the risk of socioeconomic instability, which may stall economic development. Moreover, the current external situation has changed significantly with the uncertainty of multilateralism, the syndrome of regional and bilateral integration, a rising China, and a number of transnational issues (such as environment degradation, infectious diseases, terrorism, illegal migration). Vietnam can benefit substantially from international economic integration and trade liberalization. However, existing problems and weaknesses may be aggravated if the economy integrates too fast into the regional and world economy. The adjustment costs during integration process could be significant.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

86

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

The question is can Vietnam have more pro-active and effective reforms in response to these challenges? At present the reform process in Vietnam confronts a number of complicated and difficult issues: • First, Vietnam needs to develop a market-based institution that deals with production factor (capital, labour, land) markets, SOEs, and a financial system that are compatible with a socialist orientation. • Second, the reforms should be consistent with the process of international integration. It is not an exaggeration to say that the reform process in Vietnam is now an international commitmentbased reform process. • Third, the way of thinking, policy-making, and resource allocation are still rooted in the legacy of centrally planned economy and they should be changed. • Fourth, the gradualist approach to reform may need to be reconsidered. To a significant extent, the gradual approach is not appropriate in the new context of globalization, international integration, and in the context of today’s new technology. This approach has also other disadvantages because such approach is characterized by stop-and-go measures that are inconsistent with business cycles, an unpredictable investment and business environment, and the potential for conflict between the central and local authorities. As shown in the Resolution of the 9th Plenum of the IX Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam in January 2004, Vietnam has become committed strongly to further economic reform programmes, which include the following key components (CPV 2004): • to continue reforming the SOE sector and improving its efficiency with a focus on further equitization; to encourage the development of cooperative, private, and foreign-invested sectors; to strengthen the competitiveness of enterprises; to improve the efficiency of investments from the state budget; • to establish and to develop synchronically the country’s production factor markets; • to continue pro-active integration; to carry out effectively international commitments and the roadmap of international economic integration; to prepare and create internal conditions favourable to Vietnam becoming a WTO member;

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

87

• to fundamentally renovate the process of development strategy, socio-economic development planning; to significantly adjust its economic structure; • to continue improving on poverty reduction and employment programmes; • to renovate organizations and functions of the state; to invigorate administrative reform, to strengthen democracy and legislation enforcement; and to strengthen national solidarity. Obviously, the most important factor to overcome obstacles to economic and institutional development to realize this bold reform package is the will, accountability, action, and responsibility of Vietnam’s policy-makers and leaders.

NOTES *

1

2

3

4

The opinions expressed in this chapter are the responsibility of the authors and not of their organization, the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM). See, for example, Dapice (2003). Vietnam also recognizes that economic growth over the last three years was under its potential and the competitiveness of the economy is quite low (see the Resolution of the 9th Plenum of the IX Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam in CPV (2004)). Overview of the reform process up to the year 2000 largely adapted from Le Dang Doanh et al. (2002) and Vo Tri Thanh (2000). For implementing the scheduled targets, a series of measures were taken in 2002 to enhance the effectiveness and transparency of the equitization process, particularly the specification of the list of strategic sectors retained under full state ownership and sectors subjected to transformation, provision of concrete guidelines and instructions for enterprise valuation, share structure and debt resolution, requirements of timely and advance advertisement of share sales, shift of share sale responsibility from equitized SOEs to financial intermediaries, introduction of auctioning of shares to outsiders, raising of the ceiling on shareholdings by any individual and entity up to 30 per cent of the charter capital of a company, establishment of Social Safety Net Fund for redundant workers linked to SOE reform. The programme focuses heavily on restructuring the four large SOCBs though (a) a phased recapitalization by the state on the basis of the individual bank’s operational and financial reform targets such as NPL resolution, improvement of credit risk management, capital adequacy ratio, and implementation of audits based on international accounting standards, (b) more transparent accounting, and (c) a phase-out of policy lending.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

88 5

Vo Tri Thanh and Pham Hoang Ha

6

Measures such as the application of the same corporate tax of 28 per cent to both domestic- and foreign-invested enterprises, the elimination of the supplementary income tax for domestic enterprises and the profit remittance tax for foreign-invested enterprises for all enterprises regardless of ownership have become effective from 2004. According to the UNDP (various issues), the HDI is based on three basic indicators: longevity, as measured by life expectancy at birth; educational attainment, as measured by a combination of adult literacy and the combined gross primary, secondary, and tertiary enrolment ratio, and standard of living, as measured by real GDP per capita adjusted to reflect purchasing power parity (PPP US$). A higher HDI indicates a better evaluation.

7

FDI in Vietnam, 1991–2003: 1991–96 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Number of approved projects Registered capital (US$ millions)

1,762 24,884

348

275

311

4,649 3,897

1,568

377

523

694

752

2,014 2,536

1,379

1,950

Source: Data provided by MPI. 8

9

In 2003, the foreign-invested sector accounted for 31 per cent of the total value of Vietnam’s merchandise export (excluding crude oil export). The key strategic objectives to be achieved by the year 2010 are as follows: • The GDP will be at least double that of 2000. Exports are to increase at a rate more than double that of GDP growth. In 2010, agricultural labour will decline to around 50 per cent of the workforce. • The HDI of the country will be improved substantially. The category of hungry households will be totally eliminated and food security will be ensured in all eventualities. The urban unemployment rate is to be reduced to below 5 per cent and the utilized work-time in rural areas is to increase to about 85 per cent (compared with 74 per cent in 2000).

REFERENCES Consultative Group Meeting for Vietnam (CGM). “Taking Stock. An Update on Vietnam’s Economic Development and Reforms”. Hanoi, December 2003. Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM). “Report on the Implementation of the New Enterprise Law during 2000–2003” (in Vietnamese). Hanoi, 2003a. ———. Vietnam Economy 2002. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2003b. ———. Vietnam Economy 2003. Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, forthcoming in 2004.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Vietnam’s Recent Economic Reforms and Developments

89

Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). Materials of 9th Party Congress (in Vietnamese). Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, 2001. ———. Materials of 9th Plenum of the IX Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (in Vietnamese). Hanoi: National Political Publishing House, February 2004. Dapice, David. “Success Story or Weird Dualism? A SWOT Analysis”. A Special Report prepared for United Nations Development Programme and Prime Minister’s Research Commission. 2003. General Statistics Office (GSO). Statistical Yearbook. Hanoi: Statistical Publishing House, various issues. International Monetary Fund (IMF). Vietnam: Selected Issues. IMF Staff Country Report No. 99/55. Washington, DC, July 1999. ———. Vietnam: Request for a Three-Year Arrangement under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility. Washington, DC: The Asia and Pacific Department, March 2001. Le Dang Doanh, Vo Tri Thanh, Pham Lan Huong, Dinh Hien Minh, and Nguyen Quang Thang. “Explaining Growth in Vietnam”. EADN Global Research Project, 2002. Le Xuan Sang. “Demand — Stimulus Policy: Theories, International Experiences and Application for Vietnam” (in Vietnamese). Research Project of the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Hanoi, March 2002. Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV). The Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy. Hanoi: Government Office, November 2003. United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Human Development Report. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, various issues. United Nations in Vietnam (UNVN). Millennium Development Goals: Closing the Millennium Gaps. Hanoi, November 2003. Vo Tri Thanh. “Vietnam’s Economy: The Weaknesses, Policy Responses and Obstacles to a Second Wave of Reforms”. In Trends and Issues in East Asia 2000, edited by Ng Chee Yuen and Charla Griffy-Brown. Tokyo: International Development Research Institute/Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development, 2000. World Bank. World Development Report 1996: From Plan to Market. Washington, DC: Oxford University Press, 1996. ———. Vietnam: Deepening Reform for Growth — An Economic Report. Report No. 17031-VN, October 1997. ———. Vietnam Development Report 2000: Attacking Poverty. Joint Report of the Government-Donor-NGO Working Group. Hanoi, December 1999. ———. Vietnam Development Report 2004: Poverty. Joint Report of World Bank and other consultation donors. Hanoi, November 2003.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

90

Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen

Reproduced from Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform, edited by Philip Taylor (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

3 Behind the Numbers: Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development in Rural Vietnam Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen

The spatial and regional dimensions of inequality and economic development have been gaining more attention in the past few years. What have been the spatial ramifications of Vietnam’s recent reforms — the geographies of socio-economic transition? Are the benefits of doi moi’s economic success being experienced equally in regions around Vietnam, or concentrated in a few core areas? How can rural inter-regional inequality in Vietnam be characterized, and why have some areas and some people benefited more than others? These are some of the questions considered in this chapter. The doi moi economic reforms introduced since the late 1980s in Vietnam implied a shift away from collective agriculture, the endorsement of private economic activity, and the legalization of foreign investment. The growing market economy is leading the population out of the shared poverty that characterized the

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development

91

period of subsidies and collectivization. But the process is also producing greater degrees of socio-economic differentiation at multiple scales: between households, ethnic groups, villages, and regions. This chapter outlines the emerging socio-economic trends in regional disparities and the multiple mechanisms at work in shaping these disparities in Vietnam. Some economic analyses consider rises in inequality (or divergence in regional development measures) as inevitable outcomes of economic growth at certain stages in the development process. Other theories predict convergence, suggesting that over time the inequalities will lessen.1 One problem with such theories is that they do not consider non-economic determinants of regional inequality. Vietnam has an extremely diverse physical geography, which has shaped the evolution of its human geography as well. Natural resources, soil fertility, and being located in areas prone to floods or storms, or in mountainous and remote areas are all factors that contribute to regional disparities in income. However, as opportunities for off-farm income rise, these physical geography factors are less important than socio-economic variables in explaining regional inequalities. Location has an important effect on the economic strength of some regions over others. This may be through opportunities for industrial and service sector employment, or from being a frontier area, an old liberated area of support for the revolution, an area of ethnic minorities, a city suburb, or a commune or district classified as poor. We look behind the numbers to explain some of the dynamics of differentiation across rural Vietnam. This includes access to resources, information, and social infrastructure for development and entrepreneurship. We link the parallel trends towards greater social mobility and regional differentiation to Vietnam’s current development orientation: a model of regional development allowing growth poles to flourish, with limited inter-regional redistribution of wealth. But interpretations of the widening or narrowing of regional inequality since the introduction of market-oriented reforms depend on the choice of definition of a region and scale of measurement. In the first section we discuss the debate over defining a region and the significance of changes to administrative boundaries for regional development. We argue that assessments of the impacts of market reform on regional inequality are scale- and time-specific. In the next section we

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

92

Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen

examine the capacities for regional development coordination and uneven levels of social infrastructure, including entrepreneurial skills. We show that uneven development since doi moi in Vietnam has created diverse opportunities among regions and provinces. We then review the trends of growing disparities at different scales despite significant poverty reduction over the past decade-and-a-half. Finally, we discuss how the regional economies around Vietnam are reflected in and shaped by inter-regional movements of population. We examine how particular aspects of Vietnam’s development trajectory — decollectivization, decentralization, and marketization — are shaping patterns of spatial mobility, rural-urban, ethnic, and upland-lowland differences.

Regional Divisions and Questions of Scale The phenomenon of regional inequality has been a growing concern for policy-makers and scholars. But one of the reasons why there is often no consensus over the trends in regional inequality is because of the way the phenomenon is measured. The term “region” or “zone” is used rather vaguely in many cases. Leaving aside the notion of a meta-region (at a supra-national scale), region commonly denotes an intermediary level situated somewhere between the national and provincial scales. As Le Ba Thao (1997) explained, regions can be classified based on different scales or characteristics (for example, rural versus urban, developed versus less developed, coastal versus inland, north-central-south, or central core regions versus others). Areas classified within a single region may share common physical, socio-economic, or historical conditions. The Vietnamese government recently revised its former classification of seven economic and ecological regions into eight: northwest, northeast, Red River delta, north central coast, south central coast, central highlands, southeast, and Mekong delta (see Map 3.1). Such administrative divisions have changed over time. This division into seven versus eight regions may be less crucial in practice since these regions are merely units of statistical analysis, not administrative units for planning. Neither are they economically unified and coherent. The Red River delta, to take just one example, has huge variability including Hanoi, the political capital, and a much poorer rural hinterland (see Map 3.2). The choice of scale can have a major impact on the analysis of apparent disparities. Until recently, analyses of regional inequality have

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development

MAP 3.1 Economic Regional Zoning of Vietnam

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

93

94

MAP 3.2 Poverty Map of Vietnam Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen

Source: Poverty Mapping and Market Access in Vietnam. CD-ROM, 2003. (Courtesy of International Food Policy Research Institute and Institute of Development Studies)

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development

95

paid more attention to broad disparities between macro-regions — southern, central, and northern core regions; the seven main economic regions; and rural versus urban — than to finer-tuned differences in intra-regional differentiation (for example, inter-and intra-provincial differences). At one scale of analysis, it could be argued that the gap between the southern region (spearheaded by Ho Chi Minh City) and the central region (led by Da Nang) is diminishing. Whereas in 1990 Da Nang and Binh Duong could not be compared with Ho Chi Minh City, now the former cities are developing at a rapid pace and will soon be strong competitors. On the other hand, time frames can also change the picture. The argument that the gap between regions was reduced following market reforms could be challenged by taking the example of Dak Lak province’s capital of Banmethuot. This city was wealthy some years ago when the price of coffee was very high, as reflected in the many large new houses built there. However, after a 9.0 per cent rate of annual growth in incomes in the central highlands in 1996–99, incomes in the region fell by 10.4 per cent thereafter when the price of coffee fell (GSO 2002). The determination of regional divisions can affect the development of regions, such as qualifying for certain kinds of subsidies or university entrance quotas if a locality falls within a broader area that is poor or mountainous. Lam Dong province is a case in point. In terms of the province’s socio-cultural characteristics, such as ethnicity, it could be placed in the central highlands (as it was for many years). However, economically, the province, and particularly the city of Dalat, is much more closely connected to the southeast region (it has recently been reclassified to reflect this). In the process of national construction and development, from at least the seventeenth century until the present, each dynasty divided the territory of Vietnam into units of different levels for the convenience of management and national defence. After 1975 there was an important reform of the administrative system to reduce the intermediary levels of management between the centre and localities. Other than the military zone, the administrative zones were abandoned. In the north, beginning in 1964, a number of small provinces were merged to form larger provinces. Each province in the delta typically had one million inhabitants and each mountainous province had 300,000. This policy adopted in the north was later extended to the south. By 1989 the country had been rearranged from more than 60 provinces to just 40 administrative units

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

96

Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen

(three cities, 36 provinces, and one special zone). Through the 1990s, readjustments were introduced based on historical boundaries. By 2003 Vietnam had 61 provinces, including four cities administered under the central government. In the period of central planning, division into provinces based on population alone soon exposed difficulties such as huge land areas, often with a quite dispersed population. In the process of combining two or three provinces together, only one provincial capital city would receive funding from the central government, so other former provincial capitals would become disadvantaged and so developed more slowly.2 In Dong Thap province, Sa Dec was originally selected to house the provincial capital, but it was recently moved to Cao Lanh due to the limited land available and development potential in Sa Dec. For Vietnamese, people who originate from the same province are dong huong (sharing a common homeland). Even today, there are many associations of dong huong. They are particularly important for those who have moved away from their birthplace. Thus, when several provinces were amalgamated into one, such as Binh Tri Thien (from Quang Binh, Quang Tri, and Thua Thien, including Hue), people from the three former provinces continued to see themselves as quite distinct. In this way, regionally grounded psychology or identity, often manifesting as regionalism, can be a barrier (or an asset) to working together. In some cases, incompatible psychological factors between former provinces impeded the development of the newly amalgamated areas (Le Ba Thao 1997). Taylor (1998, pp. 950–51) relays an example of this from four provinces of central Vietnam, reflected in the expression Quang Nam hay cau, Quang Nhai hay lo, Binh Dinh hay co, Thua Thien nich het (Quang Nam knows how to argue, Quang Nhai knows how to worry, Binh Dinh knows how to fight, Thua Thien gobbles everything up).3

Territorial Management and Regional Competition The ability to cope and adapt in the new economic environment in Vietnam varies between social groups and across regions. Describing rural Bulgaria, Staddon (1999, p. 205) observes that a new politics of geographic scale is emerging, with localities struggling to shore up their positions within restructured national production systems, but also desperately seeking to make direct links with foreign concerns in order to further bolster their bargaining power.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development

97

Among regions that are currently poor, it is useful to identify those that have good potential for rapid development. In the past, some regions did not prosper economically due to reasons such as war-time security: being located in a boundary area or used as a military base. Yet with the appropriate policies, local initiative, and administrative capacity, their development could be quite rapidly boosted. This has indeed happened, particularly in the core central region, which has typically been less developed than the north and south. Binh Duong and Da Nang, for example, have been more successful in recent years than Dong Nai in attracting foreign investment. Similarly, Hai Duong has done better than the port city of Hai Phong (Dapice 2003). These positive outcomes in economic growth reflect effective policy and management by local authorities and mobilization of social capital, as well as land availability and cost relative to proximity to services, transport, and skilled labour. This can be contrasted with provinces such as Thai Nguyen which, under the former socialist industrialization strategy, were poles of development for heavy industry. Through economic restructuring, some such regions have suffered a decline in economic significance as other areas excel in light industry and services (Revilla 1999). Quang Ninh and Vinh Phu, on the other hand, have recovered and are enjoying more rapid growth in the current period. With the doi moi reforms, competition for resources has been intensified within and between regions as well as between the centre and localities. Reflecting centre-local relations, one channel through which local authorities lever funds independently is through illegal tax collection and intra- and inter-provincial “customs” or tolls (Beresford and McFarlane 1995, p. 63). Such initiatives reduce the central government’s capacity to influence regional economic developments and can impede national market integration. Inter-provincially, provinces operate independently from, and in some cases compete with, one another. When a relatively rich province is neighbouring one or more relatively poor provinces, several outcomes can be expected: the richer province may have a favourable (or trickle-down) impact on the poorer provinces such as Long An or Binh Duong; the poor province may be outshone and drained by a more dynamic neighbour such as Tien Giang, or it may depend on assistance from the central government. The latter phenomena has tended to occur in the coastal region of central Vietnam, whereas territorial competition is very real in the southeast region in recent years

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

98

Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen

and provinces have shown good potential for development (Le Ba Thao 1997). To alleviate competition for the same resources, a regional development approach must capitalize on the endogenous development potential of specific regions, avoiding intensive agricultural or industrial activities in areas that cannot reasonably support them (for example, in the northwest). In addition to the eight economic regions mentioned earlier (which originated from regional agricultural divisions) a separate regional classification of three core economic regions — north, south, and central — was introduced in Vietnam in the late 1980s (Ngo Doan Vinh 1998). This classification was initially used by the Ministry of Construction for urban planning strategies and was later adopted by the Prime Minister. Currently there is a debate over models for regional development management and over the most appropriate organizational structure and function — administration versus consultancy — for core regions. Provinces and cities in core regions usually enjoy advantageous geographic positions, natural and human resources, and favourable policies for decentralization (that is, greater autonomy) and infrastructure development. However, the three regions still lack a well-established organizational structure and are not integrated in terms of infrastructure and services. In Vietnam, the constitution and laws concerning regional management have not yet been developed, and only deal with management at the provincial and district level. The major regions of Vietnam therefore have no legal character or organizational structure. One proposal on the table is to establish regional management committees involving People’s Committees of provinces, cities, and representatives of the Prime Minister to collaborate in formulating regional development strategies. However, concrete decisions on this have yet to materialize. To date there have only been some government institutions tasked to carry out regional development research and consultancy. While there has been some long-term planning, five-year and annual plans are lacking. In practice, this is not easy given the extent of regional competition. Regional networks and regional institutions need to engage all provinces and cities to dialogue, think, and act collectively for a regional development strategy. Such a strategy would include regional planning, information exchange, learning experience, and collaboration through sister cities. Unfortunately, traditional vertical relationships are quite strong in Vietnam, and horizontal relationships are not easy to develop.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development

99

Perhaps these horizontal relationships could be institutionalized along the lines of the Association of Provincial Cities. Entrepreneurial Capacities The uneven distribution of income in Vietnam is evident geographically as well as by occupation. In the early years of Vietnam’s reforms, rural incomes were mainly agriculture-based, and inequality did not grow quickly. As in China (cf. Zhang 2001), prices for agricultural produce have risen since the 1980s but the net income does not compare with the income opportunities to be had from off-farm activities. Although more limited than in China, rural non-agricultural activity is growing rapidly in Vietnam, and appears to be a key factor in rural social differentiation. In 1998, 79 per cent of the poor lived in agricultural households. To be effective, poverty reduction programmes must address the concentration of poverty among such households (Glewwe et al. 2000). Income from rural enterprises is distributed unevenly across different regions. Variations between northern and southern Vietnam, and finerscale regional differences, reveal different degrees of success in entrepreneurial skills and forging economic networks. The entrepreneurial environment in Vietnam, which impacts directly and indirectly on rural development, is shaped by a combination of natural resource endowments and socio-economic factors. The procedures for borrowing and the ability to access credit from banks or through informal channels can vary from one province to other. 4 The average capital of entrepreneurial households also depends on the economic development of the locality. For example, in provinces such as Hue, Da Nang, and Tien Giang, more than half of production units have capital investment of less than one million Vietnamese dong. In other provinces with a tradition of handicrafts, such as Ha Tay, Bac Ninh, and Binh Duong, there is more investment capital. In Bac Ninh and Binh Duong, 87 per cent of production units have ten to 100 million dong in investment capital. In Ha Tay, 23 per cent of production units have investment capital of 100 million to one billion dong, nine per cent have between one and five billion dong, and six per cent have over five billion. In terms of capital from bank loans, Da Nang is the province with the smallest number of production units receiving bank loans (two of 25), while in Tien Giang more than half of all units borrow from banks (Chu Tien Quang 2003, p. 121).

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

100

Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen

Equipment is a further constraint for rural industry. Among the six provinces included in Chu Tien Quang’s survey, Bac Ninh, Ha Tay, and Binh Duong have relatively high-tech equipment. For example, in the textile village of La Phu, Ha Tay province, most businesses and households with large amounts of capital are equipped with automatic and semi-automatic textile machines as well as cars. Meanwhile, in Thua Thien Hue, Da Nang, and Tien Giang, rural industrialists depend mainly on manual production, and the standard of equipment is poor, perpetuating low productivity, higher costs, and a lack of variety in product design. Production units in handicraft villages in central Vietnam often have a small area for production. The proportion of production units with less than 100 square metres of land (mat bang) for their operation was 87 per cent in Hue and 75 per cent in Da Nang (Chu Tien Quang 2003). In provinces with many handicraft villages known for producing highquality products, such as Ha Tay, Bac Ninh, and Binh Duong, many production units want to expand their production. They often resort to using space in the kitchen and floor of their homes for production. This problem cannot be solved at the level of the commune. The fact that commune-level People’s Committees have no reserve land fund to lease out is a major constraint to expanding the scale of production. If production units want land for small-scale industry such as handicrafts, they must acquire land from agricultural households and seek permission to take the land out of cultivation. This problem can lead to peasant landlessness, which is especially disruptive if appropriated from families with limited options for off-farm investment or employment. Addressing the demand for space for small-scale industry requires central government intervention — a lengthy process. Lack of land for production is a key problem for rural entrepreneurs, and is particularly acute in areas of the Red River delta.5 The educational level of entrepreneurs in rural areas is still limited. A survey conducted by the Central Institute for Economic Management on Vietnam’s entrepreneurial environment revealed that more than 60 per cent of entrepreuneurs have only primary school education. In Tien Giang, there were no entrepreneurial household heads with a college or university education. The proportion of entrepreneurs with management training was low in most surveyed provinces: Da Nang (4 per cent), Hue (4 per cent), Binh Duong (8 per cent), Ha Tay (21 per cent), and Tien

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development

101

Giang (21 per cent) (Chu Tien Quang 2003, p. 135). These figures reflect a problem for local governments concerned about the development of non-agricultural activities in their locality. Access to business services is another impediment to expanding production in many regions of the country. In Da Nang, Thua Thien Hue, and Tien Giang, about half of all entrepreneurs had access to a telephone, compared with Bac Ninh (24 per cent), Ha Tay (14 per cent), and Binh Duong (four per cent). The number of entrepreneurs with e-mail is also low: Da Nang (20 per cent), Ha Tay (11 per cent), and Binh Duong (four per cent). Only six per cent of entrepreneurs in Ha Tay have websites (Chu Tien Quang 2003). Moreover, business services tend to be concentrated in provincial capitals. The above factors shaping low entrepreneurial capacity are compounded in some areas by isolation and lack of infrastructure to facilitate access to key market centres in the country. The system of rural infrastructure in Vietnam has been improving, especially electricity, roads, schools, and health centres (known in Vietnamese as dien, duong, truong, tram). However, the proportion of communes with electricity is still lagging behind in parts of the northwest and central highlands, as shown in Table 3.1. This rate especially low in the northwestern provinces of Lai Chau (64 per cent), Ha Giang (42 per cent), Son La (35 per cent), Lao Cai (35 per cent). The cost of electricity in rural areas is still higher than in urban areas. Many communes still have no road accessible to cars to reach the commune centre. In the Mekong province of Ca Mau, 70 per cent of communes lack such a road, although they are connected by waterways and boat services. In Vinh Long the figure is 37 per cent, in TABLE 3.1 Percentage of Communes with Electricity in Selected Regions Region

Percentage

Northwest Northeast Red River delta Central highlands Mekong delta Source: GSO (2003b).

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

63 82 100 75 99

102

Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen

Soc Trang 33 per cent, in Bac Lieu 34 per cent, and in Lai Chau, where there are no alternative mechanized or bulk transport options, 23 per cent (GSO 2003b). The lack of car access in these areas perpetuates their marginalization and has impeded their integration in the nation’s economic life.

Regional Disadvantage as a Product of Political and Social Capital Entrepreneurial capacities aside, regional development outcomes can often be affected by national policies that prioritize one site or region over another. As one example, a chemical industrial area was to be established in the core central region (vung kinh te dong luc mien Trung), which includes the provinces and cities of Da Nang, Thua Thien-Hue, Quang Nam, and Quang Ngai. Within this region, each of the potential sites for selection — Dung Quat, Van Phong, Long Son, Hon La, and Nghi Son — had different advantages and disadvantages. The initial assessment of these places depended mainly on the costs of transporting materials and products to and from the factories. Long Son (in the southern part of the region) was advantageous in terms of transportation cost: the difference in profit between Long Son’s position and Dung Quat is US$20 million per year (Ministry of Construction 1998). But on the basis of socio-economic and national security criteria, the central government eventually identified Dung Quat as the most appropriate site for the oil refinery. In addition, the economic area of Chu Lai was opened with favourable regulations and tax breaks to facilitate its integration in the international economy. Independent of the market reforms, a much broader and ongoing dimension of national policy that shapes regional “disadvantage” or social exclusion is the privileging of north over south. This has been a source of tension since the reunification of the country in 1975. Northerners monopolize political power and those who have come to be known as “the ’75 generation” continue to hold many positions in government and public institutions in the south. Whether it be through merit or social networks, opportunities to travel and study abroad are also given predominantly to people from the north. Through the geographically uneven processes of restructuring in postsocialist countries, some sub-regions have suffered a process of

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development

103

peripheralization. This is often a product of the removal of former welfare state regional policy instruments that mitigated marginality and economic imbalances between geographical areas. This phenomenon is a manifestation of the geographical implications of ideological changes (Tykkylainen 1998). In Vietnam, the economic reforms have been particularly challenging for parts of the north more accustomed to longterm government support. An alternative form of support, both in the past and current period, comes from community-based social safety nets. Such forms of informal social protection compensate for limited coverage of government programmes, providing protection for those who live in poverty or fall upon hard times. Community-based social safety nets exhibit a spatial dimension. The level of landlessness resulting from distress sales suggests that these informal supports are particularly welldeveloped in the north (Smith 1997), whereas the Mekong delta has seen many more poor farmers forced to sell their land when they have no other social or physical capital to draw from.

Poverty Reduction with Growing Social and Regional Differentiation According to internationally comparable indicators, the rate of poverty in Vietnam dropped from 58 per cent in 1993, to 37 per cent in 1998, to 29 per cent in 2002. But what do these favourable figures on reductions in absolute poverty tell us about relative poverty, or the gap between the rich and the poor? Vietnam’s economic growth since doi moi has been on the whole fairly pro-poor, although it is becoming less inclusive. In relation to the rates of growth, the pace of poverty reduction in the early 1990s has not kept pace as quickly in more recent years. Poverty reduction in the earlier period has been largely attributed to land allocation, which increased production incentives. Since the mid-1990s, the growth of private sector employment opportunities and agricultural exports have played a bigger part (Joint Donor Report 2003). Compared with five years previously, inequality within each of the seven economic regions used in the Living Standards Survey classification increased slightly. The greatest increase was found in the north central region. Adequate longitudinal data are not available to determine if the trend of exacerbation of inter-regional differentiation is also taking place in Vietnam, although its regions have long been differentiated in resource

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

104

Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen

endowments and economic conditions. Map 3.2 and Tables 3.2 and 3.3 reveal a significant degree of inter-regional differentiation and uneven distribution of the poor in Vietnam. Despite the large absolute numbers of poor households in the two delta regions, the geography of the poor is changing, with more severe poverty in less dense areas (Joint Donor Report 2003). As well as richer natural resource endowments in the land per capita ratios, a greater number of non-farm income-generation opportunities exist in southern Vietnam where people enjoy more diversified livelihoods. The market reforms, particularly privatization, changes in property rights, and access to credit, have increased non-agricultural income opportunities, particularly in aquaculture and wage and remittance (Adger 1999). Of the seven regions, the southeast region, including Ho Chi Minh City, comprised 42 per cent of the population in the top expenditure quintile. Given that the equivalent figure for five years earlier had been just 27 per cent, this suggests a growing concentration of wealth in this region, and underscores the need to consider uneven income distribution. In terms of the poverty transition and upward mobility, the least successful region was the northern uplands, where 47 per cent of the households remained poor between 1993 and 1998. The Red River delta had the most impressive rate of poverty reduction. A striking 35 per cent of this region’s population escaped poverty between 1993 and 1998 (Glewwe et al. 2000). While some analysts point to growing landlessness, concentration of land, and disparity in incomes within rural areas and between rural and urban areas, Ravallion and van de Walle (2003, p. 4) argue that “there is little sign of sharply rising income or consumption inequality”. To the contrary, they report: Analyses of household survey data for 1992/93 and 1997/98 indicate a significant drop in income inequality in the south (from a Gini of 0.46 to 0.42), though there was a slight increase in the north (from 0.37 to 0.39) and a slight increase in the consumption inequality in both north and south.

