The Communist Party of Vietnam yesterday elected a little-known official to be the country’s next prime minister, tasked with reviving the economy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic while navigating growing US-China tensions.
Pham Minh Chinh, 63, who rose through the ranks of Vietnam’s national security apparatus and has a doctorate in law, was the only candidate for prime minister put forward by the politburo. He also served on a powerful anti-corruption steering committee.
Chinh would be the main point person for Vietnam’s interactions with the world even though other members of the party are better known and seen as more powerful.
Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, 76, was re-elected to a rare third term on Jan. 31 by the National Party Congress during the once-in-five-year leadership transition wrapping up this week.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, 66, was yesterday elected president, enabling him to stay among the country’s top leaders.
Vuong Dinh Hue, 64, a former minister of finance and ex-deputy prime minister, was approved as chairman of the National Assembly — one of the four top positions in the government — last week.
Vietnam has a collective “four pillar” leadership structure made up of general secretary, prime minister, president and chair of the National Assembly, as the parliament is known. The leaders govern in consultation with the 18-member politburo, with the prime minister holding significant influence over project funding and detailed policy implementation.
Chinh was first secretary at Vietnam’s embassy in Romania in 1989 and became deputy public security minister in 2010. He is also a member of the country’s Central Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption led by Trong.
He was party chief of the northeastern coastal province of Quang Ninh, home to the World Heritage Site Ha Long Bay.
Analysts do not expect Chinh and the other leaders to veer from Vietnam’s long-held policies, including further opening its markets to the global economy and balancing relations with its powerful neighbor China and the US.
“You don’t have people vying for prime minister who have alternative economic policies,” said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “His job is to implement policies that have already been well thought out.”
The new prime minister is likely to grapple with economic reforms required by new trade deals and the need to address bottlenecks in the manufacturing sector with improved infrastructure, including ensuring reliable energy, said Peter Mumford, Southeast & South Asia practice head at risk consultancy Eurasia Group.
Key priorities would include working closely with US President Joe Biden’s administration to resolve tensions around trade and Vietnam’s currency, Mumford said.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS