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    Thayer Vo Van Thuong - Vietnam's Next Party Leader?

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    Carlyle Alan Thayer
    This Background Brief addresses three questions: (1) what has Vo Van Thuong contributed to Vietnam’s domestic and foreign policies? (2) will there be any changes in foreign policy if Thuong becomes the next president? (3) if Thuong become president how will this affect his chances of becoming party leader in 2026?

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    Thayer Vo Van Thuong - Vietnam's Next Party Leader?

    Uploaded by

    Carlyle Alan Thayer
    858 views2 pages
    This Background Brief addresses three questions: (1) what has Vo Van Thuong contributed to Vietnam’s domestic and foreign policies? (2) will there be any changes in foreign policy if Thuong becomes the next president? (3) if Thuong become president how will this affect his chances of becoming party leader in 2026?

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    Thayer Vo Van Thuong- Vietnam’s Next Party Leader?

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    This Background Brief addresses three questions: (1) what has Vo Van Thuong contributed to Vietnam’s domestic and foreign policies? (2) will there be any changes in foreign policy if Thuong becomes the next president? (3) if Thuong become president how will this affect his chances of becoming party leader in 2026?

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    858 views2 pages

    Thayer Vo Van Thuong - Vietnam's Next Party Leader?

    Uploaded by

    Carlyle Alan Thayer
    This Background Brief addresses three questions: (1) what has Vo Van Thuong contributed to Vietnam’s domestic and foreign policies? (2) will there be any changes in foreign policy if Thuong becomes the next president? (3) if Thuong become president how will this affect his chances of becoming party leader in 2026?

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Thayer Consultancy Background Brief:

    ABN # 65 648 097 123


    Vo Van Thuong: Vietnam’s Next
    Party Leader?
    February 23, 2023

    Vo Van Thuong’s career has been mainly in the


    Vietnam Communist Party if he is appointed/elected as Vietnam’s new president he
    will shift focus to state matters and policy issues.
    Q1. What are Vo Van Thuong’s contributions to the nation's domestic and external
    policies?
    ANSWER: Vo Van Thuong has spent his entire career within the Vietnam Communist
    Party organisation. He has been focused on the education and training of party
    members in ideology, culture, ethics and morality at grassroots level and above. As
    Thuong has risen in the party’s ranks, he has taken on more responsibilities in the
    general area of party-building particularly in personnel matters.
    Since Thuong’s elevation to head the party’s Secretariat he has assumed significant
    responsibility for the campaign to combat corruption and negative phenomena.
    Thuong has focused on preventing individualism, ending lobbying for jobs, and
    encouraging cadres who have erred to voluntarily resign. In addition, he has been
    intimately involved in decisions on streamlining the party bureaucracy, rotation of
    cadres, and emulation movements.
    Thuong is relatively new to foreign policy. His experience to date has been to travel
    overseas with senior party leaders and to interface with officials from other
    communist and fraternal parties as well as parties in power. For example, over the
    past year he has met political party leaders from Cambodia, China, Cuba, India,
    Japan, Laos, Mexico, Mozambique, Singapore and South Korea. Importantly, he
    accompanied General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to Beijing last year for Trong’s
    meeting with General Secretary Xi Jinping.
    Q2. Will there be any notable changes if Thuong becomes president?
    ANSWER: As state president Thuong is not expected to initiate any new change in
    Vietnam’s foreign policy. This is because there is a high degree of consensus among
    the top leaders on Vietnam’s foreign policy orientation. Also, foreign policy is the
    result of collective decision-making and consensus on the Politburo. However,
    Thuong is not as well versed in global affairs as his predecessor; he will be on a fast
    learning curve, and will be a relatively unknown quantity when he meetz his foreign
    counterparts.
    2

    Q3. How will becoming state president affect Thuong’s chances of becoming party
    leader in 2026?
    ANSWER: If Vo Van Thuong successfully carries out the duties of state president, he
    would be an odds on favourite to replace Nguyen Phu Trong as party General
    Secretary. His long and unblemished career in the party’s ranks as well as his
    relatively youthful age all weigh in his favour. In addition, he has a rather unique
    background with experience in all three regions of Vietnam. His family regrouped
    from South Vietnam to North Vietnam following the 1954 Geneva Conference.
    Thuong was born in Hai Duong province in the North. He returned to the South after
    reunification and his official biography lists Vinh Long as his home province. He went
    to university in Ho Chi Minh City and spent the bulk of his career in the South.
    Finally, he served as secretary of Quang Ngai province in Central Vietnam from 2011-
    14.

    Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, “Vo Van Thuong: Vietnam’s Next Party Leader?”
    Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, February 23, 2023. All background briefs are
    posted on Scribd.com (search for Thayer). To remove yourself from the mailing list
    type, UNSUBSCRIBE in the Subject heading and hit the Reply key.
    Thayer Consultancy provides political analysis of current regional security issues and
    other research support to selected clients. Thayer Consultancy was officially
    registered as a small business in Australia in 2002.

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