However, this argument seems to be inconsistent with other evidence, and with more recent trends since the late 1990s. Some analysts suggest that the Vietnam Living Standards Survey indicates greater social inequality within than between regions (Dollar and Glewwe 1998). Comparing the incomes of the richest and poorest

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development

105

TABLE 3.2 Poverty Rate by Region, 1993, 1998, and 2002 (Percentage of households living in poverty) 1993

1998

2002

Total

Urban

Rural

Total

Urban

Rural

Total

Vietnam

58.1

25.0

66.3

37.4

11.5

44.1

28.9

North mountains Northeast Northwest

78.6

46.2

84.2

59.6

10.3

65.8

43.9 38.4 68.0

Red River delta North central coast South central coast Central highlands Southeast Mekong delta

62.9 74.5 49.5 69.9 32.7 47.1

13.8 49.6 27.8 — 16.2 25.03

71.6 76.9 59.1 69.9 45.8 51.9

28.5 48.1 34.0 48.3 11.1 39.0

4.8 12.5 17.4 — 5.7 19.7

33.3 51.7 39.9 48.3 14.3 42.9

22.4 43.9 25.2 51.8 10.6 23.4

Source: GSO (2003a).

TABLE 3.3 Distribution of the Poor by Region, 2002 (Percentage of households living in poverty) The Poor

Population

1993

1998

2002

2002

100

100

100

100

North mountains Northeast Northwest

23 19 4

25 20 6

22 16 7

15 12 3

Red River delta North central coast South central coast Central highlands Southeast Mekong delta

24 16 5 3 11 17

18 18 8 5 5 21

17 20 7 10 5 17

22 13 8 6 15 21

Vietnam

Source: GSO (2003a).

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

106

Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen

decile (10 per cent) of households, the gap in 2001–2002 was 12.5 times, compared with 12 times in 1999 and only 10.6 times in 1996. The gap is even greater when comparing the incomes of the richest and poorest five per cent of households. The richest five per cent of households earned 19.8 times as much as the poorest five per cent. This figure compares to 17.1 times in 1999 and 15.1 times in 1996. The regional variations of these income gaps are shown in Table 3.4. Table 3.5 shows the slight increase in the Gini coefficient of income inequality across TABLE 3.4 Income Gap between the Richest and Poorest Ten and Five Per Cent of the Population in Selected Regions of Vietnam, 2001–2002

Region

Gap between Richest and Poorest 10%

Gap between Richest and Poorest 5%

Vietnam

12.5

19.8

Southeast Red River delta Central highlands Mekong delta

14.4 11.2 10.8 10.9

24.6 17.8 16.2 17.3

Source: Nguyen Manh Hung (2003).

TABLE 3.5 Gini Coefficient of Income Inequality by Region, 1993, 1998, and 2002 (Higher figures indicate greater inequality) Region

1993

1998

2002

Vietnam Urban Rural

0.34 0.35 0.28

0.35 0.34 0.27

0.37 0.35 0.28

North mountains Red River delta North central coast South central coast Central highlands Southeast Mekong delta

0.25 0.32 0.25 0.36 0.31 0.36 0.33

0.26 0.32 0.29 0.33 0.31 0.36 0.30

0.34 0.36 0.30 0.33 0.36 0.38 0.30

Source: GSO (2003a).

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development

107

Vietnam over the past five years. The national figure in 2002 was 0.37, but disaggregated regionally it ranged from 0.30 (low inequality) in the northern central and Mekong delta regions to 0.36 in the Red River delta (including Hanoi) and 0.38 in the southeast (including Ho Chi Minh City) (GSO 2003a). Rural Vietnam’s growing income inequality has been occurring despite a fairly limited degree of land concentration to date.6 These disparities seem to be more attributable to increases in non-agricultural income than to accumulation of land. Having said this, there is a clear trend of agricultural land concentration in some regions of Vietnam (see Table 3.6). This has also been documented in the second general survey on rural areas, agriculture, and aquaculture (GSO 2003b). While agricultural extension programmes promote models of larger-scale farming (and associated land consolidation), other farmers are squeezed out of production. In 2002, 18.9 per cent of rural households were landless, which was about twice as many as five years earlier. Landless agricultural households7 were particularly concentrated in the southeast and Mekong delta, where they comprised 89 per cent of the total number (GSO 2003b). More striking still is that landlessness among the poorest quintile grew from 26 to 39 per cent between 1998 and 2002 (Joint Donor Report 2003, p. 39). The main income source of these households is wage labour in agricultural production. Among agricultural households that were not landless in 2001, the vast majority (64 per cent) had less than half a hectare of land, while 31 per cent had half a hectare or more of agricultural land. Compared with 1994, the largest change was a five per cent decrease in households having 0.2 to 0.5 hectares (GSO 2003b). These households appear to have shifted both downward, to below 0.2 hectares or becoming landless altogether, or upward, particularly to the one-to-three hectare group of households, which grew by 2.5 per cent over the same period (see Table 3.7). The survey revealed an increase in the number of households with landholdings of over one hectare, and a concurrent decrease in the number of households having less than one hectare. As shown in Table 3.8, this phenomenon has been particularly marked in the southeast region, where there is an abundance of industrial and service opportunities, and in the central highlands, where such opportunities do not exist. This divergence in experiences indicates that although land loss is often an indicator of economic insecurity, this may not always be the case.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

11 14 17 23 38

8.2 9.2 18.9

1 2 6 12 25

2.0 0.5 4.8

North Mountain

7 5 11 15 43

3.2 3.3 13.9

Red River Delta

8 8 13 22 25

3.8 8.0 12.2

North Central Coast

9 18 15 27 45

10.7 2.0 19.6

South Central Coast

Source: Joint Donor Report 2003 (constructed using data from the Vietnam Living Standards Surveys).

Poorest Near poorest Middle Near richest Richest

Quintile (2002)

1993 1998 2002

Vietnam

TABLE 3.6 Landlessness among Rural Households (Percentages)

3 3 5 7 11

3.9 2.6 4.3

Central Highlands

31 40 35 41 59

21.3 23.5 43.0

Southeast

39 30 26 25 28

16.9 21.3 28.9

Mekong Delta

108 Steffanie Scott and Truong Thi Kim Chuyen

Social Mobility, Regional Disparities, and New Trajectories of Development

109

TABLE 3.7 Proportion of Agricultural Households in Vietnam by Size of Agricultural Landholding, 1994 and 2001 Size of Household Landholding Landless

11 Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City1 Catherine Earl

This chapter describes an emerging culture of leisure among upwardly mobile migrant women in Ho Chi Minh City. The discussion focuses on the desires of and strategies used by urban migrant women, to show to others their acquired status and achievements via their recreational choices. The significance of a range of relationships between leisure and social mobility is explored through women’s chosen activities in terms of their own plans for the future and those of their families. Like career options, higher income, higher levels of education, real estate and asset ownership, and use of household technologies, greater access to leisure is treated as an observable social transformation that stems from changes in economic policy and production (PuruShotam 1998). As such, leisure is both an indicator of social differentiation and distinction, but also becomes a means for demonstrating status and social mobility via markers of elite status which are recognized and responded to by others. Even though middle classes have been present for decades in

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

352

Catherine Earl

East and Southeast Asia, there is now increasing commentary on their “re-emergence” particularly as “new rich” (for example, see Chan 2000, pp. 99, 101–2; Chua and Tan 1999, p. 151; Ockey 1999, pp. 233–34). Recent media sources, including the Internet as well as glossy magazines, now provide young people with a new form of access to leisure lifestyling. Although existing in the memories of the older generation, such experiences may be “new” to younger people and can be seen reemerging and rapidly adapting to new economic conditions resulting from the doi moi economic reforms after 1986. It is the recentness of these changes coupled with the absence of previous academic scholarship on the middle classes that makes an anthropological focus attractive. The subsequent discussion thus draws heavily on my own qualitative data, in particular by highlighting examples through the retelling of ethnographic anecdotes based on fieldwork experiences. Within a context provided by a larger research group of educated urban migrants, this chapter focuses on the experiences of three women: Lien, Cuc, and Xuan and explores their daily activities and leisure choices that are indicative of the effects of dramatic social change on class reformation and social differentiation. Having introduced the educated migrant women who illustrate the discussion, the following sections are dedicated to introducing the places, the purposes, and the practices that encompass their leisure choices. The first half of the chapter considers the changing urban landscape and process of social mobility before outlining Vietnamese women’s opportunities for leisure and recreation. The second half of the chapter explores how upward mobility can be exhibited through lifestyling and the expression of a new aesthetic language by analysing the role of motorbikes, cinema, and café culture, as well as shopping.

Educated Urban Migrant Women in Ho Chi Minh City Throughout the latter twentieth century in Vietnam, waves of migration have occurred especially at times of political upheaval and dramatic social change (Thrift and Forbes 1986). During these times Ho Chi Minh City has represented for migrants a place of promise where the future would become better, as one of the fundamental purposes for migration is to provide oneself with new opportunities — for work, education, marriage — that without relocation would be unattainable. Both within

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

353

and outside the frame of revolutionary conflict, for generations, a desire for education and a subsequently better future has provided one of the motivations for urban migration by promising students, whether potential scholar-officials, communist revolutionaries, government leaders, or various other intellectuals (General Civil Service Commission [1961] 1967; Southern Vietnamese Women’s Museum 1993; Pham Minh Hac 1998; Tran Thi Van Anh and Le Ngoc Hung 2000). Like others before them, the three educated urban migrant women at the centre of this study each undertook migration for “a better future”. After 1954, when the southern and northern regions of Vietnam were officially divided, Xuan’s family — like many other families from scholarly classes in the urban centre and north — migrated south to Ho Chi Minh City. A later wave of migration, occurring after 1986 economic reforms, brought many young people, including Lien and Cuc, from large families in the Mekong delta to the city in order to complete undergraduate study. As members of relatively prosperous families, facing contexts of post-revolutionary upheaval and socio-economic change, their migrations to the city were shaped around the consolidation of an existing status, to avoid the possibility of social marginalization that may have resulted from changing political or economic circumstances. In contrast to the aspirational young women who seek transnational marriage as a strategy for personal betterment through economic advantage (Thomas and Nguyen 2003), these educated migrant women’s move to the city was to undertake self-cultivation with the intention of remaining in Vietnam within their families and communities, as well as making a direct contribution to Vietnamese society. Their migrations are equally a means of securing a future career pathway and for achieving new social positions. Education migration is a family strategy that often involves considerable planning as well as the investment of family resources. The purpose of this type of migration is ultimately to guarantee secure future employment that in turn would benefit the extended family, as well as allowing the migrant to improve their own and their families’ social positions. Xuan, Lien, and Cuc, like many other students in aspirational families were pressured since childhood to achieve high grades at school, not only for maintaining family prestige but also with the aim of continuing their education. This goal also required families to establish or maintain strong political connections that would later enable university

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

354

Catherine Earl

entrance and relocation to take place smoothly. As a quest for betterment, education migration can therefore be seen as a strategy to facilitate social mobility that relies upon and also benefits the family. Like many other students from privileged backgrounds, Lien’s and Cuc’s older siblings and other family members, most of whom worked in agriculturally based small businesses back home, supported them by financing their daily needs via an allowance and arranging for their accommodation in the city through personal and community networks. In contrast, many of their fellow students arrived in the city alone to take up an undergraduate scholarship place and at first lived in a student dormitory without the assistance of family. The doi moi economic reforms in the mid 1980s also resulted in an influx of poor rural families to Ho Chi Minh City seeking employment and skills training. Without resources, they were forced to settle into squatter areas and slums throughout the city, erecting houses under bridges, along canals, and in graveyards (Thai Thi Ngoc Du 1999, p. 55). These differences show that migration outcomes and patterns of urban settlement are strongly shaped by preexisting access to resources. Yet the residence pattern in their new location is also determined by migration motives. Many occupations and professional positions desired for children by aspirational families require university education or college training, which in Vietnam is usually only available in an urban environment. Unlike the factory workers, itinerant sellers, seasonal and other labour migrants, who reside en masse in the outlying districts and slum areas (Ha Thi Phuong Tien and Ha Quang Ngoc 2001, pp. 154–56), these educated urban migrants established a household in a neighbourhood associated with specific employment categories, many of which have been and continue to be femaledominated. Opportunities in these occupational fields seem to almost always arise in urban areas, close to universities and the influence of foreign, international, and global cultures (Bourdieu 1984, pp. 131–33; Heath 1981). The three women discussed in this study share a background that includes a relatively strict upbringing where, through the socialist education system that was introduced to southern Vietnam from 1981 (Pham Minh Hac 1998), they were trained about the social and moral dangers of excess and consumption coupled with a commitment to occupy their free time with productive and socially valuable activities.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

355

As children, their training continued in their natal homes, where Lien, Cuc, Xuan, and their sisters were taught to behave as model citizens, displaying the type of behaviour expected in model families. For young women, this meant following a strict code of behaviour in every aspect of their lives. They were taught to yield and “sacrifice” to all male, older, and certain other family members. They were taught to dress modestly and behave in a feminine manner whilst working to ensure the smooth running of the household. Despite purported gender equality (binh dang gioi) in Vietnam’s communist ideology (Le Thi 1998), their training in both state and familial spheres presupposed the continuation of patrilineal kinship as one of the salient structures for women to advance socially. Nonetheless these educated urban women work outside the domestic sphere in lucrative and professional positions. Xuan runs a successful small business; Lien and Cuc work in high-status positions in foreign and state companies. Employment perhaps allows such unmarried women as Lien and Cuc to achieve status via an alternative avenue to marriage and family. Particularly in urban areas, there seems to have been a popular belief that women who work outside the home experience greater psychological well-being and are more balanced people. As outlined in a civil service magazine dating from the 1960s, female government employees — in contrast to idle housewives — were less interested in appearing and behaving in an overtly feminine manner. As a result, they were considered to have better personal qualities for being good wives and mothers due to a well-informed mind and stable emotions (General Civil Service Commission [1961] 1967, pp. 6, 20). At the current time, the Vietnam Women’s Union suggests a similar rationale for a “double burden” of labour on women by encouraging them to undertake domestic duties within the family and also to make a contribution to the country through labour outside the home (Le Thi Nham Tuyet 2002, p. 5). Parts of the urban job market have been open to educated professional women for decades. In Saigon in the 1960s, working casually or part time in teaching or research for a foreign organization provided enough income to live off (Elliott 1999, pp. 308–9; Loewald 1987, p. 176). Likewise, since the 1940s in Hanoi, young women worked in government offices as clerks and typists due to the increasing costs of living (Coughlin 1950, p. 9). For young women in these occupations, working may have been

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

356

Catherine Earl

a way to support increased costs at home as well as satisfy a desire for independence and to have “outside interests” (General Civil Service Commission [1961] 1967, p. 6). Professional work has the additional advantage of providing opportunities for entertainment, shopping, and leisure, areas of practice that are largely dislodged from both household and workplace. The space for recreation and consumption has widened considerably as a result of social change stemming from recent economic reforms. In other words, while supported by their family and entailing study and work aimed to sustain their families, migration to the city has historically opened up to women, such as Xuan, Lien, and Cuc, a space of leisure, a realm of practice that is not necessarily mediated through family or work. Women’s autobiographies give some historical insights into this emergent space of leisure. Migrants to Ho Chi Minh City have recorded how, once they arrived in the city, they struggled to break into the Saigonese cultural landscape. At that time, they had to learn to speak in the regional urban accent, to dress and behave in an appropriately cosmopolitan manner, to enjoy local cuisine, to adopt local habits and hobbies, and to mimic the Saigonese way of life even as it continued to change and evolve (Elliott 1999; Hayslip 1989; Le Kwang Kim 1963; Loewald 1987; Nguyen Thi Thu-Lam 1989; Nguyen-Rouault 1999; Yeomans 2001).2 Each successive generation of migrants has faced the challenge of learning to adapt to the changing conventions of leisure through the “aesthetic languages” (Young 1999) of their new urban home in a way that is recognizable to their peers. Recent migrants have incorporated and adapted to new ways of living that have resulted in the continuing development of a socially diverse urban subculture. Such communicative activities and leisure choices can be viewed as a form of historical agency that have helped to shape the urban landscape.

