Successful leader in Vietnam needs to be faceless

Song, who is also head of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, also conveyed Xi’s message that China is ready to work together with Vietnam to develop their comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership in a sustained, stable and healthy manner, thus contributing to peace, stability, prosperity and development in the region.

“Their trend is to change, but they will still be cautious, because the party’s ultimate goal is to maintain their monopoly on power”, Hiep said. Although the congress was held behind closed doors, the preceding weeks saw an unprecedented tussle among party apparatchiks as contending factions “played out via the internet through blogs, leaks, rumors and innuendos”, according to Hung Nguyen, a former Vietnam government advisor who now lectures at George Mason University in the U.S.

The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam has won re-election for the next five-year term.

The 12 National Party Congress, organized to shape Vietnam’s leadership for the next five years, was attended by 1,510 delegates representing 4.5 million Party members across the country.

Trong was voted as the Party’s general-secretary.

The National News Agency of Argentina, Telam, also spoke about the success of the congress, affirming that under the leadership of the CPV, Vietnam has seen remarkable achievements.

The Politburo is the most powerful panel in the Party and is selected from the Party Central Committee, which handles policy.

At the time, Trung appeared reluctant to criticize Beijing, prompting concerns that he would not place as much faith in the budding alliance with the U.S.as others in the party hierarchy.

The cosmetic change in the leadership also means that Vietnam has no immediate hopes for political reforms, even though there is a desire in the government to loosen up on public freedoms.

Trong is expected to continue to push the economic reforms led by Prime Minister Dung during his 10 years in office. Several media outlets reported that Dung’s exit was aided by a brief power struggle with Trong.

Addressing that question, Trong said there was a need to “particularly sustain the accountability and responsibility of the leaders and supervise power to ensure corruption and wastefulness are brought under control”.

Although Trong has a reputation for being pro-China, he is expected to stand up against the Chinese government to protect Vietnam’s territories.

With Vietnam increasingly looking to its one-time enemy, the USA, for support in its confrontation with China over disputed claims in the South China Sea, Trong seemed to realize that he needed to dilute the perception that he was softer than Dung when it came to China’s territorial sea claims. A Vietnamese scholar named Le Hong Hiep said that any person elected to the position would be pushed to enact reforms despite conservative ideologies.

The third most important member elected to the Politburo was Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang, who will be the country’s new president.