Unearthing Politics: Environment and Contestation in Post-socialist Vietnam 9811631239, 9789811631238

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Note on Vietnamese Translation, Diacritics, and Names
Contents
1 Introduction
The Ambiguities of Environmental Politics
Resource Conflict as Disruption and Possibility
The Encrusted Politics of Post-Socialist Vietnam
The Promises of Everyday and Underground Politics
Unearthing Politics in Vietnam
Methodological Notes
Conclusion
Works Cited
2 Political Histories of Vietnamese Bauxite
Introduction
Geology, Technology, and Political Economy of Bauxite, Alumina and Aluminum
Political Histories of Central Highlands Bauxite
Vietnam’s Aluminum Dream
Building Socialism Across the Country: Dreams of International Socialism
Shifting to a Market Economy: Capitalist Aluminum Dreams
Rising China: Vietnam’s Aluminum Dilemma
The Prime Minister’s Decision 167: The National Bauxite Policy
The First Bauxite-Alumina Projects: Tân Rai and Nhân Cơ
Conclusion
Works Cited
3 Power and Limits of Embedded Advocacy
Seeds of a Debate: Two Articles in the Saigon Economic Times
Clearing Ground for a Policy Dialogue: The Consultancy on Development (CODE)
A Small Network of Scientists: Meeting with Mineralogist Nguyễn Thanh Sơn
The “Mud Bomb”: The Regional Workshop in Đắk Nông
A Flagrant Response in the Domestic Press: “The Central Highlands Will Die Because of … Bauxite Mining”
The First Petition: The Scientists and VUSTA
General Giáp’s Letter: Hundreds, if Not Thousands, of Chinese Workers
The Online Debate: One Hundred Flowers Bloom
The Government’s “Scientific Workshop”: The Limits of Embedded Advocacy
Conclusion
Works Cited
4 Reemergence of the Intellectuals
What Is an Intellectual?
A Pre-Cursor to the Online Petition: In the Shadow of the Nhân Văn—Giai Phẩm Affair
A New Partnership: Different Ways of Being an Intellectual
The Arts and Sciences Together
The Text of the Petition
Reading the Petition
The First 135 Signatures
Delivering the Petition
Conclusion: Being and Becoming an Intellectual in Vietnam
References
5 Two Arms of the Party-State
The Politburo Speaks, as the Debate Continues to Swell
A Disquieted Public: Leading up to the National Assembly’s Bi-Annual Meeting
The National Assembly’s Bi-Annual Meeting: The Responsive Arm?
Preparing for the Bi-Annual Meeting
An Explosive Debate in the National Assembly
In the Aftermath of the Assembly Debates
State Crackdown: The Repressive Arm
Indirect Control: A Crackdown on Bloggers and Intellectuals
Direct Control: Cyber-Attacks and Police Interrogations
Conclusion
Works Cited
6 Conclusion: What Came Next
Online Petition Movement
Going to the Streets: Mass Demonstrations
Cross-Country Mass Demonstrations
Self-Declared Autonomous Organizations
Conclusion
Works Cited
Images of Bauxite-Alumina Production at the Tân Rai Mining Sites in Lâm Đồng Province (2017)
Index

Citation preview

Unearthing Politics Environment and Contestation in Post-socialist Vietnam Jason Morris-Jung

Unearthing Politics “Unearthing Politics: Environment and Contestation in Post-socialist Vietnam is the best single study of domestic Vietnamese politics during the post-reform era. Through an exhaustive examination of the contest over Chinese bauxite mining in the Central Highlands, this book sheds a bright light on the emergence in late communist Vietnam of new flashpoints for political conflict, novel modes of political organization and innovative forms of political struggle. Unearthing Politics will be a required reading for scholars of environmental conflict, latecommunist political culture and contemporary Vietnamese studies.” —Peter Zinoman, author of Vietnamese Colonial Republican: The Political Vision of Vu Trong Phung, History, University of California - Berkeley “The bauxite mining controversy in 2009 opened up an unprecedented era of contentious politics and heralded the rise of a civil society in Vietnam that challenges the domination of the communist regime. In this event, Vietnamese intellectuals, professionals, and activists came together to oppose a major national project out of their concerns for its environmental impacts, their fears of Chinese involvement, and their frustration with Vietnam’s corrupt and repressive government. As the first detailed account of this event, Jason Morris-Jung offers a compelling analysis of how politics in one of the few remaining communist states has evolved in the last decade.” —Tuong Vu, author of Vietnam’s Communist Revolution: The Power and Limits of Ideology, Political Sciences, University of Oregon “In Unearthing Politics, Jason Morris-Jung reveals the surprising and unexpected public opposition to both the idea and practice of bauxite mining by Chinese companies in post-reform Vietnam. As in other countries of Southeast Asia, the project generated profound and contentious concern over this particularly toxic form of mining’s threat to one of the nation’s iconic agrarian environments. Morris-Jung shows the ways the opposition came at and contributed to a pivotal moment in the country’s contemporary history, engaged ordinary people, founders of the republic, revered intellectuals, and the on-line media in unprecedented ways. The book’s echoes of and divergences from socio-environmental politics elsewhere in the expanding world of Chinese investment, development, and extraction, make this an extremely important read.” —Nancy Lee Peluso, co-Editor with C. Lund of New Frontiers of Land Control, Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley

VIETNAM MYANMAR

Re dR Sapa v

CHINA Dong Dang Lang Son Hanoi Halong Bay Haiphong LAOS Cuc Phuong Cat Ba National Park National Park Gulf of Tonkin Vientiane Hainan Vinh Moc

Dien Bien Phu

v gR on ek M

THAILAND

Hué Danang Hoi An

Gia lai 50 kilometers South China Sea

Dak Man

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM Central CAMBODIA Highlands Nha Trang Phnom Penh Moc Bai Dalat Sam Mountain Ho Chi Minh City Gulf of Ha Tien (Saigon) Thailand 0 Mekong 0 Delta

Dak Nong

Da Lat

Bin Phuoc 300 km 160 miles

Lam Dong

MAJOR BAUXITE PROVINCES

Di Linh Bao Lac

Dong Nai

Binh Thuan

HO CHI MINH CITY

Phan Thiet Ke Ga

Baria-Vung Tau

South China Sea

LARGE EXPORT FACILITY UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Map of the Central Highlands, Vietnam (This is a sketch map for illustrative purposes; all boundaries and representations are approximations only)

Jason Morris-Jung

Unearthing Politics Environment and Contestation in Post-socialist Vietnam

Jason Morris-Jung Singapore University of Social Sciences Singapore, Singapore

ISBN 978-981-16-3123-8 ISBN 978-981-16-3124-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3124-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

For Pha.m Ðoàn Trang, sentenced to 9 years of prison for speaking truths in Vietnam In memory of Pha.m Toàn (1932–2019), a “radical” voice for a common humanity In memory of my loving parents, Robert and Janice Morris

Acknowledgments

This book is the product of many conversations with many different people, for which it holds many debts of gratitude. In Vietnam, I want to thank many informants, guides and, in the end, friends that made research for this book possible. They helped me to see Vietnam from different angles, and introduced me to dimensions of the country’s social and political life that I had so easily missed while working and living in Vietnam for many years before. I am especially grateful to Bác (Uncle) Pha.m Toàn, who was the first to open his door to my research topic without fear of giving me a frank opinion on things not meant to be discussed with foreigners, let alone foreign researchers. Bác Toàn’s lifelong devotion to education, translation, and writing reflected his passion to elevate the human spirit; may he long rest in peace and happiness. I also thank his co-creators on the pivotal online bauxite petition, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng, who bravely shared with me their time and insights during uncertain times. For also generously sharing with me their views and time, I want to thank Nguyên Ngo.c, Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, Chu Hao, Nguy˜ên Quang A, Pha.m Duy Hiên, La.i Nguyên An, and Pha.m Quang Tú, among many others whom I’d also like to thank but refrain from mentioning here in respect of their expressed wish for anonymity. I want to make special mention of the many kinds of help I received from Pha.m Ðoan Trang, even when, at times, it risked her own safety. Sadly, Ðoan Trang was arrested on October 6, 2020, on trumped up ij

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

charges of spreading propaganda against the state, and sentenced to 9 years of prison on December 14, 2021. But rather than fighting for her release, Ðoan Trang has asked that we fight for the freedom of her country. I dedicate this book to her in support of this worthy struggle. Outside of Vietnam, I give a special and heartfelt thanks to Peter Zinoman, whose vast knowledge and clinical understanding of Vietnam helped me navigate this project through many strong winds and choppy waters; Nancy Peluso, who regularly illuminated my thinking with her critical brilliance and trenchant analysis; and Jeff Romm, who always pushed me to stretch my thinking beyond its current shape. To each of you, I owe thanks not only for this book, but also for the much stronger thinker that came out on the other end of it. I want to recognize the invaluable opportunities afforded to me to discuss and develop different elements of this book by Nancy Peluso and the many guests that joined her weekly Land Lab and the Environmental Politics Writing Workshop at the University of California – Berkeley; Christian Lund and his Danish colleagues for organizing a memorable workshop on Southeast Asian local politics at Roskilde University; and Jonathan Rigg and colleagues for much insightful discussion in the Social and Cultural Geography discussion group at the National University of Singapore. Many others read, discussed, commented on, and read again sections of this book in its various stages, all of which has been extremely helpful to me. In particular, I would like to thank Alec Holcombe, Jason Picard, Trang Cao, Jim Delaney, Andrew Wells-Dang, Danielle Labbé, ` Nguy˜ên Nguyê.t Câm, Jimmy Tran, Mike Dwyer, Martha Lincoln, Chris McMorran, Eli Elinoff, and Lim Tai Wei. Thank you all! Several organizations supported the research and writing of this book. I thank UC Berkeley, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Trudeau Foundation, and the Institute of East Asian Studies for generous funding that allowed me to conduct extensive research for this book. I also thank the Singapore University of Social Sciences and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, who supported me through long periods of writing, revising and rewriting. I thank the publishers at Palgrave-MacMillan who helped me put this work into print, and Daphne Gray-Grant, whose Get It Done! program I recommend to all young book and dissertation writers. Several of the persons I mention above took personal and professional risks to engage with me on this research. But I want to be crystal clear

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that the final representation and interpretation of events and processes presented in this book are entirely my own, and I am the only one to be held accountable for them. Likewise, all errors and other shortcomings in this book belong strictly to me. Last but certainly not least, I thank my peerless wife Lu,o,ng Kim Thuý and our two beautiful daughters, Zara and Dani, who, through many stress-filled moments, kept refilling my cup with love and joy. And without love and joy, none of this would be worth anything.

Note on Vietnamese Translation, Diacritics, and Names

All translations of Vietnamese text in this book are my own, unless otherwise indicated. Whenever present in the original text, I have used Vietnamese diacritics to transcribe Vietnamese words and names. I have used diacritics for all place names in Vietnam, except for Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Vietnam itself due to their familiarity in the English language. For referring to Vietnamese names, I have used full names throughout the book, usually in the order of surname, middle name and first name, as per Vietnamese convention (e.g., Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n). Though cumbersome at times, a limited number of Vietnamese family names— for example, some 30–40% of all Vietnamese surnames is Nguy˜ên—have made this convention somewhat necessary. One notable exception is General Võ Nguyên Giáp, whom I also refer to as General Giáp to reflect the familiarity with which he is known by many Vietnamese people as Ða.i Tu,o´,ng Giáp or, alternatively, Bác Giáp (Uncle Giáp).

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Contents

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1

Introduction

2

Political Histories of Vietnamese Bauxite

31

3

Power and Limits of Embedded Advocacy

63

4

Reemergence of the Intellectuals

119

5

Two Arms of the Party-State

153

6

Conclusion: What Came Next

197

Images of Bauxite-Alumina Production at the Tân Rai ` Mining Sites in Lâm Ðông Province (2017)

225

Index

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

In early 2009, a public debate over bauxite mining rocked the domestic politics of Vietnam. Bauxite, an aluminum ore, is a hard reddish-orange clay that exists in massive quantities just below the surface of a region familiarly known in Vietnam as the Tây Nguyên or, in its English approximation, the Central Highlands. Two years earlier, the Vietnamese Prime Minister promulgated a decision to excavate 5.4 billion tons of bauxite from the highland plateau, covering an area estimated by some as equivalent to 20,000 km2 . In one province, bauxite mining activities were expected occupy two thirds of the province’s total territory. The social and ecological consequences were expected to be enormous and irreversible. Furthermore, the Prime Minister proposed to pre-process all of that bauxite into an aluminum feedstock that, while creating possibly dozens of jobs for local people, would leave behind tens, if not hundreds, of millions of tons of a toxic sludge called “red mud”. One critic, noting the importance of the Central Highlands as a regional watershed, likened this scenario to hanging a “mud bomb” over the whole of southern Vietnam. The mere prospect of these projects produced a public reaction against government and the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party of a kind rarely seen in Vietnam, at least not since the introduction of market reforms in the late 1980s. Diverse voices from across the country spoke out against

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 J. Morris-Jung, Unearthing Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3124-5_1

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the government plans for bauxite mining, traversing many of the sociopolitical and geo-political divisions that had helped cement communist rule since the end of the Vietnam wars. These voices included Vietnamese from the north and the south, from inside and outside the country, as well as scientists and experts, writers and artists, religious and community leaders, former state officials and military leaders, domestic and foreign journalists, National Assembly delegates, and a local NGO. The chorus of voices included some of the nation’s most highly accomplished and renown intellectuals, the brightest lights of the Socialist education system and its emigrés. Also among these voices was that of the legendary military leader of the People’s War and, at that time, last surviving founder of modern Vietnam, General Võ Nguyên Giáp. Yet, along with these nationally celebrated heroes were some of the country’s most outspoken dissidents and regime opponents. They ranged from internally exiled Catholic priests and Buddhist leaders to members of the outlawed human rights and democracy coalition Bloc 8406 and the overseas Vietnamese anti-communist organization Viê.t Tân. Even as these diverse groups held a range of approaches toward, as well as a distinct histories with, the party-state, they came together at this moment in a common opposition to what the Prime Minister himself had referred to as a “major policy of the Party and the state” (Communiqué No. 17, 2009). Not since the wartime era had such a wide cross section of Vietnamese persons from across the country and beyond been so openly vocal in their opposition to a major policy of the party-state. These groups made use of diverse media to make their views public, including workshops and seminars, newspapers and magazines, interviews, private letters, open letters, petitions, and blogs, among others. Amid this diversity, the Internet provided a relatively new tool for hosting, promoting, circulating, collecting and monitoring the contributions to the debate. Since the turn of the millennium, Internet use had grown steadily in Vietnam as a source of information and entertainment, but also as a platform for expressing a wider range of social and political views. Nowhere was this more evident than in the posting of an online petition against bauxite mining by two Hanoi literary intellectuals and one hydrologist from Central Vietnam. The Bauxite Vietnam website that emerged from that petition became a new hub for public discussions on bauxite mining, and a clearing house for the mounds of commentary and documentation that was being unearthed on the government’s plans. This online petition and the many that followed became a new platform for

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the re-emergence of the Vietnamese intellectuals in domestic politics and a new voice of domestic opposition to the ruling communist regime. The issues that the bauxite mining debates brought together were also wide-ranging. They included many of the social and environmental concerns typical of a mining conflict, such as deforestation, soil erosion, watershed degradation, risks to local communities, and big questions on economic viability and choices of technology. However, these discussions took on even greater import as they were articulated with questions over the involvement of a Chinese state-owned company in the mining projects and concerns for national security. These issues were particularly sensitive for a region that was historically occupied by non-Vietic ethnic minority groups and whose forests and mountain landscapes played a fabled role in the communists’ military battles against foreign foes and southern opposition. Another Vietnamese General of Hô` Chí Minh’s era captured the sentiment of a nation, when he wrote in an open letter: Now, again, if we let China mine bauxite in the Central Highlands, there will be five, seven or ten thousand Chinese laborers (or soldiers) coming to live and get busy there. In this infinitely important militarily strategic region of ours, they will turn the place into a “Chinese town,” a “military base” (where bringing in weapons would not be difficult either). To the North, on the sea, China has a powerful naval base, while, to the Southwest, China has a totally equipped military force. And so what will all this mean for our precious sovereignty that we had to earn with the blood and bones of millions of lives? (Nguy˜ên Tro.ng V˜ınh, 2009, February).

Yet even this deep-seated historical suspicion of all things Chinese was a challenge to the communist leadership, as expressed by the authors of the intellectuals’ petition: “It is a pity that, in the bauxite mining situation today, the honest people of our country are suddenly realizing that the old ideology of hand-in-hand building the nation together has all but disappeared because of how our governing organizations are currently running the country” (Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi et al., 2009, April 12). To these authors, as well as to their thousands, if not millions, of followers that signed the petition or visited the Bauxite Vietnam website, the decisions around Central Highlands bauxite concerned nothing less than the “fate of our nation.” As important as these events were at the time, their legacy has been even more important. In the decade that has passed since, we can see even

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more clearly now how political culture and consciousness has transformed for a growing segment of the Vietnamese population. Cross-national demonstrations that were unheard of in the postwar period have now become a near annual event, on one issue or another. Open criticism of the party regime and especially of individual political leaders, which used to be almost unheard of, has become more commonplace and widespread. Perhaps above all, more and more diverse groups within Vietnam have begun questioning and contesting the status quo of government policy and domestic politics. The bauxite mining controversy was, to be sure, a culmination of trends that had been building since the market reforms of the 1980s, but they also signaled and catalysed important new beginnings. This book is an intimate and in-depth examination of the bauxite mining controversy, its origins, its developments, its people, and its legacy. As I argue in this book, this controversy reflected a transformative moment in Vietnam’s contemporary politics, and by examining this moment closely we can better understand not only what happened then, but also what has happened since and what might lie ahead.

The Ambiguities of Environmental Politics How was it that a marginal issue in a remote region of Vietnam became the focus of a debate that sent tremors through the foundations of national-socialist hegemony? To many observers of Vietnam’s domestic politics, the bauxite mining debates were a surprise. This was partly because any open criticism of government and the ruling communist regime was still rare in the post-reform era, and the scope, scale, and tone of these particular criticisms were extraordinary. As one veteran analyst of Vietnamese politics had suggested at the time, the party-state “had never faced widespread national opposition of the scope that emerged in 2009” (Thayer, 2010, p. 49). Even more surprising was that this extraordinary debate emerged from discussions on the socio-ecological risks of a mining project. Was this, as one researcher suggested, “the beginning of a more autonomous environmental movement in Vietnam” (Marston, 2012, p. 187)? For decades, if there was one thing that people and party had appeared to agree on in Vietnam, it was that the environment took a back seat to economic growth and development. This was the unspoken mantra that had accompanied the socialist drive for rapid industrialization and modernization, and it only accelerated during the decades of outstanding

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economic growth that followed the reforms of the late 1980s. So why, just as Vietnam had joined the World Trade Organization in 2007, was the environment suddenly grabbing so much attention, and how did discussions on a mining project in a hinterland region develop into “one of the most telling contemporary examples of the changing nature of state-society relations in Vietnam” (Marston, 2012, p. 186)? Did the environment transform politics? Notions of the transformative potential of environmental movements and activism has important theoretical and historical underpinnings. From the “liberation ecologies” that heralded the “emancipatory potential of current political activity around the environment” (Peet & Watts, 2004, p. 5) to the social movements literature that saw in global environmentalism the “new social movement” par excellence (Keck & Sikkink, 1998), scholarly theorists has frequently returned to the theme of the transformative potential of the environment. For the early political ecologists, the environment had emerged as a new terrain for contesting capitalism and injustice at multiple scales. For students of social movements, environmentalism replaced what had previously been seen as the social movement par excellence in the global labor movement, which had tried, and failed, to unite the world’s oppressed populations around a single collective struggle against capitalist exploitation. For some, the environment had re-inspired this long-held wish for universal revolution and had become a new “global symbol” for collective action and transnational struggle (Chester, 2012; Doyle, 2005, p. 161; Pralle, 2006). However, the relationship between environment and politics is a complex one. As much as environmental issues and movements can inspire hope for a more progressive or democratic politics, their discourse, symbols, and institutions can also become co-opted for consolidating the status quo or “green-washing.” States can selectively attend to different or particular elements of environmental issues, and narrowly proscribe who and what count as legitimate discussions on the environment. Human geographer Eric Swyngedouw is among those who have articulated this critique most forcefully, arguing that, rather than expanding the political sphere or enhancing citizen engagement, the environment can also be a “cause célèbre” for post-politics (Swyngedouw, 2010, 2011, p. 255). Post-politics refers to the reduction and degradation of political debate, which should more properly be characterized by democratic participation, a plurality of perspectives, and, reflecting that plurality, disagreements. As Swyngedouw (2011) argues, post-politics “reduces the political terrain to

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the sphere of consensual governing and policy-making, centered on the technical, managerial and consensual administration (policing) of environmental, social, economic or other domains, and they remain of course fully within the realm of the possible, of existing social relations” (p. 266). Focusing on contemporary debates around climate change and sustainability, Swyngedouw argues that the status of these issues as a “global humanitarian cause” (p. 255) has created a false consensus, whose primary effect is to bind multiple and varied discourses on the environment into a putative reaffirmation of existing political and economic relations (Swyngedouw, 2010, p. 215–216). In other words, rather than challenging existing relations of power, these “universal” views of environmental problems effectively eliminate possibilities for discussion or, more to the point, disagreement with the political and economic relations that have produced them. Clearly, Swyngedouw is not referring to all environmental issues or movements—which he emphasizes are multiple and diverse—but rather drawing attention to how certain environmental discourses, policies, and institutions can be and have been co-opted into processes that effectively shrink the political sphere. While theory outlines a range of possible outcomes on the relation between environment and politics, history has offered up some poignant examples of environmental activism catalyzing deep political transformation, especially in socialist settings. Environmental activists were among the most aggressive in pushing for regime change in communist Poland, while “Ecoglasnost” became a core platform of the Union of Democratic Forces in Bulgaria (Economy, 2010, p. 248). Sometimes organizing around industrial pollution and environmental degradation were the only forms of activism tolerated in the communist regimes of Eastern Europe, which allowed activists to create new networks, organizational infrastructure, and powerful symbols of resistance that later lent themselves to more direct forms of political organizing (Economy, 2010; Goldstone, 2001; Ho & Edmonds, 2008). Elizabeth Economy (2010) has commented, “As the Soviet and Eastern Bloc experience shows, social forces, once unleashed, may be very difficult to contain” (p. 136). Environmental disasters also exposed the hollowness of the communist state’s self-legitimating paternalism. As political theorist Jack Goldstone (2001) has argued, the Soviet state’s “wooden response” to Chernobyl made visible how the state, which had justified authoritarianism on the basis of its paternalistic protection, had violated an unspoken law of its own legitimacy. While environmentalism obviously was not the sole cause for the

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collapse of these communist regimes, it had an important role in inspiring and organizing the opposition against them. Similar ideas around the transformative potential of environmental activism have also been discussed in the more contemporary setting— and more socio-culturally comparative one to Vietnam—of communist China. Elizabeth Economy’s analysis of a campaign to clean up the Huai River demonstrated the possibilities for Chinese citizens to organize collectively and enhance government accountability under an authoritarian regime. As Economy argued, the Huai River campaign revealed “the potential of [Chinese] society to become more vocal in its demands for a cleaner environment and to bring a new level of accountability to the Chinese government’s environmental policies and proclamations, and perhaps even to the entire Chinese political system” (Economy, 2010, p. 21). Other scholars have argued that environmental NGOs in China have the potential to create “jarring political change” (Cooper, 2006, p. 109), and environmental campaigns provide “laboratories” of political action, “where citizens may practice political skills, organize and participate in civic action, and test political limits” (Yang, 2005, p. 65). One reason that environmental activism has had more success in organizing collectively under authoritarian regimes is that activists are sometimes able to hide behind a facade of being apolitical and strictly based on science. Economy (2010) described this as a “shelter function,” which protected activists from being perceived as politically motivated or challenging state authority (p. 23). Peter Ho and Richard Edmonds (2008) called it a deliberately calculated, if subtly applied, “depoliticization of environmental politics” (p. 8). Its core features are adopting non-confrontational approaches to the state, staying clear of potentially “sensitive” issues, and avoiding any association with a broader movement. As Ho and Edmonds argue, “environmentalism has gained an increasing political leverage [in China] by avoiding any connotation with being a movement, by all means trying to appear small, low key and localized, and acting as the state’s partner rather than its adversary” (p. 21). The irony of these claims is that environmental activists are seen as engaging in politics best when they dissimulate it the most. Practically speaking, this usually means that environmental campaigns can be successful when addressing smaller and more marginal issues, while possibilities for effecting broader and more enduring political change remain off limits. As strategy, it condemns activists to the perennially precarious position of having to rely on the willingness of state offices to

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perceive their activities as non-threatening, and maintaining that charade within the confines of arbitrary, single-issue and almost always local-level resolutions to their grievances. Relatively recent events in Vietnam, notably since the bauxite mining controversy, have provoked similar discussions about the relation between politics and environment. Recent activism around the environment has led some scholars to suggest that the environment has emerged as a “new frontier” of Vietnamese civil society (Nguyen & Datzberger, 2018) and a “new arena of contestation for civil society activism in Vietnam” (Vu Ngoc Anh, 2017, p. 1205). In particular, massive cross-country protests in response to a massive fish die-off caused by industrial pollution in Central Vietnam in 2016 and a Hanoi “tree-hugging” campaign to stop city officials from chopping down some 6,700 urban trees in 2015 have led many to wonder whether “the environment [will] be the Vietnam’s government’s fall?” (Hutt 2017). Both of these events, which are discussed in more detail in Chapter 6, also occurred at a time when environmental disputes have become second only to land disputes as source causes of social conflict in Vietnam (Gillespie et al., 2019). Scholars have also shown how local communities in Vietnam have been able to find redress to local environmental grievances through more informal and less confrontational means. Wells-Dang’s (2010, 2012) analysis of a successful citizen’s movements to block a luxury hotel from encroaching on a popular Hanoi park in 2007 suggested that flexible, informal, and low profile forms of advocacy can be effective in protecting urban green space. O’Rourke (2004) also suggested that local communities can be effective in regulating local industrial pollution through informal means and building relations with sympathetic local officials. However, as in China, these successes were unusual and their outcomes often arbitrary, while the networks that formed around them had little endurance. This form of activism in Vietnam may offer hope for incremental changes, but it can also be symptomatic of a political regime that is willing to cede some power on the margins but reacts fiercely to any challenges to its core. As in China, Vietnamese activists can be political if they successfully pretend not to be. From the new social movement par excellence to a cause célèbre for post-politics, the political promise of environmental activism remains ambiguous. It is clear that the environment can be enrolled in political struggles in different ways and with wildly different outcomes. What seems more important, however, is a careful understanding of how

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environmental issues become articulated with other social and political struggles at particular moments and in particular places. In the bauxite mining controversy, both sides of this complex relationship featured strongly. As this book shows, Vietnamese activism around bauxite mining showed both how initial appellations to the “environment” were effective in shielding critics from immediate state retribution, but also how this sheltered approach was limited in pursuing broader goals for transparency, public accountability and, ultimately, a more democratic form of political participation. This is not to say that mining and environment were irrelevant. Government plans for bauxite mining were massively disruptive with wide-ranging social and ecological impacts, which opened up new possibilities for contesting and re-imagining politics in Vietnam.

Resource Conflict as Disruption and Possibility Resource development is one of the most contested forms of development. From the “resource curse” to “conflict minerals,” theorists have often highlighted the conflictive nature of resource development. Furthermore, as mining has become more industrialized, technologically sophisticated, and internationally networked, these conflicts have also become larger, more sophisticated, and more globally networked. Human geographer Gavin Bridge (2004) has described how growing expectations for a “social license,” a growing number of non-traditional and non-state institutions involved in mine management, and a broader canvas of environmental issues to consider has only added complexity to conflict. Anthropologist Stuart Kirsch (2014) has suggested that mining projects have become targets of “unprecedented conflict on almost every continent” (6), while Bebbington et al. (2008) have noted that growing investments in the extractive industries in Latin America has coincided with “an equally remarkable surge in social mobilisation and conflict” (p. 2889). Bebbington (2012) has further noted that resistance to mining operations can take on diverse forms, which broadly include contentious politics, struggles within state institutions, sub-national and international conflict, and direct involvement of the law and legal professions. A key reason for conflict is that mining is inherently disruptive, and massive mining projects tend to be massively disruptive. As anthropologist Stuart Kirsch (2014) reminds us, “Mining moves more earth than any other human endeavour” (p. 3). Moving massive amounts of earth— no matter how carefully planned, how technologically advanced, or how

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“socially responsible”—is massively disruptive. The disruption affects not only people’s lives and their livelihoods, but also complex sets of socioecological relations built over generations that connect people to the landscapes they inhabit. Anthropologist Jill Nash described the impacts of industrial mining on subsistence communities—a descriptor that can be applied to many groups in the Central Highlands of Vietnam—as a “cataclysmic event”; this is because “land is not only for material benefit, which compensation payments reduce it to; it encodes their history and identity and is a major source of security” (Nash, 1993, as cited in Kirsch, 2014, p. 6). Similarly, Anthony Bebbington et al. (2008) have argued that sudden influxes of new investment, the accelerated effects of cultural modernization, and the disarticulation of moral economies that mining brings to rural and more traditional communities are akin to a “colonization of lifeworlds” (p. 2890). Yet it is not only “moving earth” that disrupts lives, livelihoods and landscapes. Major investments in infrastructure and landscape adaptations to make the “production” of minerals commercially viable can be equally or more disruptive. They can include the re-drawing of transportation networks, such as roads, railways, and water transport; accommodating new forms of employment and migrant workers, along with their associated housing, education, health, food and energy needs; and at times re-shaping major geological features, such as rivers and lakes, to provide water, energy or serve as cesspools for mining waste. These disruptions can be positive or negative, they can create new jobs and economies as much as they can destroy old ones. Bridge and Frederiksen (2012) have referred to as these processes as disordering and re-ordering the landscape into “novel socio-natural juxtapositions” (p. 367). Juxtaposition refers to the way a mining landscapes disrupts an existing set of social, economic, or religious, spiritual and cosmological relations to nature and “re-orders” them in new ways that can create “disorder” for the people experiencing them. While these disruptions can be acute, even existential, for the subsistence and rural communities describe by Nash (1993) and Bebbington et al. (2008), they are no less relevant to the so-called modern citizens of the industrialized world and their imagined communities of nation and state. A geobody is one expression of how land and particularly territory are tied to relationships of nationality or nationhood. A geobody, as discussed by Thongchai Winakachul (1994), is the spatial boundary or geometric shape of a nation that instills feelings of

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identity and belonging. Yet those feelings are created through a collective experience of that land-space informed by ways of seeing and knowing it, such as modern mapping, but also through historiography and folklore. In addition, geographical features of landscape, such as mountains or rivers, or elements of its flora and fauna often become symbols of the nation or other community, which may be sub- or supra-national. For the Central Highlands, the historiography and folklore of how the Vietnamese communists fought and defeated the French and the American military machines through the forests and hills of the Central Highlands, and other mountainous regions in the north, reinforces a relationship of nationality that connects the Vietnamese people to the nation (i.e., each other), to communism and, not least of all, to the indigenous groups that continue to inhabit the Central Highlands. The disruption and disordering of these complex set of relations that reverberate over history, geography, and politics, can have far-reaching implications. Not surprisingly, they also create conflict. As Michael Watts and Nancy Peluso remind us, conflicts are pre-dated by and reflective of broader structural inequities and historical struggles, be they between different regions, religions, ethnic groups, urban– rural communities, colonial-indigenous peoples, countries and nations, or otherwise (Peluso & Watts, 2001; Watts, 2004). This is a further part of the reason why seemingly “remote” conflicts in “remote” places can take on the proportions of larger national and international standoffs. In addition to conflict over access to minerals they also become conflicts over environment, indigenous rights, state–society relations, capitalism, colonial histories, and other unresolved issues. As Gavin Bridge (2004) has argued, “the mine sits at the nexus of history, politics, and culture, the focal point of a contested moral landscape” (p. 242). This landscape is both material and symbolic, both imagined and real. The conflicts that emerge around it are also both material and symbolic, as relfected by the socio-ecological relations embedded in the landscape. In discussing how the mine can become a focal point for contestation, Bridges borrows from Marxian literary critic, Raymond Williams, who argued that that the mining landscape “is a technological one—but it is also a mental landscape, a social terrain, and an ideological map” (as cited in Bridge, 2004, p. 241). For Bridge, the mine is a cultural landscape and it has “cultural power”; it is a “potent metaphor for the energies and contradictions of development” (p. 241). In discussing global contestation around mining today, Bridge (2004) argues that mining conflict

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reflects “society’s displacement onto mining of more general anxieties about the scale of human intervention in the environment, the globalization of business, a perceived loss of local control, and rapid social and ecological change” (Bridge, 2004, p. 241). Understanding mining conflict in this broader way will help us develop a wider appreciation for the issues at stake during the bauxite mining controversy, and help us from distracting ourselves about what whether the environment or politics was the “real” issue at stake. It forces us to look at the bauxite mining debates not only as a struggle over resources or the environment, but also as a focal point for many layers of conflict and enduring political struggle were unearthed. However, to begin to understand these layers of conflict, we need to understand the situation of domestic politics at the onset of the bauxite mining controversy.