Leisure and the Urban Landscape Since the 1979 national census, Vietnam’s urban population has steadily increased from a fifth (19.4 per cent) of the national population to almost a quarter (23.5 per cent) in 1999 (General Statistics Office 2001, p. 9). Vietnamese state researchers, however, acknowledge that data on urbanization is not reliable, with official population statistics and

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

357

unofficial population estimates varying wildly.3 Although official statistics indicate an increasing trend in urban migration, urban population increases are believed to be more dramatic. Following the doi moi economic reforms, urban migration to large cities in Vietnam has been described by one observer as an “explosion” (Dang Nguyen Anh 2002, p. 89). The influence migrants exert on the city’s culture, however, has been noted in studies on urban migration (Ha Thi Phuong Tien and Ha Quang Ngoc 2001, p. 152). It is perhaps through continuing migration that the “life of the city” is perpetuated by seasonal migrants, itinerant workers, students, and visiting family, amongst others, constantly revivifying existing street culture. Historically, the majority of leisure and recreational activities took place outdoors and in public space, typified in the dynamic street culture in Ho Chi Minh City. Shopping, eating ice cream, going to the cinema, visiting markets, and other ritualized community events became popular pastimes in middle to late twentieth-century Ho Chi Minh City–Saigonese life (Elliott 1999; Loewald 1987; Nguyen Thi Thu-Lam 1989; Yeomans 2001). These pastimes and activities are of course not unique to the urban middle classes in Vietnam. The literature examining the “new rich” in East and Southeast Asia notes popular leisure activities including shopping, cinema, and eating out, as well as sports, technology, and travel (Chan 2000, pp. 105–6; Gerke 2000, p. 136; Heryanto 1999, p. 168; Kim 2000, p. 79, n. 6). Many of these activities, on which the discussion later focuses, give a middle-class “touch”4 by shifting into purpose-built spaces or moving indoors. As a regional centre, Ho Chi Minh City promises success to migrants and openness to outsiders. This reputation can be accounted for in part by the vibrancy of the city streets (Son Nam 1992). At Tet New Year, the suburban streets of Ho Chi Minh City are quiet and shops closed for business as residents return to their birthplaces and family reunions. Extra transport services are timetabled for several weeks before Tet in preparation, and buses leaving the city from the West Bus Station reportedly take bookings. Unlike Ho Chi Minh City, where a bustling street culture is an everyday phenomenon and a Sunday pastime, Hanoi’s street culture in contrast was only busy during Tet (Drummond 2000, p. 2389). There, previous restrictions on people’s movements coupled with an economic system that emphasized production and workspace limited opportunities for leisure and consumption (Thomas 2001, p. 322).

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

358

Catherine Earl

Within living memory, the only spaces in Hanoi available for leisure were state-produced and state-controlled, and conspicuous or moderate consumption of leisure was frowned upon, but is now increasingly encouraged in purpose-built spaces (Drummond 2000, p. 2387). Since then leisure has moved beyond state control to the outdoors, and a bustling street life has developed around Hoan Kiem Lake, the “symbolic heart of Hanoi”, and includes ice-cream stores, cafés, traffic, exercise areas, festival activities, picnics, and, since early 2002, a large commercial centre with supermarkets, cafés, retail outlets, and car parking (Thomas 2002, p. 1617). In a state-published booklet, Bang Son (1993), for example, describes various street culture activities including eating specific regional dishes, going out to local attractions such as cinema and opera performances, and recreational highlights of the Hanoi cityscape (Bang Son 1993). These activities remind us of middle-class Saigon, as described in women’s autobiographies, as well as the leisure lifestyling of the “new rich” from other Southeast Asian cities. The development of the shopping arcade near Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem lake represents a shift of leisure space from state-produced to purposebuilt, and of leisure activities from outdoors to indoor space, that is, from an accessible “outside” to an exclusive “inside”. A similar shift is evident in Ho Chi Minh City with the rapid development of shopping centres and department stores. As Lisa Drummond (2000) points out, the trend began with the “Superbowl”, where consumers may visit a bowling arcade, KFC, and Jollibee (hamburgers) fast food outlets, a video game arcade, a mini supermarket, and various “fashion” shops, cosmetic counters, and CD stalls (Drummond 2000, pp. 2387–88). The trend has developed, becoming a more familiar style of entertainment and way of lifestyling, so much so that, in 2001, when the Diamond Plaza department store opened in downtown Ho Chi Minh City, window shopping had become a regular Sunday pastime.5 The classic analysis of the nineteenth-century American “leisure classes” by Thorstein Veblen ([1899] 1994) provides the foundations for studies that deal with leisure and populations “at play” (Brailsford 1991; Daniels 1995; Davies 1992; Hansson et al. 2002; Leheny 2003; McReynolds 2003; Wakeman 1995). Veblen’s leisure class lives a lifestyle of male recreational activities in the spheres of government, warfare, religion, and sport (Veblen [1899] 1994, p. 2). Although in places extremely dated,6 Veblen’s argument contributes to status-based considerations of leisure.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

359

He defines leisure time as time consumed non-productively, by those who do not need to work or have the “ability to afford idleness”, and he considers that a tangible article of consumption — a trophy, booty, or badge — is essential to provide evidence of leisure indirectly to spectators (pp. 28–29). Veblen observes that the cultivation of aesthetic faculty — as a “connoisseur”7 — requires a self-conscious and time-consuming change in lifestyle (p. 47). He recognizes lifestyling activities as “honourable” and “markers of prowess” partly because they are taboo to women (p. 44). Importantly, for arguments I will soon make, Veblen remarks that the only opportunities wives have for leisure are disguised under some form of work (p. 51). Much of what Veblen says seems to translate to contemporary Ho Chi Minh City. In Ho Chi Minh City, certain areas are tainted by associations with sex, drugs, mafia, and foreigners among other indicators of male leisure pastimes and lifestyles as indicated by Veblen. Many young women who consider themselves respectable would not contemplate passing through these areas. Even during the day, female undergraduates returning to their dormitories on Tran Hung Dao Street ride their bicycles as far as Cong Quynh Street to avoid the notorious Pham Ngu Lao ward. Young male undergraduates, however, dare each other to ride motorbikes through the Pham Ngu Lao market, which they describe as the most dangerous place in Ho Chi Minh City.8 Unlike these areas, other places that are safe by day change after dark. McNally (2003) describes researching night-time prostitution in the square in front of the central Post Office and Notre Dame Cathedral. These areas are so notorious that middle-aged women living near my house discouraged me from risking personal safety by riding home in the evenings past the National Library, the French Consulate, IDECAF (French Cultural House), or along other downtown streets known for “night-time prostitutes” (buom dem). “Leisure” in this sense is a set of male pastimes centred on gambling, drinking, buying prostitutes, and other activities that are collectively referred to in Vietnam as “social evils”. The women present in these cases are all employees, working to provide or facilitate “leisure” activities as prostitutes, waitresses, or similar. But how do the rest of the female population spend their time? What do they do, where do they go and whom do they meet? Who sees them and what are the results of “being seen”? The following section focuses on opportunities for leisure in the

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

360

Catherine Earl

daily activities of Vietnamese women by exploring what constitutes urban woman’s work and play.

Leisure and Urban Women Literature on gender in Vietnam speculates on negative effects of the transition to the market economy on women in terms of their position in the household, educational attainment, and workforce participation (Long et al. 2000, p. 1). However, in considering Vietnamese women’s recreational experiences, Vietnamese state researchers report that before the influence of the doi moi reforms, women had limited time for rest and recreation. An unnamed 1987 report produced by the Institute of Culture cited in Vietnamese Women in the Eighties found women did not take part in cultural sessions or recreation organized by their workplaces, explaining the absence by reference to restrictions on their time, due to the “double burden” of productive and domestic labour. The reasons given by women from worker, peasant, artist, and intellectual groups for their non-participation were having no money or means, tiredness after earning one’s living, little leisure time, spare money used for husband and children, as well as a lack of guidance and organization (Vietnam Women’s Union and Centre for Women’s Studies 1989, pp. 47, 55).9 This state research records that, apart from women having restricted time and limited means for recreation, unlike men who knew how to utilize spare money, the majority of women in the study requested guidance and organization as they did not know what to do for leisure, nor even how to go about it. What constitutes leisure and relaxation for women? Is relaxation possible during a family duty such as visiting? Is visiting considered a leisure activity? Within family labour and employment, there may be opportunities for women to play as leisure activities are possible as part of the working day. The burdens of household work, however, affect women in the family differently depending on their relative status as different social positions determine different tasks and chores for women. At rituals and other annual events, old ladies are able to gossip with each other and relax because the younger women usually perform the chores. Unmarried daughters also may be able to escape much of the more strenuous labour if their brothers have married and brought daughters-in-law to the household. Otherwise, it is the unmarried

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

361

daughters who undertake the bulk of the preparations limiting their opportunities for leisure in the household. This case is especially evident at death anniversaries (dam gio), the most important family ritual. Taking place over one day at the ancestral home, a dam gio requires the preparation and execution of a large and elaborate feast, so that in general the labouring women have no opportunity for rest. However, travelling to and returning from the ancestral home, which for migrants may involve a long journey outside the city, can provide an opportunity for leisure and recreation during the trip. Unlike the dam gio and other rituals within the family, weddings outside the family almost always allow women some leisure time. However, an engagement in the family also seems to be one opportunity for most women in the family to rest. On this occasion, only the fiancée works as she must demonstrate her skills not only in looking after her future husband but also his family. Ensuring the engagement party will proceed smoothly may limit relaxation due to considerable preparation and stress caused for both families before the event. A more recently adopted day of leisure for all women is International Women’s Day.10 In Ho Chi Minh City married women visiting Xuan’s shop informed me that Vietnamese women are not required to perform their usual household chores including cooking, cleaning, and caring on International Women’s Day, as the men in the household should take over these tasks for this day! Domestic labour is clearly routinized and divided via status-based kin relations, perhaps providing regular and predictable opportunities for relaxation and resting. Although they may not have time or opportunity for leisure and recreational activities within the average day, women may be able to find time to rest or may have some free moments whilst waiting. As in the home, during the day at work in the post office, department store, or market stall, female employees may have opportunities to chat whilst waiting for customers. As will be highlighted in the second half of the chapter, waiting also figures prominently in the lives of urbanites who display distinction and taste as they wait to be picked up from venues such as cafés or cinemas. Here we should be reminded of Veblen’s ([1899] 1994) observation that (domesticated) women’s leisure opportunities were camouflaged in some type of work. The dominance of women in part-time, casual, and informal positions may influence their opportunities for leisure (Vietnam Women’s Union

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

362

Catherine Earl

and Centre for Women’s Studies 1989, p. 61; Tran Thi Van Anh and Le Ngoc Hung 2000, chap. 4; General Civil Service Commission [1961] 1967, pp. 9–11). Relaxation time for permanent and full-time employees in the workplace, however, is clearly defined. One example is the annual workplace vacation over the International Labour Day holiday weekend.11 Company vacations take staff away to popular holiday resort towns like Dalat, Nha Trang, Ha Tien, or Mui Ne. State companies and workplaces structure an employee’s relaxation time, enabling them to have a vacation when they may otherwise not have the means or opportunity. Working at a foreign company, however, may mean that structured relaxation time is transformed into productive time. A workplace vacation may become a training weekend designed to recruit management trainees from the junior staff. Improved economic conditions encourage the expansion of professional and bureaucratic positions including teaching, interpreting, and other consultancies (Fahey 1998, pp. 238–42). Many of these positions are female-dominated and may also involve a transformation of “work” where employees are required to work in situations that for others are leisure. If an employee desires social mobility and seeks betterment, then there are several clear advantages in pursuing these occupations where productive time in the workplace provides experience of how others — elites and foreigners — spend their nonproductive and recreational time. Professional work is often the aim of aspiring urban migrants and, particularly for educated women, certain types of work are associated not only as female labour but also with achieving upward mobility. Over the last few decades, employment categories linked with higher social positions have shifted from manual to mental labour. In Vietnam, Pham Xuan Nam (2002) considers that, within the socialist-oriented market economy, becoming wealthy occurs via education rather than through the lifestyles of the newly rich due to emphasis on a knowledgebased economy (Pham Xuan Nam 2002, pp. 40, 42; see also Le Thi 2001, pp. 121–22; Thai Thi Ngoc Du 1997, pp. 124–25). Education is essential to securing the types of employment that eventually give access to appropriate conditions for realizing social aspirations. Femaledominated fields such as interpreting and teaching, both of which now demand tertiary qualifications and knowledge of foreign languages, provide direct access to conditions that enable an aspiring young woman to better herself and even to become an urbanite. However, the

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

363

development of social distinction requires, in addition to appropriate conditions, various personal qualities, such as an outward-looking perspective as well as sincerity, tolerance, and competence (Chan 2000, p. 123). Advantages of working as an interpreter, teacher, or guide include experiencing the lifestyles of elites and foreigners, where “distinction”, “taste”, and “style” can be observed and practised by the aspiring urbanite as she develops her lifestyle, and then displayed for others to recognize as part of her new social position. Opportunities for social advancement available via the workplace seem to be especially accessible for educated urban migrant women if they choose to pursue aspirations for betterment.

Motorbikes Certain lifestyle-oriented consumer products, such as motorbikes, are essential in urbanite status production. Urban social life now revolves almost entirely around motorbikes. Ownership of, or at least access to, a motorbike is one of the basic commodities of an aspiring urbanite. Motorbikes are clearly signifiers of wealth and status. Aspiring young women in particular judge a young man by the type of motorbike he owns. Without one, he is not a serious choice as a potential “beau” (nguoi yeu). So important is image in courting that male undergraduates will even take out loans to buy a motorbike.12 This is because the type, style, location, and usage of a motorbike indicates a wide breadth of information about the social background and aspirations of the rider. Motorbikes act as markers of origin — and sometimes ethnicity — through registration plates and location, of gender, and family status through position as rider or passenger, and of occupational status and social life through make and model. Also important is the appearance of the rider. The most sought-after motorbikes in Vietnam are Japanese. In 2001 the Honda Dream II and Honda Wave ranked most highly in Ho Chi Minh City.13 The desire for something better, or perhaps what is considered by urbanites to be a minimum, is so great that blackmarket street stalls even sell replacement stickers very cheaply, which provide a means of superficially transforming a relatively inexpensive Chinese motorbike into what appears to be an “authentic” Japanese model. Like two-thirds of other urban women, Xuan was married.14 Like

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

364

Catherine Earl

most women, she had attended school and could read and write in Vietnamese.15 When she was a child, her family had arrived in Ho Chi Minh City from Hue, the city of scholars and former imperial capital in central Vietnam. Now she ran a small business selling cosmetics and household items from the same shop where her husband and brotherin-law ran a gas delivery service. On the verandah in front of the shop, Xuan complained about her husband’s old Honda Cub motorbike. Each day she criticized its appearance, fumes, and lack of speed and manoeuvrability. As she toilet-trained her young son, she encouraged him to pee on its back wheel. Her husband, however, did not care that the Honda Cub was unfashionable and pointed out that it was sturdier when transporting gas bottles on home deliveries. Like Xuan, Cuc judged a person by their ride, assessing their motorbike and consequently making assumptions about their character and means. Cuc came from a large Mekong delta family. Like the other younger siblings in the family, she had moved to the city for undergraduate study.16 After graduating, she had been fortunate and had found work in a foreign company. But, as a result of the 1997 economic downturn, she lost her job when the company closed and now earned far less than her siblings in a state company.17 To redress the resulting imbalance in the household, she looked after their daily needs, juggling domestic responsibilities with postgraduate study in economics and English classes. Cuc considered the fascination that foreigners had for restored 50cc Honda Charlys or “retro” Vespas to be incomprehensible. Based on her assumption that all foreigners had disposable income, she could not believe that they would not hesitate to buy a new Japanese motorbike.18 She believed that new Hondas were of the highest quality and produced the best performance. Each member of her household owned and ran a Honda Dream II, one of the latest models. The four motorbikes lined the entrance to the house, with access gained through a locked door behind a locked gate inside a locked courtyard. Inside the house, Cuc’s brother slept in the front room to guard the collection of motorbikes each night, due to their value but also their significance in family life and success for the future. Lien relied on a motorbike for work as Xuan’s husband did. She was a professional in her mid-30s, who had studied abroad on scholarship19 and spoke two foreign languages.20 She originated in the Mekong delta

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

365

and had been the first member of her family to move to Ho Chi Minh City for university education. She now supported the education of her younger relatives as well as contributed to the family back home. Lien cherished her fashionable Honda Dream II, her most expensive asset and means for commuting to work. Whenever she returned home, she was in the habit of wiping and drying the motorbike to protect it from damage and ensure its longevity. In the front room of her house, Lien — who lived alone — also slept each night next to her motorbike. Likewise, throughout the day, Xuan watched the Honda Cub parked across the entrance to the shop whenever her husband was not making a delivery. In urban Vietnam, a motorbike is an essential commodity in communicating status, independence, and the ability to travel that without it one’s social ability is restricted. With the public transport system in its infancy, motorbikes improve the possibilities for wideranging employment prospects of graduates and other people. Commuters can easily travel to work from less expensive outer-suburban districts without limiting their job opportunities. Especially in busy downtown Ho Chi Minh City streets, it is becoming more usual to see women in traffic riding by themselves rather than being taken as a passenger. The assumption about a woman riding by herself, if she is appropriately accessorized and styled, is that she is a career girl. Cuc giggled and laughed at the idea of me travelling distances too great for a bicycle by using a xe om (motorbike taximan, literally “cuddle vehicle”). Although she had never hired a xe om, she imagined that the passenger — me — would clutch, cling, and hug him — a stranger — as she would a boyfriend (nguoi yeu). Even as she took herself around unaccompanied, her reaction indicates how it is still unusual for a woman to be without family or friends to rely on, and have independence from a marital partner. When they travel alone, career girls, like Lien, may use this assumption as a way of demonstrating status by attracting attention to themselves through their assumed successes.

Cinemas and Café Culture Owing a motorbike enables an aspiring urbanite to travel anywhere in the city, or even beyond, in order to participate in lifestyling and leisure

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

366

Catherine Earl

activities that mark and produce status. Like the leisure of the Asian “new rich”, Vietnamese leisure time is profoundly social, involving a range of activities focusing on interactions with others and eating. Although there are many cinemas in urban Vietnam, cinema-going is not as popular a pastime for the majority of the population as watching football at a video café or hanging out with friends.21 Many aspiring urbanites in Ho Chi Minh City, however, enjoy cinema and its re-emerging popularity led to cinemas in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi reopening throughout 2001.22 A parallel can be drawn between cinemas reopening and the opening of shopping centres in the creation of exclusive leisure and recreational spaces, each of which has an alternative primary function, although they are also used for leisure activities and status production. This perhaps indicates where and how a “new aesthetic language” can be developed by urbanites. The increasing popularity of cinema-going exemplifies a tendency by the “new rich” to revalue existing recreational activities. When DVDs are easily obtained, popular as a pastime and cheaper than a cinemaouting, why do young urban people go out to the cinema? For urbanites, a distinction is made between two main types of popular foreign cinema: subtitled, “arty” or “serious” films (phim nghe thuat) and dubbed, American romantic comedies and blockbusters (Dang Thuat Minh and Pham Thu Thuy 2003; see also Chan 2000, p. 109). In particular, “arty” films, which screen at expensive foreign-language cinemas and film festivals, provide the opportunity to mingle with an elite crowd. Arriving at a film festival or cinema by motorbike is a performance of status marking “style”. Entering a foreign-language cinema implies a familiarity with not only the foreign language but also foreign culture displayed in the film and observed in the foyer. Outside the cinema, women wait together for their partner to park the motorbike, or to retrieve them, allowing ample opportunity to “be seen”. Whilst waiting, it is clear that women wearing long-sleeved business suits or warm clothing demonstrate their acclimatization to air-conditioning in their office, perhaps home, and in the cinema. Each action is recognized by others as a marker of status production. In contrast, the weekly film that screened at the Youth Cultural House was usually a dubbed American blockbuster. Seating for a screening of The Mummy II, for example, was full more than half an hour before its scheduled screening time. Young people standing in the aisles fanned

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

367

themselves with newspapers to keep cool, whilst others took turns to look through the doorway and relay the action to their friends listening from outside. However, after the show, like at the “arty” cinema, young women and female students waited together by the entrance off Pham Ngoc Thach Street for their friends and boyfriends to collect them on motorbikes or bicycles. Like cinema, café culture enables urbanites to display taste via a new aesthetic language. The shifting of popular eating from the street (an choi) into the private environment of air-conditioned cafés indicates an exclusivity associated with taste rather than wealth. A video café popular with students is located near central Ben Thanh market and not far from the university dormitories on Tran Hung Dao Street. Café Dilmah is named after the brand of tea it serves and is located immediately next door to another identical video café. Most of the patrons are students and young people enjoying each other’s company and the latest music videos or live soccer matches. It is modelled after the subsidized cafés at the Youth Cultural House and on university campuses, where glasses of soy milk (sua dau nanh, 2,000 dong) followed by glasses of iced tea (tra da, free) last an entire afternoon. But in many ways it is also similar to the café strip in District Three. The interior of a popular upmarket café on Tu Xuong Street was decorated like a romantic restaurant. Tables discretely positioned between tall plants partially obscured customers from each other. Each table was lit with candles and decorated with red roses, but the interior lighting was so low that staff used torches. A string quartet played European classical music. Although the menu was in Vietnamese, English, French, and Japanese, the crowd seemed to be mostly Vietnamese business people. Our table ordered ice-cream sundaes (30,000 dong) and received mint water instead of the usual ice tea, and this was made to last almost three hours until the quartet finished playing.23 It is apparent that it is the choice of environment that is more significant for students and urbanites alike to display taste. An aspiring young person may enjoy a familiar leisure activity but at the same time produce and display status via the choice of an exclusive leisure space. In these cases, it is the place rather than the activity that conveys the new aesthetic language employed by urbanites in their leisure practices.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

368

Catherine Earl

Shopping Window-shopping at expensive shopping centres became a leisure activity in the late 1980s in China where “being seen” was more important than purchasing (Hooper 1998, pp. 187–88). As in China, exclusive department stores in Ho Chi Minh City provide entertainment through shopping and window-shopping, and also act as a location to display status, not so much by a focus on spending as on the tangible rewards related to consumption, such as products that can be used as trophies for status production and as lifestyle accessories. Soon after we had met, Cuc came to pick me up early on a Monday morning. We rode across town to the new multi-story Nhat Nam department store in downtown District One recommended to us by others. The uniformed security guards at the entrance encouraged undesirable people to go away, at least to the other side of the street where they gathered in small groups. Inside the department store, Cuc and I walked around the deserted floors, commenting on the fashions and assessing the quality of the fabric and stitching. Cuc assumed the styles appealed to Western tastes — mine — even though the sizes were so small. One floor sold souvenirs of coconut wood and lacquer ware, and another sold Western food — hamburgers, thick shakes, and sweet pastries. Bypassing the cosmetics and perfume counters, we spent most of the morning browsing in the ground floor supermarket, where we compared different brands of washing powder, and in the bookshop, where we purchased some Japanese pens with a new brown 100,000 dong note from a thick pile Cuc was guarding in her pocket. Monday morning is an unusual day for shopping in Vietnam as it is the busiest day of the working week. Because of that shopping usually takes place on the weekend. Our Monday morning outing to Nhat Nam department store comprised the “work” of shopping to enhance status which, for an aspiring urbanite, is an important and serious occupation. A significant evolution in shopping centres occurred with the opening of Diamond Plaza department store in 2001. In addition to shops and boutiques in department stores like Nhat Nam and the “Superbowl”, Diamond Plaza also included lifestyling departments that displayed Western-style furniture (high benches, dining settings, and lounge suites) and home decorations (drapes, floor rugs, wall hangings, and scented

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

369

candles) as well as card and gift kiosks, a candy shop and a patisserie, each of which was already common in department stores. By the same time, Ho Chi Minh City bookstores, including one within Diamond Plaza, began displaying an increasing number of glossy Vietnamese-language lifestyle magazines, such as the architectural and interior design magazine Home Beautiful (Nha Dep), which showcases home renovations and “makeovers”.24 Weekend window-shopping at department stores allows visitors to “be seen” and to observe lifestyling products. But unlike cinemas and cafés, department stores allow the visitor to go one step further and bring something back to show to those remaining at home. Whenever Xuan and her family went on a Sunday outing, she returned with purchases stowed in large, sturdy shopping bags decorated with the name of the department store. Her purchases, and the shopping bags, were each like a trophy, a lasting product providing evidence of leisure spent out of the sight of spectators (Veblen [1899] 1994, p. 28). After an outing to a new department store, Xuan showed off one purchase: a padded winter coat for the baby. Costing 80,000 dong and impractical in the Saigonese heat, she joked that her son would have no opportunity to use it unless her husband took the family up to Dalat before the baby grew too big to wear it. Via this act, she was expressing a desire for social mobility by using a lifestyle accessory associated with exclusive leisure travel. Aspiring women may gather “booty” at department stores and even at tourism centres, reflecting an established historical tradition of “trophy hunting” that is literally an activity of the sportsmen hunters within Veblen’s “leisure class”. The display back home of a trophy “hunted” and “collected” from a distant location or an exclusive place indicates status by setting a person apart from their neighbours. On another occasion, Xuan asked me to bring her back a gift of dried strawflowers from Dalat to display permanently in her shop. This demonstrated to her customers, who knew she had not been away, that she desired betterment. In contrast, Lien returned from regular recreational trips to Dalat with bunches of fresh red roses to display until they wilted, and strawberries or persimmons to eat on return. These fresh products were not used as trophies to indicate social mobility, but were luxury items in that they served a purpose as well as having an aesthetic function. Luxury items such as these are designed

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

370

Catherine Earl

for service, not as evidence of leisure lifestyling, as they are not on display to outsiders (Veblen [1899] 1994, p. 71). Usually when Lien went shopping in the downtown area, it was for her a social outing with a group of friends. However, when she purchased the imported cosmetics she used daily, she went by herself to the designer boutique as though running an errand. Unlike Cuc, Lien regularly purchased products from downtown department stores or shopping centres, without paying attention to price tags. With disposable income, she had the habit of paying the asking price, not bothering to negotiate unless the purchase was significant — a motorbike, a refrigerator, a computer. Although she knew how to, Lien did not bargain as she said she had no time in her schedule to go to the market so she could not keep track of prices. When out eating snacks on the street (an choi), Lien often overpaid the seller especially if the seller spoke with a Mekong delta accent indicating the same regional origin as Lien.25 For her, overpaying in these situations was not an issue of avoiding small change, but a type of charity. She told me she was “helping” the young seller who, Lien said, was making an effort to overcome her poverty by selling. Lien demonstrates one of the ways that newly rich may spend which differs from how previous generations with disposable income used their wealth. Hans Antlov (1999) points out that the “new rich” isolate themselves by not participating in community activities and do not filter any of their wealth back through the community as the “old rich” did via the funding of rituals and other community activities (Antlov 1999, p. 197). The subject of Lien’s charity was not random; the choice to give was influenced by her individual desire to consume, as well as a nostalgia she felt for her Mekong delta home when she heard the seller’s regional accent. At other times Lien’s charity was similarly subjective and spontaneous. Rarely did she give handouts to idle Khmer children begging near the food stalls in her street, preferring instead to overpay an itinerant seller working nearby. But as an opera fan, she often gave money to a destitute old lady who sat begging at a busy intersection, dressed in ragged Mekong delta peasant clothing, as Lien believed she was a former cai luong opera star. In these cases, giving was an individually mediated way of redistributing wealth and filtering it beyond the family back through the community. Additionally significant, giving was a tangible means of “being seen” by others as socially mobile but more importantly, by precise choices about when

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

371

to give and how much, she was able to produce status through displaying her new social position.

Conclusion Compared with other Southeast Asian contexts over the past two decades or more, urban Vietnam is now rapidly advancing. Contemporary urban Vietnamese are re-emerging into a social differentiated world via a pathway originating with mid-1980s economic reforms and continuing towards a more fully recognized social complexity. Within this changing urban landscape, “class” issues, like ethnic issues, are establishing themselves in the forefront particularly in academic discourse. Status-based differentiation continues to be a fundamental criteria in determining social background, social position, and social aspiration whether through education, employment, or kinship ties. Dramatic changes to social status may be clearly realized through urban migration. Most prominently, issues of migration play a key role in determining the nature of the new urban landscape. Within the changing city, emergent social groups experiment with new ways of displaying their acquired social status and distinction as they “move up” into new social positions. Social distinction becomes a strategy for betterment in that it allows ambitious urbanites not only to demonstrate their superior status but also allows them to differentiate themselves from other urbanites. I have argued that this phenomenon is not new to urban Vietnam. Through examples based on recreational activities and leisure choices made by educated urban migrant women, the discussion has highlighted how various trends are evident in the processes of producing social distance. However, in general social mobility reflects a lack of settlement into stable socio-economic strata through the flexibilities of social categories as citizens trade one set of values and activities for another, depending on how they desire to “be seen” and recognized by others. Of interest regarding the re-emergence of leisure in urban Vietnam is the move away from the public arena into more private and controlled spaces such as urban department stores and shopping centres. Further research may interrogate the shift away from state-organized recreation through workplaces and state-run cultural institutions, such as the Youth Cultural House, Women’s Union Clubhouse, and Children’s Cultural House, as private and other exclusive places to “go out” (di

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

372

Catherine Earl

choi) gain in popularity. As exclusive places displace popular spaces as sites for entertainment, it seems clear that it is the place, not necessarily the activity, that shows distinction as urbanites and poor students alike engage in similar social activities. The choice of environment or exclusive location and crowd is used by aspiring urbanites to indicate enhanced social position and social distinction. Collecting memorabilia and keepsakes from exclusive places as “trophies” to display at home shows a desire for betterment as well as aspirations for self-improvement. However, in exclusive places, it is through the development and expression of taste that upward social mobility is more effectively conveyed. The acquisition of taste becomes unchallenged when luxury products supercede necessities in the daily lives of urbanites. The regular consumption of luxury is one factor in determining that an urbanite has achieved social distance. Social distance can also be produced via new ways of spending in the community. In addition to purchasing in exclusive boutiques and department stores, redistributions of wealth via individually mediated acts of charity, rather than via funding community-based rituals and the like, draw attention to higher social position. Leisure activities and the opportunities to pursue leisure seem to be gendered in line with broader social relations. However, leisure is not necessarily gender-specific. Whilst historically value has been placed on certain leisure activities because they are “traditionally” taboo to (domesticated) women, emergent leisure lifestyling to some degree challenges such genderized distinctions. In contemporary Ho Chi Minh City, many educated urban migrant women are able to experience lifestyling by gaining access to appropriate conditions and environments via their workplaces, peer groups, or social networks. Having individual prestige recognized by a group is what enables an urbanite to acquire status via the production of social distance. Lifestyling in this case is not so much about demonstrating wealth as displaying style and taste by knowing what to do and how to do it. Becoming a “connoisseur” in this manner requires an investment of time and application to cultivate appropriate ways of behaving and consuming through direct sensory experience in preference to second-hand or reported knowledge. For educated urban migrant women in particular, leisure choices create opportunities for new strategies to display — and also to produce — status and distinction through lifestyling.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

373

NOTES 1

2

3

4 5

6

7

8

Research for this analysis is based on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Ho Chi Minh City throughout 2001. All personal names used are pseudonyms. These six autobiographies and one biography provide rich descriptions of middle-class Saigonese life as it was encountered by the female authors and subjects during the middle to late twentieth century. While it is necessary to acknowledge various problems with the use of evidence based on personal memory and oral sources, the value of these sources lies in shedding light on the middle classes and their activities, which are, via mediation in the state’s political agenda, largely absent from official Vietnamese social history. For example, official statistics on urban unemployment indicate that seven per cent of city dwellers are out of work, but unofficial estimates, which include itinerant workers and seasonal labourers, are as high as 25 per cent (Tran Thi Van Anh and Le Ngoc Hung 2000, p. 115). This term is borrowed from Gerke (2000). In addition to the Korean-owned Diamond Plaza department store, a new Maximart on Ba Thang Hai Street, two new Co-op Marts, the Japaneseowned Nhat Nam, as well as several other chains stores — including two new KFCs — opened from late 2000 to mid-2001. Sections of Veblen’s discussion of “leisure classes” are occupied with “stages of development” from primitive to modern. Additionally, he defines women throughout his analysis as a type of property owned by men and refers to the “ownership” of women as a type of consumption. See Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class ([1899] 1994). Such ideas have not necessarily disappeared in the West. Cf. Bourdieu (1984) on “taste”. Michael Pinches points out a significant difference between Veblen’s and Bourdieu’s analyses, as Bourdieu deals with a society in which there is an “old rich” who distinguish themselves, whereas Veblen arguably does not deal with an “old rich”. Pinches qualifies this by suggesting that Veblen’s “old rich” may be based not in America but in Western Europe (Pinches 1999, pp. 35, 48, n. 43). The reputation of the Pham Ngu Lao ward is well known throughout Ho Chi Minh City. When I was a language student in Ho Chi Minh City in 1998, I went on a one-day tour with a travel company based in De Tham Street. Half an hour after the time I was due home, my landlady sent the household men out on a search party to locate me for fear that I had been kidnapped by the local mafia. However, by 2001 the image of the area had deteriorated further. Near the corner of De Tham and Pham Ngu Lao Streets, I witnessed addicts using opium and heroin on the street in daylight. At this time, the

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

374

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Catherine Earl

local evening news regularly broadcast, from the Pham Ngu Lao ward “courthouse”, the trials of drug dealers and other criminals who received the death penalty to demonstrate how the authorities were actively “cleaning up” the area. In a collection of memoirs recalling the years of “re-education” in southern Vietnam after 1975, Hoang Ngoc Thanh Dung recalls that virtually compulsory recruitment to work in the “Association of Liberated Women” extended the working day from dawn until 10 or 11 o’clock at night (Hoang Ngoc Thanh Dung 1988, pp. 43–45). International Women’s Day is held on 8 March each year. It celebrates the contributions of women throughout the world. In many countries — mostly socialist — including Vietnam, it is a holiday where all women are acknowledged. The Vietnam Women’s Union Clubhouse in Ly Chinh Thang Street runs Women’s Day events every year which also celebrate the anniversary of the female martyrs Hai Ba Trung. In 2001 the Saigon Trade Centre hosted a fashion parade and cosmetics expo to celebrate Women’s Day (“Fair Sex Steals the Show in HCM City”, Viet Nam News, 9 March 2000, p. 16). In Vietnam, International Labour Day on 1 May follows the 30 April anniversary of what is to Vietnamese “Liberation Day” and what is to Americans “The Fall of Saigon”, making the weekend a double celebration of labour production and national reunification. Motorbikes incur many ongoing costs. In addition to petrol and parking, maintenance and various fines can eat into the weekly budget. In 2001, when US$1 equated to approximately 15,000 dong, parking prices varied, starting from one to 2,000 dong. Flat tyres cost around 10,000 dong to repair. Being pulled over by a policeman, for a roadworthy check or other minor reason, also incurs a cost. A student giving me a lift home one evening had to pay a curious policeman 20,000 dong. Other traffic problems could also be easily solved. For example, a young professional woman recounted an incident to me where she once paid a nearby motorbike taximan 50,000 dong to stand in for her in a superficial accident she had caused. In Vietnam, the cost of motorbikes, as with other consumer items, is highly varied. In 2001, a Honda Dream II cost around US$2,000; Chinese-produced motorbikes were priced from around US$700; a second-hand Honda Cub was valued at around US$250; and the Honda Spacey, fashionable with aspiring young women, cost US$6,000. In 1993, 30 per cent of urban people were not married (Tran Thi Van Anh and Le Ngoc Hung 2000, pp. 194–95). In 1999, the national literacy rate (for Vietnamese language) was 91 per cent, with 88 per cent of women being literate and 94 per cent of women having

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

16

17

18

19

20

21

375

attended school. Rural women’s literacy is lower than the national average at less than 87 per cent but urban women’s literacy is higher at over 93 per cent. This is in contrast to 94 per cent of men being literate. Unlike rural women, rural men’s literacy is higher than the national average at more than 93 per cent as is urban men’s literacy at 97 per cent (Tran Thi Van Anh and Le Ngoc Hung 2000, p. 147). Women’s attendance at university decreased since the economic reforms. In 1999, less than 2 per cent of women nationally had a university degree and only 0.02 per cent of women nationally held postgraduate qualifications (Tran Thi Van Anh and Le Ngoc Hung 2000, p. 156). Throughout the doi moi era, the percentage of female university students decreased from 40.2 per cent in 1986 to 28.8 per cent in 1995, until at that time there were about half the number of female graduates as male graduates. Most female graduates (80 per cent) live close to university campuses and suitable employment in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Le Thi 2001, pp. 128, 133, 136). Information about unemployment and underemployment is sketchy. In a 1995 study, up to a third of Hanoi graduates surveyed were unemployed or underemployed, working in fields unrelated to their study (Marr and Rosen 1999, p. 193). See also n. 3 above. Honda Cubs, Charlys, and Vespas — second-hand motorbikes — were, although an affordable option, often in poor condition and infamous for emitting smelly, black, or smokey fumes. An avoidance of polluting motorbikes demonstrates a desire not only for the technologically new and advanced but also for cleanliness, a signifier of upwardly mobile social classes. Although scholarships continue to be a means for studying abroad, now it is increasingly popular for students to undertake offshore study via selffunded private programmes (Thai Thi Ngoc Du 1997, p. 123). For an overview of female graduates throughout the twentieth century trained in France, the former Soviet Union and elsewhere, see Southern Vietnamese Women’s Museum (1993). For anecdotal records of offshore study, see Cong Huyen Ton Nu Thi Nha Trang (1973); Elliott (1999); Yeomans (2001); see also Loewald (1987) for a colourful memoir of the elite Saigonese Gia Long School for Girls. Women’s knowledge of foreign languages has decreased since the economic reforms. Less than 3 per cent of women under 30 years know one foreign language and 0.7 per cent know two foreign languages. This is in contrast to women aged 31–40 years, of whom more than five times as many (15 per cent) know one foreign language and twice as many (1.4 per cent) know two foreign languages (Tran Thi Van Anh and Le Ngoc Hung 2000, pp. 159–60). “VN Filmmakers Bemoan Empty Seats, Empty Wallets”. Viet Nam News, 13 December 2000, p. 19.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

376 22

23

24

25

Catherine Earl

Two of the top ten cultural events of 2000 were related with the film festival. See “Top Ten Cultural Events of 2000 in Viet Nam” (2001, pp. 110–11). Ice-cream sundaes at the upmarket café cost about five times the price of icecream sundaes at the campus café. For discussions on women’s and other lifestyle magazines in contemporary and urban contexts, see Drummond (1999); Fahey (1998); and Pettus (2003). One example of Lien’s urbanite charity was when she bought small bowls (chen) of soft tofu custard with ginger syrup (dau hu), which cost 500 dong each. She paid 1,000 dong each.

REFERENCES Antlov, Hans. “The New Rich and Cultural Tensions in Rural Indonesia”. In Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia, edited by M. Pinches. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Bang Son. Thu An Choi Nguoi Ha Noi [Going Out in Hanoi]. Hanoi: Van Hoa, 1993. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, translated by R. Nice. London: Routledge, 1984. Brailsford, Dennis. Sport, Time and Society: The British at Play. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. Chan, Annie Hau-Nung. “Middle-class Formation and Consumption in Hong Kong”. In Consumption in Asia: Lifestyles and Identities, edited by Chua BengHuat. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Chua Beng-Huat and Tan Joo Ean. “Singapore: Where the New Middle Class Sets the Standard”. In Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia, edited by M. Pinches. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Cong Huyen Ton Nu Thi Nha Trang. “The Traditional Roles of Women as Reflected in Oral and Written Vietnamese Literature”. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, 1973. Coughlin, Richard. “The Position of Women in Vietnam”. Mimeographed. Southeast Asian Studies, Yale University, 1950. Dang Nguyen Anh. “Migration Patterns and Economic Development in Viet Nam”. Vietnam Social Sciences 89, no. 3 (2002): 89–96. Dang Thuat Minh and Pham Thu Thuy. “Representations of Doi Moi Society in Contemporary Vietnamese Cinema”. In Consuming Urban Culture in Contemporary Vietnam, edited by L.B.W. Drummond and M. Thomas. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Daniels, Bruce. Puritans at Play: Leisure and Recreation in Colonial New England. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995. Davies, Andrew. Leisure, Gender and Poverty: Working-Class Culture in Salford and Manchester, 1900–39. Buckingham, Phil.: Open University Press, 1992.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

377

Drummond, Lisa B.W. “Mapping Modernity: Perspectives on Everyday Life in Vietnam’s Urbanizing Society”. Ph.D. dissertation, Australian National University, 1999. ———. “Street Scenes: Practices of Public and Private Space in Urban Vietnam”. Urban Studies 37, no. 12 (2000): 2377–91. Elliott, Mai Van Duong. The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Fahey, Stephanie. “Vietnam’s Women in the Renovation Era”. In Gender and Power in Affluent Asia, edited by K. Sen and M. Stivens. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. General Civil Service Commission. “Vietnamese Women in Civil Service”. In Women in Vietnam: Selected Articles from Vietnamese Periodicals, Saigon, Hanoi, 1957–1966, translated by Chiem T. Kiem. Honolulu: Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange between East and West, University of Hawaii, [1961] 1967. General Statistics Office (GSO). Statistical Data of Vietnamese Socio-Economy, 1975– 2000. Hanoi: Thong Ke, 2001. Gerke, Solvay. “Global Lifestyles under Local Conditions: The New Indonesian Middle Class”. In Consumption in Asia: Lifestyles and Identities, edited by Chua Beng-Huat. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Ha Thi Phuong Tien and Ha Quang Ngoc. Female Labour Migration: Rural–Urban. Hanoi: Phu Nu, 2001. Hansson, Anders, Bonnie McDougall, and Frances Weightman, eds. The Chinese at Play: Festivals, Games and Leisure. London: Kegan Paul, 2002. Heath, Anthony. Social Mobility. Glasgow: Fontana, 1981. Heryanto, Ariel. “The Years of Living Luxuriously: Identity Politics of Indonesia’s New Rich”. In Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia, edited by M. Pinches. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Hoang Ngoc Thanh Dung. “To Serve the Cause of Women’s Liberation”. In To Be Made Over: Tales of Socialist Reeducation in Vietnam, edited and translated by Huynh Sanh Thong. New Haven, Conn.: Council on Southeast Asia Studies, Yale Center for International and Area Studies; Boston, Mass.: William Joiner Center, 1988. Hooper, Beverley. “‘Flower Vase and Housewife’: Women and Consumerism in Post-Mao China”. In Gender and Power in Affluent Asia, edited by K. Sen and M. Stivens. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. Kim Seung-Kuk. “Changing Lifestyles and Consumption Patterns of the South Korean Middle Class and New Generations”. In Consumption in Asia: Lifestyles and Identities, edited by Chua Beng-Huat. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. Le Kwang Kim. “A Woman of Viet-Nam in a Changing World”. In Women in the

