Vietnam’s rights suppression carries a heavy price

World leaders are cozying up to Hanoi — while activists are jailed

Lately governments of all stripes have been on a charm offensive with Hanoi, hoping Vietnam’s policy of “bamboo diplomacy” — balancing relations with regional and global powers while attracting foreign investment — will bend their way.

In July, the U.S. announced a new trade deal with the Vietnamese government and its Communist Party rulers. Last month, European Union Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic visited Hanoi. In the coming months, the EU is likely to deepen trade and security ties with Vietnam through a “comprehensive strategic partnership.”

Since 2023, Vietnam has secured new comprehensive strategic partnerships with Japan, Australia, the U.S., France, Malaysia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. Over the past two years, the leaders of Russia, China, the U.S. and Japan have all visited Vietnam.

World leaders are particularly keen to hitch their wagons to Vietnam’s impressive economic growth, which has transformed the country from one of Asia’s poorest to a significant economic powerhouse and America’s eighth largest trading partner. As the U.S. proves to be a less reliable trade partner, other governments are looking at Asia as the place where the world’s future wealth may be.

Western governments also see Vietnam as an important bulwark against Chinese influence in the region. But China has also deepened its investments in Vietnam, building factories to diversify its supply chains and circumvent trade restrictions from the West.

Governments expanding economic ties should recognize that Vietnam is among the most repressive countries in Southeast Asia. Its crackdown has escalated beyond prominent bloggers, journalists and human-rights defenders who have been imprisoned or driven into exile or underground. Now anyone who criticizes local officials on social media risks punishment.

Take the case of Dao Ba Cuong, a Vietnamese iron worker whose son died in police custody in October 2022. Police claimed the son took his own life, but his family believes he was beaten to death. The family turned their house into a protest site, livestreamed the protest on Facebook and filed petitions with the local government. Instead of obtaining justice, police arrested Dao and charged him with article 331 of the Penal Code “abusing the rights to democratic freedom to infringe upon the interests of the state.”

In December 2023, Dao was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. Dao’s case, and many others, were documented in a Human Rights Watch report published earlier this year that examined dozens of Vietnamese court documents, media sources (including state-controlled media) and hundreds of posts and videos on social media.

Since 2018, more than 140 people have been prosecuted under article 331 — a huge jump compared to 28 cases under the law in the previous six years. Vietnamese authorities increasingly see concerns raised about human rights, corruption and the environment as existential threats to Communist Party rule.

An ethnic Khmer truck driver was sentenced to prison for complaining on social media about discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic. A seamstress was convicted after she allowed her partner to use her laptop to comment on socio-political issues on social media. An ethnic Ede activist was imprisoned because he advocated freedom of religion. A former police officer went to jail for accusing his boss of corruption.

Foreign leaders seeking closer economic ties should be raising these cases directly with officials when they travel to Vietnam. They should prioritize the cases of those facing lengthy prison terms and those in desperate need of medical treatment like the journalists Pham Doan Trang and Pham Chi Dung.

Foreign leaders should remind Vietnam’s leaders that growth may stagnate if not accompanied by genuine reforms to ensure a fair and transparent economic system that respects the rule of law and due process. Growth at any cost also risks undermining people’s economic, social and cultural rights: The United Nations’ independent expert on poverty recently noted that “development should not be equated with an increase in gross domestic product, but by increased social and ecological wellbeing.”

Governments and corporations should also highlight the valuable role that civil society groups can play in addressing problems, even groups that hold views critical of the government and how that role can help galvanize governments to fix problems — whether it’s police torture, deaths in custody, air pollution, food safety or corruption.

The EU should hold Vietnam to its past promises to ratify International Labour Organization Convention No. 87 on freedom of association and the right to organize. The Vietnamese government should allow the formation of genuinely independent trade unions. For now, Vietnam’s relatively cheap, pliable workforce has few labor rights safeguards. But long-term sustained economic growth should not depend on state oppression; trade unions can be a powerful means to ensure adequate standards of worker safety and welfare as well as decent wages.

Some foreign diplomats say most Vietnamese people are satisfied with economic growth and simply aren’t demanding their rights. But that’s because those who do end up in prison. As some Vietnamese say, “The government allows freedom of speech — just no freedom after you speak.”

As for Dao, he was released this spring after serving more than 20 months of his sentence. If his Facebook page is anything to go by, prison has not quelled his resolve: “Our family is seeking justice. Where is the law and human rights in the country of Vietnam?”

The Vietnamese government’s suppression of rights won’t make demands for those rights disappear — and foreign leaders should be supporting them. It’s in Vietnam’s long-term strategic interest to develop not only a tolerance for views it doesn’t like, but to listen to people and address their grievances and concerns.

By Elaine Pearson – The Japan Times – October 20, 2025