The Encrusted Politics of Post-Socialist Vietnam In the late 1980s, Vietnam embarked on a series of policy reforms that put an end to the centrally planned economy, which the communists had first implemented throughout the north after the First Vietnam War in 1954, and then through the entire country after the Second Vietnam War in 1975.1 These reforms that put Vietnam on a path to a post-socialist , market economy are widely known as the d-ôi mo´ i reforms, commonly translated as “renovation.” Developing a market economy also required a new openness toward the capitalist world, which had hitherto been mostly shut out from Vietnam due to both the state-run economy and the US-led international embargo. As the international embargo was lifted in , 1994, the d-ôi mo´ i reforms reaped huge rewards. Vietnam recorded spectacular rates of economic growth through the 1990s and early 2000s, usually second only to China. In less than thirty years, Vietnam went ij

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1 In this book, I refer to the wars that engulfed Vietnam from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s as the Vietnam wars. The First Vietnam War (c.1946–1954) primarily involved Hô` Chí Minh’s communists against the returning French colonists and concluded with the Geneva Accords in 1954, which recognized the communist-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the north and the Republic of Vietnam in the south as two independent states. The Second Vietnam War (c.1955–1975) revolved around the ensuing conflict between these two newly created states, though each side was variously supported by the United States, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, among others. The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 marked the United States’ withdrawal from the Second Vietnam War, and it concluded with the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

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from one of the least developed countries in the world to a middleincome country. This era of new prosperity and opportunity for so many , of Vietnam’s millions of citizens can be called the d-ôi mo´ i or post-reform era. The general enthusiasm in the economic sphere also occasions some optimism for reforms in the political sphere. As socialist regimes were crumbling in Eastern Europe through this period, and as the Soviet Union would soon do too, the Vietnamese Communist Party reaffirmed itself as the sole force to lead State and society. Scholarship on Vietnamese politics through the 1990s highlighted what Gareth Porter (1993) referred to as the Party’s “political monopoly on power” (p. 96). The party maintained this monopoly in telltale ways, such as forbidding the formation of opposition parties, elections, and a free press; heavily restricting political and civic freedoms, including freedoms of expression, association, and worship; and deploying a repressive apparatus to silence and intimidate its citizens. Addressing questions of how the communist regime legitimized and maintained power, political scientists have highlighted the Party’s extensive bureaucratic organization. Carlyle Thayer (1995, 2010) has described Vietnam as an exemplar of “mono-organizational socialism.” Mono-organizational socialism describes how the extensive organizational networks of the party overlap onto state organizations like a parallel hierarchy, penetrating and maintaining control over its governing institutions. One of the key mechanisms for creating this parallel hierarchy is the installation of “dual-role elites.” Dual-role elites are high-level party members assigned to multiple and overlapping leadership positions. They help ensure both unity and obedience within government and party so that the state effectively functions as a party-state. Another key mechanism to the party’s bureaucratic power is its pervasive network of “party cells” (d-ang uy), which are installed in every type of state or state-sponsored organization. They include not only government agencies at every level, but also state-run banks, schools, hospitals, and every single media outlet in the country. Each party cell has a designated leader, and depending on the organization, dedicated staff, resource streams, and office space. Their presence not only helps to monitor the organization’s activities but also reminds employees, including executives, of the party’s proximity. As London (2009) has described, party cells enable the Vietnamese Communist Party to reach into “all territorial units of society, every functional branch of government, and all ij

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institutional spheres, and beyond the formal bounds of state administration, into neighbourhood units, economic units, schools and hospitals” (p. 376–377). The party-state’s bureaucratic power extends further beyond state and parastatal organizations and into those of civil society through a strategy that Yeonsik Jeong (1997) has referred to as “state corporatism.” State corporatism relies on incorporating groups and associations that emerge from civil society into a government-led system of singular, compulsory, non-competitive, hierarchically ordered and functionally differentiated social organizations (Schmitter 1974, as cited in Jeong, 1997, p. 155). Under state corporatism, the party-state bestows recognition to an organization or association as the single official national representative of its domestic constituency. In exchange, the association submits to the demands of the regime, which may include communicating exclusively through state organs and allowing party officials to intervene in the selection of its leaders. Essentially the system functions as a hub-and-spokes model of power that allows state authorities to manage how associations interact and communicate both with the party-state and each other. Jeong argued that state corporatism emerged as a strategy to deal with the “wave of democratization” that followed the collapse of the Eastern European communist states in the late 1980s, as well as the atrocities of the Chinese Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. However, the rollout of its basic structure can be perceived from the very beginnings of the Vietnamese party-state. For example, the Vietnam Committee of Catholic Solidarity was formed in 1955 out of concern over the subversive potential of Vietnamese Catholics, whose membership outnumbered that of the communists by several millions (a condition that remains true today) and whom the communists deeply distrusted because of alleged loyalties to the French colonial regime. The Committee was established as the singular state-sanctioned national organization for Vietnamese Catholics, which allowed state officials to more closely monitor and control Catholics in Vietnam. To this day, the Committee continues to function as a wedge in the larger Vietnamese Catholic community, a significant proportion of whom reject party interference in church matters and continue to pledge their ultimate allegiance to the Vatican. Later, shortly after the Second Vietnam War, the Vietnam Fatherland Front was established as a way of managing and incorporating wartime mobilization units, which operate at national, provincial, district, and all the way down to village levels. They

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included the Hô` Chí Minh’s Youth Union, Women’s Union, Farmer’s Union, and others. These state-sanctioned associations have also been created in direct response to outbreaks of public dissent. For example, in 1981, the Buddhist Sangha of Vietnam was created in response to protests and defiant monks of the southern-based Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This was the same association of monks who had protested the southern Vietnamese regime by immolating themselves during the Second Vietnam War, and then found that religious freedoms were little better under the communists after 1975. By establishing the Buddhist Sangha of Vietnam, state authorities were able to purge what they perceived as problematic leaders while co-opting large numbers of the Buddhist following. In 1989, the party-state formed the Veteran’s Association as a way to stave off a challenge emerging from a group of southern veterans known as the Club of Freedom Resistance Fighters. The Club sought recognition for the grievances endured by the South in the postwar era and advocated for a national reconciliation process—a desire that had also been expressed by the late former Prime , Minister and architect of the d-ôi mo´ i reforms Võ V˘an Kiê.t. To curb this threat, however, the party-state removed its leadership and established the Veteran’s Association as another of Vietnam’s mass organizations, administered by the Vietnam Fatherland Front. Even as international NGOs poured into Vietnam through the 1990s and domestic NGOs mushroomed, the party-state developed legal and regulatory structures to ensure that all of these NGOs were also absorbed into the party-state’s bureaucratic structures. All domestic NGOs are required to register under a Ministerial or other government organization, while the People’s Aid Coordinating Committee was established as a supervisory body for foreign NGOs. As a result, all of the NGOs in Vietnam are required to operate under the license of a government organization, and for which reason they tend to remain “within the letter of the law” and focus primarily on supporting existing government programs and “state-approved policy goals” rather than advocating against them (Thayer, 2009, p. 7; Kerkvliet et al., 2008). Of course, these organizations can always find margins of maneuverability, which vary according to time and place, but at any moment for any reason the government can simply withdraw their license to operate. In other words, even as the economic sphere has undergone dramatic transformations in the post-reform era, the political sphere has not much. ij

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Jonathan London (2009) has dubbed Vietnam’s political system in the post-reform era as Market-Leninist, which combines a liberalized market economy with an essentially Leninist political structure. As London describes, in a unipolar world of global capitalism, Market-Leninism allows communist parties to “pursue their political imperatives through market institutions and market-based strategies of accumulation while maintaining Leninist principles and strategies of political organization” (p. 376). The result of the expansive bureaucratic power of the party-state has been to bury Vietnam’s domestic political life and history under a hard crust of feigned socialist harmony. As much as possible, all forms of political struggle, debate, and conflict, both contemporary and historical, are quietly suppressed beneath layers of party control. And when the forces of those conflicts begin to disturb the surface, then the regime can always resort to hard repression. As human rights organizations testify, Vietnam’s record on human rights remains abysmal. The party-state severely curtails freedom of expression, opinion, and speech by routinely harassing, intimidating and, when the occasion demands, imprisoning journalists, bloggers and activists; exerts strong control over domestic print media, radio, television and, increasingly, the Internet; inhibits freedom of assembly and association for labor unions, human rights organizations, and political parties; and, through legislation, registration, and surveillance, severely restricts religious freedoms (Human Rights Watch, 2019). In a post-reform era, repression is perhaps used more sparingly, if at times confusingly, as the party-state has to constantly balance its image of a modern liberalized economy with its insistence on maintaining single party control. Within this restrictive political structure, Vietnamese citizens and activists may continue to pursue interests that do not always align with those of the party-state, but they do so within strict limits and often at great risk.

The Promises of Everyday and Underground Politics While the dominance of Leninist state structures remains relevant today, if one were to focus only on these structures one would miss a lot in the political lives of the Vietnamese people and their multi-stranded relations to the party-state. As Vietnam opened up through the post-reform era, the restrictive research conditions for social and political scientists also

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began to loosen up. Foreign researchers, in particular, were newly allowed to venture further afield from major cities and government minders. For researchers with a more ethnographic bend, this loosening of conditions allowed them to explore a wider range of sites for observing state-society relations in Vietnam. The result has been a more nuanced, and complete, picture of how citizens engage state authorities, contest policies, and barter power. A lot of this scholarship has focused on local and everyday politics. It has built on ideas of passive resistence and Vietnamese notions of “fence-breaking” (phá rào), which refer to a propensity to quietly defy the edicts of the party-state while pursuing self-interest or policy objectives (Fforde & De Vylder, 1996; Kerkvliet, 1995, 2006). A number of field studies emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s that examined state–society relations in a wider range of local contexts, such as local elections (Koh, 2006; Malarney, 1997), village tax collection and issuance of trading licenses (Hy V˘an Lu,o.,ng, 1993), regulation of industrial pollution (O’Rourke, 2004), traffic and construction regulations (Koh, 2006), and state development programs (Sikor & Truong, 2002; Tan, 2006; Taylor, 2007). Building on key insights from political scientist Joel Migdal, David Koh (2006) argues that state-society relations in these diverse contexts can be better understand with a disaggregated view of the state. That is, rather than viewing the state as one harmoniously functioning monolithic entity, as an emphasis on state structures tends to suggest, we need to recognize that the state is multiple and fragmented. It is represented by diverse actors and bodies, and it operates at multiple levels in multiple locations. Inevitably, gaps and contradictions emerge between these different instances of the state that can be leveraged and exploited by clever citizens. As Koh (2006) argues, citizens take advantage of “confusion of roles” and “other weaknesses of the administrative system,” such as low salaries and high levels of corruption and incompetence (p. 10). Koh refers to this area of wiggle room between what the state tries to impose as laws and policy and the actual practices of its emissaries (e.g., policy implementation) as the “penumbra of state-society relations” (p. 2). In the penumbra of state–society relations, there is a lot more room to evade state strictures and contest state policy than what a simple reading of state structure would suggest. However, to operate in this sphere, local actors have to do so in a way that is not too loud, that does not disrupt the status quo too much, or does not raise too much suspicion, all of which can be punished with state brutality and repression. In practice,

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this usually means that Vietnamese citizens adopt low profile and nonconfrontational approaches as they barter power with state authorities, depend on personal and informal connections that span state and society boundaries, and appeal to moral and cultural justifications that emphasize compassion for villagers and residents (Koh, 2006). While creating some space for collective organizing and contestation in a restrictive political system, this approach also entails very limited and precarious conditions for engaging state authorities and often relies on very personalistic and arbitrary solutions to personal or communal problems. It essentially confines activism or political contestation to, in a paraphrase of Koh’s language, shadows at the local level. Andrew Wells-Dang (2012) has built on the insights of the everyday politics literature to rethink the conundrums of Vietnamese civil society and political engagement. As discussed in the previous section, an autonomous civil society in Vietnam is constantly challenged by the extensive bureaucratic controls and repressive measures of the party-state. Or if civil society is conceived more as a Gramscian political terrain, then, in Vietnam, this terrain is deeply infiltrated and heavily dominated by the Vietnamese Communist Party’s organizational networks. For WellsDang, however, civil society in Vietnam is better understood in terms of networks of individuals and organizations that “frequently span traditional social and political boundaries between state and non-state actors” (p. 24). As with the literature on everyday politics, civil society networks are usually based on personal connections that develop into “flexible, often informal structures” (p. 3). Their mode of engagement is normally low key and non-confrontational, though it can be amplified at times with the help of the local media or branching out into local communities. Ultimately, however, these networks rely on “working within the system and making direct contact with parts of the state using personal and institutional ties” (p. 105). Their flexibility and informality helps them to survive the perils of activism under an authoritarian regime. But they are also what makes activists’ activities sporadic and precarious, typically reliant on personal favors and arbitrary decision-making by sympathetic state actors. As Wells-Dang’s case studies show, civil society networks sometimes win in exceptional cases, but few, if any, examples exist of them challenging major national policies or advancing systematic change in Vietnamese politics. Furthermore, as Wells-Dang recognizes, one of

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the enduring challenges of civil society networks is the lack of even their own endurance. The literature on local and everyday politics in Vietnam is testimony to the resourcefulness and ingenuity of people living under highly restrictive political conditions. But it also reflects the perils and limits of these conditions. The wrong message to take from these studies is that these informal and personalistic tactics are an adequate replacement for functioning democratic institutions and political rights, and even less that they reflect some kind of culturally essentialist way of doing politics in Vietnam or Asia. It would be more accurate to say that the restrictive political system in Vietnam conditions a particular kind of political practice and culture that allows for this kind of constrained underground form of political activity amid a wider context of strictly limited political rights and freedoms. It is a level of political activity that can sometimes achieve what Wells-Dang describes as “path-breaking advocacy with authorities and elites” (p. 3), but is ultimately constrained by a lack of more fundamental political transformation. ∗ ∗ ∗ , A lot has changed in Vietnam since the d-ôi mo´ i reforms of the late 1980s, and yet the basic governance structures of the party-state has not changed much. In essence, the party-state continues to suppress criticism of its leaders and major policies; repress activists deemed to be challenging state legitimacy, which now includes environmental activists; and strictly monitors and censors the social and political activities of its citizens. In the years leading up to the bauxite mining controversy, what could pass as activism or political contestation at the domestic level remained largely buried underground and encrusted in Vietnam’s historical legacy of Leninist political structures. ij

Unearthing Politics in Vietnam The controversy over bauxite mining was neither the beginning nor the end of political transformations in post-reform Vietnam, but it marked a pivotal moment in its evolution. This controversy brought to the surface political tensions and historical struggles that had been building up since at least the 1990s, while also forging a path for the even more contentious and oppositional politics that have emerged in the ten years since. This

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book tells the story of that moment, how it came to be, who was involved, and what ramifications it had on Vietnamese politics and society. This book challenges ideas that the environment provides any kind of privileged pathway to political emancipation. Instead, it begins with a recognition of the political possibilities that emerged with the massive socio-ecological disruptions of a massive resource extraction project, and then enquires into the individuals, associations, networks, resources, technologies and political and historical narratives that made a moment of political transformation possible. The analysis begins with an clod of clay hidden just below the surface of the Central Highlands plateau continuing through the local organizations, national activists, transnational networks, and cyber realities that gave voice to a wider opposition contesting not only bauxite mining but also the fundamental legitimacy of the ruling communist regime. The next chapter begins with a short political history of the Central Highlands bauxite mining projects, one that takes root almost immediately after the end of the Vietnam wars. The history of these projects challenges ideas that resources are apolitical, or more precisely that decision-making around resource development can avoid politics by simply following the science. Opponents to bauxite mining, understandably perhaps, suggested as much when referring back to decisions of the Soviet-led Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation (COMECON) not to invest in Central Highlands bauxite for scientifically enlightened environmental reasons. The idea that Central Highlands bauxite extraction was scientifically unsound helped to expose many of the problems with the Vietnamese government’s plans for it in the 2000s. However, this idea also presented a very reductive, and misleading, view of the political struggles at the center of decisions on over three decades whether or not to invest in Central Highlands bauxite. A look back at the history of these projects shows not only how Vietnamese bauxite was always deeply embedded in shifting political visions for the newly independent nation, but also how mining plans actually helped to materialize and consolidate these visions. As Vietnam sought out shifting foreign alliances to support its national-socialist reconstruction after a century of colonialism, revolution, and war, it created and recreated political visions that included solidarity with international socialism, a new openness to global capitalism, and, more recently, management of a complex relationship with a rising China. This chapter traces the history of Central Highlands bauxite through these shifting

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visions and alliances in the postwar era, which eventually led to the Prime Minister’s national bauxite policy in late 2007. The next three chapters provide a roughly chronological account of how the national policy on bauxite ignited a national controversy, of the like that had rarely, if ever, been seen in the post-reform era. Chapter 3 explores the little known story of how the public debate on bauxite mining began. It follows the low-profile activities that a domestic NGO and a handful of Vietnamese scientists initially pursued to create a public debate on bauxite mining, beginning in early 2007. By meeting discretely with domestic experts, collaborating with provincial government leaders on information exchange, and gradually involving the domestic press, these activists exemplified the informal and non-confrontational efforts to try to sway policy decision-making that characterize an embedded approach. Chapter 3 highlights how this type of approach can be effective in a restrictive political context, but it also demonstrates the limits of this approach. It shows that the more an issue is important, the more it concerns a wide cross section of people, and the more it asks fundamental questions about the legitimacy and viability of an authoritarian regime, the less effective an embedded approach becomes. The limits of the embedded approach was perhaps best signaled in the way the domestic NGO that had begun these discussions gradually began to step away from them as a new cast of activists stepped in to articulate a more confrontational and oppositional rhetoric. The new cast included writers and artists, community and religious leaders, and overseas Vietnamese communities, among others. In Chapter 4, I zoom in on the efforts of three particular individuals, a literary scholar and a writer-educator from Hanoi, and a hydrologist from Ðà Na˘˜ ng. Their creation of an online petition, initially supported by some of Vietnam’s most renowned intellectuals, from both inside and outside the country and across generations, helped to move the discussion from its traditional approach of gently criticizing the party to make it stronger to a more oppositional approach that questioned the party’s legitimacy to rule. The petition was significant not only because it superseded the bounds of the embedded approach, but it also signaled a re-emergence of the Vietnamese intellectuals in domestic politics. The petition collected 2,700 signatures online, which might appear as a negligible number in other contexts, but it is one that had few, if any, precedents in post-reform Vietnam. The online petition set a new tone for domestic activism and contentious politics in the way it brought diverse

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Vietnamese groups together in common opposition to a major policy of the party-state, including Vietnamese scientists and artists, activists, and community leaders, dissidents and retired or semi-retired state officials, as well as Vietnamese from the northern, central, and southern regions, and from both inside and outside the country. The petition further evolved into the Bauxite Vietnam website, which became a new hub for the bauxite mining debate and a new platform for the Vietnamese intellectuals. This chapter highlights the capacity of the Vietnamese intellectuals to mobilize their public prestige and intellectual talents to create new channels for expressing opposition to the ruling regime while maintaining their nationalist authority. While Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the efforts of anti-bauxite activists, Chapter 5 shows how state authorities tried to manage them through familiar tactics of incorporation and repression. While this two-track approach might at first glance appear confused or contradictory, this chapter focuses on how these two different arms of the party-state worked together to achieve one end, maintaining the undisputed authority of the communist regime. The repressive measures to which state authorities finally resorted may have put an end to the public discussion on bauxite, but they also marked the beginning of new networks, forms and discourses of political activism that have continued to grow and develop in the decade since. This chapter emphasizes that the success of the bauxite controversy was not in how it changed policy, for which it can claim only limited success, but rather in its effects on Vietnamese political culture and consciousness. By way of conclusion, the last chapter discusses some of the developments in domestic politics that flowed from the bauxite mining controversy. It demonstrates how politics has changed for activists and a growing sector of the Vietnamese citizenry since the controversy. These changes include a run of high profile online petitions that address the most sensitive or controversial issues of the day, massive cross-country demonstrations directly or indirectly targeting state leadership, and the formation of new self-declared online autonomous civil society associations. This final chapter traces the emergence of these developments in the legacies of the bauxite mining controversy and examines their significance for the future.

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Methodological Notes The same conditions that make activism difficult in Vietnam also made it difficult to conduct research on the bauxite mining controversy. I conducted this research while I was based in Hanoi from 2009 to 2011. Early 2009 was just when the public discussion on bauxite mining had exploded. General Giáp had written his letter to the Prime Minister on January 5th, along with two more open letters in April and May; the intellectuals’ online petition had just come out in April; and the domestic newspapers provided nearly daily coverage on the bauxite issue during the National Assembly’s bi-annual meeting in May and June. At that time, nearly everyone who pays attention to Vietnam’s domestic politics was surprised by this chain of events, and nobody knew how it would turn out. Activist intellectuals, many of whom had grown up during war and , the hard socialist decades prior to the d-ôi mo´ i reforms, were well aware of the major state crackdowns on groups of intellectuals, including many Vietnamese Communist Party members, in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1980s. These crackdowns resulted in arrests, imprisonment, and state sanctions that destroyed careers and personal relationships for decades to come. Was the controversy on bauxite mining also headed in this direction? The shroud around these discussions continued well after the government had embarked on its more obviously repressive measures in the summer of 2009, and again at the end of 2009 and beginning of 2010. Activists’ openness and audacity, ebbed and flowed during these years, depending largely on recent events and the tone set by state’s responses to them. Even by 2011, when the Vietnamese intellectuals launched their third major petition to protest the sentencing of activist lawyer Cù Huy Hà V˜ u, taking a more obviously political opposition to the ruling regime than what they had protested against bauxite mining, there was still a lot of uncertainty about how far they could take this discussion and what the consequences would be. These conditions still exist in Vietnam today, but the past ten years have shown, as I discuss in Chapter 6, that Vietnamese activists and a growing portion of the citizenry have taken them a lot further than what they were in 2009. As a result of these circumstances, identifying who were the key players in the bauxite mining debates and speaking openly with them about what they knew and what they thought was a long and careful process. I had to do so discreetly to protect their identities and avoid exposing them, as well as protect the possibility for me to carry out this research. To do this, ij

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I employed a broadly ethnographic approach. My methods comprised primarily of meeting and discussing with people who were involved in the bauxite mining discussions in some way, or who had an angle on them that could supplement my own; some participant observation, notably in the milieu of the Vietnamese networks that had started off the public debate and intellectual circles in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City; and the collection and review of hundreds of newspaper articles, online commentaries, blog posts, letters and petitions, government reports, and other documents related to the debates. As the bauxite mining controversy was primarily a discursive one, the proliferation of these texts went a long way in supplementing the views and opinions that were often only hinted at in my interviews. During the course of my field research, I met with more than fifty different people connected with the bauxite mining debates. Several of them I met on multiple occasions, and those with whom I conducted participant observation we met and discussed regularly. These meetings included scientists and experts, artists and writers, journalists and NGO workers, as well as current and retired government officials, foreign Embassy officials, and representatives of domestic and international NGOs. Almost all of my interviews were in Vietnamese. Most were based in Hanoi, though I also met with some in Ho Chi Minh City and Ðà Na˘˜ ng. I usually met them in their homes or offices, or at nearby cafes and restaurants. The tone of these discussions was generally informal, and sometimes clandestine. Due to these challenges, I recruited my interviews through a guide or snowballing methods, which was necessary to help generate a foundation of trust for the engagement. Consent to the interviews was given orally, because I did not want to keep physical or digital evidence of their discussions with me lest they should be seized by state authorities at some point. Fortunately, this never happened, but the precaution was warranted. For these same reasons, I did not record my interviews, except for a few exceptional cases where it was appropriate and the interviewee agreed. Instead, I took copious notes either during or immediately after my interviews, which I encrypted and kept separate from my record of who those interviews were with. The interviews varied in length, though they were usually in the range of one to two hours each. Language was another complicating factor for this research, as I was reluctant to use interpreters so as to keep the encounters as informal and with as few unknown variables as possible for my interviewees. At the time, I

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had a very functional Vietnamese, having previously lived and worked in the country for several years, but it did not always match the expansive technical or literary vocabularies, often rich with cultural allusion, of my interlocutors. Fortunately, as mentioned above, a plethora of texts were available to help supplement and reinforce the insights and impressions I was drawing from these interviews. In several cases, we spent interviews discussing written pieces that the interviewee had published, as it provided a safe ground for discussion given that the material was already in the public domain. Many of these materials were posted in domestic newspapers, sometimes uniquely in online versions, Vietnamese blogsites and international news media operated by overseas communities, and eventually the Bauxite Vietnam website established by the creators of the first online bauxite petition. The Bauxite Vietnam website provided a tremendously helpful clearing house for texts and written information on the debates for the first six months, until it was successively hacked and dismantled most likely by state-employed hackers in late 2009. Key domestic newspapers I followed included the southern-based Thanh Niên and Tuôi Tre, commonly known as two of the most daring domestic newspapers, at least within their tightly controlled ambit of permissible activity; the online and relatively new VietnamNet , which had innovated with pursuing a style of lengthier editorials and commentary on current events, which was and still is rare in Vietnamese newspapers; and more mainstream papers, such as Vietnamese Communist Party’s mouthpiece Nhân Dân and the English language Vietnam News. Important international media included the Vietnamese language versions of the BBC, Radio France Internationale, and Radio ˜ Ðàn (Forum), Free Asia, as well as overseas blogsites, such as Diên Viet-Sciences and the former X-Café. My research methods were ethnographic in the sense that they allowed me to be in place at an extraordinary moment. Being in place enabled me to explore and assess this moment from the perspectives of the persons most closely involved with it, and to view it from multiple and diverse perspectives. Constantly, I aimed to compare and contrast views of people holding different positions on the discussions, such as activist versus state official, or scientist versus literary scholar, or Vietnamese from the north and south, or inside and outside the country. That was a key principle driving my snowball recruitment strategy. It helped me to develop both a more comprehensive and nuanced account of the events unfolding before our eyes. ij

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However, there was one very important place that this research was not a part of. That place was the Central Highlands, at the sites where the bauxite mining projects were being planned. On two occasions, I requested formal permissions to conduct research there, and on both occasions I was denied by government officials. I did not want to imperil the larger research project by clandestinely venturing into areas where I had been explicitly disallowed. I felt that the voices and stories I was hearing were too important to risk. But it means that the voices of the people most affected by the government’s plans are largely lacking from this analysis, as they were in the broader bauxite mining debates. Their stories are for another research project. I cannot pretend that they informed the narratives in this book in any direct way, but only indicate the limits of this research.

Conclusion While the extraordinary debates that, for the main, took place in late 2008 and early 2009 never entirely stopped government plans for Central Highlands bauxite—especially not the two main projects that had drawn widespread international investor attention since the end of the Vietnam wars—their accomplishments were elsewhere. Policy “effectiveness” is not the measure by which to assess the significance of the bauxite mining debates. The significance of those debates was in the new networks of activism, new discourses of resistance and opposition, and new and renewed forms of contesting government and regime authority. It is the accumulation of these transformations in rhetoric, activity, and consciousness that signal an evolving political culture in contemporary Vietnam. The bauxite controversy marked a fault line shift from an older political culture of reformist or what I have referred to as embedded politics to a new kind of contentious and more oppositional politics. By exploring this fault line further, we can understand more clearly what the nature of this shift consisted of, where it came from and, while not predicting the future, provide more solid bases for understanding the possibilities that have been opened up for alternative political futures. It also helps us to understand better the nature of the state–society deadlock that activists continue to struggle with despite their growing numbers and heroic efforts. In essence, this book examines how the bauxite mining debates unearthed diverse voices of contention within the party-state and helped

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articulate them into new coalitions of opposition for a more democratic and politically liberal Vietnam. As such, it is a story about ongoing political transformation in one of the last remaining communist regimes in the world.