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

378

Catherine Earl

New Asia: The Changing Social Roles of Men and Women in South and South-East Asia, edited by B.E. Ward. Paris: UNESCO, 1963. Le Ly Hayslip. When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman’s Journey from War to Peace. New York: Plume, 1989. Le Thi. Employment and Life of Vietnamese Women during Economic Transition. Hanoi: The Gioi, 2001. ———. Women and Gender Equality in Doi Moi in Vietnam. Hanoi: Phu Nu, 1998. Le Thi Nham Tuyet. “The Vietnamese Woman Today — Who Is She?” In Images of the Vietnamese Woman in the New Millenium, edited by Le Thi Nham Tuyet. Hanoi: The Gioi, 2002. Leheny, David. The Rules of Play: National Identity and the Shaping of Japanese Leisure. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003. Loewald, Uyen. Child of Vietnam. Melbourne: Hyland House, 1987. Long, Lynellyn D. et al. “Changing Gender Relations in Vietnam’s Post Doi Moi Era”. Development Research Group/Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network, World Bank, June 2000. Marr, David and Stanley Rosen. “Chinese and Vietnamese Youth in the 1990s”. In Transforming Asian Socialism: China and Vietnam Compared, edited by A. Chan, B.J.T. Kerkvliet, and J. Unger. St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1999. McNally, Stephen. “Bia om and Karaoke: HIV and Everyday Life in Urban Vietnam”. In Consuming Urban Culture in Contemporary Vietnam, edited by L.B.W. Drummond and M. Thomas. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. McReynolds, Louise. Russia at Play: Leisure Activities at the End of the Tsarist Era. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003. Nguyen Thi Thu-Lam. Fallen Leaves: Memoirs of a Vietnamese Woman from 1940 to 1975. New Haven, Conn.: Council on Southeast Asia Studies, Yale Center for International and Area Studies; Boston, Mass.: William Joiner Center, 1989. Nguyen-Rouault, Florence. Une famille de Saigon. La Tour d’Aigues: L’Aube, 1999. Ockey, Jim. “Creating the Thai Middle Class”. In Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia, edited by M. Pinches. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Pettus, Ashley. Between Sacrifice and Desire: National Identity and the Governing of Femininity in Vietnam. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Pham Minh Hac. Vietnam’s Education: The Current Position and Future Prospects. Hanoi: The Gioi, 1998. Pham Xuan Nam. “Some Preliminary Ideas on the Change of Social Structure and Classes in Viet Nam during the Transition to a Socialist-Oriented Market Economy”. Vietnam Social Sciences 92, no. 6 (2002): 31–42. Pinches, Michael. “Cultural Relations, Class and the New Rich of Asia”. In Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia, edited by M. Pinches. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Leisure and Social Mobility in Ho Chi Minh City

379

PuruShotam, Nirmala. “Between Compliance and Resistance: Women and the Middle-class Way of Life in Singapore”. In Gender and Power in Affluent Asia, edited by K. Sen and M. Stivens. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. Son Nam. Nguoi Saigon [The Saigonese]. Ho Chi Minh City: Nha Xuat Ban Tre, 1992. Southern Vietnamese Women’s Museum. Phu Nu Mien Nam [Southern Vietnamese women]. Ho Chi Minh City: Southern Vietnamese Women’s Museum, 1993. Thai Thi Ngoc Du. “Women Influencing Housing in Ho Chi Minh City”. In Women’s Rights to House and Land: China, Laos, Vietnam, edited by I. Tinker and G. Summerfield. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999. ———. “Economic Transformation and the Life of Female Intellectuals in Ho Chi Minh City”. In Ten Years of Progress: Vietnamese Women from 1985 to 1995, edited by Le Thi and Do Thi Binh. Hanoi: Phu Nu, 1997. Thomas, Mandy. “Out of Control: Emergent Cultural Landscapes and Political Change in Urban Vietnam”. Urban Studies 39, no. 9 (2002): 1611–24. ———. “Public Spaces/Public Disgraces: Crowds and the State in Contemporary Vietnam”. SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 16, no. 2 (2001): 306–30. Thomas, Mandy and Nguyen Bich Thuan. “Gender, Bodies and Emerging Forms of Relatedness in Post-Socialist Vietnam”. Paper presented at a workshop on Gender, Socialism and Globalization in Contemporary China and Vietnam, Gender Relations Centre, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 2003. Thrift, Nigel and Dean Forbes. The Price of War: Urbanization in Vietnam, 1954– 1985. London: Allen and Unwin, 1986. “Top Ten Cultural Events of 2000 in Viet Nam”. Vietnam Social Sciences 81, no. 1 (2001): 110–11. Tran Thi Van Anh and Le Ngoc Hung. Women and Doi Moi in Vietnam. 2nd edition. Hanoi: Phu Nu, 2000. Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Dover, [1899] 1994. Vietnam Women’s Union and Centre for Women’s Studies. Vietnamese Women in the Eighties. Hanoi: The Gioi, 1989. Wakeman, Frederic. “Licensing Leisure: The Chinese Nationalists’ Attempt to Regulate Shanghai, 1927–49”. Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 1 (1995): 19–42. Yeomans, Lien. Green Papaya: New Fruit from Old Seeds. Milsons Point, NSW: Random House, 2001. Young, Ken. “Consumption, Social Differentiation and Self-definition of the New Rich in Industrializing Southeast Asia”. In Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia, edited by M. Pinches. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

380

Index

Reproduced from Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform, edited by Philip Taylor (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

Index administrative reforms, 49–52, 73 African countries, comparisons with inequality in, 9–10 agricultural collectives, dismantling of, 171, 237 agricultural collectivization, 19–20, 238, 270 agricultural households, landownership of, 107–9, 236– 38, 241, 248–52 agricultural liberalization, 138–40, 142–43, 240–41 agricultural produce, prices of, 99, 149–56, 247–49 An Giang province, 253, 254, 257–60 aquaculture, Mekong delta, 240, 241, 249, 253, 266 artisans, collectivization, 170 ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), 72, 149 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC), 67, 149 Asian Development Bank (ADB), 237, 242 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 67, 149 authors illustrating party politics, 334 peasant originated, 336 Bac Ninh province, 100, 270–96 Ba Chua Kho (female spirit), 13

Ba Chua Xu (female spirit), 259 banking sector, reforms in, 66 slow pace of, 69–70 Bang Son, 358 Binh Duong province, 95, 97, 100, 114 Bulgaria, comparisons with rural conditions in, 96, 118 business services, access to, 101 cafes, 365–67 Ca Mau petrochemical complex, 11 Ca Mau province, 101, 116, 257, 266, 267 Catholic communities, 113 Central Highlands, 8, 23, 95, 105–6, 108–9, 110, 115, 271 Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), 100 centrally planned economy, 64 Cham (ethnic minority), 110, 250, 260 Chau Doc, 15 Chieng Hoa village (Hoa Binh province) agricultural activities in, 134–35 agricultural production of, 142, 149–56 collectivization period in, 129–30 features, 125–29 food shortage in, 132–34 global integration period in, 148– 49

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Index

land distribution in, 131 liberalization period in, 138–42 longan and lychee production in, 150–52 non-farm activities of, 135–36, 143–45, 156–57 paddy production in, 149–50 political positions in, 136–38, 146–48, 157 sugar cane production in, 150, 152–54 watermelon production in, 154–56 child born out of wedlock, 316 child mortality, 7 China, comparisons with inequality in, 9–11, 12, 33, 99, 112, 140 Chinese ethnic minority, 109–10, 214, 250, 259 poverty rates among, 109 cinemas, 365–67 Cochinchina, 21 coffee, fall in price of, 8, 95 collectivization period, 129–32 college education, importance of, 193 Colonial-era inequalities, 6, 18–22 Committee of Ethnic Minorities and Mountainous Regions, 111 communal land access to, 274 illegal encroachment on, 276 output, inequality in access to, 278–83 communal land resources, 281–82 communal land-use rights, 282 Communist Party membership of, 5, 8, 18–19, 20–21 policies towards inequality, 7, 12, 19–20, 24–25, 329 concept of nation, 325 Confucianism orientation towards inequality, 12–13, 15, 18, 20, 25 revival of, 314 construction of infrastructure, 275

381

construction, rapid growth, 66 corruption, 23–24, 27, 33, 58, 77, 138, 271, 278 by local cadres, 277, 279–80 protests against, 24, 287–91 cross-border trade, 111 cultural constructions of inequality, 12–18 cultural life at the grass-roots in the Mekong delta, 301 culture of slums, 301 Dai Loc land acquisition by government, 275 land-selling villagers, 285 Dao Vu, 333 decision-making over land, inequality, 283–87 decollectivization, 116, 271 definition of region, 92 demand stimulus policy, 67, 68 Diamond Plaza, 358 distress sales, 103 diversification, 271 doi moi, 63–66 economic success of, 90 Mekong delta, effect on, 240 reforms, 97 urban women, effect on, 360 Dong Thap province, 96, 266 dual-elite thesis, 174, 192, 198 Dung Quat oil refinery, 11, 102 East Asian region, export share, 82 Eastern European countries, contrast with, 111 e chong, 314 economic crises of 1970s, 110 economic growth, 9 economy, structural changes in, 74, 249–52 educational attainment, 217–29 and father ’s educational status, 180

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

382

Index

regional disparities in, 220 education public spending on, 11, 29, 222–25 private spending on, 3, 11, 225–27 inequalities in enrolments, 3–4, 11, 12, 217–22, 243–45, 257 indicators relating to, 224 electricity usage, inequalities in, 101 elite positions, achieving, 192 multinomial logit regression prediction of, 194–95 employment by ownership, 79 by sector, 78, 80 entrepreneurial capacities, 99–102 factors affecting, 101 entrepreneurship, factors affecting, 173 entrepreneurs with training low rate of, 100 and constraints on equipment, 100 ethnic inequalities, definition of, 5, 17–18, 22–23, 266 ethnic minorities conflicts, 8, 23 population of, 109, 245 poverty among, 17, 84, 209, 245– 46 problems of, 8, 9, 236–39, 260–65 proportion of poor, 57, 238, 245 school attendance, 5, 6, 219–22, 239, 245, 261–62 state policies relating to, 11, 17– 18, 22–23, 34, 110–11, 222–33, 237–38, 260–64 European Union countries, trade with, 82 export and import, 80 exports, increase in, 81

female to male ratio of tertiary students, 11 female workers adaptation to urban life, 308 conflict with parents, 306 gender identities of, 30, 321 ideals of marriage, 299 identity at work, 307 in garment making industry, 298– 99 marriage issues, 305, 316 migration of, 298, 304 working conditions, 4, 298, 300–2 foreign currency remitted to Ho Chi Minh City, 113 foreign direct investment, attraction of, 70–71 foreign invested enterprises, 71 foreign investment sector, 8

family planning propaganda, 319 father ’s occupational status, effect on children’s education, 180 father ’s party membership effect on human capital, 182

Ha Giang province, 101, 218 handicraft villages as production units, 100 Hai Phong, 14, 48, 97, 114 Hanoi, social conditions, 4, 112, 114

garment industry labour conditions in workshops, 300–2 music, importance of, 312 views of female owner, 309 gender ideologies, dominant, 317 gender inequalities, 4–5, 7, 11, 16, 20, 22, 211, 302–4 gender-related development index (GDI), 211 Gini coefficient of income inequality, 7, 106, 112, 133 globalization, 8–9, 10, 148–57 global markets, fluctuations in, 8 gross domestic product (GDP), 10, 33, by sector, 78, 79 composition, 77 structure by ownership, 76

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Index

Ha Tay, 100 health inequalities, 3, 4, 7 healthcare improvements, 7, 210 Hoa Hao religion, 259–60 Hoan Kiem Lake, 358 Ho Bieu Chanh, 329 Ho Chi Minh, 18, 21, 52 Ho Chi Minh City, 104 as cultural model, 12, 16 Chinese population of, 110 foreign currency sent to, 113 living conditions in, 4, 16, 112, 113 migrant women in, 16, 351–72 migration to, 114, 252, 257–58 recreational activities, 357 Hoa Binh province, 9, 124–25, 153 household living standards surveys. See Vietnam Living Standards Surveys housing inequalities, 3, 128–29, 141, 160, 260 human capital, 173, 243–45, 256–58 attainment, 177–81 employment, effect on, 193 multinomial logistic and logistic regression prediction, 178–79 reduces chance of self-employment, 191 human development index, increase in, 74, 211 human poverty index (HPI), 211 illiteracy rates, 221 reduction of, 217 urban/rural, 221 import values, increase in, 82 income gap, 3, 7, 104, 106, 107 widening, 7, 32, 107, 212, 214 income-general opportunities, nonfarm, 104 income, net from agricultural produce, 99 Indonesia, comparisons with inequality in, 9–11 infant mortality, 4

383

infrastructure construction of, 5, 236–38, 241–43 lack of, 101 institutional changes, 63 integration period, 148, 149 international economic integration, 71–73 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 24 international trade, 81 Internet, 1, 6 inter-provincial trade and transportation, 117 inter-regional migration, 114, 115 interrupted-embourgeoisement thesis, 173 investment increase in share of GDP, 75 ownership, 76 investment policies, liberalized, 67 Khmer Krom (ethnic Khmer minority), 5, 15, 17, 29, 34, 110, 236–39, 245–46, 256 marginalization of, 260–65 labour force, employment profile of, 217 labour, in state sector, 78, 305 Lai Chau, social conditions, 4, 32, 101–2 Lai Van Long, 343–45 land, and indigenous people, 254–56, 271 claims by state, 271, 274, 275 compensation for, 284 distribution of, 131 encroachment, illegal, 271, 276, 280 inequalities in access to, 271–72, 287–91 lack of, 100 ownership by farming households, 107 use, inequalities in, 273–78 use rights in, 284

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

384

sales, in Mekong delta, 249 Land Law, 66, 116, 149, 273–74, 278, 314 Land Reform, 19, 131 landless children, 274 landlessness, level of, 103 among rural households, 108 La Phu, textile village of, 100 Le Duan, 43, 52 Le Duc Tho, 43, 52 leisure, urban women and, 360 Le Kha Phieu, 47, 54 Le Luu, 337 Le Ngoc Tra, 328 liberalization, 63 liberalization period, 138–40 liberal reform era, 7 life expectancy, 210 literature 18th century, 326 emergence of peasants in, 326–35 outraged peasants in, 342 in Popular Front period, 329 in wartime, 334 longan and lychee production, 150– 52 macroeconomic stabilization, 66 makeovers, beauty, 369 Malaysia, comparisons with inequality in, 11 malnutrition, incidence of, 7 management training, entrepreneurs with, 100 manual workers, 4 market-based economy, development of, 215 market reforms central planning of, 167 effect on occupational structure, 171 market-transition thesis, 174, 191, 198 marriage and family, 313 maternity mortality, 210

