HO CHI MINH CITY -- Nguyen Phu Trong, the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) chief who ushered in an era of strong ties with the U.S., kept rival China happy, and mounted a historic crackdown on corruption in the fast-growing economy, died Friday due to "old age and serious illness," the government said on its website. He was 80.
The web post, citing information from Trong's medical team, said he died in the early afternoon on Friday "after a period of illness."
Vietnam's President To Lam temporarily took over Trong's duties on Thursday "due to the need to continue to prioritize time for the general-secretary to focus on active treatment," the party's Politburo said in a statement.
Trong had served as party chief since 2011. His death thrusts Hanoi further into the political uncertainty the one-party state disdains, as investors and apparatchiks alike wait for a successor.
Trong's unrivaled Marxist-Leninist bona fides kept him in the good graces of the only communist party bigger than his, next door in China. He simultaneously presided over a flowering of relations with the U.S., a country with which it fought a long, bloody war and which still has a policy of questioning people's communist membership if they apply for citizenship.
In 2015, Trong became the only VCP general-secretary ever to visit the White House. The U.S. is Vietnam's biggest customer, viewing the country as a vital partner in computer chips and other products, and for managing conflict in the South China Sea.
"Trong's legacy will be consolidating power" for the party "through the dedicated anti-corruption campaign," Huong Le Thu, Asia deputy director at International Crisis Group, told Nikkei Asia. She said all the arrests and firings fueled uncertainty, but, said Thu, "I guess the biggest setback on his record would be the incomplete succession plan."
Trong was born to a family of farmers in 1944, when Vietnam was a French colony but occupied by Japan during World War II. As a student, at the height of the Vietnam War, he joined a workers party that would become today's ruling party. The Russian speaker studied party-building and literature before devoting his career to communism. He held a string of roles, from editing the party magazine to serving as both parliament chairman and secretary of the parliament's party committee.
He assumed the post of general-secretary, Vietnam's top political position, in 2011, a year before Xi Jinping became his counterpart in China. Their careers continued in parallel, with both men eventually winning unprecedented third terms and launching signature graft clampdowns that were also seen as tools against rivals.
China's then-Vice President Xi Jinping, left, poses with Vietnam's Communist Party General-Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the party's Office in Hanoi in December 2011. © Reuters But before that, Trong had to outmaneuver a competitor, Nguyen Tan Dung, in order to secure his second term. Dung had a business-friendly reputation, while Trong focused on "revitalizing ideology as a means of preventing moral decay among party members," scholars Le Hong Hiep and Nguyen Khac Giang wrote on the Fulcrum blog.
Hanoi is currently lobbying Washington to recognize it as a market economy. Vietnam showed the most support for free markets among countries in a 2014 Pew survey.
But the crackdown that has come to define Trong's tenure was ostensibly aimed at tamping down the excesses of capitalism. Although he remained unsullied, investigators unearthed skeletons, sometimes more than a decade old, of other top politicians and tycoons, many of whom wound up fired or imprisoned for venality from bribery to embezzlement to bid-rigging.
"While the campaign's boldness in targeting high-ranking officials is undeniable, it has also attracted criticism for a lack of transparency in certain cases," Viet Think Tank Executive Chairman Ha Hoang Hop told Nikkei.
Global companies ranging from U.S. tech giant Apple, to Chinese EV maker BYD, to Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo and others are expanding their supply chains in Vietnam, which is becoming a hub for textiles and tech products, despite investor concerns about the crackdown. Some multinationals are diversifying for geopolitical reasons, just as Vietnam itself tries to maintain diverse relations. It is the only country to host the presidents of Russia, the U.S. and China in the past year.
"While there are certain achievements for Vietnam's foreign policy under [Trong's] helm, they are, to me, a continuation of Vietnam's hedging approach to balance between China and the U.S., as well as a continuation of its internationalization approach to foreign affairs," Hanh Nguyen, a research fellow at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies, told Nikkei.
Hanoi emphasizes consensus over strongman rule. Sporting bookish sweaters and spectacles, Trong was known less for foreign policy and more for scholarly pronouncements on "the socialist revolution and the constant improvement of the people's material and spiritual life," as he said in a 2022 speech. He wrote several books that were very on-brand, including about strengthening the party and fighting corruption.
"Vietnam has grown in regional stature under Trong, asserting itself as a proactive player" in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, for example, Hop said. "The next leader must address the lingering challenges of overregulation, [and] limited private-sector growth," as well as "rising social inequalities, environmental concerns and the need for greater social mobility."
The coming transition may mark a changing of the guard, with few leaders able to match Trong's record. David Brown, a former U.S. diplomat in Vietnam, called this moment the "end of an era."