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CHAPTER 2

Political Histories of Vietnamese Bauxite

Introduction When General Võ Nguyên Giáp wrote his first letter to protest bauxite mining in January of 2009, he reminded the Prime Minister that a joint research program sponsored by the Soviet-led Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) had already rejected the Central Highlands projects in the 1980s. General Giáp claimed that their reasons were the “long-term and very serious ecological consequences… not only in the local area but for the entire rice producing areas of the South Central Region” (Võ Nguyên Giáp, January 5, 2009). General Giáp wrote authoritatively on the matter because, as he noted in his letter, “I was delegated to monitor and direct this program” (Võ Nguyên Giáp, January 5, 2009). General Giáp’s remarks signaled an environmental sensibility that likely resonated more in Vietnam in 2009 than it ever did in the 1980s. They also elided a more complex story of the popular aspirations and hard realities of Vietnam’s newly won national sovereignty and resource wealth. It is worth recalling that during the Cold War, the Soviet Union was among the most scientifically advanced nations in the world, and the Soviets had played a foundational role in the scientific, as well as cultural, education of modern Vietnam. In the eyes of many Vietnamese scientists and experts, the Soviets were a paragon of scientific reason and the perfect foil to the Vietnamese leaders they sought to expose and censure. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 J. Morris-Jung, Unearthing Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3124-5_2

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Underlining this line of argument, in what became a common refrain for the campaign against bauxite mining, especially in its early phases, was the idea that the politics of resource development can be neatly separated from its scientific bais. A deeper look in the history of these mining projects, however, shows that the decision-making around them was, from beginning until end, deeply political. As expressed by one Hungarian chemist, who had also conducted research on Vietnamese bauxite in the late 1980s, the idea that the Soviets would have forgone a massive reserve of aluminum feedstock out of concern for environmental consequences in an impoverished country at the far ends of the socialist world was inconceivable. For the impoverished Vietnamese government in the 1980s, the massive amounts of capital and levels of technology required to develop a project of this size depended on forging strong political relations with foreign counterparts. These political relations were not so much an added value to mining Vietnamese bauxite as a necessary condition for it. In this chapter, I examine how the Vietnamese government’s plans for Central Highlands bauxite were built on and helped to shape Vietnam’s shifting political alliances through the postwar decades until the present. Each period shows not only how Vietnam depended on foreign powers to develop what the nation’s leaders saw as their “natural” and national wealth, but also how they used natural resources to bolster their belonging in different international political-economic configurations. I trace these developments through three main periods, the immediate postwar decade when Vietnam was cementing its alliances with the Soviet´ market reforms as Vietnam tried to led socialist world, the d-ôi môi convince audiences at home and abroad that it was open for business as a market economy, and most recently as it has tried to manage the rise of its large and powerful northern neighbor. This chapter will show how discussion on the government’s plans for Central Highlands bauxite evolved through these three distinct, though overlapping, periods and finally became national policy in the Prime Minister’s Decision 167 in late 2007, commonly dubbed as the national bauxite policy. Before delving into these histories, however, I will first examine the geology and technology of bauxite, alumina, and aluminum production, whose materiality and international political economy are also an integral part of this political history. ij

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Geology, Technology, and Political Economy of Bauxite, Alumina and Aluminum Lightweight, flexible, durable, and shiny, aluminum has been described as the metal that made the twentieth century. Through the twentieth century, aluminum reshaped transportation through faster trains, commercial aviation, and personal mobiles. It transformed communications with high-power electricity lines and satellite communications, and inaugurated the age of space exploration. It also reshaped everyday lives and consumption habits with lightweight soda cans, kitchenware, aluminum foil, food preservatives, makeup, and antiperspirants. As D. H. Wallace wrote in 1937, “If steel was the workhorse of the industrial revolution, the light metal [aluminum] has become the queen of the newer technology bridging the gap from railroad to rocket ships” (as cited in Graham, 1982, p. 14). However, this dazzling story of the metal of the twentieth century begins with a dull orangey-colored clod of clay known as bauxite. Bauxite, also described as aluminum ore, is the primary feedstock for producing aluminum today. It was first identified in 1821 in Les Baux, France, from where it gets its name (Gow & Lozej, 1993). Bauxite occurs in three main varieties: gibbsite, boehmite and disapore. Gibbsite is considered as the highest grade because it has the highest aluminum content. Boehmite is considered as a medium grade, while diaspore is the lowest. While boehmite and some grades of diaspore bauxite can be used to produce aluminum, gibbsite is the most valued for aluminum production. The bauxite deposits in the Central Highlands are primarily of the gibbsite variety. The gibbsite found in massive quantities in the Central Highlands was formed over hundreds of thousands of years through a process called laterization. Through laterization, wind and water gradually dislodge soluble organic substances from the topsoil, while concentrating and compacting the insoluble ones, such as hydrated aluminum, into a hardened clay. The geological formation of lateritic bauxite is important because it conditions both where and how bauxite can be extracted. Laterization is more likely to occur on relatively flat or unperturbed topographies, especially where the water table is close to the surface, and it favors hot climates with periods of heavy rainfall. As a result, the largest and most economically viable bauxite reserves today are located in the tropical world, and in many cases developing countries. The main

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exception is Australia, the world’s largest bauxite producer, although even in Australia bauxite is produced in its less developed regions. This has reinforced a recurring dynamic in the post-World War II global order of exploiting bauxite resources in poorer and underdevelopment countries to produce aluminum for the consumer market and industrial advancement of wealthier ones. The laterization process further means that bauxite deposits tend to be shallow and scattered, as they are in the Vietnamese Central Highlands. As a result, more than 80% of world bauxite production is extracted through open-pit mining, also known as strip mining or surface mining (Gow & Lozej, 1993; UNCTAD Secretariat, 1996). Open-pit mining is the most destructive form of mining. It requires complete removal of the ground’s surface layer, which can include forests, farms, houses, and anything else that happens to dwell there. Rehabilitation efforts can help to mitigate the impacts of bauxite extraction, but only if they are done effectively; and rarely, if ever, can they restore complex socio-ecological systems to an original condition. Furthermore, because bauxite deposits tend to be shallow and scattered, they usually need to be mined over massive areas to be commercially viable, as bauxite is a low value commodity. This is a further reason why wealthier nations have tended to look toward poorer ones to mine bauxite, notably where the economic costs of land clearing tend to be lower and political organization to resist weaker. Bauxite is not, however, a rare resource. Aluminum is the third most common element in the Earth’s crust, after silicon and oxygen. It is also the most common metal, comprising 8% of the Earth’s crust (The Aluminum Association, Bauxite, n.d.). However, aluminum is a highly reactive metal. It is almost never found alone in its natural form. It is usually fused together with one or more other elements. From a technical and commercial point of view, the main challenge in aluminum production is extracting the aluminum metal from the bauxite rock. The technology involves a complicated, energy intensive, two-step process, which was discovered only in the late nineteenth century and was commercialized only in the early twentieth century. Understanding these processes is important for understanding why global production of aluminum is largely divided between the poorer bauxite and the wealthier aluminum producers. The first step was discovered by the German inventor Carl Josef Bayer in 1887. The Bayer process involves immersing crushed bauxite into a highly caustic solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in a high-pressure

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container at extreme temperatures of up to 1,300 degrees centigrade (Barham et al., 1994, p. 44). This generates a sodium aluminate solution, which is then seeded with particles of aluminum hydroxide that crystallize into a fine silvery-white powder known as alumina. This process is known as beneficiation. Alumina has a number of direct industrial applications, such as mordants for dyeing and tanning industries. Indeed, Bayer’s original purpose for experimenting with alumina had been to produce it as a mordant for the cotton industry. Today, however, alumina is mostly valued—if the grade is high enough—for aluminum smelting. The process for smelting aluminum was actually developed one year before the Bayer Process. Other processes for producing aluminum and alumina had been available before this time, but they were either more complicated or more costly.1 The process for smelting aluminum from alumina was discovered independently by two inventors in 1886, Charles Martin Hall in the United States and Paul L. T. Héroult in France. For this reason, it is known as the Hall-Héroult process. The Hall-Héroult process involves running a strong electric current through an aqueous solution of alumina that further separates the aluminum content from the remaining impurities. The resulting aluminum is then re-melted to produce a metal ingot with aluminum content upwards of 99 percent. However, smelting aluminum normally requires a high level of technology, significant capital investment, and an abundant and reliable supply of low-cost electricity. Such requirements often impede developing countries from using their own bauxite resources for high value aluminum production. Furthermore, the production of bauxite into alumina produces an inordinate amount of waste. The production ratio is usually around 4:2:1. Four tons of bauxite are generally required to produce two tons of alumina, which are required to produce one ton of aluminum. This means that three quarters of bauxite rock ultimately ends up as by-product or waste. In particular, beneficiating bauxite into alumina generates inordinate amounts of a caustic sludge, commonly referred to as “red sludge” or “red mud.” The toxicity of red mud is a result of a caustic lye solution used in the Bayer process and the heavy metals that remain in the slurry after beneficiation. Furthermore, because red mud is largely untreatable, 1 For example, Henri Sainte-Claire Deville had already discovered a method for beneficiating alumina a few years before Bayer, but it was a complicated process that was soon abandoned after Bayer’s discoveries.

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it is usually stored in massive cesspools that are dried out and then covered with a special plastic surface and a layer of topsoil. However, maintaining these cesspools is a constant risk for leakage or spills, as catastrophically occurred in Ajka, Hungary, in 2010. In this case, a breach in the cesspool walls after several days of heavy rain caused thirty million tons of red mud to spill out into nearby villages, killing a dozen people, contaminating two local rivers, and threatening the fauna and flora of the great Danube River. The story of aluminum’s commercial production and global expansion has also been one fueled by monopoly capitalism, world war, and economic rivalry between developed and developing worlds. Since the nineteenth century, aluminum production doubled almost every decade and by the 1970s it became the second most widely used metal in the world. The co-inventors of the Hall-Héroult process obtained patents for it and joined with American and European industrialists to establish monopoly conditions for the production of aluminum in their respective countries, establishing Alcoa in the United States and Pechiney in France. Demand for aluminum soared during World War 2, as military forces required precious metal to build airplanes, boats, motor vehicles and, not least of all, bomb and artillery casings. In the United States, the government broke Alcoa’s monopoly by establishing a second aluminum producing company to ensure steady supply at reasonable costs. The properties of aluminum—shiny, flexible, lightweight, and yet durable— both built the material foundations for and became a symbol of twentieth century aesthetics and ideology. Aluminum has also become a symbol of modern environmentalism because of its recyclability. It is a product that can be recycled back into itself indefinitely, and it has been estimated that 75% of all aluminum produced in the United States is still in use (The Aluminum Association, Recycling, n.d.). Due to the geological conditions, technological requirements, and its own political and economic history, the geo-political structure of the aluminum industry today is still largely, if not perfectly, divided between the wealthier nations that smelt high value aluminum and the poorer ones where bauxite is mined and alumina is sometimes produced, both of which are a fraction of the value of aluminum ingot. The world’s 55– 75 billion tons of bauxite are mainly found across the tropical regions of Africa (32%), Oceania (23%), South America and the Caribbean (21%) and Asia (18%) (The Aluminum Association, Bauxite, n.d.). The world’s main producers of bauxite are Australia, China, Brazil, India, and Guinea.

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In contrast, the top ten producers of aluminum include, in addition to China and India, Russia, Canada, UAE, Australia, Norway, and the USA. For these reasons, bauxite-alumina production is often seen as an industry for poor countries, while aluminum built the industrialization, modern consumption, and, for a time, war mongering ambitions of wealthier nations. As former Vietnamese Vice-President Nguy˜ên Thi. Bình remarked in 2008, “I have not heard of any nation that became rich from bauxite, nor of any economy that was poorer because it did not mine bauxite” (Nguy˜ên Thi. Bình, personal communication, December 2008).

Political Histories of Central Highlands Bauxite Vietnam’s Aluminum Dream Mimi Sheller (2014) has described the modern history of aluminum like a dream. As Sheller writes, aluminum “brought the apotheosis of speed, new architectures of luminosity, and the conquest of air and outer space that nineteenth-century writers such as Jules Verne dreamed of, thrilled at, and feared” (p. 3). As a latecomer to modern development, Vietnam also had an aluminum dream. This dream took a variety of forms through the postwar period, initially as part of the international socialist alliance, later as Vietnam opened itself up to the vagaries of global capital markets, and more recently under the ambiguous tutelage of a rising China. In each case, aluminum production inspired dreams of development, modernization, and national prosperity. It also helped to bring together the international political and economic alliances that were required to realize both the dreams wealth and prosperity that aluminum inspired. But that dream has had a long and deceptive history in Vietnam, tied to histories of colonialism, war and economic exploitation. Despite the more recent “discovery” of Vietnam’s southern reserves, bauxite has been mined in the north since the colonial era. French geologists first confirmed the presence of bauxite in northern Vietnam in the early twentieth century (Ð˘a.ng Trung Thuâ.n, 2010, p. 37). By 1938 and 1939, the French were mining 90 tons of bauxite from two mines along the northern border provinces of La.ng So,n and Hà Giang. From 1938 to 1944, the French, and for a short period the Japanese, mined some 36,000 tons of bauxite in the northeastern provinces of Hai Du,o,ng and ˜ So,n and Ban Lóng mines) (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008d). La.ng So,n (Lô The Hô` Chí Minh government took over these mines in the 1960s, ij

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producing 1000 tons of bauxite per year for a grindstone factory in Hai Du,o,ng province. After the war, the government continued to mine ´ bauxite at Mt. Thiên Ân in Quang Ngãi province from 1979 to 1982 (and then again from 1988 to 1989) to supply a nearby painting factory. The northern reserve comprises around 100 million tons of bauxite, which is scattered along deposits in the provinces of Phú Yên, Quang Ngãi, and Nghê. An in the Central Northern Region and Hà Giang, Cao Ba˘` ng and La.ng So,n in the Northeastern region (Ð˘a.ng Trung Thuâ.n, 2010). The bauxite from these deposits has been mined for a range industrial applications (such as astringents and mordants), but they never turned into an aluminum dream because Vietnam’s northern bauxite reserve is small and dispersed, and it consists primarily of the low grade diaspore variety. Even to this day, the Tam Lung bauxite mine in La.ng So,n province continues to extract some 50,000 tons of bauxite per year, but it is used primarily to supply the nearby Hoàng Tha.ch cement factory (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008). Vietnam’s southern bauxite reserve is a whole other story, however. At an estimated 5.4 billion tons, the southern reserve comprises 96% of Vietnam’s total bauxite reserves. The bauxite deposits in the Central Highlands deposits run through the Southern Annamite Mountain Range from the provinces of Kon Tum to Bình Phu,o´,c, constituting the largest of Vietnam’s three main veins of bauxite (Nguy˜ên Ðình Hoè, 2009, p. 186).2 Millions of years ago, the plateau’s rolling hills, hot climate and volcanic activity created ideal conditions for bauxite formation, as its basalt soils were weathered into a lateritic bauxite crust (Nguy˜ên Kha˘´ c Vinh, 2009, p. 47).3 The result has been an extensive area of scattered ij

ij

2 Vietnam’s bauxite deposits are located in twelve provinces, namely Da˘´ k Nông, Lâm ` ` Ðông, Ða˘´ k La˘´ k, Kon Tum, Bình Phu,o´,c, and Ðông Nai in the Central Highlands; Phú Yên and Quaij ng Ngãi in the Central region; and Nghê. An in the Central Northern region and Hà Giang, Cao Ba˘` ng and La.ng So,n in the r border with China (Ð˘a.ng Trung Thuâ.n, 2010). 3 Vietnam’s largest bauxite deposits formed largely between the Early Carboniferous to Late Triassic periods, nearly 400 million years ago. “Vietnam has five broadly-defined metallogenic epochs. In general, the younger the setting, the more abundant the deposits. There are only a few deposits hosted by Precambrian rocks, principally iron, gold and graphite. The Early to Mid-Paleozoic contains small deposits of iron ore and lead-zinc, and large deposits of potash. During Indosinian time—Early Carboniferous to Late Triassic— larger deposits of iron ore, ilmenite, gold, nickel-copper, and bauxite were formed. The principal resources of tin, tungsten, antimony, molybdenum, gold, REE, barite, fluorite,

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but very shallow deposits. Most of the deposits measure between one and fifteen meters in length, and they are usually less than three meters deep. Many deposits are located right on the surface. Furthermore, the overburden on the bauxite deposits typically consists of soft soils, which makes extraction technically simple, just dig and scrape. The deposits in the southern reserve are of the gibbsite variety, which is well suited to aluminum production. Their high quality, purity and proximity to the surface were chief reasons Alcoa called Vietnam’s southern bauxite reserve as among “the world’s greatest underdeveloped deposits” (“Alcoa Sees Vietnam Bauxite,” 2006, September 5). Furthermore, the southern reserve is broadly contiguous with large bauxite deposits on the Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos and Mondulkiri province in eastern Cambodia. Mining giant BHP Billiton, for one, had planned to mine the Vietnamese and Cambodian reserves together, connecting them by a railway corridor that would have been constructed to the Vietnamese coast (Interview No. 31, March 2011). Both the French and the Americans likely knew of the southern reserve, but, in the middle of revolution and war, neither appeared to have the capacity or interest to develop them (Ð˘a.ng Trung Thuâ.n, 2010, p. 37). At one point, the Americans had built a small bauxite processing factory in Tân Bình District on the outskirts of Saigon in the 1960s. But this was also only for industrial applications, and at that time the bauxite was imported from Malaysia and Indonesia (Nguy˜ên V˘an Ban, 2010, p. 67).4 Almost immediately after the end of the Second Vietnam War in 1975, Vietnam began exploring the “natural wealth” of its newly consolidated southern territories. For the communist victors, mineral wealth was the bounty of a hard won national independence. Paradoxically, however, the infrastructural, technological and, not least of all, financial requirements ij

and kaolin-pyrophyllite were formed during the Late Mesozoic to Early Cenozoic, with the tin deposits largely related to Late Mesozoic granitoids. Middle Triassic volcanic units host epithermal gold veins. There are large Neogene-Quaternary deposits of bauxite and alluvial chromite, as well as smaller deposits of alluvial tin, ilmenite and gold” (Ellis, 2004). “Larger deposits of iron ore, ilmenite, gold, nickel-copper and bauxite were formed during the early Carboniferous/late Triassic” (“Vietnam: Regulations Under Review,” 2004). 4 At the time of the bauxite controversy, the South Basic Chemicals Limited Company, a subsidiary of the state-owned Vietnam National Chemical Group (Vinachem), was processing about 20,000 tons of bauxite per year from Tân Rai for aluminum hydroxide for specialty products (Interview No. 34, March 30, 2011).

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for developing the southern reserve also demonstrated the limits of Vietnam’s newly consolidated sovereignty, and its “freedom” to exploit its own resources. To realize its aluminum dream, the fledgling state required capable and well-financed foreign partners. To enable these partnerships, across a range of economic sectors—as resource development was emblematic of wider dilemmas in the exercise of national sovereignty— Vietnam enrolled in various international political projects. These projects would give hope to Vietnam of realizing its aluminum dream, while aluminum dreams also helped Vietnam to solidify the political alliances at the centre of these projects. Building Socialism Across the Country: Dreams of International Socialism The southern bauxite deposits came to the attention of the newly consolidated Socialist Repbulic of Vietnam soon after the Second Vietnam War. From 1976 to 1980, the government commissioned its first Central ` tra Co, ban Tây Highlands Research Program (Chu,o,ng trình Ðiêu Nguyên 1), the second being commissioned in the 1980s and a third emerged, somewhat ironically, as part of the government’s response to the bauxite mining controversy that is the subject of this book. The Central Highlands study was conducted under the direction of the Vietnamese Sciences Institute in the Ministry of Science. The study assembled the nation’s best geologists and scientists to survey the region’s natural resources and assess their economic potential, as the government had done in the north during the 1960s and 1970s. One of Vietnam’s most famous conservationists, Võ Quý, had been a part of the Tay Nguyen Research Program. He recalled how the bauxite was so abundant and so close to the surface that it had already been exposed in many places through construction works. “We just went places and you could see it… In places where they had excavated a hillside to build a road or building, you could see it was right there in front of us” (Interview No. 17, April 7, 2010). The survey team reported their discoveries to General Giáp, who was then Vice-Prime Minister for science and technology, noting the deposits were, in Võ Quý’s words, “very big, easy to extract, and not deep under the ground, only a few meters.”5 ij

5 In private discussions, Võ Quý suggested to me that they also reported difficulties in overcoming negative impacts from deforestation, soil erosion, high demand for water

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The reports must have sparked an interest because soon after Vietnam approached the Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation (COMECON) about investing in Central Highlands bauxite. COMECON was the Soviet Union’s answer to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which had been established one year earlier as the Organization of European Economic Cooperation. Initially created by the Soviet Union with six Eastern Bloc countries in 1949, COMECON reinforced perceptions of the Soviet Union as the leader of the non-capitalist world. COMECON became a truly global organization as it expanded to Mongolia in 1962, Cuba in 1972, and Vietnam in 1978.6 According to political scientist Tu,o`,ng Vu. (2017), Vietnam was initially reluctant to join COMECON. At that time, Vietnam saw itself as at the vanguard of international socialism and preferred bi-lateral cooperation. However, a Soviet threat to withdraw economic aid appeared to have changed Vietnam’s mind. Under these circumstances, it is not difficult to imagine that mutual interest in developing Central Highlands bauxite could have also figured in these discussions. It would have provided both sides with a significant and mutually beneficial economic investment project and, in doing so, further bind Vietnam to the international socialist alliance led by the Soviet Union. At that time, COMECON countries were in heavy need of aluminum, especially the Soviet Union, who was at the height of its arms race with the United States. However, sources for aluminum feedstock in the Soviet Union were lacking. Only Hungary had a sizeable amount of bauxite, and it was only of the medium-grade boehmite variety (Interview No. 39, February 2011). The Soviet Union also had some bauxite, but its deposits and electricity, lack of transport infrastructure and storage of red mud. However, it was difficult to discern to what degree his concerns reflected debates at the time or the more recent ones that emerged in 2008 and 2009. Either way, Võ Quý, like General Giáp, suggested that once COMECON had investigated the matter further, “the Soviet experts also agreed with me. They agreed that the reserve was very big, but it could not yet be mined.” 6 The latter three were regarded more as “developing” nations in the association and benefited from Soviet overseas development assistance funds. For example, in 1987, Cuba received $4 billion in economic assistance from COMECON and Vietnam received $2 billion, though, in Vietnam’s case, about half of that was in military aid. Information on COMECON for this section is taken from the US Library of Congress’ Federal Research Division at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/germany_east/gx_ appnb.html, retrieved on December 9, 2011.

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were smaller and of even poorer quality (Interview No. 39, February 2011). Hence, the Vietnamese government proposal must have appeared to the Soviets like a gift from the sky. As early as 1981, a conference of non-ferrous metallurgists was held in Ho Chi Minh City with experts from the Soviet Union, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Cuba (“Vietnamese Bauxite,” 1981). The Soviets took the lead on the “May 1st” deposit in Ða˘´ k Nông (near today’s Nhân Co, project), while the Hungarians focused on the Tân Rai deposits in Lâm ` Ðông. However, after several years of study, the large sums of investment required for mining Central Highlands bauxite were not forthcoming. General Giáp suggested that the reasons not to invest were because of “long-term and irreversible ecological consequences.” However, as one Hungarian chemist suggested to me, who was himself involved with bauxite research in the Central Highlands in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was inconceivable that the Soviet Union at that time would forego an important economic project because of environmental concerns, least of all in a country as poor and as far away as Vietnam (Interview No. 39, February 2011). Rather, this Hungarian chemist suggested that a more a more likely reason was that, as was well-known at the time, COMECON was broke. It had no money to invest. The Mining Journal (“Mining in Vietnam—A Door Ajar,” 1989) also noted at the time “a shortage of capital” as the main reason for the lack of development of the Vietnamese bauxite reserve. Despite these setbacks, the Soviet Union still tried to maintain its grasp on the deposits, even to the point of actively deterring others from investing in them (Anonymous foreign diplomatic official, personal communication, March 14, 2011). A former Vietnamese Minister of Industry, who was a part of these discussions in the 1990s, has suggested as much: … responsible persons of the Vietnam Bauxite Project Team, the Soviet experts, might have attempted to deviate Vietnam from the utilization of its bauxite reserves in Vietnam by arguing that such an exploitation and refining may cause the risk of serious ecological damages. The Soviets experts considered these reserves as a potential to fulfill the needs of COMECON (first of all the Soviet Union). They invested time and money in the exploration especially for the deposits of “1st May,” and they also considered the reserves as “theirs.” They did not have the

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resources to implement a refinery, but they had sufficient power to block the development. (Tran Minh Huan, 2011, p. 26)

Soon afterward, in 1992, the Soviet Union collapsed, and with it the Vietnamese government’s first aluminum dream. However, the dream was , not forgotten. Rather it found new inspiration in the dawn of the d-ôi mo´ i reforms. ij

Shifting to a Market Economy: Capitalist Aluminum Dreams What do Bulgaria, Hungary, the former East Germany, Cuba, Poland, the USSR, Czechoslovakia, India, South Korea, France, Japan, Australia, the USA, Thailand, and China have in common? At some point since the 1970s, emissaries from each of these countries publicly expressed an investment interest in Vietnamese bauxite. Through the 1990s, following Vietnam’s market reforms, the character of these countries gradually shifted from international socialists to global capitalists. A new set of multinational investors re-inspired Vietnamese visions of a domestic aluminum industry billowed by the possibilities of a “free” market. However, these capital-driven dreams were no more real than those of their socialist predecessors. Not long after the Soviets and Hungarians were undone by the collapse of international Socialism, capitalist investors in the region were undermined by their own brand of collapse in the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s. Faced with a stagnant economy and near famine conditions in the 1980s, Vietnam followed the trail blazed by China nearly ten years earlier and turned toward a socialist-oriented market economy. Vietnam enacted a set of policy reforms that effectively ended the command economy. This new period in Vietnamese economic and political history came to , be known as the d-ôi mo´ i (loosely translated as “renovation”) era. The , d-ôi mo´ i reforms set the stage for the United States to lift the international embargo on Vietnam, which it had been leading since the end of the Second Vietnam War, and normalize relations with Hanoi in 1995. Normalization with the United States signaled that Vietnam was open for business and foreign investors, supported by their embassies, followed closely behind. During the reform period, the Russians and Hungarians, far from having given up on Central Highlands bauxite, continued to press their ij

ij

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claims on the deposits they had explored. But now their main modicum of involvement became the United Nation’s Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). In the late 1980s, UNIDO picked up where COMECON had left off. It funded a research program on Central Highlands bauxite. The new program conducted feasibility studies and economic valuations, with such titles as the “Determination of the comparative export value and comparative processing value of the Vietnamese bauxite” (UD/UC/VIE/88/042) and the “Establishment of an industrial scale resource based opportunity study” (DP/VIE/85/006). The project’s Chief Technical Advisor was a former Director of the Hungarian aluminum company, Aluterv-FKI company, which had previously been involved in feasibility studies on northern bauxite in the 1970s. Most of the foreign consultants hired for the project were either Hungarian or Russian. In 1988, UNIDO established the Bauxite Research Centre in an old ` American military base in Biên Hoà City, Ðông Nai province, imme` diately south of Lâm Ðông and Da˘´ k Nông provinces. For some, the hope was that COMECON might still be able to make use of this center and its research (Interview No. 39.3, March 31, 2011). But when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the UNIDO projects soon followed suit. By 1993, the Bauxite Research Centre was closed and its equipment was moved to the Research Centre for Mining and Metallurgy under VIMLUKI in Hanoi. For Vietnam, however, a new world of capitalist investors now beckoned at the doorstep. Even by the 1990s, apart from some common and relatively easy to extract minerals, such as coal and limestone, Vietnam’s natural resource wealth was largely untapped. Industry reports described its mineral sector as under-explored or underdeveloped (Dudka, 2006). Domestic oil production did not begin until the late 1980s, before becoming Vietnam’s most lucrative export by the 1990s. In 1991, the Vietnamese Deputy General Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry “appealed for [foreign] investment to develop the country’s mineral wealth, which includes bauxite reserves of 3,000 Mt, with ore grades of 40–43%, but no production” (“Vietnam Appeals for Investment,” 1991). The main obstacles were still a lack of investment and technology. The capitalist world did not tarry. The Indian company Hindustan Zinc Ltd was among the first to propose a Joint Venture for an aluminum smelter in 1995 (The Mining Journal, April 21, 1995). In 1997, South Korea’s Daewoo Corporation signed a letter of intent with the Vietnam

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Mining Company (VIMICO) to develop a bauxite mine and alumina refinery in Ða˘´ k La˘´ k province, with an estimated value of US$1 billion to produce one million tons of alumina per year (“Daewoo’s Vietnamese Intent,” 1997). The investment sums being bandied about were tantalizing. At that time, the average income in Vietnam was only a few hundred dollars per month. Following a pre-feasibility study, Daewoo proposed to set up a Joint Venture with VIMICO and considered the possibility of building an aluminum smelter, provided that the Vietnamese government could fund the public infrastructure for it. VIMICO also worked with the French aluminum conglomerate Pechiney in 1998 and 1999 to conduct a pre-feasibility study on the Tân Rai deposits, which the Russians had now all but lost their grip on. Discussions between the two companies included plans for a massive US$500 million smelting and refinery project with a capacity for 150,000–200,000 tons of alumina per year and 75,000–100,000 tons of aluminum (Seshadri, 1999; “Vietnam,” 1998). However, just as these plans were starting to take form, Vietnam got a sharp taste of the market economy. In 1998, the Asian Financial Crisis struck. Foreign capital fled Southeast Asia. Korean investors were hit particularly bad, ending Daewoo’s interest in Vietnamese bauxite. Although Pechiney reported that it was still conducting studies as late as 2002 (“Pechiney’s Lam Dong Feasibility,” 2002; “Tan Rai Vision,” 2001), the French company was acquired one year later by the Canadian Alcan and lost its interest in Vietnamese bauxite. Once again, the Vietnamese government’s plans appeared to be an aluminum pipe dream. Vietnam still lacked a foreign partner it could rely on to get the aluminum ore to market. Due to its late and gradual introduction to global markets, however, Vietnam weathered the storm of the Asian Financial Crisis better than many of its neighbors. Already by the early 2000s, it was courting new bauxite investors again. They included some of the largest mining and aluminum corporations in the world. In 2004, the Anglo-Australian BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company at the time, openly declared its interest in the Ða˘´ k Nông bauxite reserve and opened a branch office in Vietnam (The Vinh, 2004, 2005). In 2006, it applied for a license to build a bauxite mining plant in Ða˘´ k Nông and submitted a preliminary investment plan to the government for 1.6 billion USD (The Vinh, 2005). Concurrently, BHP Billiton was exploring large bauxite deposits

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in Cambodia and making plans to develop them together with deposits in southern Vietnam. Among their proposals was a transnational railway line from the Cambodian province of Mondulkiri to a port on the Vietnamese coast. Around the same time, the world’s largest aluminum producer, the American Alcoa, signed an MoU with the state-owned Vietnam National Coal and Minerals Industries group (Vinacomin) to conduct a feasibility study for an aluminum refinery in Ða˘´ k Nông (“Alcoa Explores Joint Alumina Venture with Vietnam”, 2006; “Alcoa Signs Vietnam Refinery MOU,” 2006). In August, Alcoa and Vinacomin co-hosted a joint seminar on bauxite-alumina production in Hanoi (“US Alcoa Expects Cooperation with Vietnam”, 2006). Vinacomin also submitted its plans for a joint venture with Alcoa for an estimated investment of 1 billion USD. The sheer size of the proposed investments would have made them among the largest in Vietnam at that time. The Russians—having since shed the cloak of socialism—were also back in, declaring an interest to invest 1 billion USD in Central Highlands bauxite through its aluminum giant RusAL (VNS, 2006). A few Chinese companies were also showing interest, such as the China Non-Ferrous Mining and Construction Group, the Yunnan Metallurgical Group, and the state-owned Chinese Aluminum Corporation (Chalco) (Chalmers, 2005; “China-Vietnam Alumina Talks,” 2002), as was the DirectorGeneral of the Primary Industries and Mines Department of Thailand (Thang, 2006). In short, just over a decade after COMECON had spectacularly abandoned its investment plans for Central Highlands bauxite, Australian, American, French, Russian, Korean, Chinese, Indian, Thai, and other foreign nationals were busy laying their stakes. Even though these discussions may have been only a small part of the economic activity that made Vietnam the second fastest growing economy in the world through 1990s and early 2000s, they reflected the road to a market economy that Vietnam had embarked upon and its eagerness for foreign investment. While few Vietnamese people would have disagreed with this path in the late 1990s, the attraction of large multinational investors announcing large sums of investments helped to show that the Vietnamese party-state was capable of succeeding in a capitalist world. A large foreign investment in Central Highlands bauxite would have further enhanced Vietnam’s image as a promising destination for global capital, while also showing

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the domestic population that the Vietnamese Communist Party could still lead the nation-state in a transition to a market economy. In the end, however, none of the capitalist countries won out. Rather, from the ruins of the Asian Financial Crisis emerged a new regional order, one that has been led with a new era of Chinese investment abroad. Rising China: Vietnam’s Aluminum Dilemma The rise of China as a regional hegemon was never a foregone conclusion, least of all in Vietnam. Chinese relations with Southeast Asian countries in the latter half of the twentieth century were checkered at best. During the early years of independence, Singapore regarded communist China as an existential threat. Indonesian leaders were also highly distrustful of communist China, infamously massacred hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese in 1965 and 1966 on the pretext of fighting communism. Even Vietnam’s relations with its one time communist ally deteriorated throughout the 1960s and 1970s, leading to the brief but shocking border war of 1979. Not until the 1990s, more than a decade after China’s market reforms, did Southeast Asian countries begin to normalize relations with China, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Even then, popular attitudes toward China have continued to be hedgy, at best. The first real signs of a new era came with the Asian Financial Crisis. As Western capital was taking flight from the region, China stepped in to help stabilize the regional economy. It provided financial assistance to several Southeast Asian countries and committed to maintaining the value of the Yuan. These gestures helped to bolster the region’s economic stability and paved the way for new economic agreements with ASEAN, including an agreement for the removal of tariffs in 2004 and a pledge to create “the world’s largest free trade area by 2010” (Hsing-Chou Sung, 2015). Over the next decade and a half, China became the first or second most important trading partner for every single Southeast Asian country, apart from Brunei and East Timor (Morris-Jung & Van Min, 2018). China also became an increasingly important source of foreign investment to the region, increasing from US$120 million in 2003 to US$6.3 billion in 2012 (Zhao Hong, 2015). China is also now one of the most important sponsors of economic development assistance, primarily through concessional loans tied to Chinese financing, equipment, expertise, and sometimes labor. China now presents itself as a major development donor

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for the region through such programs as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Vietnam has been no exception to these general trends. China is now Vietnam’s largest trading partner, and an important provider of development assistance to Vietnam. Normalization of Sino-Viet relations in 1991 was marked by the opening of a Joint Venture for a restaurant in Hanoi with an initial investment of US$200,000. It announced a new dawn for Chinese investment into Vietnam, which has expanded in scope, scale and geography over the past three decades (Morris-Jung & Van Min, 2018). By 2014, China had invested in more than a thousand FDI projects with a total capital value of US$7.9 billion, ranking 9th among foreign investors to Vietnam. Although Chinese FDI accounts for only three percent of all foreign capital in Vietnam today, these investments have included a range of sectors and are present in 55 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces (Morris-Jung & Van Min, 2018). For Vietnamese leaders, Chinese investment opportunities present a thorny dilemma. Vietnam has had a long and tumultuous history with China, having experienced, as Brantly Womack (2006) has argued, nearly every permutation of asymmetric power relations over their more than two thousand years of shared history. For Vietnam, China has been simultaneously the most important influence on the development of Vietnamese civilization and a constant menace. The pantheon of Vietnam’s national heroes is dominated by rebels, kings, and generals that had at some point had some success in overthrowing or repelling Chinese invasions, or who at least made a valiant effort trying. Relations between communist regimes in China and Vietnam were also mixed during the revolutionary and post-independence eras. Vietnam had depended on China for early technical, military, and financial support, but split off from China to embrace the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in 1978, whose Khmer Rouge regime was tacitly supported by China, led to the border war of 1979. However, relations then improved as both communist countries turned to market economies, during which time both countries grew economically at spectacular rates. Today China and Vietnam are strong economic partners, but against a background of complicated political and military histories. The first open signs of Chinese interest in Central Highlands bauxite emerged in late 2001, just as the dust was settling on the Asian Financial Crisis. Following a visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin to General Secretary Nông Ðu´,c Ma.nh in Vietnam, the party leaders issued a Joint

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Declaration announcing that the two countries had signed a framework agreement. By this agreement, China would provide preferential credit to Vietnam, which included a mention “to actively support long-term collaboration between companies for the bauxite-alumina projects in Ða˘´ k Nông” (Thông Tin Xã Hô.i Viê.t Nam, December 3, 2001). However, little, if any, discussion of these new plans for the Central Highlands appeared in domestic media until around 2005, when BHP Billiton and Alcoa also began to declare their interests. In September 2005, the Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister V˜ u Khoan mentioned Chinese development assistance funds as a means for developing Central Highlands bauxite during a meeting with the Chinese Deputy Trade Minister Guang Zhao (“Vietnamese Leader Upbeat About Trade with China”, 2005). Prime Minister Phan V˘an Khai also discussed cooperation on Vietnamese bauxite and aluminum production in a meeting with Chinese President and General Secretary Hu Jintao in November of 2005. It is possible the Prime Minister believed at that time that the smelting of high value aluminum would be done in Vietnam, because just one month later he proposed a ban on the export of raw materials from Vietnam (Thanh Nien, November 1, 2005). Around the same time, Xiao Aiqing, Director of the China Aluminum Corporation (Chalco), China’s largest state-owned conglomerate in the aluminum industry, was touring ´ D˜ Vietnam and met with then Deputy Prime Minister Nguy˜ên Tân ung (the same one who would issue the national policy on bauxite, as Prime Minister, two years later). These discussions continued into 2006. In November, while Chinese President Hu Jintao made a visit to Hanoi for the Asia-Pacific Summit, the two countries issued another Joint Declaration, briefly noting that both sides “began to discuss and implement major cooperation projects like Ða˘´ k Nông bauxite” (Tuoi Tre Online, November 18, 2006). Hardly one month later, Nông Ðu´,c Ma.nh traveled to Ða˘´ k Nông to encourage the local population to make the “best use” of their natural resources (Vietnam News Agency, September 14, 2006). Media also reported that during Hu Jintao’s visit, a framework agreement was signed to establish a Joint Venture for a bauxite-alumina refinery worth an estimated investment of 1.4–1.6 billion USD (“Vietnam, China in $1.6 Bln Bauxite/Alumina Deal,” 2006). Similar statements promoting Sino-Viet cooperation were made by Vietnamese President Nguy˜ên Minh Triê.t, ij

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during a visit with Hu Jintao in 2007, as well as during one by Nông Ðu´,c Ma.nh to Beijing in 2008. In essence, while BHP Billiton and Alcoa were signing MOUs with different Vietnamese state-owned enterprises, the top brass of the Vietnamese and Chinese leaderships were discussing plans for Central Highlands bauxite. Almost one year after Hu Jintao’s visit to Vietnam, the ´ D˜ now Prime Minister, Nguy˜ên Tân ung, enacted a national policy on the government’s plan for Central Highlands bauxite in Decision 167. However, rather than providing a policy framework for new investment, Decision 167 read more like post-facto justification for the projects ` in Lâm Ðông and Ða˘´ k Nông—the same ones that the Soviets and Hungarians had originally shown interest in. Six months prior to Decision 167, the Vietnamese government had already approved a feasibility study and Environmental Impact Assessment7 to build the country’s first ` bauxite-alumina refinery in Lâm Ðông with an investment of US$487 ˜ million (Nguyên Ma.nh Quân, 2009, p. 5). Two weeks after the Deci` sion, the Lâm Ðông People’s Committee issued construction licenses for the project (“Vietnam, China Groups Sign Major Bauxite-Alumina Deal,” 2006). One month later, the feasibility study and Environmental Impact Assessment8 for the second bauxite-alumina project in Ða˘´ k Nông were also approved with an investment of US$735.2 million (VietnamNet, April 24, 2009). While the state-owned Vietnam Coal and Mining Corporation was the owner of both projects, Chalieco, an engineering subsidiary of the state-owned Chinese Aluminum Corporation (Chalco), was awarded Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts to design, build and, for a period, operate them. In sum, even as the Vietnamese government was reaffirming its determination to mine bauxite in the Central Highlands, the involvement of a Chinese state-owned enterprise to develop the mining projects was a sensitive issue. On the surface, the arrangement was limited to a couple of fixed term EPC contracts. However, many commentators suspected it went far deeper than that. In a sense, the Prime Minister’s Decision 167 provided far more questions than it did answers. And once discovered by the public, it raised deep suspicions on the decision-making and policy processes that enabled large-scale resource investments in Vietnam. 7 Approved by MONRE on June 15 of 2006 as Decision 828/QD-BTNMT. 8 Approved MONRE Aon December 18 of 2008 as Decision 2102/QD-BTNMT.