Index

media and social inequality, 1, 34, 317–20 Mekong delta cash, need for, 248 education situation in, 232, 243–44 expansion of transport infrastructure in, 241–43, 253 high rural incomes in, 236 infrastructure, lack of, 236–38, 241, migration into/from, 5, 114 land sales in, 248 landlessness in, 107–8, 241 low education enrolments of, 232, 236, 243–44 poverty in, 105, 213, 241, 245, 247 productivity of, 111, 236 reform policies, unexpected results from, 238 schooling, limits of, 256–57 unemployment in, 6, 216, 217 workers, types of, 215, 251 Mekong Delta Poverty Analysis Project, 241, 242 meritocracy, emphasis on, 49 migrant women and cafes, 365–67 and cinemas, 365–67 educated urban, 352–56 and leisure, 307–13, 351 motorbike, use of, 363–65 and shopping, 368–71 as unmarried, 320 migration of educated and skilled, 113 for education, 257–58, 353 inter-regional, 114 intra-regional, 352 to cities, 23, 257–58, 302–7 by women workers, 16, 30, 302–7 military, status of, 13 military service, effect of, 136, 184 minister, dismissal of, 44 Ministry of Construction, 98 Ministry of Government Affairs, 50

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Index

monetary policy, 66 mono-organizational socialism, 43 moral economy approach, 272 mother with school-age children, 231 motorbikes, 1, 3, 32, 363–65 Muong ethnic community, differentiation in, 9, 28, 123–58 Nam Cao, 330–31 National Assembly, 1, 44, 49, 53, 54 national policies affecting development, 102, 236 nationalization of industry, 19, 170 Nationalist Party, 19 New Economic Zones, 110 New Enterprise Law, 70 Nguyen Anh Ninh, 21 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, 328 Nguyen Dinh Thi, 335 Nguyen Khac Truong, 337 Nguyen Khai, 340–42 Nguyen Minh Chau, 337–39 Nguyen Minh Triet, 46 Nguyen Tan Dung, 46 Nguyen Van Linh, 35 Nong Duc Manh, 44, 45 Northeast Asia, comparison with inequality in, 9–12 Northwest region, 4, 101, 105, 140, 215–17 occupational structural change, 170–72 occupation mobility, 166, 168 between father and children, 169 inter-generational, 168 in North Vietnam, 168 offerings to spirits, 14, 259 off-farm proprietors, mobility of, 168 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 9, 10 overseas Vietnamese, remittances from, 8, 113, 250

385

parental social status, effect of, 177 party members, rural based, 20 Party Commission for Organization and Personnel, 50 party membership, 175, 181 of father, 180 logistic regressions prediction, 183 minimum age, 181 peasants discontent and protests, 15, 19, 24, 30, 287–91 in literature, 326 as main characters, 327–29 in modern literature, 329–35 in post-war literature, 335 post-1975, 340 People’s Committees composition, 5 Pham Duy Ton, 329 Pham Xuan Nam, 362 Phan Dien, 46 Phan Van Khai, 24, 46, 47 Philippines, comparison with inequality in, 11 political capital, 7–8, 9, 28, 55, 202– 3, 172 attainment, 181–84 occupational mobility affected by, 175 as primary determinant, 193 political leaders, regional affiliations of, 45 poor, distribution of, 94, 105, 213 Popular Front period, 329 poverty and land allocation, 103 differences between ethnic groups, 17, 109–11, 212 reduction in, 24–25, 83, 103–4, 212–17 incidence by region, 83–84, 94, 103–5, 212, 213 upland versus lowland rates 4, 110– 11, 212–14, 230 urban versus rural, 111–13, 213

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

386

power-conversion thesis, 174, 191 poverty assessment team, 220 price liberalization, 66 private farmers collectivization of, 170 mobility of, 168 private industry, nationalization of, 170 private sector, surge in development of, 70 private spending on education, 3, 11, 226, 229 on health, 7, 248 prostitution, 22 Tra Vinh province, 254–56, 263 public administration reform, 49 public education resources, allocation of, 224 public spending criteria for allocation, 233 current policy, 230 on education, 222–23 rational peasant approach, 272 Red River delta as political centre, 14 lack of land in, 100 land access in, 271–92 land reform, 131 private spending on education in, 225 poverty reduction success in, 104 social conditions in, 13, 113, 140 reform process achievements of, 66, 67 as uneven, 63 of banking system, 69–70 issues to be resolved, 86 of state-owned enterprises, 68–69 overview of, 64–67 regional competition, 96–99 region, definition of, 92 regional development, outcomes, 102 regional divisions, determination of, 95

Index

regional inequality, 4, 83–84, 92, 96, 103, 104, 117–18 remittances from overseas Vietnamese, 8, 113, 250 residential land high demand for, 280 transferred from agricultural land, 277 religion social inequality and, 13–14, 123, 244, 258–60, 263–65 in Mekong delta, 244, 246, 258–60, 263–65 resources, competition for, 97 rice exports, 209, 240 collapse in price of, 8–9, 247–49, 261 production in Mekong delta, 8, 240, 247–49 rotation policy of senior officials, 49 rural-based party members, 20 rural households, landlessness of, 108 income inequality, 107, 213, 245 industry, equipment constraints in, 100 manual production, 100 proportion of trained workforce, 215 standard of living, 3 unemployment, 23 rural-rural migration, 116 rural-urban disparities, 3, 4, 19, 23, 24, 32, 56, 112 sacrifice to the collective, ethic of, 12, 13 sanitation inequalities, 3 savings and investments, 75 scholars, literature in, 326 school dropouts, 3, 23 self-employed, mobility of, 168 self-employment, 185–92 effect of wartime service on, 189 factors affecting, 173

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Index

logistic regressions prediction, 187 reduction of, 170 senior officials, rotation of, 49 services, rapid growth, 66 Sixth Party National Congress, 65 socialist era, inequalities during, 6–8, 55–58 social mobility, effect of prolonged war, 167 South America, comparisons with inequality in, 9–11 South Asia, comparisons with inequality in, 9–11 southeast region, 8, 213, 215–18 households with landholdings in, 109 poverty in, 105–6 spatial mobility, 113, 252, 254–56 causes, 116, 254–56, 257–58, 302–7 spirit worship, 13, 259 State Bank of Vietnam, 66 state-owned commercial banks (SOCBs), sluggish reforms of, 69–70 state-owned enterprises (SOEs), 66– 69, 77–80 Strategy for Socio-Economic Development, 85 students exempted from making contributions, 228 subsidies, system of, 117 sugar cane production, 150, 152–54 teacher-class ratio, 223 territorial management, 96–99 tertiary students female to male ratio, 11 Taiwanese, concerns about behaviour of, 34 Thach Lam, 337 Thai Binh protests, 24 Thailand, comparisons with inequality in, 11 Tien Giang province, 15, 99–101, 253,

387

257, 267 trade regime, liberalized, 71–73 trade relations, 82 traders, collectivization of, 170 Tran Dinh Hoan, 51 Tran Duc Luong, 45, 47 Truong Chinh, 19, 21, 52, 330 unemployment for those over 15 years old, 216 in mountainous regions, 215 rural, 23, 215 unskilled workers, 4, 215 upper secondary school education, 222 urban areas cultural standing of, 7–8, 12, 16, 18, 30, 32, 304–6, 307–9, 352– 56 disparities with rural areas. See rural-urban disparities elites in, 7, 8, 10, 13, 18, 21 standard of living in, 3, 6, 23, 56 traders based in, 7, 8, 13, 14 production of revolutionary leaders, 18, 21, 48 prostitution in, 22, 34 urbanization, factors affecting, 116 urban life, adaptation to, 308 urban planning strategies, 98 Veblen, Thorstein, 358, 361 Viet majority, 109 Vietnamese Confucianism, 302 Vietnamese Communist Party. See also Communist Party accountability, 52–54 and mono-organizational socialism, 43 and National Assembly, powers of, 44, 53 Central Committee of, 53–54 Central Committee Secretariat, 53 leadership positions, 43 leadership succession, 42–49

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

388

Members’ Responsibility System, 53 personnel appointment, 54 Political Bureau of, 54 political reforms, 53 power balance of, 42–49 Sixth National Congress of, 41 structure of, 52 Third Central Committee Plenum, 53 Vietnam Living Standards Surveys, 32, 104, 112, 113, 209 Vietnam Longtitudinal Survey, 167 Vietnam’s National Committee for the Advancement of Women, 4 Vietnam–US Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA), 72 textile and garment sector, 81 Vinh Kim village (in Tien Giang province), 21, 267 Vo Nguyen Giap, 19, 52, 330 Vung Tau-Baria, 114

Index

war, participation in, 173, 318 interaction with party membership, 197, 198 war veteran organization, role of, 196 welfare state regional policy, removal of, 103 women, role of after war, 318 dominance in part-time, casual and informal positions, 7, 16, 361–62 in politics, 4–5 as soldiers, post-war experiences of, 314 workers informalization of work, 7, 16 migration of, 16 trained, 215 women, 4, 297–69. See also female workers World Bank, 17, 25, 237, 242 writers field trips to the warfront, 332

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

About the Contributors

389

Reproduced from Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform, edited by Philip Taylor (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

About the Contributors

The authors are members of a new generation of researchers working on Vietnam. Collectively they have many years of experience researching social conditions in Vietnam. They include a number of senior Vietnamese researchers whose work on social policy in Vietnam makes their findings particularly authoritative and up-to-date. The other authors are academics and Ph.D. scholars from Vietnam and the Asia-Pacific region who are actively engaged in academic and applied social policy research in Vietnam. Philip Taylor is an anthropologist with extensive fieldwork experience in Vietnam. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Australian National University in 1998 and is a Fellow in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the ANU. He is the author of two ethnographies on southern Vietnam and numerous journal articles and book chapters on Vietnamese history, culture, and society. David Koh is a Fellow and researcher at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. He completed his Ph.D. on local government in Vietnam in 1999 and is the author of numerous articles and an edited book on the Vietnamese political system. Vo Tri Thanh obtained his Ph.D. from the Australian National University in 1997. He is Director of the Department for Trade Policy and International Integration Studies in the Central Institute for Economic Management, Hanoi. He is the author of numerous book chapters, papers,

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

390

About the Contributors

and reports on the Vietnamese economy undertaken in conjunction with international aid agencies in Vietnam. Pham Hoang Ha obtained his graduate diploma in the economics of development from the Australian National University in 1997 and M.Sc. in economics from Birmingham University, UK, in 2003. Since 1993 he has worked at the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) and now serves as an economist in the macroeconomic policy department. His main research interests are macroeconomic policy with a focus on financial issues. He has recently conducted studies on the business environment and the competitiveness of the Vietnamese economy. Steffanie Scott is Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Waterloo. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia in 2001. Her dissertation and subsequent research has focused on rural livelihoods in the face of agricultural decollectivization. In particular, she has examined processes shaping vulnerability of small farmers, including female-headed households and ethnic minority populations, through property rights reforms. Steffanie has also been involved in academic capacity-building and consulting on localized poverty reduction in Vietnam, and research on development cooperation and the role of universities in local development. Truong Thi Kim Chuyen obtained her Ph.D. in economic geography from Saint Petersburg University in 1992. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Geography and Anthropology Departments, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City. Her research focuses on gender and poverty reduction. She has been involved in gender and poverty reduction projects funded by UNDP, CIDA, SIDA and a number of NGOs as a researcher, consultant, coordinator, and facilitator. She is the author of numerous papers, book chapters, and reports on development and social issues in Vietnam. Tran Thi Thu Trang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. Her work focuses on rural diversification and differentiation, particularly in Vietnam. She has published a number of articles on local governance, as well as on the role of information in rural diversification. She has several years of experience in field research, and has been

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

About the Contributors

391

involved in the management and evaluation of rural development projects for academics, NGOs, and UN agencies. Jee Young Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. Her research interests include corporate social responsibility and labour markets in Vietnam. She is currently conducting fieldwork in Ho Chi Minh City for her dissertation on the diffusion of international standards in Vietnam, regarding quality management, environmental protection, and labour practices. Vu Quoc Ngu obtained his Ph.D. in the economics of development from the Australian National University in 2002. He has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. He is currently Socio-economic Researcher for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Hanoi, and lectures at the National Economics University. He was among the main authors of the recent UNDP reports on Vietnam’s achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Nguyen Van Suu is a Lecturer in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi National University. He completed his Ph.D. in anthropology at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University in 2004. His Ph.D. research was based on one year’s fieldwork in the Red River delta and examines the daily politics of land in a number of villages in the province of Bac Ninh. His research specializations include history, anthropology, state-society relations, and agrarian studies. He is the author of several articles on land, peasants, and the agricultural economy in Vietnam. Nghiem Lien Huong is a Ph.D. candidate in the Social Sciences Program, University of Amsterdam. She has undertaken research on rural-urban migration, gender and the industrial labour force in Vietnam and is currently completing her thesis on female garment workers in Hanoi. She has published several articles on the sociology of work, urbanization, and women in Vietnam. Montira Rato is Lecturer in Vietnamese Language and Literature at the Department of Eastern Languages, Chulalongkorn University. She

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

392

About the Contributors

completed her Ph.D. on modern Vietnamese literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her current research projects include a study on fictional truth and historical truth in Nguyen Huy Thiep’s works, “From Tradition to Modernity: A Comparative Study of Literary Development in Thailand and Vietnam in 1930s” and “To Tam”, Vietnam’s first novel. Catherine Earl is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Social Sciences, Victoria University, Melbourne. She conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong delta for her thesis on identity and social change in urban Vietnam. She has recently given papers on issues relating to femininity, mobility, and identity at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Ho Chi Minh City), EUROSEAS, National University of Singapore, Victoria University, and the Australian National University, where she held a National Visiting Scholarship in the Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore

Reproduced from Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform, edited by Philip Taylor (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004). This version was obtained electronically direct from the publisher on condition that copyright is not infringed. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Individual articles are available at < http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg >

Publications in the Vietnam Update Series Doi Moi: Vietnam’s Renovation Policy and Performance, edited by Dean K. Forbes, Terence H. Hull, David G. Marr, and Brian Brogan. Monograph 14. Canberra: Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University, 1991. Vietnam and the Rule of Law: Proceedings of Vietnam Update Conference, November 1992, edited by Carlyle A. Thayer and David G. Marr. Canberra: Department of Political and Social Change, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1993. Vietnam’s Rural Transformation, edited by Doug J. Porter and Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet. Boulder: Westview Press; and Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1995. Dilemmas of Development: Vietnam Update 1994, edited by Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet. Monograph 22. Canberra: Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University, 1995. Vietnam Assessment: Creating a Sound Investment Climate, edited by Suiwah Leung. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1996. Doi Moi: Ten Years after the 1986 Party Congress, edited by Adam Fforde. Monograph 23. Canberra: Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University, 1997. The Mass Media in Vietnam, edited by David Marr. Monograph 25. Canberra: Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University, 1998. Consuming Urban Culture in Contemporary Vietnam, edited by Lisa Drummond and Mandy Thomas. London: Routledge/Curzon, 2003. Getting Organized in Vietnam: Moving in and around the Socialist State, edited by Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet, Russell H.K. Heng, and David W.H. Koh. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2003. Beyond Hanoi: Local Government in Vietnam, edited by Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet and David G. Marr. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004. Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform, edited by Philip Taylor. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2004.

© 2004 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore