South East Asia’s competing political models

As I write this article — while sitting in a cafe in downtown Saigon — a few streets away a group of protesters have just been re-sentenced to prison for advocating publicly for freedom of speech. Rather strangely this is something that their country’s own constitution includes among its citizen’s rights, but of course these rights only really apply under certain circumstances.

At the same time, just over 1000 kilometres to the north, the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) is ending their annual congress in Hanoi. Giant LED screens attached to office buildings are now showing the overweight, balding party leader solemnly explaining the great job that the party has done containing the coronavirus in Vietnam.