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The Prime Minister’s Decision 167: The National Bauxite Policy By the late 2000s, the government estimated that Vietnam held between 5.5 and 8.1 billion tons of bauxite, making it the third largest bauxite reserve in the world (Ð˘a.ng Trung Thuâ.n, 2010, p. 37; Nguy˜ên Kha˘´ c ´ D˜ Vinh, 2009, p. 47). Prime Minister Nguy˜ên Tân ung even suggested— no doubt with a wink to potential investors—that the total reserve could be as large as 11 billion tons (“Vietnam’s Bauxite Reserves May Total 11 Billion Tonnes,” 2010, November 24). The government made these bold assertions while only 2.2 billion tons of the total reserve had been tested, meaning that the actual condition and economic viability of the large majority of the reserve was still unproven. (Nguy˜ên Ðình Hoè, 2009, p. 186) Bolstered by visions of massive natural wealth, the Prime Minister issued Decision 167 in November 2007 (Decision No. 167 , 2007). The decision approved the government’s “Master Plan for the exploration, extraction, processing and use of bauxite deposits from 2007–2014, with an orientation towards 2025,” dubbed as the national bauxite policy. Decision 167 estimated that Vietnam had 5.5 billion tons of bauxite. Apart from a few scattered deposits in the north, 96% (5.4 billion tons) of the reserve was located in the Central Highlands, and the adjacent coastal province of Bình Phu,o´,c. The Central Highlands region refers to the four provinces of Lâm ` Ðông, Ða˘´ k Nông, Gia Lai and Kon Tum, which, located on a highland plateau in the Southern Annamite Mountain range, were traditionally occupied by non-Vietic indigenous groups and densely forested. Decision 167 ambitiously aimed to extract all of the Central Highlands bauxite in less than twenty years. Experts estimated that the total area of the southern reserve covered 20,000 km2, or one third of the entire Central Highlands (Ð˘a.ng Trung Thuâ.n, 2010; Nguy˜ên Ðình Hoè, 2009, p. 186). The majority of these deposits were located in two provinces, Ða˘´ k Nông with 13 mines holding 3.4 billion tons of bauxite, and Lâm ` with five mines and 970 million tons. Together, these two provinces Ðông comprised 81% of the southern reserve. In Ða˘´ k Nông, the deposits were estimated to cover two thirds of the entire provincial territory. Decision 167 also proposed to build seven bauxite-alumina refineries in the Central Highlands, including four refineries in Ða˘´ k Nông and

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` one each in Lâm Ðông, Kon Tum, and Bình Phu,o´,c (see Table 2.1). The refineries would process raw bauxite into alumina, which would cut the weight—and, hence, transport cost—of bauxite by approximately one half. The production targets for these still to be born refineries were bold. The smallest refineries were expected to produce between 300,000 and 600,000 tons of alumina per year by 2015 and from 600,000 to 1.2 Table 2.1 Bauxite and Alumina Factories and Production Targets for Central Highland Provinces Mines

` Lâm Ðông Province ` Tha˘´ ng Lo.,i, Alum. Hydroxide Moij Ðôi Factory Baij o Lô.c Baij o Lô.c—Di Linh 1 Alum. Hydroxide Moij Baij o Lô.c vùng Factory Baij o Lô.c Baij o Lô.c—Di Linh 2 area Tân Rai and nearby Combination Bauxite-Alumina mines, Baij o Lô.c—Di Linh area Complex Tân Rai-Baij o Lô.c Da˘´ k Nông Province Alumina Factory Nhân Co, and nearby mines Da˘´ k Nông 1 Alumina Factory 1/5 and nearby mines Da˘´ k Nông 2 Alumina Factory Gia Ngh˜ıa and nearby mines Da˘´ k Nông 3 Alumina Factory Tuy Ðu´,c, Ða˘´ k Song and nearby mines Da˘´ k Nông 4 Gia Lai Province Alumina Factory Kon Hà Nu`,ng and Kon Hà Nu`,ng M˘ang Ðen mines Bình Phu,o´,c Province Alumina Factory Mines in Bình Phu,o´,c

Production Target 2007–2015 tons/year

2016–2025 tons/year

100,000

100,000

550,000

550,000

600,000

1,200,000–1,800,000

300,000–600,000

600,000–1,200,000

1,500,000–2,000,000

3,000,000–4,000,000

1,500,000–2,000,000

3,000,000–4,000,000

1,500,000–2,000,000

3,000,000–4,000,000

1,000,000–1,500,000

1,200,000–1,800,000

–

1,000,000–1,500,000

Note Expansion in production capacity for Da˘´ k Nông factories is stated as “depending on market demand” (Art. 1.5(e)) Source Selected info from Section 5 and Annex 3

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million tons by 2025. The largest ones would produce 1.5–2.0 million tons by 2015 and 3.0–4.0 million tons by 2025. Taken together, the refineries would aim to produce 700,000–1.0 million tons of alumina per year by 2010, barely two years after the passing of the Decision, and 6.0– 8.5 million tons by 2015, and 13.0–18.0 million tons per year by 2025 (see Table 2.1). As one Vietnamese mineralogist noted, these plans were highly ambitious; the entire global production of alumina at the time was only 74 million tons per year (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008). For a country that had zero production capacity for alumina at the time, these hopes appeared dizzyingly high. To address the massive infrastructure requirements that would be required for these projects, Decision 167 also called for investment in a deep-sea port in either Ba˘´ c Hòn Gió or Hòn Kê Gà in nearby Bình Thuâ.n Province to export the product to overseas destinations, most obviously China though this was not mentioned anywhere in the Decision. The new port would have a loading capacity of 10–15 million tons per year by 2015 and 25–30 million tons by 2025, capable of accommodating ships with carrying capacities of 30,000–50,000 tons. Decision 167 also included investment to build a 270 km railway line from the highland mining sites to the deep-sea port. The investment required for these infrastructure projects was estimated at 1.9 billion USD. The total investment for Decision 167 was estimated as 11.8 and 15.6 billion USD. In 2007, that figure was roughly equal to 15–20% of Vietnam’s Gross Domestic Product (i.e., 71 billion USD). This placed the projects among the largest investment projects in Vietnam at the time. Despite these significant investment requirements, Decision 167 did little to clarify project financing, apart from a brief and unspecific list of possible sources that included national and international stock shares, bonds and borrowing. Many commentators wondered whether the projects would bankrupt the government, or whether a particularly large and wealthy investor on the northern border was waiting in the wings. Furthermore, the low returns on both bauxite and alumina, not to mention the projects’ volatile commodity prices, questioned the projects’ economic returns and viability. The owner for all of these new projects was none other than the stateowned Vietnam Coal and Mining Corporation (Vinacomin), identified by ` tu, xây du. ,ng ). Vinacomin Decision 167 as the primary investor (chu d-âu was one of Vietnam’s largest state-owned enterprises in 2007 (Cheshier & ij

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Penrose, 2007). It began as the Vietnam Coal Corporation in 1995 and merged with the Vietnam Minerals Corporation in 2007, a few months prior to—and probably not coincidentally—the announcement of Decision 167. While Vinacomin had extensive experience in coal mining, it had no experience in bauxite or alumina production. Vinacomin also did not have the finances available to invest in all of these projects, for which reason Decision 167 provided that Vinacomin could form joint stock companies for bauxite-alumina production so long as Vinacomin maintained a majority share (i.e., more than 50%). This, however, would became a major point of debate as the public discussion on Vietnamese bauxite went forward. ,

The First Bauxite-Alumina Projects: Tân Rai and Nhân Co

The size of the government plans for Central Highlands bauxite was massive on all accounts, investment, territory, and sheer quantities of mineral ore. As we have seen, however, the plans for these projects had a long history. And by the time Decision 167 was issued, one bauxite` alumina project Tân Rai, Lâm Ðông province, was preparing to start construction, while construction permits for another in Nhân Co,, Ða˘´ k Nông province, were in the process of being approved. The first was proposed for the group of Tân Rai and Tây Tân Rai deposits in Bao Lô.c District (hereafter the Tân Rai project).9 According to Decision 167, the Tân Rai project would initially produce 600,000 tons of alumina per year by 2010 and then 1.2 million tons per year thereafter. According to Vinacomin, the project would acquire 207 km2 , including 140 km2 for mining the bauxite deposits, and it was expected to operate for fifty to sixty years (“Kho,i Ðô.ng Du., Án Bauxit—Nhôm ´ Nu,o´,c [Booting up the Largest Bauxite-Alumina Project in the Lo´,n Nhât ij

ij

9 An initial construction Feasibility Study worth US$487 million was approved for this project for the Vietnamese National Mineral Corporation (prior to its merger with the Vietnam Coal Corporation as Vinacomin) in January 2006, while the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Tân Rai project was approved by MONRE with Decision ` 828/QD-BTNMT on June 15, 2006 (Nguyên Ma.nh Quân, 2009, p. 5). The Lâm Ðông People’s Committee licensed what was now Vinacomin to begin construction on and operate the Tân Rai project on November 16, 2007, a little more than two weeks after Decision 167 was enacted (Thanh Nien, November 19, 2007). Construction was reported to have begun in July 2008 (Vietnam News Agency, July 28, 2008).

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Country],” 2003). Construction began in July 2008, as the first bauxitealumina refinery to be built in the country. The second project was for the Nhân Co, and other nearby deposits in Ða˘´ k R’lap District of Ða˘´ k Nông Province (hereafter the Nhân Co, project).10 This project would be the first of four bauxite-alumina refineries to be constructed in Ða˘´ k Nông, whose bauxite deposits comprise 62% of Vietnam’s total reserve (Reuters, as cited in Thanh Nien, 2007, November 7) and 20% of the world’s (Saigon Giai Phong, as cited in Thanh Nien, 2007, July 20).11 Initial production capacity for the Nhân Co, refinery was targeted at 600,000–650,000 tons of alumina per year by 2010 and then 1.2 million tons per year thereafter. These first two projects were basically the same groups of deposits that the Vietnamese government had been trying to extract for the past 30 years. They were also the two largest—a detail that was not usually recalled when the government belatedly referred to them as “pilot projects.” The Tân Rai project was owned by Vinacomin, while the Nhân Co, project was owned by the Nhân Co, Alumina Joint Stock Company, in which Vinacomin owned a controlling share. Fixed term Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts for both projects were signed with Chalieco, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Aluminum Corporation (Chalco). By these contracts, Chalieco was responsible for the construction and design of the mining sites and alumina refinery. Chalieco would also operate these projects for two years before handing them over to the project owners. The Tân Rai and Nhân Co, group of deposits were the ones that had attracted government interest since the first days of Vietnam’s post-war period, and for which the government had sought investments through socialist, capitalist and finally Chinese partnership. They were also the ones for which the national bauxite policy, Decision 167, seemed to have been written. Meanwhile, the future of the remaining Central Highlands projects outlined in Decision 167 was still uncertain at this point, more of an aspiration than a plan. However, the sheer scale of these projects and

10 EIA approved by MONRE with Decision 2102/QD-BTNMT on December 18, 2007 (Nguyên Ma.nh Quân, 2009, p. 5). Estimated cost for construction of the alumina factory is US$735.2 million (VietnamNet, April 24, 2009). 11 Five out of eight districts in Da˘´ k Nông have bauxite deposits, covering an area of 1900 km2 , of which 1400 km2 is planned for mining (Nguy˜ên Ði.nh Hoè, 2009, p. 187).

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their complex chains of social and ecological consequences sent tremors through a nation.

Conclusion This chapter provided a brief history of the Vietnamese government’s plans to develop the Central Highlands bauxite reserve over three decades, and how they were deeply entangled in political projects of state formation. These plans, which began almost immediately after the conclusion of the Second Vietnam War, endured several stops and starts that roughly coincided with Vietnam’s shifting international political and economic relations. Dreams of erecting a modern aluminum industry in Vietnam inspired state visions of prosperity, modernity and industrialization. However, as these dreams dissipated in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Asian Financial Crisis, the Vietnamese government was forced to seek new international partners to make its dreams a reality. To do so, it turned to a familiar friend and sometimes foe. However, the exact nature of the Vietnamese government’s engagement with China over the Central Highlands bauxite projects was unclear, which further led to suspicion and controversy in the public view. In doing so, the debate raised in new ways old questions on the competency and legitimacy of the Vietnamese party-state, as we will see in the ensuing chapters. What this brief history shows is that the decisions around mining bauxite in the Central Highlands were always deeply entangled in the politics of building the party-state and its foreign relations. Rarely, if ever, was there a clear separation between the environment and the politics of natural resource development. As one mineralogist and former manager at Vinacomin, Nguy˜ên V˘an Ban, pointed out, there are several good reasons for wanting to mine bauxite in the Central Highlands (Nguy˜ên V˘an Ban, 2010, p. 64). Vietnam has one of largest bauxite ore reserves in the world. Many of the mines identified in Decision 167 are large enough to produce more than one million tons of alumina per year for several dozen years and, in some cases, more than one hundred years. Furthermore, the deposits are easily accessible, cost-efficient and technically simple to extract. Many deposits are only one meter below the surface layer, while in some areas they are on the surface. The quality of the southern reserve is very suitable for refining into alumina through the Bayer process. Finally, as central and ij

ij

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provincial government officials are quick to point out, the Central Highlands is an impoverished region in need of outside investment to generate jobs, revenue, and socio-economic development. However, Nguy˜ên V˘an Ban continued, the reasons against mining bauxite are overwhelming. In the next chapter, we review some of these reasons against mining bauxite and the extraordinary debates that emerged around them. ij

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´ Ðu´,c. (2007, May 17). Khai thác bauxite: Miên ` Trung s˜e bi. anh hu,o,ng Tân , [Bauxite mining: The Central region will be impacted]. Tho` i Báo Kinh Tê´ Sài Gòn, 21, 18–19. Tan Rai vision. (2001). Mining Journal, 358. Thang, T. D. (2006, August 21). Thailand keen to explore Vietnam’s natural resources (Tuong Nhi, Trans.). Thanh Nien. http://www.thanhniennews. com/2006/Pages/20068212133110.aspx The Vinh. (2004, November 17). Australian mining giant searches for bauxite in Vietnam. Thanh Nien. http://www.thanhniennews.com/2004/Pages/200 41117224590.aspx The Vinh. (2005, September 21). Australian mining giant set to invest $1.6 bln in Vietnam. Thanh Nien. http://www.thanhniennews.com/2005/Pages/200 5921111240.aspx ` Ðình Thiên. (2008, October 24). Thâ.n tro.ng khi cha.m vào Tây Nguyên Trân [Be cautious when stepping into the Central Highlands]. Tuôi Tre TP. HCM . Tran Huu Hieu. (2008, October 25). Bauxite mining threatens Central Highlands. Vietnam News Agency. http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Enviro nment/181686/Bauxite-mining-threatens-Central-Highlands.html Tran Minh Huan. (2011, December 15). Development of the bauxite-aluminaaluminum industry of Vietnam. ICSOBA Newsletter, 6, 23–29. TTO [theo Web chính phu]. (2006, November 18). Toàn v˘an Tuyên bô´ chung ´ [Full text of Joint Declaration Vietnam-China.] Tuôi Viê.t Nam—Trung Quôc. Tre. http://tuoitre.vn/PrintView.aspx?ArticleID=173252 UNCTAD Secretariat. (1996). Bauxite, alumina and aluminium and the Uruguay round. http://www.unctad.org/templates/Page.asp?intItemID= 1854&lang=1 US Alcoa expects cooperation with Vietnam. (2006, August 30). Thanh Nien. http://www.thanhniennews.com/2006/Pages/20068301219130.aspx Vietnam. (1998). The Mining Journal, 43. Vietnam appeals for investment. (1991). The Mining Journal, 330. Vietnam, China groups sign major bauxite-alumina deal. (2006, November 17). Thanh Nien. http://www.thanhniennews.com/2006/Pages/200611171312 510.aspx Vietnam, China in $1.6 bln bauxite/alumina deal. (2006, November 22). Thanh Nien. http://www.thanhniennews.com/2006/Pages/200611222026 460.aspx Vietnam: Regulations under review. (2004). The Mining Journal, 23. Vietnamese Bauxite. (1981). The Mining Journal, 217. Vietnamese leader upbeat about trade with China. (2005, September 22). Thanh Nien. http://www.thanhniennews.com/2005/Pages/20059221323210.aspx ij

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VNS. (2006, December 7). Rusal looks to invest $1 billion in mining project. Vietnam News Agency. http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Pages/PrintV iew.aspx?ArticleID=159862 ˜ Tân ´ Võ Nguyên Giáp. (2009, January 5). Letter to Prime Minister, Hon. Nguyên D˜ ung. http://www.viet-studies.info/kinhte/Thu_VNGiap_NTDung.pdf Vu, T. (2017). Vietnam’s communist revolution: The power and limits of ideology. Cambridge University Press. Womack, B. (2006). China and Vietnam: The politics of asymmetry. Cambridge University Press. Zelder, G., & Africano, S. (2003). Bauxite and aluminum: A cradle to grave analysis. Course on Race, Poverty and Environment, San Francisco State University. https://bss.sfsu.edu/raquelrp/projects/Bauxite%20and%20Alum inum.ppt Zhao Hong. (2015). China’s quest for energy in Southeast Asia: Impact and implications. ISEAS Publishing.

CHAPTER 3

Power and Limits of Embedded Advocacy

With the massive demonstrations against the Taiwanese company Formosa in 2016 (alleged to have caused a massive fish die-off along four Central Vietnamese coastal provinces) and the Hanoi tree-hugging campaign in 2015 (to protect 6,700 trees from Hanoi government plans to fell them), environmental issues have become a topical issue for contentious politics in Vietnam. Scholars have begun to ask whether environmentalism has become a “new frontier of civil society activism?” (Nguyen & Datzberger, 2018). Vietnam watchers have reported on the rise of the “green resistance,” going so far as to suggest that it has “unified Vietnamese social activists across geography, class and ideals” (Hutt, 2017). According to one commentator, public demonstrations like the ones against Formosa have “altered the political landscape”; they reflect a “burgeoning spirit of defiance toward the Vietnamese elite and the way it rules the country” (Beaufort, 2016). Government sources report that large-scale environmental protests are on the rise (Ortmann, 2017), while international human rights organizations have increasingly begun to count “environmental activists” among their lists of prisoners of conscience (ClientEarth, 2018; Human

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Rights Watch, 2016). Stephen Ortmann (2017) identified fifteen environmental disputes that included hundreds—and in some cases thousands— of protestors between 2010 and 2016. The number is striking given that, as Ortmann suggests, “there exists neither a broad-based environmental movement nor any large [domestic] environmental organizations” in Vietnam (as cited in Gillespie et al., 2019, p. 4). When a public debate on Vietnamese bauxite first began to surface, it was also understood to be primarily an environmental campaign. Commentators described it as having been led by environmentalists before it was engulfed by nationalism and anti-China sentiment (Marston, 2012; Thayer, 2010; Vuving, 2010). Yet the most vocal person leading the early stages of the debate—the one who, more than anyone else, could be called a whistle blower on the bauxite affair—was a government mineralogist, Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. He had worked as a senior manager for more than a decade with the state-owned Vietnam Coal and Mineral Corporation (Vinacomin) that was made responsible under Decision 167 for extracting all of the Central Highlands bauxite. The Vietnamese NGO that helped amplify Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n’s concerns was also not an environmental organization per se, but one whose roots were in field projects to support upland ethnic minority groups. It called itself the Consultancy on Development (CODE). And among those who joined the early stages of the bauxite mining debates, ecologists and environmentalists were barely a handful. These disjunctures reflect a recurring tendency to pigeon-hole complex social movements or campaigns into narrow categorical framings. The recent convergence of environmental issues and domestic protests in Vietnam has distant echoes in the anti-communist revolutions of the former Eastern Bloc countries and the Soviet Union, as well as more recent, and more culturally and historically comparable, parallels in the Chinese context. Scholars have noted that organizing around the environment was important to the toppling of communist regimes in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. According to one Bulgarian activist, “Environmentalism was the only way to express civil disobedience without being arrested” (Economy, 2010, p. 245), while organizations such as the Polish Ecology Club provided a unique opportunities for citizens to become socio-politically active. Organizing around

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environmental issues in Eastern Europe helped to create basic infrastructure and powerful symbols for what ordinary people could do to stand up to the communist party (Economy, 2010). At the same time, environmental problems exposed the failures and sometimes indifference of the state to address people’s concerns. In the Soviet Union, Jack Goldstone (2001) reminds us how the communist party’s “wooden response” to the Chernobyl disaster alienated the population and pushed them further toward revolution (148). During the first decade of the 2000s, scholars began to describe environmental activism in China as a new frontier for civil society. Scholars noted the spectacular growth in environmental organizations, as well as several successful public campaigns on environmental issues. Environmental NGOs were described as better organized, better able to mobilize public support, and more likely to move beyond service delivery and into influencing government (Lu Yiyi, 2007). Guobin Yang (2005) described these incidents as new “laboratories” of political action, “where citizens may practice political skills, organize and participate in civic action, and test political limits” (65). To Guobin Yang (2010), environmental activists were “cultural translators” that combined Chinese cultural and organizational forms with more global ones to produce new language and forms of contestation. These developments led some scholars to speculate on whether environmental activism might also lead to regime change in China. According to Elizabeth Economy (2010), who wrote a widely acclaimed book on environmental activism in China, “As the Soviet and Eastern Bloc experience shows, social forces, once unleashed, may be very difficult to contain” (136). For Economy (2010/2004), Chinese society was becoming more vocal in its demands, not only on environmental policy but “perhaps even to the entire Chinese political system” (21). Other scholars also wondered whether environmental activism in China would lead to “jarring political change” (Cooper, 2006, p. 109). However, revolution did not, or at least has not yet, come. Scholars Peter Ho and Richard Edmonds (2008), whose extensive treatment of the topic, described a rather different relationship between environmental activism and political culture in China. Rather than a full rejection of the political regime, environmental activism provided a way of working within the structures of the authoritarian regime to effect changes at the local level. They described this approach as “embedded activism,” precisely because it was “embedded” within the political structures of

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the Chinese authoritarian state. The fundamental principles of embedded activism are similar to Kevin O’Brien and Lianjiang Li’s (2006) notions of “rightful resistance,” where activists articulate their claims to rights within the discursive and institutional structures of the party-state. I refer to this broad set of approaches as embedded approaches, or embedded politics. Tactically, embedded approaches are low profile, informal, and non-confrontational forms of activism. Embedded activists portray themselves as partners with—rather than opponents of—the state, which also pushes them to rely on considerable degrees of self-censorship and de-politicization. They are also careful to skirt “sensitive” issues and make sure to “avoid any connotation with broad, popular movements” (8). This kind of dissimulating approach further enables activists to span state–society boundaries to engage with and sometimes enlist the support of state officials, while also doing their best to evade harsh repercussions. Scholarly work on embedded approaches has important parallels in the Vietnam scholarship. One exemplar is the work of Andrew WellsDang’s (2012), whose notion of “civil society networks” combines “embedded advocacy” with scholarly literature on Vietnamese local politics. With echoes of the “fence-breaking” approach famously described by Vietnamese economist Ða.ng Phòng, the literature on Vietnamese local politics has demonstrated how rural villagers and urban residents try to nudge government policy through low profile, non-confrontational approaches based largely on personal relations with local state officials. David Koh’s (2006) influential work on local politics demonstrates how ordinary Vietnamese citizens pursue influence with the state through personal relations with state officials, while quietly exploiting the gaps and contradictions between different bodies and levels of government. Like embedded activism, this kind of maneuvering relies on at least a performance of aligned interests with state officials. Dara O’Rourke (2004) has described similar processes in enabling Vietnamese villagers to regulate local factory pollution, albeit limitedly. The question remains, however, whether these examples are testimony to gradual changes toward more open political participation, or tiny concessions by state authorities to preserve the broader authoritarian regime. Over the next three chapters, I present a chronicle of the bauxite mining debates from their initial expressions of public concern in May 2007 to the state’s crackdown on the debate in the latter half of 2009 and early 2010. Accordingly, I have broken up the chronicle according to three key periods or moments. They are the emergence of the bauxite mining debates (this chapter); the re-emergence of the Vietnamese “intel, , lectuals” (gio´ i trí thu´ c) at the apex of these debates (Chapter 4); and

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the denouement that followed in the National Assembly and the state’s inevitable crackdown (Chapter 5). The story of these chapters shows how the bauxite mining controversy began with an embedded approach— one that focused on environmental impacts and was often framed in an environmental discourse—and then shows how the many diverse issues emerging from the controversy overflowed the calculus of embedded politics and transformed into something more radical and oppositional. This chapter examines chronologically the emergence of the bauxite controversy, beginning with the first murmurings of a few concerned scientists and a local NGO that wanted to do a different kind of policy advocacy. The chapter introduces us to some of the main characters in these discussions and their diverse backgrounds. It also reveals the diverse approaches they used to widen the scope of debate beyond the restrictive frame of embedded politics. The stories in this chapter testify to how embedded politics can be an effective way of drawing attention and building public support around an important policy issue in Vietnam, as well as how the environment offered a protective ground upon which activists could engage state officials in this way. However, it is also a cautionary tale, demonstrating how an embedded approach provides only limited possibilities for addressing a complex issue of national importance, much less address systemic problems within the nation’s domestic politics.

Seeds of a Debate: Two Articles in the Saigon Economic Times The first murmurings of a public debate on Central Highlands bauxite , can be traced back to two articles in the Saigon Economic Times (Tho` i báo Kinh tê´ Sài gòn). The first of these articles appeared on May 17th, 2007. It was based on interviews with two government scientists, Nguy˜ên Kha´˘ c Kính, a former Director of the government office for Environmental Impact Assessment, and Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. The article was written in response to the government’s recent approval of the Tân Rai bauxite` alumina project in Lâm Ðông province. Its title refers somewhat vaguely to the “incalculable consequences” of bauxite-alumina production, but the accompanying image makes clear what those consequences will be. The image, a photo of bauxite mining somewhere other than Vietnam, depicts an excavator and a dump truck working on a barren landscape of orangey and cracked clay soils with only a thin line of grey emaciated

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trees on the horizon. To make matters crystal clear, the caption below the image reads: “To mine bauxite, 1–5 meters of top soil will need to be removed. This means that several thousand hectares of forest will be destroyed.” For a civilization that traces its identity to the lush paddy fields of wet rice cultivation, the image was near apocalyptic. Framing the mining projects as an environmental risk was notable and deliberate. Through the words of Nguy˜ên Kha´˘ c Kính and Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, the article explained a dire chain of environmental consequences from bauxite mining. Bauxite-alumina production would create massive deforestation and vegetation loss, which would cause heavy soil erosion, which would then risk micro-climate changes, jeopardize agricultural livelihoods, and increase exposure to floods and droughts. As a major watershed for the southern region, severe ecological damage to the Central Highlands further risked degradation of the water supply for the South and Southeast East regions of Vietnam, including its “rice basket” in the Mekong Delta. While the government’s environmental impact assessments were meant to provide some reassurance on the safety of the projects, both scientists were doubtful. As Nguy˜ên Kha´˘ c Kính attested, “I can confirm that 100% of environmental impact assessment reports in Vietnam are of low quality … Those data usually say little about anything” ´ Ðu´,c, 2007, p. 19)—strong words from the former Director of the (Tân Office for Environmental Impact Assessment. The second article, published two weeks later on May 31st, was an individual contribution by Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n had previous experience with Central Highlands bauxite in the early 1980s, when he worked as a government mineralogist for the Joint Committee with COMECON. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n had earned his first degree in mining engineering in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and then worked at the Ministry of Coal from 1977 to 1982. While working on Central Highlands bauxite, he also earned his PhD from the Moscow Mining University in 1986. In other words, Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n was a government scientist through and through, one who owed his education, career, and future pension to the government. When Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n joined the Ministry of Energy and became the Editor-in-Chief of the Ministry’s Energy Magazine, he published an article entitled “Energy and the Central Highlands” in 1989 (Nguy˜ên

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Thanh So,n, 1989). This article argued against mining Central Highlands bauxite. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n’s rationale for not investing in Central Highlands bauxite was primarily economic, not environmentalist—of which, in the 1980s, there was little awareness in Vietnam. However, his economic analysis was based on a careful understanding of the economy’s relation with ecology. The gist of his argument was that soil erosion and river siltation would create greater economic losses in other more promising sectors, namely agriculture, forestry, and hydro-power development, not only in the Central Highlands but for the entire southern region. As Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n concluded: After this preliminary examination, we can see that we need to eliminate Bauxite from our list of economic development options for the Central Highlands. If we mine Bauxite, then the [rich] Bazan topsoils will no longer exist … If these Bazan topsoils are lost, then not only will agricultural and forestry in the Central Highlands be lost, but also the “rice baskets” of the South Central and Southern Regions and the potential for hydroelectric dam construction in the Central Highlands. (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 1989 unpaginated)

In 1989, however, there was no public debate on bauxite mining. The Energy Magazine was a small ministerial journal, whose readership was unlikely to have extended far beyond ministerial offices. However, the article found new life twenty years later as the basis to Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n’s individual contribution to the Saigon Economic Times in May 2007. The article in the Saigon Economic Times reviewed the same basic arguments, with one notable addition: “environmental pollution” (13) ,, (ô nhiê.m môi truo` ng ). The new article did not lay out in detail the problem of “red mud” that would soon bring the public debate to a boil, but it reflected a new Vietnamese sensibility toward environmental issues. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n himself could not be described as an environmentalist, but he understood well how ecology was fundamental to a resource-based economy.1 His old arguments in the new clothing of the Saigon Economic Times reflected an environmentalization of the issues. 1 This excerpt from the 1989 article reinforces the point: “the issue of developing the economic potential of the Central Highlands must be researched in a comprehensive way. The economic sectors of the Central Highlands have a tight relationship with each other. Between the Central Highlands and the provinces in the Southeastern Region, they also have a very close economic relation. These economic relations as examined from a

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Clearing Ground for a Policy Dialogue: The Consultancy on Development (CODE) Even so, news about economic development projects destroying the environment was hardly a bombshell even in 2007. These two articles in the Saigon Economic Times might have quickly passed into oblivion had they not been espied by a group of young NGO workers, who had just set up a new Vietnamese NGO to do things a little bit differently. This NGO, oddly named as Consultancy on Development (CODE), was officially registered on May 7th, 2007, only ten days prior to the first article in the Saigon Economic Times . CODE was founded primarily by ` Thi. Lành, a well-known firebrand among the “old guard” of the Trân ` Thi. Lành established one of the first Vietnamese NGO community. Trân Vietnamese NGOs in the dôi mo´,i era, called Towards Ethnic Women. Through a merger with a couple of other Vietnamese NGOs focused on ethnic minorities and upland development, Toward Ethnic Women became the Social Policy and Ecological Research Institute (SPERI) with ` Thi. Lành as Director. Trân The idea for CODE grew out of a SPERI initiative to create a “professional lobby” in Vietnam. The desire for a professional lobby came from a recognition that SPERI’s day-to-day work with upland ethnic minority groups often found little support in national policies, and sometimes it was undermined by them. By SPERI’s analyses, the problem was with the policy-making process itself, and the system of government that supported it. In a revealing statement, SPERI wrote that “the socioeconomic and political-civic contexts of Vietnam continue to suffer from one-way leading and the power of one-way leading, which has driven the whole country into a state of utter dependence on the state from one generation to the next” (SPERI, n.d.).2 In other words, Vietnam suffered ij

scientific perspective can lead to the canceling out of one another through disturbing the ecological balance” (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 1989, unpaginated). 2 This text is emended from the original version for grammatical correctness and readability. The original version (also in English) reads as follows: “the social-economic and political-civil context of Vietnam is still under one way leading and the power of one

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from a policy monologue; SPERI wanted a policy dialogue. Organizing a professional lobby was SPERI’s strategy to get one. By 2007, SPERI had established its own Department of Lobbying, set up a lobbying website, organized “the first lobbying conference in Vietnam” (in cooperation with the National Assembly), and established an informal network of policy-makers, lawyers, media, and researchers for the purpose of lobbying (SPERI, 2007). SPERI defined lobbying as: bringing multiple perspectives and a more comprehensive view [on policy issues] to parliamentarians and decision-makers. It is based on the information, evidence, ideas and recommendations provided by voters, so that these decision-makers can make better decisions that are more beneficial to society … or specifically relevant interest groups. (SPERI, 2007, p. 4)3

However, SPERI was also aware that what they were doing carried inherent personal and professional risks. They recognized that “lobbying” was a sensitive issue and it could be perceived as opposing government. As SPERI noted, lobbying “is quite a new concept in Vietnam” (SPERI, 2007, p. 5). If abused, it can have a “dark side” (m˘a.t trái) (SPERI, 2007, p. 11). Later, CODE also warned that lobbying is “often seen negatively as being ‘black market,’ ‘under the table’ or corrupt” (Consultancy for Development [CODE], 2008, p. 77). ` Thi. Lành and So as not to jeopardize SPERI’s existing work, Trân her partners decided that a safer strategy would be to establish a new NGO for lobbying. This NGO would be CODE. A former SPERI worker was chosen as CODE’s new Director Pha.m Quang Tú. Pha.m Quang Tú had recently earned his university degree in the Netherlands, but he was still quite young to be a Director of an NGO. However, his low profile also helped CODE maintain a low profile, in keeping with an embedded approach. For Pha.m Quang Tú, CODE reflected a “third generation” of NGO professionals. As he once explained to me, the first generation had the idealism but lacked the opportunities for a more professional ` Thi. Lành’s generation. The second generation training—this was Trân way leading, which has been driving the whole country under a dependency from one to other generations.” No Vietnamese version of this report was available. 3 Similarly, CODE defined lobbying as “methods for creating change that are informal but also systematic in their manner of accessing decision-makers” (Consultancy for Development [CODE], 2008, p. 78).

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came of age in the early 1990s; they had benefitted from more professional training, but with the large influxes of money being newly made available by international organizations to Vietnamese NGOs in the early , years of d-ôi mo´ i, business interests began to overshadow idealism. The third generation that Pha.m Quang Tú identified himself with recaptured the idealism of the first generation while benefitting from the educational opportunities of the second, and even more so now that more opportunities had become available for Vietnamese students to train in the liberal-democratic countries of the west. Having himself obtained his university degree in the Netherlands, he felt that the new generation of NGO workers combined the professionalism of the second generation with the idealism of the first. Nonetheless, Pha.m Quang Tú also emphasized CODE’s professionalism, in part to underline that, despite their interests in lobbying, they were not opposed to government. That is also why CODE called themselves a “consultancy” rather than an NGO. Another reason for calling themselves a consultancy was because CODE did not register under the usual law for NGOs. Rather, CODE registered under the relatively new 2000 Law on Science and Technology. The difference was that the new law did not require CODE to register under another government organization, as normally required of all domestic or foreign NGOs inside Vietnam. It was by this same policy mechanism that former policy advisors under Võ V˘an Kiê.t’s Prime Minister’s Advisory Council had established the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and claimed it to be the first “independent think tank” in Vietnam. IDS, which was established only a few months before CODE, set a precedent for Vietnamese civil society organizations, and CODE followed it. While the idea of policy advocacy was hardly new to Vietnam in 2007, CODE believed that these efforts were too often constrained by the state’s policy monologue, an idea that has also been argued in the academic literature (Thayer, 2009). However, Pha.m Quang Tú was also aware that policy advocacy was a fraught and often convoluted process within Vietnam’s opaque political system. The acronym CODE was meant to suggest the challenges of this process, like trying to crack a code. CODE’s logo depicts three wavy lines leading up to a circle. The wavy lines represented the multiple and indirect streams of activity required to reach an ideal policy solution, which was represented by the circle. ij

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So it was that CODE was finally established in early May 2007. At that time, CODE comprised only about half a dozen of Vietnamese staff. They had about US$200,000 in seed funding from a Dutch NGO and shared office space in one of those tall narrow Hanoi city houses with another ` Thi. Lành close associates, Nguy˜ên Cao Thu,o.,ng, the editor of of Trân the Saigon Economic Times . With stacks of the Saigon Economic Times and other magazines and newspapers lying around the office, CODE staff began flipping through them in search for a first issue upon which to focus their attention. They looked for something that was both a national policy and that had significant impact on ethnic minorities. That is when they happed upon two articles in the Saigon Economic Times .

A Small Network of Scientists: Meeting , with Mineralogist Nguy˜ên Thanh Son The government’s bauxite-alumina projects in the Central Highlands interested CODE because they were guided by a national policy and they would have significant impact on ethnic minorities. It also addressed a major issue that was confronting ethnic minorities and indigenous people from around the region: resource extraction. However, Pha.m Quang Tú and his staff did not know anything about bauxite mining, and so their first step was to find people who did. Through Nguy˜ên Cao Cu,o,ng, the editor of the Saigon Economic Times with whom CODE shared office space, CODE was able to meet Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. They talked to him about their ideas to create policy dialogue on bauxite mining and Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n was interested. He helped them to connect with other experts on mining and the Central Highlands and, with this small team of scientists, CODE organized a field trip to the Central Highlands. The purpose of this trip was to see for themselves the places proposed for bauxite-alumina production and meet with the provincial governments there. Consistent with the embedded approach, these meetings were discrete, low profile, and collaborative. CODE explained their main purpose as trying to bring scientific perspectives to these complex projects. Provincial authorities, recognizing that they also knew nothing about bauxite, were initially welcoming and the discussions were positive. As a result, the Ða´˘ k Nông government agreed to organize a small internal seminar with CODE to discuss further.

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The seminar was held six months later in December 2007. It was a closed door affair. No members of the public or press were invited. No reports or almost any other information were circulated afterwards. The seminar comprised a couple dozen people from local government and the handful of scientists organized by CODE. The scientists presented on mining technologies, agricultural development, and environmental impacts, while Pha.m Quang Tú also presented on local social impacts. u V˘an Ma.nh, professor of TechThey included Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n; V˜ nology at the Hanoi Polytechnic University; Hô` S˜y Giao, Director of the Planning for Mining Institute; Lê V˘an Khoa, lecturer in the Environmental Department at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi; and Hoang Hiê.u Cai, instructor at the Ho Chi Minh City Agriculture and Forestry University. The reputation of a few of these scientists, however, was as important as the presentations they made. Lê V˘an Khoa, for example, was widely known for having directed many national commissions on natural resources and the environment. The government awarded him with the National Environment Award in 2004, as well as awards for Distinguished , Educator (Nhà giáo Uu tú) and service medals for Science and Technology, Education, and Labor. He also had revolutionary credentials, having received a Medal for Resistance against the Americans (Vietnam Centre for Heritage of Vietnamese Scientists and Scholars website, 2012). Similarly, Hô` S˜ı Giao was a preeminent expert on open face mining in Vietnam, as well as recipient of service medals for Science and Technology and Education, and Distinguished Educator (Faculty of Mining, Hanoi University, n.d.). Hô` S˜ı Giao also received a Medal for Resistance against America and a Model Soldier Award at the city level. Like Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, these scientists were firmly embedded within the state apparatus. They seemed to have made a good impression too because the Ða´˘ k Nông government agreed to organize a second larger workshop. As an aside, during this same month, December 2007, small antiChina demonstrations of a few dozen people were taking place in Hanoi. Farmers from seven different provinces had converged on Ho Chi Minh City to protest local land expropriation and corruption. They were further joined and supported by members of the democracy activist group Bloc 8406 and the internally exiled Buddhist monk Thích Quang Ðô., leader of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam. One month earlier, General Giáp had also just penned a letter to save the old National Assembly ij

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´ building from demolition and one daring newspaper, Ða.i Ðoàn kêt, ignored a government injunction to publish it (Hayton, 2010, p. 84).4 However, at this point in time, all of these actors and events were largely, if not entirely, disconnected from one another.

The “Mud Bomb”: The Regional ´˘ Nông Workshop in Ðak The regional workshop was finally held in Gia Ngh˜ıa, the provincial capital of Ða´˘ k Nông, on October 22nd and 23rd of 2008. It was a large event. More than 160 participants were on the invitation list, including seventy-five representatives from central and provincial government, thirty researchers and scientists, twenty representatives from industry, twenty domestic reporters, and thirty drivers.5 It was the first time representatives from central and provincial government, industry and civil society had come together to discuss Central Highlands bauxite. And with the help of a vocal group of scientists and some twenty domestic reporters, this workshop transformed a discreet discussion with local government into a national concern.6 4 One year later, the Editor-in-Chief and his deputy were fired in connection to this and two other issues. 5 This breakdown of participants is taken from the invitation list (Workshop Proceed-

ings, Ða´˘ k Nông Province, October 2008). The article from which the figure of 160 participants was cited reported the attendance of “scientists of economics, culture, society, environment and mining technology based in universities and research institutes; representatives from Central managing organizations from the Central [Vietnamese Communist] Party Office, Ministry of Environment [and Natural Resources], Ministry of Planning and Investment, Ministry of Industry and Trade; leaders of the communist party, government and branch organizations of the Central Highlands provinces. Moreover, the workshop also drew the special concern of more than 20 reporters from Local and Central press and television organizations” (Thiêu Tâm, 2008, October 27). 6 Among the scientists newly invited to participate in these discussions, included notable ij

figures such as Pha.m Duy Hiên, former director of the Dalat Nuclear Institute; Ð˘a.ng Trung Thuâ.n, President of the Vietnam Association of Geology and Chemistry (who, like Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, had also been part of bauxite discussions in the 1980s); Phùng Chí S˜y, Vice-Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Tropical Technology and ` Ðình Thiên, former Director of the Vietnam Economic Environmental Protection; Trân Institute; V˜ u Ngo.c Hoàng, Vice-Director of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Office of Propaganda; and Nguy˜ên Ngo.c Anh, Vice-Director of the Institute for Irrigation Planning in the Southern Region, among other professors from universities in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. There was also a group of six local researchers from the Central Highlands

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Workshops are celebrated events in Vietnam, as flipping through the pages of the Nhân Dân (the party’s daily) or catching the evening news on government TV will quickly attest to. Workshops at every level are covered extensively, and often in tedious detail. For the state, a workshop is a spectacle that generates images of engagement, concern, edifice, and activity. Yet the workshop is also something of a contradiction in Vietnam. The two Vietnamese words for workshop (hô.i thao) suggest an “assembly” (hô.i) and a “draft” (thao) or discussion of ideas. Yet both of these propositions are carefully conscribed through behind-the-scenes officiating on the limits of discussion. This was also CODE’s experience in working with local government and Vinacomin. The Ða´˘ k Nông government suggested co-hosting the workshop together with CODE and Vinacomin. Co-hosting is a state strategy that allows for engagement with government while also ensuring that said engagement stays within the bounds of allowable discussion. Between these three organizations, Ða´˘ k Nông was responsible for organizing provincial and central government representatives, Vinacomin for industry representatives, and CODE for scientists and civil society. CODE had also wanted to invite community representatives from the areas affected by bauxite-alumina production, but this idea was rejected as inappropriate. Instead, government insisted that local officials would represent community perspectives. CODE was also tasked with preparing the agenda. In addition to providing general overviews and different perspectives on Central Highlands bauxite, CODE proposed to include a discussion on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). At that time, SEA was a fairly new policy tool in Vietnam, having been enacted into law only two years earlier. SEA is broader in scope than convention Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which, as Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n and Ngy˜ên Kha´˘ c Kính had derisively noted in the Saigon Economic Times , is limited in scope to the area of each individual project. EIA cannot address cumulative or regional impacts of multiple projects, which was a chief concern with Decision 167. SEA, in contrast, is designed to assess cumulative impacts on a regional basis, providing it with much broader scope as a policy tool. Furthermore, SEA covered both environmental and social impacts. ij

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University, who had been commissioned by CODE to conduct a study on social and economic impacts specifically for the workshop.

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However, Ð˘ak Nông and Vinacomin did not like this suggestion. They feared that it might lead to postponement or even cancellation of some projects, which indeed it could have done. As a result, CODE settled for a more general discussion on “sustainable development,” foreshadowing already how discussions of environment can also serve to delimit the contours of debate. Like the embedded approach, discussing the environment from a “scientific perspective” had enabled CODE to engage the state in discussion, but it also limited what that discussion could be about. The workshop took place over two days. It followed a conventional format of presentations followed by questions and comments from the audience. However, the discussions that ensued were anything but conventional. Reporters described the discussions at the regional work` Ðu´,c Tà, 2008, October 24) and shop like a “blazing explosion” (Trân “lightning” (Hoài Giang, 2008, October 26). One reporter described Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n showing “outrage (giâ.n du˜,) when warnings were not being accepted in a scientific spirit,” and added that many other partici` Ðu´,c Tà, 2008, October 24). Another pants shared his frustrations (Trân reporter betrayed the usual tenor of these events by writing “many ideas ` Ngo.c Quyên, ` 2008, October were discussed, even opposing ones ” (Trân 23, emphasis added). Overwhelmingly, “the majority of participants criticized the bauxite mining projects” (Hoàng Thiên Nga, 2008, October 23), what another reporter described as a “complete rejection of bauxite mining in this region” (Hoài Giang, 2008, October 26). In private, Pha.m Quang Tú suggested that some said to him it was the first time they had experienced such lively discussion at a workshop in Vietnam. This was a recurring theme among other I had spoken with who had also attended the workshop, some underlining its peculiarity by noting that most participants stayed for the full two days.7 Vinacomin began the proceedings with two overview presentations of bauxite-alumina geology, technology, markets and production and, more specifically to Vietnam, Decision 167. What was curious in these presentations was how much Vinacomin showed that they could play the greening game too. Vinacomin declared that these projects would adhere to national targets for “clean industrialization,” they were based 7 Deputy Prime Minister Hoàng Trung Haij i was reported to have made a similar comment at the government’s “scientific workshop” in April 2009 (see next chapter), saying that he had never been at another workshop where all the participants had stayed as late in the evening as they did.

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on principles of “greening the projects,” and that environmental pollution would be managed for a “green, clean and beautiful aluminium” (Vinacomin [Vietnam National Coal and Mineral Industries Corpora, tion], 2008, p. 14)—echoing a popular d-ôi mo´ i era government campaign for a green, clean, and beautiful (xanh, sa.ch và d-e.p) Vietnam. These presenters avowed that Vinacomin itself was turning into a “sustainable ` vu˜,ng ), promising to shift toward “sustainable business” (kinh doanh bên technology,” increase energy conservation, apply “clean technology,” and ,, create an “industrial environment” (môi truo` ng doanh nghiê.p) based on “recycle, reuse and restore” and reduced global warming gasses and toxic waste. How Vinacomin intended to achieve all of this, however, was more mystifying. Vinacomin described their strategy for dealing with social and ´ chiêu). ´ environmental impacts like “rolling up the mat” (cuôn Using this familiar domestic metaphor to describe the rolling up and down of straw mats for sitting on, eating on, and other everyday activities, Vinacomin presenters explained that they would peal off the surface layer of topsoil like a straw mat, store it away while excavating the mineral below, and then roll it back down again over the excavated area and replant it with trees. Green-washing is of course a common stratagem deployed by business corporations the world over. But undergirding this largely rhetorical tactic, however, is what Eric Swyngedouw (2010, 2011) has written about as a techno-managerial approach that drives the evisceration of politics. The techno-managerial approach eliminates possibilities for alternatives by reducing all matters of debate to their technological and managerial implementation. For the moment, these were the initial utterings of one. However, this approach would come into full force later in 2009, when it combined with the highest levels of state authority and created an inescapable conundrum for an embedded approach. The techno-managerial approach was not without pushback, however. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n presented next, giving a comprehensive and impassioned critique of the government’s national bauxite policy, Decision 167. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n described Decision 167 as a “strategic error,” one with too many “unmanageable risks” and “uncalculated costs.” He exposed Vinacomin’s almost entire lack of experience or technical capacity in bauxite-alumina production. He ridiculed its ambitions to produce 18 ij

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million tons of bauxite per year, while the total world production at that time amounted to only 74 million tons per year (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008a, October 24; 2008d). In addition to social and environmental risks, Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n questioned Vinacomin’s economic forecasts, plans for financing, choice of technology, volatile market prices, utter lack of domestic demand, as well as public investments required to build a 220 km railway line and a deep-sea port in Bình Thuâ.n province that would almost exclusively serve the bauxite mines. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n described government plans for bauxite-alumina ´ ai) (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008a, “like nobody else’s” (ch˘ang giông 8 October 24). Rather than bringing development to an impoverished region, these projects risked turning “the whole Central Highlands region of Vietnam … [into] a ‘backyard,’ a source of raw materials for every aluminum factory of the foreign aristocrats” (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008a, October 24).9 At this point in the discussion, Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n did not elaborate on whom he might be referring to as “foreign aristocrats,” but already he was dropping hints about how the projects were being implemented. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n left his audience with one particular image that resounded in domestic media. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n highlighted the threat ij

8 While international demand for bauxite and alumina was relatively high at the time, producing them in the Central Highlands entailed high production and transportation costs, which meant that Vietnam could only export at a low price (about 12% price of aluminum) (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008c, October 26). For financing, capital needs would be high, which would mean that financing would have to rely primarily on foreign borrowing and generate a low internal rate of return (14.98% before financial crisis and rising cost of energy). For the reserves themselves, in contrast to Vinacomin’s brave projections, Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n argued only two reserves had been assessed thoroughly, namely the ones that were the initial focus of the Soviets and Hungarians two decades ago, the May 1st and Gia Ngh˜ıa deposits. As Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n later wrote, “nearly all of the bauxite in the Central Highlands has still not been assessed at the necessary level, no agreement on data, topographical surveys do not yet meet requirements” (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008c, October 26). For choice of technology, Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n noted that the Bayer process was still untested on Vietnamese bauxite or under local geographic conditions. Vietnam also had zero capacity in the Bayer process and, therefore, would depend entirely on foreign countries for technological inputs. 9 For example, Baij o Lôc—Di Linh projects in Lâm Ðông ` province were planned to . produce 3.96 million tons of bauxite and up to 1.2 million tons of alumina per year, the Kon Plông—Ka N˘ak projects in Kon Tum province 6–9 million tons of bauxite and up to 1.5 million tons of alumina per year, and the Nhân Co, project in Ða´˘ k Nông province 1.8 million tons of bauxite and 0.3–0.6 tons of alumina.

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of red mud, which is a toxic by-product generated through alumina beneficiation. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n estimated that the Ða´˘ k Nông projects would produce about six to eight million tons of red mud by only 2015, while ` the Lâm Ðông projects would produce 80–90 million tons of red mud over their lifespan (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008b, October 25). The main challenge in dealing with these inordinate amounts of caustic by-product is that they are largely untreatable. Often, they are stored indefinitely in open cesspools, where they will eventually dry and be covered with topsoil, as indeed Vinacomin intended to do. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n questioned these plans. He noted that this method might be suited to the flat, arid, and sparsely populated regions in Australia, but it spelled disaster for a densely populated region located at a high elevation in a regional watershed with a monsoon climate. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n likened these storage plans to hanging a “mud bomb” in the Central Highlands that threatened the livelihoods, industry, and water supply of the South and Southeastern regions (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008d, p. 45). The critiques of Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n were important not only for their comprehensiveness and precision, but also because he was an internal critic. In 1994, Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n joined Vinacomin, when it was still the Vietnam Coal Company. From 2005 to 2007, he worked as Head of the Committee for Strategic Development, Science and Technology. At the time of the regional workshop, he was Director of the Vinacomin subsidiary Red River Coal Company. He had begun raising questions about these projects within his own organization, when he had first learned that they were being resuscitated from the times that he had worked on them with his Soviet and Hungarian counterparts in COMECON. If anyone were to be given the epithet of “whistle blower” in the bauxite mining discussions, it was Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. The scientists that followed Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n also made presentations that were highly technical, exhaustive in scientific details, and heavily armed with statistical data defined to second and third decimal points. They included discussions of the impacts of bauxite-alumina production on water, climate, agriculture, ecological systems, and local livelihoods. However, there was one other presenter who gained as much attention as Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n after the workshop, who did not take to the stage for his mathematical calculations. This person was the octogenarian writer Nguyên Ngo.c.

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Nguyên Ngo.c was invited to the workshop as an expert on local ethnic groups. Unlike most other scientists and experts that attended, Nguyên Ngo.c held no PhD or position in a university or government institute. His expertise was due to his own extensive personal history and study of the region. Born in the coastal province of Quang Nam, on the northern border of the Central Highlands provinces, Nguyên Ngo.c initially went to the Central Highlands as a soldier. He quit high school to join the Viê.t Minh. After a battle injury, however, he began working as a military reporter. After the war, Nguyên Ngo.c became nationally renowned for his fictional writing, particularly his novels that glorified the role of the ethnic minority groups, such as the Bana hero “Anh Núp,” in fighting together with the North Vietnamese Army. For many years, children in schools across Vietnam memorized passages of his books as part of the national curriculum. However, after taking up senior positions within the communist administration, including as Vice-Chair of the Vietnam Writer’s Association and especially during his last assignment as Editor-in-Chief for the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Arts and Literature magazine (V˘an Nghê.), Nguyên Ngo.c experienced his own falling out with the regime. Nguyên Ngo.c became a central figure in the controversy that surrounded , the “Unshackling Days” (coi trói) in the late 1980s, a short-lived period when then General Secretary Nguy˜ên V˘an Linh initially encouraged writers and journalists to speak more freely and then cracked down on those who did one year later (Abuza, 2001; Bui Tin, 1995). During this time, Nguyên Ngo.c published controversial writings by now famous authors Du,o,ng Thu Hu,o,ng (author of Paradise for the Blind), Bao Ninh (author of Sorrow of War), Nguy˜ên Huy Thiê.p, and Pha.m Thi Hoài. As a consequence, however, Nguyên Ngo.c was dismissed from his position as Editor-in-Chief. In Ða´˘ k Nông, Nguyên Ngo.c was assigned to present on the “cultural ´ d-`ê v˘an hoá – xã hô.i) of bauxite-alumina and social impacts” (các vân production, especially on the M’nông ethnic minority (Nguyên Ngo.c, 2008). But beyond the bauxite-alumina projects, Nguyên Ngo.c’s presentation was a diatribe on the devastating impact that 30 years of economic development and lowland immigration of the ethnic Vietnamese into the Central Highlands has had on the minority peoples there. Within this context, bauxite was not a new development. It was the continuation of the government acting “as if there were no people [in the Central Highlands], not knowing or caring at all about the most basic and essential ij

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features of that land and people” (94).10 Being careful not to criticize state policy directly, he criticized the implementation of these programs: we saw that land and forest beneath the sky was without owners, completely at ease with taking several million hectares of land and forest from the village, each village, and indifferently giving it out to each army unit, industrial agricultural corporation, that is the state agriculture and

10 To give more flavor to Nguyên Ngoc’s rich text, I provide this long excerpt below: .

What is the big lesson coming from the Central Highlands over the past 30 years? Maybe we can say it simply and briefly like this: after 1975, we made policies and implemented some things in the Central Highlands, namely to build the Central Highlands into a secured area for national defense and an important economic zone for the entire country—and to implement these two strategic policies, we had to organize a mass migration like never before from the lowlands to the Central Highlands. These strategic policies for the Central Highlands were correct, but the way they were implemented, by increasing the labour force in the Central Highlands through a mass migration from the lowlands on a large scale at such a rapid pace, as can be seen today, was certainly a huge mistake, even a strategic mistake as many people had warned right from the beginning but were not listened to. We acted very indifferently in the Central Highlands, not at all concerned about the special characteristics of that region and its people in so many aspects, even the most special in all the country, unlike any other region, including other ethnic regions in the north and south. It would not be too much to say that we acted in the Central Highlands as if there were no people, not knowing or caring about the most fundamental and basic features of that land and people. We did not care about the special history of the Central Highlands. (Does anyone know by chance since when the Central Highlands formally joined Vietnam? Since when did the people of the Central Highlands come and be close with the ethnic Vietnamese communities, by which way, and are there any points on that way that left a deep influence on that relationship? What special characteristics does each ethnic group in the Central Highlands, like the Mo, Nông in Ða´˘ k Nông, have in regard to history, traditions, character, etc.?) Then how did the traditional social organization of the Central Highlands survive the challenges of the last one thousand years, including two extremely harsh wars in the modern era that continues to have a profound influence until today? How are the things we do today impacting positively or negatively on this social organizational structure that has proved to be so effective? How do they impact on the special characteristics of every ethnic group and each ethnic group in the Central Highlands, the relationships among them and with the ethnic groups beside them? Delegates here [at this workshop] have shown clearly that the natural and environmental problems in the Central Highlands, in Ða´˘ k Nông, have a “national importance.” That is very correct. I want to add to this: the problems of the ethnic groups there also have a national importance. (Nguyên Ngo.c, Proceedings, October 2008, pp. 94–95)

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forest enterprises, the agents of the famous deforestation, and giving it to several millions of people coming to settle there from other places, also the agents of horrible deforestation and nothing less … the village is taken away, land and forest is stolen, broken, destroyed. It is not too much to say that today in the Central Highlands is a society that is broken apart. (95)

What was new with the bauxite-alumina projects was that the scope and scale of them would be bigger and more devastating than any previous government project. They risked pushing the highland minorities to a point of no return, one that could force them to “react in an unfathomable manner” (97). Alluding to the ethno-nationalist secessionists movements that occurred during the French and American wars, as well as the role of Protestantism in the massive riots that broke out in the Central Highlands in the early 2000s, Nguyên Ngo.c warned: This time it may be worse, for many reasons: the loss of land and forest for the indigenous groups will be greater, more concentrated and more fierce; the problem of crossing borders will be more certain and more complicated; and again there are foreign elements, one particularly complicated foreign element that has staked out its ground here and we do not know when it will go away or what kind of damage it will do—everybody knows this, even though for one reason or another we may or may not say it. (Nguyên Ngo.c, 2008, p. 97)

At this moment, Nguyên Ngo.c was unable to say exactly who these “foreign elements” were, just as Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n had vaguely referred to “foreign aristocrats.” It would take somebody of much greater stature to let that cat out of the bag. But later, in early 2009, at a closed door seminar hosted by the Vietnamese Communist Party, Nguyên Ngo.c made clear who he was referring to at the regional workshop:

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the Chinese.11 Vietnam’s historical nemesis was on the doorstep of the Central Highlands ready to provoke an enviro-political disaster. For Nguyên Ngo.c, bauxite mining was like “standing before a life or death decision” (Nguyên Ngo.c, 2008, p. 94). His warning of political crisis and security risk added another level of meaning to Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n’s “mud bomb.” As a nation that had been forged through revolution and war, these military metaphors were an expression of the significance of these projects, as well as the threat they presented not only to the region, or the economy, but also the security of the nation. In this regard, General Giáp’s letter a few months later was not the beginning of a national security debate around bauxite mining, but rather its public broadcasting.

A Flagrant Response in the Domestic Press: “The Central Highlands Will Die Because of … Bauxite Mining” The explosive discussions that took place in Ða´˘ k Nông were as yet still contained to the four walls of the conference room. Only by CODE’s suggestion to invite some twenty domestic reporters did it begin to fuel a national debate. Domestic media in Vietnam plays a well-known cat and mouse game with the party-state. While Vietnam has consistently ranked Vietnam among the countries with the least press freedom, many media organizations continue to push at the limits of allowable discussion (Hayton, 2010; Heng, 2004). For activists and NGOs working in the embedded approach, enrolling the domestic press is one way that can help them to gain wider public support and push debate beyond its usual boundaries 11 At a closed door seminar hosted by the Vietnamese Communist Party in February, Nguyên Ngo.c had the following to say: “At the Ð˘ak Nông workshop, I spoke about the complexity of the foreign element in the bauxite case in the Central Highlands. That was at a public workshop that included some foreigners, which is why I spoke that way. Today is an internal meeting, so I ask your permission to speak more straightforwardly about the Chinese issue in the Central Highlands. Everyone can see this: the public’s criticism of the bauxite projects in the Central Highlands today, apart from the economic, environmental and socio-cultural aspects, is most hotly focused on the national security issue. That is a profoundly legitimate concern that has bitten deeply into the flesh of every Vietnamese person after a hard one thousand year history of [the Chinese] opposing our people’s independence” (Nguyên Ngo.c 2009, unpaginated).

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(Wells-Dang, 2012). That was no doubt CODE’s strategy, although the results surprised even them. Prior to the Ða´˘ k Nông workshop, press reporting on Central Highlands bauxite was brief and matter-of-fact. Reports on the progress of the projects usually appeared in the “business” or “economy” sections of newspapers. They often spoke in grandiose terms, while offering scant ` project details let alone any commentary. Tuôi Tre hailed the Lâm Ðông as the “largest bauxite-alumina project in the country” (VNS, 2003, September 11). The Vietnam News Agency described it as “the first of its kind in Vietnam” (VNS, 2006a, April 8). A representative of Alcoa called the bauxite deposits in Ða´˘ k Nông as “among the richest in the world” and, if approved, “[t]he project would be the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia” (VNS, 2006b, September 2). The chairman of Alcoa, when Alcoa was still nosing for a bauxite mine of its own, stated that “thousands of local workers would be employed once the [bauxite-alumina] facility is fully operational” (VNS, 2006b, September 2). Even at a time when bauxite-alumina production was virtually non-existent in Vietnam, VietnamNet described it as among the nation’s “most important industrial ` Thuy, 2006, January 12).12 sectors” (Trân The nation’s top leaders reinforced these highly optimistic narratives. ´ D˜ In 2005, then Deputy Prime Minister Nguy˜ên Tân ung described the bauxite industry as “expected to help improve the region’s economic growth rate and create jobs for local rural employees” (VNS, 2005c, November 2). During a three-day visit to Ða´˘ k Nông Province in September 2006 (just three days after returning from a visit with party leaders in China, as some bloggers later noted), the General Secretary ij

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12 One article published in the “Discovery” section of the Tuôij i Treij newspaper,

discussing the “wild nature and beautiful people” of “Wild Gia Ngh˜ıa,” described bauxite mining, without apparent irony, as only adding to the beauty of this tourist destination. After writing a romantic tribute to the Ða´˘ k Nông region, the reporter suggests that once this province becomes an “alumina refining province, Gia Ngh˜ıa will become even more valuable.” The reporter refers to several tourist sites nearby, such as Diê.u Thanh Waterfall, Ð˘ak Tik Bridge, Xuân Hu,o,ng Lake, and the Vietnamese mountain resort Ðà la.t City, as if the natural and cultural tourism assets of the province would fit seamlessly together with bauxite mining. Such ideas were later criticized by Fields Medal winner Ngô Baij o Châu, who sheepishly noted in his letter to the National Assembly that “[i]n regard to [the plans for] building a services center, hotels, tourism and leisure [activities] around the red mud lakes [i.e., tailings ponds], they are, in my opinion, not very convincing” (Letter May 27, 2009).

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of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Nông Ðu´,c Ma.nh, affirmed his strong belief that Ða´˘ k Nông would become “a rich province” if it made “the best use of its natural resources, like land, forestry, bauxite and hydropower” (VNS, 2006c, September 14, emphasis added). Provincial officials further argued that bauxite would not only develop the highlands, but also attract foreign investment for other forms of development. As ` the Deputy Director of Lâm Ðông province’s Planning and Investment Department said, “We hope the [bauxite-alumina] project will create an economic zone in the region” and that “when the plant becomes operational, many firms producing aluminum-based products will move into the area” (VNS, 2007, November 20).13 Those were the grandiose narratives that had characterized reporting on Central Highlands bauxite up until the Ða´˘ k Nông workshop. The headlines coming out of the workshop, however, turned these narratives around by 180 degrees. Quoting the former director of the National ´ the new Economics University in Ho Chi Minh City, Ðào Công Tiên, headline read that “The Central Highlands will die because… of bauxite ` 2008, October 23). Seizing on Nguy˜ên Thanh mining” (Nguy˜ên Triêu, , Son’s metaphor, reporters warned of an “enormous bomb in the heart of Ða´˘ k Nông” (Thanh Tùng, 2008, October 24), while another called ` Ðu´,c Tà, 2008, October 24). it an “environmental atomic bomb” (Trân Reporters now showed skepticism about the projects, introducing them as “Many problems, still no solutions” and “We cannot trade away 13 Amid the general trends in the early reporting, a few murmurs of discontent were also present, including a proposal by then Prime Minister Phan V˘an Khaij i to ban the export of raw bauxite (VNS, 2005a, October 13). His position, however, was made ambiguous a couple of weeks later when he pledged his support to the nation’s plans for bauxite exploration and aluminum production for both domestic demand and export (VNS, 2005b, October 25). A more incisive critique was offered by Nguy˜ên Trung, a former member of late Prime Minister Võ V˘an Kiê.t’s Research Council:

... soon [the development trend] will be bauxite ore in the Central Highlands... is this an optimal choice for a nation with a small territory and large population? [Is it optimal] to continue with economic projects that create so much environmental pollution that the media has to award [the companies] with the name “killer of the silent people”... [and] the nation is full of “dead” rivers and cancer villages?... Do the late developing countries necessarily have to accept all of those things that the earlier developed countries are now rejecting? (VietnamNet, April 1, 2008, emphasis in original)

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` the future” (2008, October 24); “Many disheartening problems” (Trân ` 2008, October 23); “The problems have been forewarned” Ngo.c Quyên, (Hoàng Thiên Nga, 2008, October 24); “The benefits do not justify the harms” and “Need to consider carefully” (Hoàng Thiên Nga, 2008, October 23; Thanh Thu,o,ng, 2008, October 24). Online media ran headlines of “The dream of escaping poverty with bauxite and its terrifying consequences” (Hoài Giang, 2008, October 26); “Many potential risks in bauxite mining” (Thanh Tùng, 2008, October 24); and “Should we or should we not?” and “Still too many [unanswered] questions!” (Nguy˜ên Danh Phu,o,ng, 2008, October 28; Thiêu Tâm, 2008, October 27). It seemed that only Nhân Dân continued to toe the party line, emphasizing “Economic Benefits and Environmental Protection” (Thao Lê, 2008, October 22). Even the government’s English language mouthpiece, Vietnam News, which had previously extolled these projects, now warned, “Bauxite mining threatens the Central Highlands” (Tran Huu Hieu, 2008, October 25). In 2008, online media had also become popular.14 It added another dimension of public involvement through online reader comments. In the five days following the regional workshop, the online newspaper TuanVietnam posted four editorial-style pieces by Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n and one by Nguyên Ngo.c. The pieces were elaborations on their presentations at the workshop. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n’s articles received sixty comments, while Nguyên Ngo.c’s received thirty-four. Even more important than their numbers, however, was the near unanimity of the readers’ agreement with the authors (I could find only one that suggested disagreement). This comment on Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n’s first article was typical: ij

I also disagree with a project like this. Today environmental problems are urgent issues for nearly all countries around the world. Yet here a project that hardly has any economic or environmental benefit gets approved. This

14 CODE had also pro-actively embraced the new technology by coordinating with TuanVietnam, a subsidiary of online news media agency VietnamNet . VietnamNet was one of the pioneering online newspaper that began around 2003, along with Vietnam Express and Dân Trí. Internet was still relatively new to Vietnam in 2003, as the first Internet Service Providers had begun to offer public services only at the end of the 1990s, and that only in Vietnam’s major cities. Since then, however, all three of these online media establishments had attracted a substantial following, while most of the other domestic media outlets had also developed an online version.

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must be explained to the press and the public! (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008a, October 24, reader comment)

Several comments thanked and praised the scientists for speaking out about bauxite mining, while also contrasting them with the apparent obtuseness and crassness of state authorities, as in this example: We are secretly happy deep-down inside to find such an honest and earnest person like Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. However, we are also deeply worried to find so few public officials that recognize this as a major problem. Securing our freedom and independence [from foreign aggression] was already difficult, but saving this country from wreckless destruction is going to be ten times more difficult. (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008a, October 24, reader comment)

The online commentaries also enabled a rare local voice to participate in the discussion, albeit, by the name, Võ Ðình Nhân, likely of Vietic ethnicity: ij

As both a person and scientist that lives in the Central Highlands (Bao ` Lô.c – Lâm Ðông), we are very worried about [these projects]. Only the investors are getting any benefits, while we and our children will be forced to suffer the environmental consequences. (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2008b, October 25, reader comment). ij

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The online version of Tuôi Tre also published an article with a sampling of what this media outlet described as an inundation of reader responses (2008, October 24). These comments similarly expressed near unanimous opposition to bauxite mining. The online commentaries suggested not only a public voice, but also a national one. While most comments provided little information about the persons behind the user names, more than a third disclosed that they resided somewhere in Vietnam. They mostly came from the north (at a ratio of 2:1), including twenty-four from Hanoi (n = 65). Another eight were from Ho Chi Minh City. Ten also came from the Central Highlands provinces, while others represented a smattering from provinces in all of Vietnam’s seven main regions, including ten from afar off as Vietnam’s two northernmost mountainous regions. A couple also indicated their affiliation with governmental offices, namely the Legal Department

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of So,n La Province (Northwest) and the Department of Planning and Investment of Thanh Hoà Province (North Central Coast). A little more than one month later, in early December, TuanVietnam pushed the discussion further by announcing a new editorial series: In respect of a critical spirit and information from diverse perspectives, TuanVietnam will now start posting analyses and opinions from different angles by scientists and managers in the interest of supporting policy decision-makers to find the most appropriate way to approach bauxite mining for the sustainable development of the Central Highlands, a region that is politically, security-wise and culturally important to Vietnam. (Nguy˜ên Trung, 2008, December 2)

Nguy˜ên Trung, a well-known policy analyst on the Prime Minister’s Research Council of Pha.m V˘an Khai (originally established by his predecessor the late Võ V˘an Kiê.t, and later dissolved by Prime Minister Nguy˜ên Tân D˜ ung) and former Ambassador to Thailand, began the series. However, this series would be short-lived after a handful of provocative pieces were posted, as the Prime Minister moved to ban further discussion in the domestic press. The brazenness of the domestic media’s response to the regional workshop was a surprise, not least of all to government censors. It shifted both the locus and the scale of the bauxite mining debates. What had initially appeared as a regional technical discussion, turned out to be a two-day long proclamation of a national disaster. This was the power of embedded advocacy. But as these debates transformed into a national discussion, the limits of this approach also became increasingly apparent. ij

The First Petition: The Scientists and VUSTA With the buzz of the workshop still humming in their ears, CODE and its network of scientists kept pushing. Yet how to take their next steps was uncertain. They were now more than ever aware of the importance of the issues they had raised, but also equally aware of the risks of having raised them. While an embedded approach may be to some degrees effective in an authoritarian regime, it is still a precarious one for activists. CODE and the scientists continued to organize in discreet ways, often folded in with the sociality of everyday life.

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The regional workshop had the effect of attracting more, and more important, persons to the discussions on Central Highlands bauxite. One of them was the popular former Vice-President, Nguy˜ên Thi. Bình, who was the international darling of the Paris Peace Accords negotiations in 1973. The former Vice-President wrote a letter to the Prime Minister about Central Highlands bauxite. But even she did not make her intervention public (the letter became available online only several months later). However, another prominent figure to take interest in these discussions, was the late Nguy˜ên V˘an Chiên. Nguy˜ên V˘an Chiên (1919–2009) was the former director of the Vietnam Sciences Institute and the Vietnam Geological Association. He had been honored with the Ho Chi Minh Medal, which is the highest honor conferred by the state for scientific achievement, and as a “Teacher of the People.” Nguy˜ên V˘an Chiên led the government’s first scientific program on the Central Highlands immediately after the war (Tây Nguyên 1, 1976–1980), during which he had reported on the extensive bauxite deposits there. Interested by what he had read and heard about the regional workshop, Nguy˜ên V˘an Chiên approached CODE to learn more; and around his towering reputation, CODE helped orchestrate their next step: a petition to the nation’s leaders. To discuss ideas for next steps, CODE and its network met discreetly in outdoor restaurants and cafes. In a commemorative piece written for Nguy˜ên V˘an Chiên, after he passed away in 2009, Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n described the first meeting as taking place in a café of the Hanoi Hotel (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2009, July 28). Meeting at the Hotel provided a semi-clandestine venue for discussing what had already become a highly sensitive national issue. As Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n described it, “That morning, we drank coffee together and discussed the draft for a petition that we intended to send to the leaders of the Party, National Assembly and Government about bauxite in the Central Highlands” (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2009, July 28). ` Quang lake, The second meeting took place at a restaurant on Thiên near the center of Hanoi. They met on the occasion of Nguy˜ên V˘an Chiên’s birthday. But they also used that occasion to finally agree upon the text of petition. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n recalled Nguy˜ên V˘an Chiên at that meeting as having a “strong and inspiring voice,” as well as “just eating and talking, remembering different occasions, and inquiring about his former students.” He also recalled Nguy˜ên V˘an Chiên reminding ij

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Pha.m Quang Tú as they bid their farewells, “be sure to send it as soon as possible.” The petition was dated on November 5th, 2008. It was addressed to the “highest leaders of the country, policy-makers and relevant authorities,” namely Nông Ðu´,c Ma.nh, General Secretary of the Vietnamese ´ President of the Socialist Republic Communist Party; Nguy˜ên Minh Triêt, of Vietnam (SRV); Nguy˜ên Phu Tro.ng, President of the National ´ ´ D˜ Assembly; Nguy˜ên Tân ung, Prime Minister of the SRV; Tru,o,ng Tân Sang, Politburo member; Hu`ynh Ðam, President of the Vietnamese Community Party’s Fatherland Front; as well as all relevant Ministers.15 The signers described themselves as “scientists of many generations, from Research Institutes, Universities, Socio-professional organizations and as independent experts” (Scientists’ petition on bauxite, 2008, November 5). Each agreed to sign on as individuals, in the hopes of protecting their respective organizations from negative consequences. The signatures on the petition counted seventeen, led by Nguy˜ên V˘an Chiên. In addition to the many renown scientists at the regional workshop, the ` Nghi, Sediment Director of the Vietnam Geologlist also included Trân ical Association and Distinguished Teacher of the People; Không Di˜ên, former Director of the Institute of Ethnology and the Academy of Social Sciences for the Central Region and Central Highlands; Hà Huy Thành, Director of the Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development; Ðoàn V˘an Cánh, Deputy Director of the Geology and Environment ˜ Thi. Vân, Research Center in the Mining and Geology University; and Ðô Head of Department for VUSTA. It also included Tran Thi. Lành from SPERI and Nguy˜ên Cao Cu,o,ng from The Saigon Economic Times . The text of the petition was hardly three pages. Its main points reflected many of the critiques that had been raised at the regional workshop, again emphasizing environmental and social impacts. However, it ij

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15 Tru,o,ng Tân ´ Sang’s name is the only one in this list, since he did not hold a at top

leadership position at the time. Perhaps he was included because of his growing influence ´ D˜ in the Politburo (he was seen as Nguy˜ên Tân ung’s main rival at the upcoming Party Congress in 2011, though he lost out in the leadership race for Prime Minister and was instead given the more ceremonial roles as President) or, as it was rumored, because he was believed to be against bauxite mining (or at least thought he could use the ´ D˜ issue to attack his rival Nguy˜ên Tân ung). However, he was also the one that signed the Politburo’s Decision 245 in April 2009, which affirmed the government’s plan for bauxite-alumina production, as discussed Chapter 5.

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also prefaced these discussions with a note on the strategic importance of the Central Highlands. In the preamble, it emphasized that the Central Highlands occupy a “position of strategic importance in,” first, national security and, second, socio-economic development (Scientists’ petition on bauxite, 2008, p. 1). Reflecting Nguyên Ngo.c’s warnings from the regional workshop, the petition pointed out that the Central Highlands was an “ethnic region” and “religious region,” which are groups that the government considers as especially volatile to socio-political conflict. “Because of this,” the preamble stated, “the national security element requires special attention in any socio-economic development program in the Central Highlands” (Scientists’ petition on bauxite, 2008, p. 1). However, the petition did not reject bauxite mining. Rather, in keeping with the embedded approach, it gave recommendations on how to improve the proposed projects and policy framework. The three main recommendations were to conduct a Strategic Environmental Assessment, start with pilot projects, and coordinate with bauxite development in adjacent areas of Laos and Cambodia, where multinational companies like BHP Billiton and Alcoa were already involved. Unlike the regional workshop, the petitioners did not release their petition to the domestic press. Instead, they posted an article on the website of Tia Sáng magazine, which mentioned the petition and provided an extended critical analysis of the bauxite mining policy. The article also provided what was the first public mention I have been able to find of Chinese involvement in Central Highlands bauxite: The question to ask here is that while Vietnam’s technical capacity for processing alumina is zero, why does Vinacomin then choose a technology package supplied by Chinese companies—a country whose technical sector is still not very high? Why does Vinacomin not examine two different bids from two different companies to be able to compare, especially in the technological aspect? Would not that make for a better choice for the , future of these factories? (5 nguy co, rui ro và giai pháp [5 dangers, risks and solutions], 2008, November 7) ij

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The mention of Chinese involvement may have hit a nerve with government censors. Only a few days later, the article was removed from the website. The Scientists’ petition was perhaps the height of the embedded approach. This initial network of scientists and experts had gone to the

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top, but received no response. During this time, the state-controlled Vietnam Union for Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA)—who had submitted a similar kind of petition to the government on the So,n La hydroelectric dam in 2004—began to take a more active role in the bauxite discussions. This was a welcome development for CODE, who had already approached VUSTA representatives without success prior to the workshops in Ða´˘ k Nông.16 Together with CODE, VUSTA continued to organize a couple of workshops in Hanoi on bauxite mining, as well as organized another field trip to the Central Highlands to meet with provincial authorities there. However, as the public debate became increasingly volatile, CODE increasingly assumed a back seat while VUSTA played the

16 From early on, CODE’s Director Pham Quang Tú had tried to involve VUSTA in . the bauxite mining debates. However, for various reasons, this did not happen until late in 2008. Starting around December, VUSTA organized a couple its own workshops on bauxite mining among the scientists organized by CODE and others within its association. Informants spoke to me of a more critical workshop with the scientists’ organized around CODE and another that was more supportive of bauxite mining among scientists organized by Vinacomin. After these workshop, VUSTA also organized field trips to visit the bauxite mining projects in the Central Highlands, as well as help organize a seminar on bauxite mining for the Vietnamese Communist Party in February 2009 and the government’s “Scientific Workshop” in April 2009. However, all of these activities, apart from the government’s “Scientific Workshop” (see below), were carried out very discretely with virtually no press coverage or other public information made available from them. However, through this process they also expanded the network of scientists and experts involved in the bauxite mining debates. Among the more notable ones were, Nguy˜ên Ðình Hoè, Professor of Ecology and Vietnam National University; Nguy˜ên Kha´˘ c Vinh, former Director of the Vietnam Research Institute on Mining and Metallurgy; Nguyen V˘an Tha´˘ ng, Quang Thaij i, Vice Director of the Vietnam Economics Association and former Vice-Director of the Institute of Strategic Development; Nguy˜ên V˘an Baij n, former Director of the Vinacomin’s Aluminum Project, though ` former Director of Foreign now a critic of the proposed plan’s; Nguy˜ên Ngo.c Trân, Relations Committee of the National Assembly; and Lê V˘an Cu,o,ng, former Director of the Ministry of Security’s Scientific Institute of Strategy. As originally envisioned by Pha.m Quang Tú, the organizational capacity and financial resources of VUSTA played an important role in continuing the discussion both among scientists and with government on bauxite mining. However, the nature of this role played by VUSTA was also ambiguous. On one hand, VUSTA generated extensive scientific criticism through its dialogues and recommendations. However, on the other hand, it also maintained these debates firmly within the state’s own strictures of allowable critical discussion and publicity. Even so, one of its most important functions was to continue widening the circle of interested parties. Indeed, one of the persons who was reported to have approached VUSTA on her own initiative and attended at least one of VUSTA’s workshops, was Võ Thi. Hoa Bình, daughter of General Võ Nguyên Giáp.

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difficult role of mediating between critics and the state. For CODE, the public debate was becoming too hot and its leaders became increasingly worried about protecting their staff and organization from state repercussions. This became an increasingly difficult task when the public became aware of a letter that hero of the People’s War, General Võ Nguyên Giáp, had written to the Prime Minister to protest bauxite mining.

General Giáp’s Letter: Hundreds, if Not Thousands, of Chinese Workers On January 5th of 2009, General Võ Nguyên Giáp, at the ripe age of 98, penned a short letter to the Prime Minister to protest bauxite mining. This letter was less than one page in length. It reiterated the scientists’ concerns, while suggesting that COMECON had not invested in bauxite because of “long-term and very serious ecological consequences” (Võ Nguyên Giáp, 2009, January 5). In contrast to the scientists’ petition, General Giáp’s letter demanded that the projects be stopped immediately. Yet the one line in this letter that aroused most interest from the public was a simple aside, mentioning that the “first hundreds of Chinese laborers [were] already working on site (with estimates reaching up to several thousands per project)” (Võ Nguyên Giáp, 2009, January 5). Born in 1911, General Giáp (1911–2013) was considered as a founding father of Vietnam. He led the Viê.t Minh forces in the anticolonial revolution and final victory over the French at Ðiê.n Biên Phu in 1954. Widely hailed as a military genius in league with the Duke of Wellington or Napoleon Bonaparte, General Giáp master-minded the guerilla warfare tactics that helped oust the Americans from Vietnam in 1973 (Currey, 2005). He also ordered the construction of the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail, which ran through the dense forests of the Central Highlands and supplied the southern front. If there was anyone attuned to the military and historical importance of the Central Highlands to the formation of modern Vietnam, it was General Giáp. However, this revolutionary hero was also gradually removed from the nucleus of state and military power leading up to and following the death of Hô` Chí Minh in 1969. Historians have argued that the “Anti-Party Affair” of the late 1960s was manipulated by an ascendent Lê Duân— Lê Ðu´,c Tho. faction to weaken the leadership of the Hô` Chí Minh—Võ Nguyên Giáp faction (Grossheim, 2005; Pribbenow, 2008). Several of ij

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General Giáp’s closest aides were arrested in the Affair and possibly even General Giáp himself was interrogated (Quinn-Judge, 2005). General Giáp was relieved of field command for the Vietnam People’s Army in 1972, demoted from 4th to 6th in Politburo ranking in 1976, dismissed as Minister of Defence and demoted from 1st to 3rd Deputy Premier in 1981, and finally removed from the Politburo altogether in 1982 (Currey, 2005). In the years that followed, he suffered several other snubs from the regime, leading biographer Cecile Currey (2005) to comment that “[d]espite his former glory and substantial contributions, Giáp was tossed away like an old shoe” (313). Hence, like many of the renown figures in the bauxite mining debate discussed so far, General Giáp maintained a complex relation toward the party-state. He remained an icon of Vietnamese socialism, but he had also become increasingly critical of the regime’s leadership and decisions. This was not the first letter he had written to the nation’s leaders to express his concerns or disappointment. In the early 1990s, his letters had helped expose a scandal that resulted in the deposition of then General Secretary Lê Kha Phiêu. For some, General Giáp is a quintessential party loyalist, critical of certain state officials and decisions but ultimately supportive of the regime itself. Because of this, General Giáp has also been criticized for not being critical enough and failing to support other state officials that have been bolder in their critiques (Templer, 1999).17 General Giáp wrote his letter to the Prime Minister on the occasion of a high-level meeting convened by the Prime Minister with his cabinet to discuss bauxite mining.18 We do not know what the Prime ij

17 Templer (1999) argues that “Giáp is a contentious figure in Vietnamese politics, admired by many but also vilified for what is seen as his cowardice in the face of Communist Party hardliners” (Templer, 1999, p. 22). According to Templer, Bùi Tín appealed to General Giáp to “take over” just ahead of the 6th National Party Congress in 1986 (i.e., ij ij , the one that brought in the d-ôi mo´ i reforms, after Lê Duân’s death). “Tín and other army officers pleaded with Giáp to take over, to use his credibility and popularity to push through reforms. Giáp refused, saying that he could not act alone and was fearful of the possible repercussions if his attempt to win power failed” (123). 18 According to an official government communication (Thông báo sô ´ 17/2009/TBVPCP), the meeting included four Deputy Prime Ministers; Ministers of Industry and Trade, Environment and Natural Resources, Planning and Investment, Agriculture and Rural Development, Science and Technology, Transport, Sports and Tourism; and repre` sentatives from Ða´˘ k Nông, Lâm Ðông and Gia Lai (the three provinces where bauxite mining projects were currently in construction or being planned), the Office of the Government, and Vinacomin. At the meeting, the Ministry of Industry presented its

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Minister thought of this letter—because he never responded to it—but his conclusions to the meeting are telling. There were four of them: first, the Prime Minister reaffirmed that bauxite mining was consistent with government and party policy, which would become a key refrain for state officials over the course of the coming months; second, he instructed the Ministry of Industry and Trade to prepare a report for the Politburo on bauxite mining to request permission for continuing; third he delegated Deputy Prime Minister Hoàng Trung Hai to organize a “Scientific Workshop” (Hô.i thao khoa ho.c) on “solutions for overcoming environmental pollution” in bauxite mining; and finally he ordered the Ministry of Information and Communication to “guide the mass media in not giving out any information on the environmental impacts of mining and processing bauxite ore, producing alumina and refining aluminum in the Central Highland provinces.” The “environmental” problem had now become a highly sensitive political issue. The scale, the tone, and the stature of people involved in the debate had made it so, as well as the scale of investment the state, and probably also specific individuals, had sunk into the projects already. However, the Internet made it impossible for the government to suppress General Giáp’s letter, which was leaked to the Viet-Studies website five days later and then posted on VietnamNet four days after that (Vuving, 2010). The letter circulated like wildfire, and it created fertile ground for one hundred flowers to bloom. ij

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The Online Debate: One Hundred Flowers Bloom After General Gíap’s letter, the public discussion on bauxite mining went oddly quiet through January, perhaps because of the Prime Minister’s injunction on the domestic press—or perhaps because everyone was just ´ Vietnamese new year. But it was a lull too busy getting ready for Têt, before the storm. With the new year and the new spring, the public debate burst into life again with increasingly numerous and diverse voices. A first opportunity came during the Prime Minister’s annual Spring Meeting with journalists, when one intrepid reporter from the Tuôi Tre newspaper asked if the Prime Minister had seen General Giáp’s letter. ij

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report on the situation and then each Minister was invited to make their own observations and comments.

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The Prime Minister replied that he had, and then immediately went on the defensive by affirming that bauxite mining was a “major policy of the Party and State.” The Prime Minister supported his claim by stating that ´ ) of the bauxite mining had been mentioned in the resolutions (nghi. quyêt Tenth Party Congress (Tuôi Tre, February 5, 2009). The Prime Minister’s response provoked an immediate backlash on the Vietnamese blogosphere. One of them was blogger Hoa Van, who reviewed documents of the Tenth Party Congress and noted that bauxite had been mentioned only once, and only very cursorily. It was included among a list of minerals that the government hoped to develop in the future. Hoa Van further noticed that this mention had come in the Economic Report, while the more important Political Report had avowed “to limit export of raw materials” (Hoa Van, 2009, February 6). A week later, another blogger named Nguyen Phong found on the website of the Vietnamese Embassy in San Francisco a couple of diplomatic communiqués that suggested a different basis for the government’s decisions on Central Highlands bauxite. The communiqués had been released jointly with China in 2001 and 2006, and both of them made mention of bilateral cooperation on bauxite-alumina projects in the Central Highlands. The 2001 communiqué was issued jointly by Vietnam and China on the occasion of a visit by then Chinese President and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiang Zemin to the General Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Nông Ðu´,c Ma.nh. The communiqué stated that China and Vietnam had signed a framework agreement for China to provide preferential credit to Vietnam and that both sides are “agreed to actively support long-term collaboration between companies for the bauxite-alumina projects in Ða´˘ k Nông” (Joint Vietnam—China Declaration, 2001, December 3). The 2006 communiqué was another Joint Declaration following a visit Vietnam by then Chinese President and General Secretary Hu Jintao, in which it is briefly noted that in discussions on economic cooperation both sides “began to discuss and implement major cooperation projects like Ða´˘ k Nông bauxite” (TTO, 2006, November 18). These documents enflamed speculation around Chinese involvement in the Vietnamese government’s plans for Central Highlands bauxite. As blogger Hoa Van remarked, the “foreign elements” to which Nguyên Ngo.c alluded at the regional workshop was like “cat shit”; you may not see it, but everybody smells it (Hoà Vân, 2009, February 6). Blogger ij

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Nguyen Phong speculated that the ten to twenty thousand Chinese laborers expected to work on the projects showed “many signs that they are soldiers in plain clothing” (Nguyên Phong, 2009, February 12). Nguyen Phong was not the only one to worry about covert military operations. Another retired military general, Nguy˜ên Tro.ng V˜ınh, wrote a letter to the Politburo to protest bauxite mining and posted it on the Internet in February.19 General Nguy˜ên Tro.ng V˜ınh had served as the Ambassador to China during some of the most turbulent years in recent Sino-Viet relations from 1974 to 1989, reinforcing his credibility on dealing with Vietnam’s northern neighbor. At a time when few others were speaking about it, General V˜ınh warned of growing Chinese militarization in the South China Sea. He suggested that Chinese investments in resource development projects dovetailed dangerously with China’s military ambitions in the region, as he wrote: We all know that China is building a powerful naval base at Tam A on Hainan Island [northeast of Vietnam]. Let’s be frank, it is not being built to protect China from foreign invasion, but rather to threaten Vietnam. It is ready and waiting there for an opportunity to annex the rest of our Spratly Islands after the Paracel Islands [in the South China Sea] were so quickly taken away from the Saigon government [during the Second Vietnam War]. Now, again, if we let China mine bauxite in the Central Highlands, there will be five, seven or ten thousand Chinese laborers (or soldiers) coming to live and get busy there. In this infinitely important militarily strategic region of ours, they will turn the place into a “Chinese town,” a “military base” (where bringing in weapons would not be difficult either). To the North, on the sea, China has a powerful naval base, while, to the Southwest, China has a totally equipped military force. And so what will all this mean for our precious sovereignty that we had to earn with the blood and bones of millions of lives? (Nguy˜ên Tro.ng V˜ınh, n.d.)

General V˜ınh’s words did not fall on deaf ears. One blogger commented that this letter was the “first article by somebody inside Vietnam that addresses the risks to national security of the Central Highland bauxite

19 The exact date that this letter was written, sent, and posted online are all uncertain. The letter itself is undated. Its posting on Dien Dan Forum is also without a date. However, Hoang Co Dinh’s blog site dates the letter as February 17th (http://hoa ngcodinh.multiply.com/journal?&=&page_start=260, retrieved November 7, 2012) and it appears on other blogsites on February 18th [e.g., Dân Luâ.n, Tu Do Ngon Luan].

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projects in a straightforward and detailed way” (Tô V˘an Tru,o`,ng, 2009, February 18, reader comment). The former Director of the Institute of Strategy and Science of the Ministry of Public Security, Lê V˘an Cu,o,ng, reinforced these claims by also posting online a report on the geo-political threat of allowing China into the Central Highlands (Lê V˘an Cu,o,ng, 2009, March 3).20 These connections between bauxite and a Chinese threat reflected badly on the Vietnamese leadership, and especially its communist brotherhood with China. The blogsite “Change We Need,” allegedly operated by ` Hu`ynh Duy Thu´,c and renown human rights lawyer Lê Công Ði.nh Trân (who both became high profile arrests in the fallout of the bauxite mining debates, as discussed in Chapter 5) posted a very detailed, if highly speculative, account of how the General Party Secretary Nông Ðu´,c Ma.nh had secretly secured a deal for Chinese financial assistance to Vietnam during the global financial crisis of 2008 in exchange for access to Vietnamese bauxite. According to the story—in a striking parallel to the myth-making around Hô` Chí Minh’s initial appeals to the United States to support Vietnamese Independence before finally turning to the communist grips ´ had first tried and of the Soviet Union—President Nguy˜ên Minh Triêt failed to obtain relief from the United States during an earlier visit there. This left Vietnam with no choice but to turn to its northern neighbor. ´ also drew a historical Popular blogger Ngu,o`,i Buôn Gió (Bùi Thanh Hiêu) parallel to China’s help in building roads in Vietnam’s northern provinces, which the Chinese army promptly made use of during the 1979 border war. As these narratives about the risk of a Chinese threat and the betrayal of Vietnamese leadership circulated online, a wider and more radical array ´ who was of Vietnamese voices joined the debate. Poet Bùi Minh Quôc, living under house arrest in Dalat City, gave an interview to Radio Free

20 General Lê V˘an Cu,o,ng’s statement dated March 3rd (posted on Viet-studies website in April) emphasized “If China enters the Central Highlands, it will be in a position to master all of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Today, China has rented an expansive area of land in the [Cambodian] province of Mondulkiri (on the [western] border of Ða´˘ k Nông Province) for 99 years and owns large investment projects in the province of Attapeu (the southernmost province of Laos, sharing borders with Vietnam and Cambodia in the intersection of Indochina). That is an enormously disadvantageous development for our national security” (Lê V˘an Cu,o,ng, 2009, March 3).

