Vietnam’s race betweenspeed and stamina

To Lam has fast consolidated power, but this new logic of control is not reform in the Western sense.

Vietnam has stopped pretending to be pure – and started learning to be fast. The question now is whether the country can be just as fast, without forgetting to be clean.

After nearly a decade of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong’s “burning furnace” anti-corruption campaign, Vietnam entered 2025 cautious and slow. Officials hesitated to sign approvals. Ministries froze in fear of investigations. Economic growth became collateral damage.

Under new party chief To Lam, that logic has flipped. He has consolidated power faster than any Vietnamese leader in recent memory and rewired the bureaucracy for velocity. What once took years now happens in months.

This is not reform in the Western sense. It is political engineering by command. Vietnam has discovered that control can drive growth. The state may not be cleaner, but it is more decisive.

Under Trong, power was dispersed and bureaucrats terrified of blame. Under To Lam, it is steep and vertical. The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) now anchors both political loyalty and administrative enforcement.

The MPS is no longer just police. It governs. Its network now extends across Party bodies, government ministries, state-owned enterprises, and even major private conglomerates. Through ownership stakes, inspection mandates, and inter-agency steering committees, the security apparatus increasingly coordinates – not merely monitors – the state.

This reflects a broader regional pattern. Across Southeast Asia, governments are struggling to align speed with legitimacy. Indonesia wrestles with decentralisation; Malaysia with coalition fragility; Thailand with elite paralysis. Vietnam, by contrast, is testing whether discipline can substitute for consensus – whether control can be productive.

Control has, in many ways, become coordination. Fear has turned into efficiency. Officials are now rewarded for execution, not restraint. “We’re judged by how fast we deliver, not how clean we look,” one Hanoi bureaucrat noted.

That shift is visible everywhere. Consultation periods for new regulations have shrunk from 60 days to less than two weeks. The National Assembly reviewed 50 laws last month alone, from energy and trade to digital governance.

Speed has replaced deliberation as a virtue.

The new AI Law, for instance, was so rushed that insiders joked it must have been written by AI. Within five days, four drafts circulated – each more confusing than the last. It was clumsy, but revealing: Vietnam’s bureaucracy has learned to move fast, even if it hasn’t yet learned to move well.

Trong’s campaign was meant to clean the system. Instead, it evolved it. Officials became cautious, not honest. Corruption didn’t disappear; it became more sophisticated, more “managed.” A Vietnamese executive put it bluntly: “I’d rather have a corrupt government with 10% growth than a ‘clean’ one with 6%.” It was half a joke – but it captured the new mood.

Today, “clean” means predictable. Graft has been absorbed into the system as a cost of coordination rather than a moral failure. The state’s true priority is not purity – it’s performance.

To Lam’s consolidation has made Vietnam both more stable and more brittle. GDP growth is heading toward 8%. Investment is rebounding. Decision-making is faster. Yet the same vertical hierarchy that powers efficiency also magnifies risk.

When authority depends on one command chain, innovation slows and errors compound. Policies are drafted faster than they can be implemented. Ministries race to please the centre, even when rules change mid-process.

Vietnam’s state machine now runs like a start-up: launch, iterate, correct later. It is exhilarating – and exhausting.

The coming Party Congress, likely moved forward to late 2025 or early 2026, will be the real test. Vietnam’s political system is sprinting toward it – trying to lock in personnel, policies, and projects before the reshuffle. Ministries are pushing approvals at record speed. Companies are adapting in real time. After the Congress, the machine will slow down as new power balances settle.

The question is not whether Vietnam can move fast. It already can. The question is whether it can sustain that pace – economically, institutionally, and socially – without breaking itself in the process.

Because the real balance in Vietnam today isn’t between democracy and control. It’s between speed and stamina.

By Nguyen Phuong Linh – The Interpreter / Lowyinstitute.org – November 28, 2025