On April 11, 2024, Vietnam's richest woman, Truong My Lan, was sentenced to death on charges of embezzlement, bribery and violation of banking regulations, and was charged with embezzlement of 304 trillion VND (about 88 billion yuan).
Zhang Meilan's case seems to highlight Vietnam's anti-corruption efforts, but in fact, it just shows that Vietnam's operation to copy China has failed!
"Crossing the River by Touching China"
Vietnam's economic development path is similar to that of the mainland, and it can be said that Vietnam's economic development is entirely dependent on "crossing the river by touching China." So how is Vietnam's economic development? How many people like Zhang Meilan have embezzled 100 billion yuan?
Vietnam's economic development can be divided into four phases, the first of which was the period of war.
At that time, Vietnam relied almost entirely on the support of the mainland and the Soviet Union, and the mainland tightened its belt to send materials and funds to Vietnam to help Vietnam expel foreign enemies, and the Soviet Union also gave Vietnam a lot of help.
Although Vietnam was in the midst of war, with the help of the mainland and the Soviet Union, the domestic economy was relatively stable.
The second stage is the "imitation of the USSR".
After the mainland and the Soviet Union became hostile, they faced tremendous international pressure and the domestic situation was relatively grim, and under this circumstance, the mainland reduced some of its aid to Vietnam, and Vietnam was not happy and soon fell into the arms of the Soviet Union.
In 1977, Vietnam joined the Soviet-dominated Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Vietnam's intentions were good, they wanted to rebuild their economy quickly, but they did it the wrong way.
Vietnam almost copied the Soviet Union's "Second Five-Year Plan" and chose to give priority to the development of heavy industry, neglecting agriculture and light industry. As a direct result, Vietnam lacks food and consumer goods, and many Vietnamese people complain.
But Vietnam did not stop the loss in time, but chose to continue the wrong one. Vietnam's actions have led to rising domestic prices, high inflation, soaring corporate debt, and a U.S. lockdown on Vietnam, which has made Vietnam's economy struggling.
At this time, Vietnam thought of its former brother, China, and thus began the third stage of Vietnam's economic development - "crossing the river by touching China".
In the mid-to-late 80s of the last century, Vietnam began to "copy" China's economic development path.
First, it copied the mainland's "joint production contract system," and then began to promote "innovation and opening up," and also copied the mainland's "reform and opening up." Vietnam's "reform and opening up" mainly included "privatization reform, opening up the market, and building the rule of law."
Then there was the opening up of foreign investment channels, and Vietnam was bold enough to put forward the idea of "full control by foreign capital", which shocked even Western countries at that time.
Vietnam has opened up to foreign investment and carried out a series of reforms to state-owned enterprises, giving them the right to make decisions.
In 1997, the financial crisis broke out in Asia, and many countries were shocked, but Vietnam ushered in opportunities, and Vietnam's economy entered the fourth stage of rapid development.
First, Vietnam put aside its resentment and shook hands with the United States and made peace. With the help of the United States, Vietnam successfully joined the WTO, although Vietnam has introduced a new Investment Law to increase efforts to attract foreign investment to build factories in Vietnam.
At this time, the United States also intended to support Vietnam and provided a lot of help to Vietnam, and Vietnam's economy officially took off. Many well-known companies have thrown themselves into the arms of Vietnam, such as Apple, Foxconn, Samsung, and Nike, which has also sparked discussions about whether Vietnam will become the next China.
So, will Vietnam succeed?
Reason for failure
At present, the probability of Vietnam becoming the next continent is relatively small, because there are two main reasons, one of which is the "corruption problem" mentioned above.
How horrible is corruption in Vietnam?
In 2015, a Vietnamese customs official named "Le Nguyen Thi Ai Chen" took advantage of his position to help people smuggle electronic products. In 2019, a female officer in Vietnam was photographed by the media carrying an LV bag during a foreign visit.
LV bags can't be taken without tens of thousands of yuan, and some styles have been bought for hundreds of thousands. A Vietnamese female officer can afford to carry tens of thousands of dollars of LV and carry this bag in public, which is enough to make people have bad associations.
In the early years, when Vietnam was "reforming and reforming", there was news that the Vietnamese military had also invested in business.
For example, the "Viettel Group" (Viettel Group), which has the most abundant assets among military enterprises, is reported to have been formerly known as the "Vietnam Communications Force" and later established a company that is mainly responsible for the construction of military networks and the provision of civilian communication services, with an annual income of up to 20 billion VND.
In 2020, Vietnam Military Electronics & Telecommunications Group became Vietnam's first 5G operator.
Although Vietnam discovered the problems caused by the military's business operations in 2007 and promulgated relevant regulations, it still failed to completely solve the problem, but on the contrary, it has become more and more serious.
The Vietnamese military is corrupt, and there is corruption in the political system.
In 2021, there was a "nucleic acid reagent corruption case" in Vietnam, where Vietnam's VietAsia Company colluded with the health department to forge documents and raise the cost of test kits, from which VietAsia Company made a profit of 500 billion VND (about 145 million yuan).
In the aftermath of the case, 60 people were prosecuted and detained in Viet Nam, including officials from the Ministry of Health, who were dismissed from their posts and punished.
In 2023, Vietnam broke out the "rescue charter flight case", in which more than 30 officials were arrested and investigated, among them, two of Vietnam's deputy prime minister colleagues were ousted, and Vietnam's foreign minister was also punished.
At present, the Vietnamese official suspected of corruption should be the former president of Vietnam, Vo Van Thanh.
According to Vietnamese media, Vu Van Thanh violated the "ban on the conduct of party members" and the "regulations on the responsibility of exemplary party members and leading cadres". In the end, Wu Wenxiang offered to resign and retire.
Officials in Vietnam are corrupt to varying degrees from the bottom up, and it is not uncommon for the case of Vietnam's richest woman to occur.
There is another reason why Vietnam cannot become a mainland.
Although world-renowned enterprises are building factories in Vietnam, they have not handed over the key and core technologies to Vietnam, and Vietnam is only doing simple processing without too much technical content.
When the mainland is doing processing plants, it is also building the brand of "Made in China", constantly learning and mastering new technologies, developing more new technology products, and stepping into the road of industrial upgrading.
Vietnam's economic development model was previously copied from the Soviet Union, and later copied from the mainland, which is not a good thing for Vietnam, after all, not every economic program is suitable for Vietnam's own territory, rather than vigorously "copying", it is better to work hard to tap its own capabilities.
Of course, Vietnam also needs to solve the problem of corruption, otherwise no matter how good the economy is, the money will flow into the pockets of corrupt officials and corrupt officials, and people's living standards will still not be improved.
Resources:
[1] The Paper, "Crossing the River by Touching China: A Brief History of Vietnam's Reform and Opening-up", 20201204
[2] Immediate Viewpoint "Vietnamese female officer is really rich, carrying LV bags to inspect Russian bases, looking ahead with pride" 20191123