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International that described bauxite mining as “a very serious and complicated political problem carrying the risk of losing our country” (Thanh , Phu,o,ng, 2009, April 7). In an interview with the BBC, exiled d-ôi mo´ i ,, ,, writer Duong Thu Huong also warned of the Chinese threat, likening the bauxite projects to “opening one’s sleeve to let a snake in” (Du,o,ng Thu Hu,o,ng, 2009, March 1). Bùi Tín, former deputy editor of the Nhân Dân, whose memoirs on Hô` Chí Minh and activism on democratic pluralism in Vietnam resulted in his expulsion from the communist party and exile to France, also posted several blogs about bauxite mining. In one of them, he outlined the bitter irony of mining bauxite in Vietnam to supply raw materials for making weapons in China. This was a rare time that the Vietnamese overseas community spoke in chorus with Vietnamese inside the country to protest government policy, and rarely, if ever, before with such volume or visibility. It had also been a long time since Vietnamese artists and writers joined ranks to speak out against government policy. The Internet had ` Nhu,o,ng provided them with the platform to do it. Hanoi artist Trân , ˜ posted summaries of Nguyên Thanh Son’s articles criticizing the national bauxite policy on his website. Writer, reporter, and former military journalist, Pha.m Ðình Tro.ng, wrote his own letter to the Prime Minister criticizing the government’s hard-headed handling of the public discussion on bauxite mining (Pha.m Ðình Tro.ng, 2009, March 6). He later posted blogs describing his exhilaration at speaking out openly against the government for the first time and his deep gratitude to the online community for their support. Journalist Lê Phú Khai, former southern correspondent for the Voice of Vietnam, also wrote a letter to the party’s General Secretary (Lê Phú Khai, 2009, March 23). In this letter, he confessed “I never thought there would come a day when I would pick up a pen and write a letter to the supreme authority of the General Secretary. However, the things that are going on in our country right now have made my food unappetizing and my sleep unrestful, lying awake thinking for so many nights.” Even a Vietnamese student—a group that had not often spoken out on political issues in post-reform Vietnam— wrote a letter to the Politburo and the Prime Minister to protest bauxite ´ Anh, 2009, March 9). mining and posted it online (Nguy˜ên Tuân The growing debate also attracted comments from internally exiled Catholic and Buddhist religious leaders, who used bauxite mining to draw attention to their historical struggles with the party-state. Leader ij

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of the United Buddhist Church Movement, Thích Quang Ðô., accused the party-state of “taking the people’s Gold and transforming it into Aluminum for foreigners” (Thích Quang Ðô., 2009, March 29). He called for civil disobedience and “protest at home” (biêu tình ta.i gia) to denounce these policies inside Vietnam. He asked Vietnamese people around the world not to travel or send remittances to Vietnam during the month of May as a form of protest. He also used the occasion to call attention to the ruling “dictatorship” and “police state” of Vietnam and demanded authorities to clarify statements and reveal documents pertaining to territorial agreements with China.21 The Catholic priest Father Nguy˜ên V˘an Lý, one of Vietnam’s most closely monitored religious leaders by the party-state, also posted in his online bimonthly , newsletter Tu. Do Ngôn Luâ.n several articles and documents on bauxite mining. His actions foreshadowed the demonstrations against bauxite mining by a Catholic parish in Hanoi later in April. Support for these religious leaders was also expressed by other more overtly political activist organizations. The outlawed democracy and human rights advocacy coalition, Bloc 8406, declared, on the occasion of their third year anniversary, its support for Thích Quang Ðô. and announced the “opening of its campaign to boycott the Vietnamese Communist Party’s decision to allow China to mine bauxite in the Central Highlands” (Thanh Quang, 2009, April 8). On April 11th, a conference was organized among an overseas Vietnamese community in Paris with over 60 delegates to show support for Thích Quang Ðô. on bauxite mining (Ý Lan, 2009, April 19). The Vietnamese Reform Party (Viê.t Tân), a self-declared anti-communist group considered by the Vietnamese regime as a terrorist organization, also posted an open letter on its website protesting bauxite and blaming the “communist leadership.” Viê.t Tân also urged international environmental organizations and human rights groups to “pressure the Hanoi government to cease the bauxite projects” (Viê.t Tân, 2009, March 20). The Internet played a key role in making possible this level of discussion against a major policy of the party and state. A few websites and ij

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21 In specific, Thích Quaij ng Ðô also demanded the Vietnamese authorities to (1) . disclose a map of territory according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), (2) declare full contents of border agreements between Vietnam and China in 1999 and 2000 and (3) urgently organize a congress with all people [toàn dân], including relevant scientists and experts to discuss.

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blogs operated by overseas Vietnamese communities, such as Viet-Studies, Ði˜ên Ðàn, and X-café, played a crucial role in making these highly critical commentaries and information available online. Even though these websites were firewalled inside Vietnam, they were easily navigable through proxy servers by savvy Vietnamese netizens. The Vietnamese sections of international online news media also played an important role in seeking out discussion and obtaining critical perspectives on bauxite mining, especially during a period when domestic media was banned from reporting on the topic. The most important ones were Radio Free Asia (RFA), Radio France Internationale (RFI), and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). RFA was able to solicit interviews with two popular National Assembly delegates. One was Nguy˜ên Lan D˜ ung (Assemblies X, XI and XII), a professor of biology who became a household name in the 1990s during his role on Vietnam’s first popular science TV show called “Ask a Ques´ and another was Du,o,ng tion and Get an Answer” (Hoi gì d-áp nây); ´ (Assemblies XI and XII), a historian who had developed Trung Quôc a reputation for his frankness and direct style of questioning in the National Assembly (Thiê.n Giao, 2009a, February 18; 2009b, February 19). Although their comments were more moderate, mostly calling for transparency and open debate rather than directly opposing the government policy, the fact that they spoke to a foreign news agency on a topic banned from discussion inside Vietnam was significant. RFA also published an interview with the Director of VUSTA, Hô` Uy Liêm (Thiê.n Giao, 2009c, February 26), who warned that bauxite mining in the Central Highlands “must be developed with extreme care!” (Phai phát ´ thâ.n tro.ng!). triên rât Yet, as the government’s “Scientific Workshop” approached, which the Prime Minister had ordered in January, the muzzle on the domestic press loosened. If a government workshop was to be a public spectacle, it needed to draw public interest. But the loosening of the reins on domestic media also allowed opponents of bauxite mining to resume their critiques. In the days leading up to the workshop, more government scientists came forward with statements and commentaries, including IDS President and former President of the Vietnam Association for Information Processing, Nguy˜ên Quang A, and former Director of the Central Committee’s Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), as well as IDS member, Lê Ð˘ang Doanh. Both spoke critically of bauxite mining to Radio Free Asia. ij

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VietnamNet also published long critical articles on bauxite mining by minerologist Nguy˜ên Kha´˘ c Kính (who had given that first interview to the Saigon Economic Times in May), economist Viê.t Nguyên, and former National Assembly delegate Nguy˜ên Ngo.c Trân. Southern Vietnamese scientists also came forward with their views, such as Tô V˘an Tru,o`,ng, former Head of the Southern Region Irrigation Planning Institute, who posted his own extensive analysis of bauxite mining on the website of the Hanoi Association of Literature (Tô V˘an Tru,o`,ng, 2009, February 18), and Hô` So,n Lâm, Director of the Association of the Applied Material Sciences in Ho Chi Minh City, who conceded a telephone interview to Radio Free Asia (Gia Minh, 2009, March 2).22 While speaking to the press is standard fare in democratic countries, speaking out openly against a major government policy in Vietnam was exceedingly rare at that time. In February, the Vietnamese Communist Party also organized an internal seminar, which they coordinated through VUSTA. This highlevel seminar with the party was by invitation only. There was no press coverage and no public information was made available from it. Two ´ Sang and members of the Politburo chaired the seminar, Tru,o,ng Tân , Ngô V˘an Du. Because of the secretiveness of this meeting, it is difficult to ascertain exactly who attended and what discussions took place there. However, experts whose reports were in the seminar’s Proceedings included those who had organized the Scientists’ petition, such as Nguy˜ên ` Thi. Lanh, Lê V˘an Khoa, Nguyên Quang Thái, Ð˘a.ng Trung Thuâ.n, Trân ` Thi. Lanh, Nguy˜ên V˘an Ban, Ðoàn V˘an Ngo.c, Nguy˜ên Trung, Trân Cánh and the Geology Association of Vietnam Director Nguy˜ên Kha´˘ c Vinh. Like the workshop in Ða´˘ k Nông, their reports provided recommendations and technical analyses for the proceedings. Others reports in the proceedings included ones authored by Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, Lê V˘an Cu,o,ng, and Pha.m Quang Tú.23 This meeting testified to how concerning 22 Other scientists whose opinions had been posted or found their way on the Internet

during this period included Hô` Uy Liêm, former director of VUSTA, and Nguyên Ngo.c, who gave telephone interviews to the Radio Free Asia. Nguy˜ên Ðình Hoè, who joined with the VUSTA group, used his organization’s website, the Vietnamese Association for the Conservation of Nature and Environment (VACNE), for posting his own analyses of the impacts of bauxite mining on southern river systems (Nguy˜ên Ðình Hoè, 2009). 23 The reports included in the proceedings do not necessarily mean that their authors were able to present them at seminar itself (or even attended). Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, for one, complained in his written comments to Politburo members that the time of the workshop was limited and he did not have any opportunity to speak up (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, undated letter).

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these discussions had become to the party, though it did not necessarily signal that the party had become more responsive, as discussed in more detail in Chapter 5. Extensive online commentary helped to draw more and a wider range of persons into the bauxite mining debates. Opposition to bauxite mining now counted on government scientists and humanities scholars, artists and writers, NGOs leaders and National Assembly delegates, retired political and military leaders, religious leaders, bloggers, dissidents, and overseas Vietnamese communities. They also made use of a range of platforms to add their voices to the debate, including letters, interviews, articles, blogs, and declarations of general strikes and boycotts. This coming together of important and diverse voices was without precedent in the post-reform era, and just a glimpse of what was still to come.

The Government’s “Scientific Workshop”: The Limits of Embedded Advocacy Recognizing the swell of public criticism, the government mobilized to manage it, in some ways engaging it and in other ways stifling it. Either way, the objective was the same, to preserve the government’s exclusive authority on the matter. A key device in this strategy was the “Scientific Workshop” that the Prime Minister had proposed in his meeting at the beginning of the year. The “Scientific Workshop” finally took place on April 9th. On the surface, it bore many resemblances to the regional workshop organized by CODE and local government in Ða´˘ k Nông in October 2008. However, there were important, if subtle, differences. These differences were noticeable in the workshop’s organization, invited participants, format, and press coverage. First, the Ministry of Industry and Trade hosted the workshop, while another government body, the Vietnam Union for Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA) was responsible for organizing it. This already was a departure from the co-chairing of the regional workshop by the NGO CODE, local government, and Vinacomin. The chair for the Scientific Workshop was Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Industry, Hoàng Trung Hai. His presence reflected the importance that the government now attached to the discussions, but it also impressed the state’s authority upon them. In other words, Hoàng Trung Hai’s presence ij

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showed that the government had begun to mobilize its top brass, perhaps to listen but also to intimidate. On the occasion of this workshop, General Giáp wrote his second letter on bauxite mining and the Deputy Prime Minister began the workshop by reading this letter. As one informant described it to me, the Deputy Prime Minister “wisely” opened the meeting with General Giáp’s letter to suggest the government was in affiliation, rather than opposition, with the revolutionary hero. The Deputy Prime Minister’s final, if ambiguous, comments on the meeting were also widely reported on in the press, namely that “bauxite should not be mined at any cost” (Thu, Hà & Phu,o,ng Loan, April 10, 2009). Second, many of the scientists and experts that had attended the Ða´˘ k Nông workshop and had continued their discussions with VUSTA were also invited to this workshop.24 However, only one or two were invited to speak. This time government officials and industry representatives, recruited by the government to show their support for bauxite mining, dominated the presentations. The presentations began with the Director of Heavy Industry in the Ministry of Investment and Trade, followed by Vinacomin (two reports), and then one each by the Ða´˘ k Nông and ` provincial governments. All of them were unequivocal in their Lâm Ðông support for bauxite mining. Their presentations were followed by the Director of the Vietnam Geological Association (namely Nguy˜ên Kha´˘ c Vinh, who was among the more critical voices in this group), representatives from the Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment, and the Ministry of Science and Technology; three experts on metallurgy; a representative of the Mechanical Research Institute in the Ministry of Internal Affairs; a representative of the Vietnam Association for Mining Planning and Industry (Hô` S˜ı Giao, who had been a supportive voice for bauxite mining at the regional workshop); and representatives from Chalco and Alcoa, which was still trying to carve off a piece of the projects for itself; as well as other government offices and research institutes. Among those who were involved in VUSTA’s discussions, Nguy˜ên Trung, former member of the Prime Minister’s Research Council; Nguy˜ên Ðình Hoè of the Vietnam Association for Nature and Environment (VACNE); Pha.m Bích San, Deputy Secretary of VUSTA; Lê ij

24 Unfortunately, I was unable to find an invitation list on this workshop, but I have a general sense of who was there based on my discussions with people who had attended.

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Ngo.c Tha´˘ ng, General Secretary of the Vietnam Association of Ethnology and Anthropology; CODE’s Director, Pha.m Quang Tú; and Nguy˜ên V˘an Ban, former Director of the Aluminum Project for the Vietnam Mining Corporation submitted reports. However, only one or two of them were presented at the workshop, while the rest were included in the proceedings. The participation of others who had made headlines at the Ða´˘ k Nông workshop was further restricted by the format of the workshop. The workshop followed the basic structure of presentation and comments. However, persons wanting to make comments had to submit their names to the chair (i.e., the Deputy Prime Minister) and then wait for the chair to call on them. Not only did this process grant the Deputy Prime Minister a veto power over speaking privileges, it also allowed him to select his favorites. This meant that only a few persons, such as Nguyên Ngo.c, Nguy˜ên Trung, and Lê V˘an Cu,o`,ng, were able to repeat their impassioned pleas, while others, such as Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, were not. Furthermore, because this workshop was scheduled for only one day, the time for discussion was greatly reduced. One reporter suggested that the workshop had comprised “25 reports and 18 ideas [interventions],” giving some sense of the ratio of presenters to comments (Phu,o,ng Loan & Lâm, 2009a, April 9). A third difference was the press coverage. Indeed, a couple of reporters from VietnamNet made the mistake of thinking that this was Ða´˘ k Nông all over again. On the afternoon of the workshop (before the event had finished), reporters Thao Lâm and Phu,o,ng Loan posted an article on VietnamNet with a title reminiscent of the regional workshop. It read, “Bauxite conference: many economic and environmental risks and concerns” (Phu,o,ng Loan & Lâm, 2009b, April 10). This article was primarily dedicated to the criticisms raised against bauxite mining. The article describes the range of issues discussed as pertaining to “economic benefits and impacts on environment, culture, society and national security,” while suggesting that “most of the scientists recommended to ` begin only with Tân Rai (Lâm Ðông) as a pilot project and temporarily ´ suspending Nhan Co (Ða˘ k Nông) for further research before making a decision on the entire national policy for bauxite mining [i.e., Decision 167].” Reviewing key statements made by the Deputy Prime Minister and Vinacomin, the article contrasts those statements with the criticisms made against them. The article quotes Nguy˜ên Trung’s skeptical remarks: ij

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To talk like this is nonsense. The Ministry of Industry says that mining bauxite in the Central Highlands will boost development in the region. Where does he get that from? I am skeptical. For more than 60 years [Vinacomin] has been mining coal in Quang Ninh province, but has that helped to develop this province, has it made any contribution to the development of the country? The state budget has poured thousands of billions of Vietnamese dong to support the Central Highlands but still it hasn’t improved much, and now only with this investment in bauxite this entire problem will be solved?

The article also challenges the Deputy Prime Minister’s reaffirmation of the bauxite mining projects as a “major policy of the Party and state.” It notes how Nguyên Ngo.c remarked that only the Economic Report of the 10th National Party Congress mentioned bauxite, while the more important Political Report called for restricting the export of raw materials (echoing the analyses of blogger Hoa Van in February). Nguyên Ngo.c further asked, if bauxite mining is a major policy, then why was it never passed through the legislature, which, by law, must vote on all major government policies and programs? The article further refers to Nguy˜ên V˘an Ban criticizing Vinacomin’s illusory economic forecasts and choice of Chinese technology and contractor; National Assembly delegate Du,o,ng ´ commenting on the historical and “special” regional imporTrung Quôc tance of the Central Highlands; and General Lê V˘an Cu,o,ng arguing that “The Central Highlands is the roof of Indochina,” referring to a famous slogan of a former French colonial governor that whoever is master of the Central Highlands is the master of Indochina. This article revived the “spirit of criticism” (to borrow a phrase from TuanVietnam) that had emerged with the Ða´˘ k Nông workshop. However, government censors were not sleeping this time. By midnight of the same day, the article was replaced with a thoroughly revised version attributed to the same two authors.25 The new article was now entitled “The Government will review the economic benefits of bauxite mining in the Central Highlands.” The dialogue of the former article was reduced to a monologue of statements by the Deputy Prime Minister. Critical ij

25 Informants in the domestic media suggested to me that Phu,o,ng Loan had been disciplined and suspended from journalism for several months because of her reporting on this and other issues, but I was unable to confirm this information. Phu,o,ng Loan herself declined to meet with me.

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comments by experts were reduced to this single line: “[w]riter Nguyên Ngo.c, National Assembly delegate Duong Trung Quoc and many scientists doubted and hesitated” (Phu,o,ng Loan & Lâm, 2009b, April 10). Their reasons for doubt and hesitation were no longer about a national policy decision, but rather about whether the policy could be implemented effectively or not. As the authors newly wrote, “the investors say good things about their environmental management and technology, but Vietnam’s actual experience with them is different.” The revised article also concludes with the Deputy Prime Minister stating that “the important thing is to make financing available, balance the economic benefits of the projects, take a serious approach to developing the projects and strict monitoring,” while also taking note of “cultural and indigenous peoples issues.” It even provides a summary table of the “duties” assigned to each relevant ministry, provincial governments, and Vinacomin. In other words, the project was going forward, despite the concerns that had been raised about it. This revised article shows the differences between the government’s “Scientific Workshop” and the regional workshop in October 2008. The primary purpose of the government’s workshop was to make an exhibition of state dialogue with the public and its “scientific” perspective. However, this workshop also showed the limits of embedded advocacy through such a “scientific” approach. The government showed that it is equally able to mobilize the language of science, scientific institutions, and scientists to restrain and contain public debate. It effectively reduced what had come to be in the public discourse a very complex, wide-ranging, and multi-dimensional problem into a largely technical and “environmental” one. Not only did this help the government steer away from more potentially volatile aspects of the discussion, it also presented a set of problems that further justified government intervention. In other words, it kept the entire policy issue within the bounds of state management and control.

Conclusion Scholars have described embedded approaches as the most effective form of activism in authoritarian or semi-authoritarian contexts. In the Vietnamese context, Wells-Dang (2012) argues, “successful activists find room to maneuver within, or around, structural limitations” (43). This chapter has shown both the power and the limits of that approach. It has suggested that embedded approaches are as much coping mechanisms as

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they are pathways to change. It argues that when secure, transparent, and durable avenues for engaging with the state are unavailable, embedded approaches are what is left. In his final analysis, Wells-Dang (2012), quoting an informant, describes policy advocacy in China and Vietnam “like walking on a tightrope” (59). Walking a tightrope highlights the need for a certain set of balancing skills, but it also underlines the ultimate precarity and potentially grave consequences for Vietnamese activists. Scholars of embedded approaches in Vietnam and China recognize that these approaches are unlikely to lead to systemic changes; if anything, they provide, as David Koh has argued (2006), a pressure valve that allows authoritarian systems to endure. In his reflections on embedded advocacy, Peter Ho (2008) describes embedded activism as a “transient phenomenon, a particular type of Party-state–society interaction shaped by the semi-authoritarian nature of Chinese society” (21). However, if embedded advocacy is a transient phenomenon, then the question is what comes next. Ho provides little answer. In this chapter, the embedded approach reached its limit. It had ignited a public debate, but the fiery nature of the debate itself challenged the institutional and rhetorical structures that an embedded approach tries to maintain. From this moment forward, CODE increasingly slunk into the background of the public discussion and played a more behind-thescenes supportive role. However, several of the scientists and experts that CODE had initially assembled to create a public debate on bauxite mining, such as mineralogist Nguy˜ên Thành So,n, writer Nguyên Ngo.c, policy analyst Nguy˜ên Trung, continued to be reference points for the increasingly unwieldy opposition to bauxite mining. However, to do this, their role also changed in a way that was as subtle as it was significant. From being experts (chuyên gia), they became increasingly recognized as , intellectuals (tri thu´ c). In the next chapter, I examine how the Vietnamese intellectuals reemerged on the Vietnamese political landscape through the bauxite mining debates.

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Nguy˜ên Danh Phu,o,ng. (2008, February 28). Ð˘ak Nông tru,o´,c bài toán hâ.u khai khoáng Bô-xít [Dak Nong before the bauxite mining problem]. Thiennhien.Net. http://www.thiennhien.net/news/140/ARTICLE/4669/ 2008-02-28.html ´ d-`ê môi tru,o`,ng liên quan d-´ên khai thác bauxite Nguy˜ên Ðình Hoè. (2009). Vân , ` Tây Nguyên (nghiên cu´ u tru,o`,ng ho.,p Ða´˘ k Nông và Lâm Ðông) [Environmental problems related to bauxite mining in the Central Highlands (case studies of Dak Nong and Lam Dong)]. Tuyên Tâ.p Báo Cáo, 185–195. ´ d-`ê v˘an Nguyên Ngo.c. (2008). Chu,o,ng trình bauxite o, Tây Nguyên và các vân hoá—Xã hô.i [The Central Highlands bauxite projects and their social and cultural issues]. Tài Liê.u Hô.i Thao Khoa Ho.c [Workshop Proceedings], 94– 97. ´ và trách Nguyên Phong. (2009, February 12). Bôxít: Su´,c ép cua Trung Quôc , ´ nhiê.m cua TBT Nông Ðuc Ma.nh [Bauxite: Chinese pressure and the respon˜ Ðàn. http://www.die sibility of General Secretary Nông Ðu´,c Ma.nh]. Diên ndan.org/viet-nam/richdocument.2009-02-11.8627167155 ´ bách trong chu,o,ng trình ´ vân ´ d-`ê câp Nguyên Ngo.c. (2009, February 20). Mây bôxit Tây Nguyên [Several urgent problems in the Central Highlands bauxite program]. In Toa. d-àm: hiê.u qua kinh tê´ và nhu˜,ng tác d-ô.ng do khai thác, chê´ ´ alumin và luyê.n nhôm d-´ên phát triên kinh tê´ - xã ´ qu˘a.ng bauxit, san xuât biên ´ hô.i, an ninh quôc phòng và môi tru,o`,ng khu vu.,c Tây Nguyên và Nam Trung Bô. [Economic benefits and other impacts from mining and processing bauxite reserves, producing alumina and refining aluminum on socio-economic development, national defense and environment in the Central Highlands and the South Central Region.] Vietnam Union for Science and Technology Associations: Hanoi. Nguyen, T.-D., & Datzberger, S. (2018). Environmentalism and authoritarian politics in Vietnam: A new frontier of civil society activism? (Challenging Authoritarianism Series). https://www.tni.org/en/publication/environmenta lism-and-authoritarian-politics-in-vietnam ´ bách trong chu,o,ng ´ vân ´ d-`ê câp Nguyên Ngo.c. (2009, February 20). Mây trình bôxit Tây Nguyên [Several urgent problems in the Central Highlands bauxite program]. In Toa. d-àm: hiê.u qua kinh tê´ và nhu˜,ng tác d-ô.ng do ´ qu˘a.ng bauxit, san xuât ´ alumin và luyê.n nhôm d-´ên phát khai thác, chê´ biên ´ phòng và môi tru,o`,ng khu vu.,c Tây triên kinh tê´ - xã hô.i, an ninh quôc Nguyên và Nam Trung Bô. [Economic benefits and other impacts from mining and processing bauxite reserves, producing alumina and refining aluminum on socio-economic development, national defense and environment in the Central Highlands and the South Central Region.] Vietnam Union for Science and Technology Associations: VUSTA. ij

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Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. (1989). N˘ang lu,o.,ng vo´,i Tây Nguyên [Energy in the ,, Central Highlands]. Ta.p Chí N˘ang Luo. ng, 11. http://www.google.com.vn/ search?q=%E2%80%9CN%C4%83ng+l%C6%B0%E1%BB%A3ng+v%E1%BB% 9Bi+T%C3%A2y+Nguy%C3%AAn%E2%80%9D+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t& rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. (2008a, October 24). Ða.i kê´ hoa.ch bô—Xít o, Tây Nguyên ´ liê.t [Fierce opposition to the bauxite master plan for bi. phan d-´ôi quyêt the Central Highlands]. TuanVietnam. http://www.tuanvietnam.net/200810-24-dai-ke-hoach-bo-xit-o-tay-nguyen-bi-phan-doi-quyet-liet Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. (2008b, October 25). Nguy co, hiê.n hu˜,u trong các du., án bô—Xít trên Tây Nguyên [The risks of mining bauxite in the Central Highlands]. TuanVietnam. http://www.tuanvietnam.net/nguy-co-hien-huutrong-cac-du-an-bo-xit-tren-tay-nguyen Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. (2008c, October 26). Ða.i du., án bô—Xít Tây Nguyên: ´ gì? [The great Central Highlands bauxite project: Ngu,o`,i trong cuô.c d-`ê xuât What does an insider recommend?]. TuanVietnam. http://www.tuanvietnam. net/dai-du-an-bo-xit-tay-nguyen-nguoi-trong-cuoc-de-xuat-gi ` chiên ´ lu,o.,c và nhu˜,ng rui ro hiê.n Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. (2008d). Nhu˜,ng sai lâm , , ˜ huu trong viê.c phát triên các du. án bauxite trên Tây Nguyên cua Viê.t Nam [Strategic errors and current risks in developing bauxite projects in the Central Highlands of Vietnam]. Tài liê.u hô.i thao khoa ho.c [Workshop Proceedings], 33–59. ` g˘a.p GS Nguy˜ên V˘an Chiên [Twice Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n. (2009, July 28). Hai lân ˜ meeting Prof. Nguyên V˘an Chiên]. Tia Sáng. http://tiasang.com.vn/Def ault.aspx?tabid=62&CategoryID=3&News=2941 ` (2008, October 23). Tây nguyên s˜e “chêt” ´ vì... Khai thác bôxit ´ Nguy˜ên Triêu. ij

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[The Central Highlands will “die” because of... Bauxite mining]. Tuôi Tre. http://tuoitre.vn/PrintView.aspx?ArticleID=284505 ´ tu,o´,ng d-a.i su´, Nguy˜ên Tro.ng Nguy˜ên Tro.ng V˜ınh. (n.d.). Thu, cua thiêu ˜ V˜ınh [Letter from Major General Ambassador Nguy˜ên Tro.ng V˜ınh]. Diên Ðàn. http://www.diendan.org/viet-nam/thu-cua-thieu-tuong-111ai-su-ngu yen-trong-vinh/ ´ và d-u,o.,c trong viê.c khai thác bauxite Nguy˜ên Trung. (2008, December 7). Mât , o Tây Nguyên [Losses and gains in mining bauxite in the Central High˜ Ðàn. http://www.diendan.org/viet-nam/mat-va-111uoc-tronglands]. Diên viec-khai-thac-bauxite-o-tay-nguyen ´ Anh. (2009, March 9). Lá thu, sinh viên gu,i thu tu,o´,ng Nguy˜ên Tuân ´ D˜ ˜ ´ D˜ Nguyên Tân ung [A letter sent to Prime Minister Nguy˜ên Tân ung by a student]. https://danluan.org/tin-tuc/20090308/la-thu-sinh-vien-guithu-tuong-nguyen-tan-dung ij

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O’Brien, K. J., & Li, L. (2006). Rightful resistance in rural China (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. O’Rourke, D. (2004). Community-driven regulation: Balancing development and the environment in Vietnam. MIT Press. Ortmann, S. (2017). Environmental governance in Vietnam. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49760-0 Pha.m Ðình Tro.ng. (2009, March 6). Thu, gu,i Thu tu,o´,ng [Letter sent to Prime Minister]. BBC Vietnamese. http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/ forum/2009/03/090306_phamdinhtrong_letter.shtml ` quan Phu,o,ng Loan, & Lâm, T. (2009a, April 9). Hô.i thao bô-xít: Nhiêu ,, ´ nga.i rui ro kinh tê môi truo` ng [Bauxite workshop: Many concerns over the economic and environmental risks]. VietnamNet. http://everywhereland.blo gspot.com/2009/04/ong-le-van-cuong-thuc-su-noi-gi.html Phu,o,ng Loan, & Lâm, T. (2009b, April 10). Chính phu s˜e xem la.i hiê.u qua kinh tê´ bô-xít Tây Nguyên [Government will review economic benefits of Central Highlands bauxite]. VietnamNet. http://vietnamnet.vn/print/ Pribbenow, M. L. (2008). General Võ Nguyên Giáp and the mysterious evolution ´ Offensive. Journal of Vietnamese Studies, 3(2), of the plan for the 1968 Têt 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1525/vs.2008.3.2.1 Quinn-Judge, S. (2005). The ideological debate in the DRV—And the significance of the Anti-Party Affair, 1967–68. Cold War History, 5(4), 479. https://doi.org/10.1080/14682740500284838 , ˜ và pháp luâ.t [Lobbying practice SPERI. (2007). Vâ.n d-ô.ng hành lang thu. c tiên ´ Ban Lao d-ô.ng - Xã hô.i. and law] [Workshop proceedings]. Nhà xuât SPERI. (n.d.). SPERI reforming & DELOBBY reviewing [Yearly Report Jul ’07–Jun ’08]. SPERI. http://www.google.com.sg/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=& esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsperi. org%2Fupload%2Fmedias%2Ffile_1384441795.yearlyreport.2007-2008.doc& ei=LAdjU96LIIeE8gWZjoCQBQ&usg=AFQjCNEpKbXQKDEVRlXe18D9 BMVaZOUm8Q&bvm=bv.65788261,d.dGc Swyngedouw, E. (2010). Apocalypse forever? Post-political populism and the spectre of climate change. Theory, Culture & Society, 27 (2–3), 213–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276409358728 Swyngedouw, E. (2011). Depoliticized environments: The end of nature, climate change and the post-political condition. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 69, 253–274. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1358246111000300 ` Trung s˜e bi. anh hu,o,ng ´ Ðu´,c. (2007, May 17). Khai thác bauxite: Miên Tân , [Bauxite mining: The Central region will be impacted]. Tho` i Báo Kinh Tê´ Sài Gòn, 21, 18–19. Templer, R. (1999). Shadows and wind: A view of modern Vietnam. Penguin (Non-Classics). ij

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Thanh Phu,o,ng. (2009, April 7). Du. án bauxit Tây Nguyên: Làn sóng phan d-´ôi ngày càng ma.nh [Central Highlands bauxite project: Wave of protest is every day larger]. http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://www.rfi. fr/vietnamien/actu/articles/112/article_3115.asp ´ 8406, 3 n˘am sau ngày thành lâ.p [Bloc Thanh Quang. (2009, April 8). Khôi 8406, 3 years after it was established]. Radio Free Asia. http://www.rfa. org/vietnamese/in_depth/prospects-of-bloc8406-on-occasion-of-its-3rd-ann iversary-TQuang-04082009102556.html?searchterm=None ´ câ.p ha.i [Bauxite Thanh Thu,o,ng. (2008, October 23). Khai thác bauxit, lo.,i bât mining, the costs outweigh the benefits]. Kinh Tê´ Sài Gòn. http://www.the saigontimes.vn/Home/thoisu/doisong/11231/ Thanh Tùng. (2008, October 24). Qua bom bùn không lô` trong lòng Ð˘ak ´ Viê.t. http:// Nông [Enormous mud bomb in the heart of Dak Nong]. Ðât www.baodatviet.vn/Utilities/PrintView.aspx?ID=18798 Thao Lê. (2008, October 22). Khai thác Bauxit o, Ð˘ak Nông—Lo.,i ích kinh tê´ và bao vê. môi tru,o`,ng [Mining Dak Nong bauxite—Economic benefits and environmental protection]. Nhân Dân. Thayer, C. A. (2009). Vietnam and the challenge of political civil society. Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs, 31(1), 1–27. Thayer, C. A. (2010). Political legitimacy of Vietnam’s one party-state: Challenges and responses. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 28(4), 47–70. , Thích Quang Ðô.. (2009, March 29). Lo` i kêu go.i mô.t tháng biêu tình ta.i gia [Call for one month of stay-at-home protest]. https://viettan.org/loi-keugoi-cua-hoa-thuong-thich-quang-do/ ` Thiêu ´ Thông Tin! Thiê.n Giao. (2009a, February 18). Vu. bô xít: Mo.i Phía Ðêu [Bauxite affair: All sides lack information!]. http://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/ in_depth/Over-the-controversial-bauxite-mining-all-parties-lack-needed-inf ormation-02182009141755.html?searchterm=None ` Thiê.n Giao. (2009b, February 19). Bô-xít là “chuyê.n d-ã rôi?” [Bauxite is “already done”?]. http://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/in_depth/over-controver sial-bauxite-mining-huge-projects-need-to-be-scrutinized-TGiao-021920091 02039.html?searchterm=None ´ mo´,i trong vu. Bô-xít: “Thí Ðiêm Thiê.n Giao. (2009c, February 26). Ðê` xuât ,, Truo´ c Ðã!” [New recommendation in the Bauxite affair: “Pilot project first!”]. http://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/in_depth/Viet-experts-in-the-raceof-arguing-against-the-govert-decision-of-bauxite-mining-TGiao-022620091 31131.html?searchterm=None ,

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` câu hoi! Thiêu Tâm. (2008, October 27). Bô-xít Ð˘ak Nông: Còn quá nhiêu [Dak Nong bauxite: Still so many questions!]. Thiennhien.Net. http://www. thiennhien.net/news/140/ARTICLE/7005/2008-10-27.html Thu Hà, & Phu,o,ng Loan. (2009, April 9). Không nên làm bô-xít Tây Nguyên ào ào ba˘` ng mo.i giá. Tuan Vietnam. [Should not mine Central Highlands carelessly at any cost.] http://vietsciences.free.fr/docbao/tintucbaochi/kho ngnenlamboxit-tuanVN.htm Tô V˘an Tru,o`,ng. (2009, February 18). Suy ngh˜ı vê` Du., án Bauxit Tây Nguyên [Thoughts on the Central Highlands Bauxite Projects]. Dân Luâ.n. https:// danluan.org/tin-tuc/20090217/suy-nghi-ve-du-an-bauxit-tay-nguyen ` Ðu´,c Tà. (2008, October 24). S˜e là bom nguyên tu, môi tru,o`,ng [There will Trân ´ Thi.. http://sgtt.com.vn/Pri be an environmental atom bomb]. Sài Gòn Tiêp ntView.aspx?ArticleID=69713 Tran Huu Hieu. (2008, October 25). Bauxite mining threatens Central Highlands. Vietnam News Agency. http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Enviro nment/181686/Bauxite-mining-threatens-Central-Highlands.html ` Ngo.c Quyên. ` (2008, October 23). Khai thác bauxit quy mô lo´,n o, Tây Trân ` ´ d-`ê nan giai [Large-scale bauxite mining in the Central Nguyên: Nhiêu vân Highlands: Many unresolvable problems]. Thanh Nien. http://www.thanhn ien.com.vn/News/0308/Pages/200843/20081023232354.aspx ´ ` Thuy. (2006, January 12). Ði.nh hu,o´,ng các ngành công nghiê.p chu chôt Trân [Orientations for key industrial sectors]. VietnamNet. http://vietnamnet.vn/ print/ TTO (TuoiTreOnline). (2006, November 18). Toàn v˘an Tuyên bô´ chung Viê.t ´ [Full text of Joint Declaration Vietnam—China]. Tuôi Nam—Trung Quôc Tre. http://tuoitre.vn/PrintView.aspx?ArticleID=173252 ´ [Joint Vietnam—China declaration]. Tuyên bô´ chung Viê.t Nam—Trung Quôc (2001, March 12). Viê.t Nam - Ða.i Su´, Quán Cô.ng Hòa Xã Hô.i Chu Ngh˜ıa ´ Hoa K`y. http://viet.vietnamembassy.us/tin Viê.t Nam Ta.i Ho.,p Chúng Quôc tuc/story.php?d=20011203000335 Viê.t Tân. (2009, March 20). Open letter on exploiting bauxite in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. Viê.t Tân. http://viettan.org/Open-Letter-on-ExploitingBauxite.html Vinacomin (Vietnam National Coal and Mineral Industries Corporation). (2008). ´ lu,o.,ng) và quy Tông quan vê` tài nguyên qu˘a.ng Bauxit (tru˜, lu,o.,ng và chât , ´ su du.ng qu˘a.ng Bauxit giai d-oa.n hoa.ch phân vùng th˘am dò, khai thác chê´ biên 2007–2015 có xét d-´ên n˘am 2025 [Overview of bauxite reserve (quantity and quality) and zoning plan to explore, extract, process and use bauxite ore from 2007–2015 with an orientation towards 2025]. Tài liê.u hô.i thao khoa ho.c [Workshop Proceedings], 5–13. ij

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VNS (Vietnam News Agency). (2003, September 11). Kho,i d-ô.ng du., án Bauxit— ´ nu,o´,c [Booting up the largest bauxite-alumina project in the Nhôm lo´,n nhât country]. Tuôi Tre. http://tuoitre.vn/Kinh-te/1097/Khoi-dong-du-an-Bau xit---Nhom-lon-nhat-nuoc.html VNS. (2005a, October 13). PM proposes ban of bauxite exports. Vietnam News Agency. http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Pages/PrintView.aspx? ArticleID=147353 VNS. (2005b, October 25). Foreign bankers to aid bauxite project. Vietnam News Agency. http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Pages/PrintView.aspx? ArticleID=147711 VNS. (2005c, November 2). Chinese co-operation sought in aluminium, bauxite mining. Vietnam News Agency. http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com. vn/Pages/PrintView.aspx?ArticleID=147956 VNS. (2006a, April 8). Lam Dong bauxite project underway. Vietnam News Agency. http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Pages/PrintView.aspx? ArticleID=152508 VNS. (2006b, September 2). Vinacomin plans new bauxite project. Vietnam News Agency. http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Industries/156917/Vin acomin-plans-new-bauxite-project.html VNS. (2006c, September 14). Party leader Manh lauds progress in Dak Nong. Vietnam News Agency. http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Pages/PrintV iew.aspx?ArticleID=157276 VNS. (2007, November 20). Vinacomin to dig for bauxite in Highlands. Vietnam News Agency. http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Pages/PrintV iew.aspx?ArticleID=171046 ˜ Tân ´ Võ Nguyên Giáp. (2009, January 5). Letter to Prime Minister, Hon. Nguyên D˜ ung. http://www.viet-studies.info/kinhte/Thu_VNGiap_NTDung.pdf Vuving, A. (2010). Vietnam: A tale of four players. Southeast Asian Affairs. http://www.scribd.com/doc/43386176/Vuving-Vietnam-A-Tale-of-FourPlayers Wells-Dang, A. (2012). Civil society networks in China and Vietnam: Informal pathbreakers in health and the environment. Palgrave Macmillan. Ý Lan. (2009, April 19). Hô.i luâ.n hâ.u thu˜ân ÐLHT Thích Quang Ðô. vê` Tháng ´ Tuân Dân Su., - Biêu Tình Ta.i Gia ta.i Paris. [Group discussion N˘am Bât in support of the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do on month of civil disobedience in May - Stay-at-home protests in Paris.] http://www.rfa.org/ vietnamese/in_depth/Paris-seminar-to-respond-to-venerable-thich-quang-docall-ylan-04192009094110.html?searchterm=None Yang, G. (2005). Environmental NGOs and institutional dynamics in China. The China Quarterly, 181, 46–66. https://doi.org/10.1017/S03057410050 00032 ij

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Yang, G. (2010). Civic environmentalism. In You-tien Hsing & Ching Kwan Lee (Eds.), Reclaiming Chinese society: The new social activism (p. 119). Routledge.

CHAPTER 4

Reemergence of the Intellectuals

On the morning I first met Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, it was in the medina-like lanes (ngõ) and alleys (ngách) that skulk behind Hanoi’s main streets and boulevards. The semi-retired scholar of Vietnamese classical literature had invited me to his home. But first I had to find it. A friend of mine had set up the appointment for me, but she also relayed to me a message from Dr. Chi. If I had trouble finding his house, do not ask around on the street for it; just give him a phone call. I did have trouble finding the house, and I did phone him. He appeared on the corner of an alley, waving me forward with his wrist bent downwards, as is the custom in Vietnam. The respected scholar shook my hand and smiled. He then led me down an even smaller alley to his house. Like most residences in Hanoi, his house was sandwiched between two others. I followed him through a dimly lit foyer, up a narrow staircase, past a small kitchen, where his wife and another woman were preparing lunch, and into his study. The residence was comfortable but modest. It suggested to me that if the intellectuals formed part of an elite tier of Vietnamese society, it was an economically modest one. Finally, my host led me into a small guest room so that I could ask him about his bauxite mining petition. But the conversation began with him interrogating me: where was I was from, how long had I been in Vietnam, was I married, did I have children, how long had I known our mutual friend. In part, this was standard Vietnamese cordiality. But Nguy˜ên Huê. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 J. Morris-Jung, Unearthing Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3124-5_4

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Chi was also calculating his risks. He was trying to figure out what information I wanted from him, how I might use it, and, ultimately, how he should package it for me. At times, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi spoke boldly about his intentions. At others, I felt he was picking his path carefully, pausing at times to reset his direction or steer me away from one I had started down. His newfound role as an “intellectual” seemed somewhat uncomfortable to him. He seemed unsure of its risks or implications. He was also unsure about what was going to happen with the petition, which had been published online only a couple of weeks earlier. Would it persuade the government to review their policy? Or would the authorities come down hard on him and his co-creators, as has happened several times in the past with artists and intellectuals who had spoken out together against the party-state. This was the tightrope that Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was walking. Yet he seemed both reluctant and determined to pursue it. The bauxite petition originally drafted by Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and his chief collaborator, Pha.m Toàn, transformed what had until then been an unwieldy public debate on Central Highlands bauxite into a more focused indictment of the Vietnamese communist regime. In contrast to the scientists’ petition of six months earlier, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi’s petition was bolder, more confrontational, and more explicit in its efforts to bring together a wide cross section of diverse groups around a common opposition to bauxite mining. It was also posted online; unlike the scientist’s petition, the Vietnamese blogosphere was abuzz about it. Yet this petition was as important for what it said as who said it. The first 135 persons to endorse the petition included many of Vietnam’s most well-known and highly accomplished scientists, scholars, writers, and artists, as well as dissidents. They were some of the Socialist regime’s brightest lights, a living testimony to the success of governmentsponsored socialist education. Yet they also included some of regime’s most outspoken critics, including several that had been exiled or served time in prison. They also spanned the two main politico-geographical cleavages enduring from the Vietnam wars, between the north and south and between Vietnamese from inside and outside the country. After decades of relative silence, the re-emergence of the intellectuals as a collective, if not always consonant, voice through the online bauxite petition was a significant development. It also enabled the public discussion on bauxite mining to transcend its limits of embedded activism and develop into more oppositional positions. How this petition emerged and

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how it was able to articulate a more oppositional politics are questions I examine in this chapter. While the previous chapter involved a tempest of characters and events, here I focus on the unlikely partnership between two Hanoi-based literary men, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn. They further collaborated with Ðà Na˘˜ ng hydrologist Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng, who brought a scientific perspective to their efforts while also beginning to bridge another key divide of Vietnamese political history, that between scientists and artists. By describing their stories, analyzing their work, and considering their broader implications for domestic politics, I show how these three men helped forge an oppositional politics through everyday sociality that in certain moments required big leaps of faith and courage. The experiences of these three men in creating, coordinating, and delivering their petition to the government testify to the harsh and sometimes bizarre political context in which they operated, one that they often also found themselves at a loss to explain. Their different experiences testify to their different approaches to the party-state, which further complicated the task of coming together to challenge it. Within this context, I argue that the petition of the 135 signatures was a catalytic moment in forging a more oppositional public voice on an otherwise encrusted political surface.

What Is an Intellectual? What is an intellectual? What is the role of intellectuals in society? What is their position in relation to dominant structures of power? These are questions that have long interested scholars and activists alike. Not surprisingly, the answers can be complicated and contradictory. As human geographer Noer Castree (2006) notes, there is “[n]o ‘proper’ definition of the public intellectual nor are there a special class of people with exclusive rights to the title” (402). Castree further argues that the idea of a public intellectual is hinged on contradiction. On one hand, it hinges on presumptions of scientific disinterest that are supposed to put intellectuals above the fray—and corruption—of politics. But on the other hand, being an intellectual is also based on a political engagement that enables intellectuals to marshal their talent in the combat for justice. Bourdieu (1990) famously described intellectuals as “a dominated fraction of the dominant class” (156), suggesting their social and economic status compromises their political positions. They may dominate in a socio-cultural sphere,

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but are subordinates in political and economic one. This is what Bourdieu referred to as the intellectual’s “precariously balanced position” (156). In addition, many observers have noted that most scientists and academics do not ransom their careers in struggles for justice. These more high-minded views of the intellectual reflect what Berkeley sociologist Jerome Karabel (1996) referred to as the “moralist” tradition. The moralist tradition represents “an idealized normative form of reference for thinking about intellectuals rather than an empirically grounded analytical one” (205). The tradition has its roots in the history, and idealization, of the French intellectuels that emerged with Dreyfus Affair at the turn of the last century—first among them, French writer Émile Zola—and their Bolshevik homologues of nineteenth century Russia. However, as Karabel emphasized, these individuals were exceptional, not representative. As Bourdieu (1990) also observed, despite the revolutionary impulses attributed to them by some analysts, or even by themselves, the nineteenth century intellectuals tended to remain loyal to the bourgeoisie—citing Zola as a quintessential example. While these ambiguities may create dilemmas for sociologists, they can be helpful for activists mobilizing support and contesting power in a highly restrictive political context. The ambiguity of being an intellectual, as both a part of and yet extraneous to the ruling regime, creates a space for activists to test the limits of acceptable critique without overly exposing themselves to punishment. The lack of definition around who is and is not an intellectual also loosens up the possibility for more and different kinds of people to enter this space of criticism. In other words, it is less important who qualifies as an intellectual, whether by degree or profession, than who is aspiring to be one, which can be an activist writer, lawyer, blogger, or otherwise. The story of Nguyên Huê. Chi’s petition examines the politics of being and becoming an intellectual in Vietnam. Being an intellectual is not simply about coming from an elite tier of highly educated society, or figuring as a representative of the “creative” or “thinking” professions, as in Jerome Karabel’s (1996) sociological sense. It is also about becoming an intellectual through demonstrating one’s moral commitment to fight for justice and a better society. In other words, rather than reducing the intellectual to a narrow definition, based on the lowest common denominator of their sociological characteristics, as Karabel does, the stories of Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, Pha.m Toàn, and others show how being an intellectual can be a wider and more inclusive category based on the aspirational

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qualities of using intellectual discussion and debate to pursue justice. It is as much a matter of becoming as being, and it is perhaps the becoming that defines the being, rather than the other way around. In a political context as restrictive as it is in Vietnam, the petition examined in this chapter helped enable the re-emergence of the intellectuals in the domestic political landscape.

A Pre-Cursor to the Online Petition: In ˆ Van ˘ ---Giai Phaˆm Affair the Shadow of the Nhan ij

Prior to the bauxite petition, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi never really thought of himself as an activist, let alone an opponent of the ruling regime. He built his career almost entirely under the tutelage of and in service to the partystate. Born in 1937, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was a reputed semi-retired scholar of classical Vietnamese literature. His anthology of classical Vietnamese ` dynasties is an authoritative text in the poetry from the Lý and Trân field. He joined the Vietnam Institute of Literature at the age of fourteen. He gradually moved up the ranks and occupied several senior positions, including President of the Scientific Association and Head of Department for Classical and Modern Literature. He also belatedly earned his PhD at the Institute in 1991. As Nguyê.n Huê. Chi himself admits, in those days, he was more likely to abide by than butt heads with the party-state. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi’s first real taste of activism came with a petition to protest a publication ban on a posthumous volume of works by the late ` Dân. ` Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi described his Nhân V˘an—Giai Phâm poet, Trân participation in this petition as having been pulled into it: “At first, I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t understand why they wanted to pull Huê. Chi into this. But I agreed to go along. We met several times to , discuss it. We would go to eat pho together, just eating and talking about , it together in the pho stands of Hanoi.”1 Yet the more he discussed, the more he seemed to get pulled in: ij

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1 Unless otherwise indicated, quotes attributed to Nguy˜ ên Huê. Chi in this chapter are taken from an unpublished interview conducted by Peter Zinoman and Nguy˜ên Nguyê.t ` Câm, on October 2010 in Berkeley, California. I am very grateful to both of them for ` for their permission to use the interview data here. I also thank Nguy˜ên Nguyê.t Câm ` Dân ` petition. initially drawing my attention to the Trân

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So we had to draft the petition. So this person wrote a bit, then another wrote a bit more and then another a bit more. So then I said, ‘OK, they say that I am a scholar with a very rigorous style of writing, so why don’t you give it to me and I will revise it,” as I hadn’t had a turn with it yet. So they agreed to let me take it back, rework it and revise it. But those people wrote in such an embellished and turgid way that I couldn’t agree with what they had written, as you know how writers are often this way. What’s more is that their writing was so arbitrary. I didn’t agree with that either, because I knew that speaking arbitrarily was risky. So I rewrote and rearranged the text in time for another meeting. Then everyone agreed on my text.

The petition not only opposed the publication ban, but also criticized the party-state’s long history of censorship on literary and artistic works. The real challenge, however, came when it was time to sign the petition: Then it was time to sign the petition. Then all of the others were like the mice in LaFontaine’s famous fable of Belling the Cat. Each of them was enthused about the plan, but tell any of them to go string the bell on the cat and they were all scared. So then they started passing the buck back and forth. ‘OK, Mr. Huê. Chi go first,’ they said. In the beginning, it surely wasn’t me volunteering to go first! But they pushed me to go first. So, finally I said, ‘OK, I will sign it.’ And that is how I came to be the first signature on the petition. I wasn’t scared.

A total of sixteen literary and cultural scholars initially signed the petition, including two foreigners. Their initiative was reminiscent of the Nhân ` Dân himself had V˘an–Giai Phâm Affair of the late 1950s, in which Trân been a central figure. The Affair began with a group of military writers appealing to state officials to ease up on state censorship of artistic works. As their complaints found little reception within the administration, these and other writers and artists took to expressing their grievances through critical and satirical works in two short-lived arts and literature magazines, called Nhân V˘an and Giai Phâm (Zinoman, 2011). In response, state officials cracked down harshly upon them. Many were arrested or imprisoned, defamed by some of their closest colleagues, ejected from their professional associations, and banned from publication for decades. The Affair ruined personal relationships and destroyed careers. It also set a precedent for the state response to internal dissent under the new ij

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communist government of North Vietnam, which, at that time, was newly recognized by the Geneva Peace Accords in 1954. Even though the Nhân V˘an–Giai Phâm Affair happened five decades earlier, by 2007 it still stood out as one of the very few incidents of sustained public criticism of the party-state by Vietnamese intellectuals ` Dân inside Vietnam.2 Hence, the scholars and artists signing the Trân petition had reasons to worry. Nonetheless, not only did they sign the petition, they also decided to post it online. The online petition collected a total of 134 signatures.3 In a discussion with the BBC, Hanoi-based poet Hoàng Hùng described the petition as “the first time such an open letter had appeared in Vietnam” (BBC, 2008, March 4). After collecting the online signatures, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and a couple of others personally delivered the petition to the Ministry of Communication and Information, which had issued the publication ban, as well as to the National Assembly. Although neither organization responded, it appeared to have an extraordinary effect. A few days later, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and his group learned from a domestic newspaper article that the ` Tuân ´ et al., 2008, March Ministry had decided to rescind the ban (Trân 9). The Ministry claimed that the problem had only been an “administrative error,” for which it would fine the publishing house 15,000,000 ` Tuân ´ et al., 2008, March 9). VND (around US$ 750 at the time) (Trân The newspaper article gave few clues on the reasons for the policy reversal, and no mention at all was made of the petition. Nonetheless, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and his group took their own lessons from it. As Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi described, “as it turned out, we can now write petitions. The authorities might twist and turn at them, but they are unable to do anything to us like before.” In their eyes, the petitioners had mobilized their prestige and expertise to challenge a governmental decision ij

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2 One important exception is when General Secretary Nguy˜ ên V˘an Linh invited writers ij , to stop “bending the nibs of their pens” on the back of the d-ôi mo´ i reforms in the ij , late 1980s. However, after an initial flurry of criticism and satire, which featured d-ôi mo´ i writers such as Nguy˜ên Huy Thiê.p, Du,o,ng Thu Hu,o,ng, Bao Ninh, and Pha.m Thi. Hoài, this brief and possibly manipulated moment of artistic liberalization was cracked down ij upon by means very reminiscent of the Nhân V˘an–Giaij i Phâm Affair. For more details, see Abuza (2001), Huê.-Tâm Hô` Tài (1994), and Zinoman (1992). 3 The similarity of this number to the 135 that signed the anti-bauxite petition is coincidental. Only a few names are in both groups, namely Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, Du,o,ng Tu,o`,ng, Nguy˜ên Tro.ng Ta.o, Hoàng Hùng, and Pha.m Toàn.

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and succeeded. They saw in their actions new possibilities to raise their voice in Vietnam. “For a while after that,” recounted Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, “we were so elated because of the extraordinary impact of our petition.”4

A New Partnership: Different Ways of Being an Intellectual Prior to the bauxite petition, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn did not know each other well. They ran in similar social and professional circles in Hanoi, but were only superficially acquainted. Born in Hanoi ` Dân ` petition—was in 1932, Pha.m Toàn—who had also signed the Trân an educator, as well as a writer and translator. He began his studies at the Teacher Training College in the 1950s, during which time he also tried his hand at fictional writing. Over the next decade, he earned acclaim for his short stories—under the pen name Châu Diên—and won several literary awards. As a young writer, he had witnessed the incidents in the Nhân V˘an–Giai Phâm Affair from close range. He was also a close friend of writer V˜ u Thu, Hiên, who, in the 1960s, was imprisoned for nine years as part of the revisionist “round-up” in the Anti-Party Affair, in which a number of Vietnamese intellectuals had also expressed critical views of state policy in the Soviet-China split. Starting in the late 1960s, Pha.m Toàn began dedicating himself to alternative education. He joined educational psychologist Hô` Ngo.c Ða.i to develop a network of “experimental schools” across the country, based on experiential learning models that Hô` Ngo.c Ða.i had studied in the Soviet Union during the 1960s and 1970s. Hô` Ngo.c Ða.i was also the son-in-law of Lê Duân, the General Secretary of the party throughout the war and socialist subsidy era. This vital connection helped ensure solid state support for Hô` Ngo.c Ða.i’s project to develop a network of experimental schools across the country. ij

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4 Subsequent events also suggested that state authorities had indeed taken notice. A few weeks later the police made house calls to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, Hoàng Hùng, and Ðinh Bá Anh. They also phoned Pha.m Toàn and poet Du,o,ng Tu,o`,ng. Eventually, Hoàng Hùng and Ðinh Bá Anh were forced to sign promises to stop writing for the Talawas blogsite ij operated by exiled d-ôi mo´,i writer Pha.m Thi. Hoài. The authorities let the others know that they were marked as “disturbers.”

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After Lê Duân’s death in 1986, however, state support for the schools soon withered. This led to a bitter public confrontation between Hô` Ngo.c Ða.i and the Ministry of Education in the early 1990s.5 The confrontation marked Pha.m Toàn, while also building his reputation as an outspoken critic of the socialist regime. The partnership of Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn on the bauxite mining petition came about in a gradual way. Both men and their friends had been aware of the controversy for several months. From their expe` Dân ` petition, they had also toyed with the idea riences with the Trân of writing a petition on bauxite mining. As Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi recounted, “the two of us, me and Pha.m Toàn, discussing this [idea of a petition] back and forth, back and forth.” But they appeared hesitant to act, until one day Pha.m Toàn piped up and said “Let me write it!” But Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi could not agree with Pha.m Toàn’s text. It was too risky, as he recounted: . . . near Pha.m Toàn’s house, there is a duck-meat restaurant and so I called him up. And there we were, just the two of us, eating duck-meat and talking about the petition. But I just couldn’t accept what Pha.m Toàn had written. Written like that would only send us to jail. To write “these thugs were selling out the country” would be the death of us! So, I said to Pha.m Toàn, “This is like asking them to throw us in jail!”6

Pha.m Toàn was not easy to dissuade, however. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi had to call up one of Pha.m Toàn’s favorite students, who finally persuaded him to abandon the text. This moment, however, revealed important differences between the two men. As Pha.m Toàn later wrote: 5 The last “experimental school” continued to operate on 51 Li˜ êu Giai Street in Hanoi even at the time of the bauxite mining controversy, although Pha.m Toàn was no longer an active collaborator with it. While the more experimental methods have generated questionable results, it is worth noting that one of Vietnam’s most celebrated scholars Ngô Baij o Châu was a pupil of Pha.m Toàn at the experimental schools. In 2010, Ngô Baij o Châu was awarded the Field Medal, commonly dubbed as the Nobel Prize of mathematics. Ngô Baij o Châu also signed the online bauxite petition. 6 Pham Toàn gives a similar account of his first attempt to draft the petition, though .

some of it seems to be conflated with events around the production of the second draft. As he wrote, “So then suddenly this Mr. Huê. Chi calls me to say, “You have to draft this petition immediately.” Then, a few hours later, Huê. Chi calls again, “I’ve read it but it is no good. Written like that is no good, written like that will only send us all to jail” (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19).

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That’s rough. We go out together, yet we don’t know each other. [Pha.m] Toàn doesn’t do something just to go through the motions of it. If I am going to do something, it must be radical. OK, like everyone, I too am sometimes forced just to go through the motions of an act. But when I do this I feel unkind, like I am deceiving my friends. It is like I am inviting them to tea with water that’s not yet boiled. It makes them feel uneasy in their guts. (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19)

The two of them then put away discussion of the petition for several weeks, perhaps even months.7 But the government’s “Scientific Workshop” jolted them into action again. This workshop was a government spectacle to reassure the public and dampen the controversial debate, as discussed in the previous chapter. But the workshop only had the opposite effect on Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn. Soon after, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi called Pha.m Toàn again: Again it was Huê. Chí. “You have to draft a petition immediately! It’s very urgent. My pulse is already at 97…,” he said. But then he also didn’t forget to add, “but you have to write it mildly, as if they [i.e., authorities] were just like us, also worried about the nation, but keep it vague on solutions … that’s all ….”8 (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19)

For these two men, the workshop only showcased the government’s lack of concern for public opinion—including expert opinion—and its penchants for prevarication and duplicity. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi did not believe the Deputy Prime Minister’s promise that “bauxite will not be done at any cost” (Interview No. 2, May 28, 2009). For Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, to say this while also reaffirming that bauxite was “a major policy of the government” was duplicitous. It was only meant to sedate the public. He also described the general director of Vinacomin, “this Ðoàn V˘an Kiên guy,” as “reckless.” “He spoke like he was gambling... Everything was 50-50... every objection raised was a 50 percent chance of winning, 50 percent chance of losing.” ij

7 Nguy˜ ên Huê. Chi described these discussions as gestating over a period of two months, while Pha.m Toàn’s account suggested a shorter period of time. 8 Pham Toàn’s text does not make clear who exactly he is referring to by “those people” . ´ (các ông ây). He uses the phrase twice. In the first instance, the context suggests he is referring to state authorities, but in the second instance the reference is less clear.

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These forms of governmental subterfuge were not new to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi or Pha.m Toàn. But the sheer scale of the bauxite projects and its risks led them to put aside their differences and write the petition. As Pha.m Toàn later recounted in a blog, after receiving Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi’s phone call, “two hours later, the petition came to life, 99% like the copy you all signed” (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19).

The Arts and Sciences Together Historically, artists and writers have been among the groups to have suffered most under communism if they did not toe the party line. Under Vietnamese communism, artists and writers have been the primary targets in the party-state’s crackdowns on intellectuals, notably in the Nhân , V˘an–Giai Phâm Affair of the 1950s and the coi trói period of the late 1980s. Scientists and engineers, in contrast, have historically been more silent, while also being wooed by the regime to advance its goals of rapid industrialization and modernization. To be sure, these relations between expertise and the party-state are complex, as they have been throughout the socialist world (Turner, 2013). Nonetheless, they have contributed to important differences between scientists and artists in their histories, approaches, and relations to the party-state in Vietnam. In contrast to the earlier discussions on Central Highland bauxite that were dominated by scientific and technological approaches, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn brought to the discussion the voices of two literati. But Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi also felt that this was insufficient. He also felt there was a need to incorporate a more scientific perspective as a basis for their critique. As a remedy, he recalled a curious professor of hydrology that he had met once at a conference in Ðà Na˘˜ ng City, Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng. Born in 1957, Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng was of a younger generation than both Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn. He was director of the Department for Irrigation and Hydroelectricity Construction at the Ðà Na˘˜ ng Polytechnic University in Central Vietnam. Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng had also built his career in government, working for provincial government in the 1980s, graduating from Hanoi National University in 1989, and then employed as a professor and administrator at the Polytechnic University ˜ Thê´ Hùng, n.d.). In 2006, he was recognized by the since 1992 (Nguyên , ˜ Thê´ party-state as a Professor of Excellence (Nhà giáo Uu tú) (Nguyên Hùng, n.d.). ij

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Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi had first met Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng at a workshop commemorating the 100th Anniversary of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity in 2007, to which Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi had been invited to speak on modernist ideology. Many other prestigious Vietnamese intellectuals had also attended.9 However, the one that most intrigued Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was this “stiff-necked” guy, who seemed undaunted by any of the prestigious figures at the conference. He just “got up, raised his hand, and criticized them from top to toe.” Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi thought to myself, “Well, this is odd. Here in Ðà Na˘˜ ng is someone who, whenever anyone else speaks, is able to stand up and speak so obstinately like , this.” However, after apparently “singing only praises” (khen mù tro` i) for ˜ Nguyên Huê. Chi, the two men made an amicable acquaintance. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi called up Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng about the bauxite mining petition. Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng had also been aware of the government’s plans but had not known what to do about it. He was also familiar with problems that such projects had created in Africa and the Americas (Interview No.3, July 2009). He had written his own letter to provincial government a few years earlier, but had not received any response. So when Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi proposed to make a “bigger” letter, Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng agreed without reserve (Interview No.2, July 2009). That is how two Hanoi literati and a Central Vietnamese hydrologist came together to write the second bauxite petition. They had different characters and different career trajectories, but all shared a common concern over bauxite mining. They also combined scientific assessment with socio-cultural political critique, and in doing so foreshadowed a coming together across the arts and sciences that was to emerge with their petition.

9 Nguy˜ ên Huê. Chi gave examples of mathematician Phan Ðình Diê.u, the first Director for the National Institute of Science and Technology and widely known for his pioneering efforts in developing an information technology sector in Vietnam; and physicist Pha.m ij Duy Hiên, former Director of the Nuclear Research Centre in Dalat. Phan Ðình Diê.u ij also signed the anti-bauxite petition, as discussed below, while Pha.m Duy Hiên signed the earlier petition by the scientists in November 2008, as discussed in the previous chapter.

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The Text of the Petition The text of the petition that the three men finally agreed upon was as many pages long. However, in a country where direct criticism of government policy was still rare, it was a remarkable document. Its full text is worth reproduction here.10 Petition on the Master Plan for Bauxite Mining Projects in Vietnam To: ´ President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam; Nguy˜ên Minh Triêt, Nguy˜ên Phú Tro.ng11 together with the entire National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam; ´ D˜ Nguy˜ên Tân ung12 and members of the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam [1] We, Vietnamese people who have signed our names below, who are concerned about the fate of our nation in regards to bauxite mining in the Central Highlands, humbly present to these respected organizations this petition. Dear organizations: [2] Our Vietnamese nation, which has endured decades of war to secure our independence and unity, is today now mobilizing all of our physical, material, and intellectual resources to rebuild the nation in an entirely new way. [3] In newly rebuilding our nation, there is, in principle, no difference between the rights and benefits of the State and the people—our people from inside as well as outside the country, those who hold positions of leadership as well as ordinary people, all of us want our nation to grow each day more civilized and prosperous, so that the whole nation will be one big, happy, prosperous, and dignified family. [4] Unfortunately, in the bauxite affair going on today, the honest people of our country are beginning to feel amiss. Our old ideology of hand-inhand building the country together has more or less disappeared because

10 Translation is my own. I have also added paragraph numbers in square brackets to facilitate reference. 11 Chair of the National Assembly. 12 Prime Minister.

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of how our governing organizations are currently running the country, a situation that needs to be analyzed as follows. Dear organizations: [5] Exploiting our country’s natural resources, which also includes bauxite resources, is an important work, but not one to be done at any cost! [6] The preparations for the bauxite project have already been shown by many scientists to be entirely inadequate. Only the two letters of General Võ Nguyên Giáp are enough to show these deficiencies in regard to the political situation, national security, environment, economics, and technology, as well as the petition of Dr. Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, Professor Pha.m Duy Hiên, and other independent researchers inside the country, such as writer Nguyên Ngo.c, scholar Nguy˜ên Trung, reporter Lê Phú Khai, writer Pha.m Ðình Tro.ng, and outside the country, such as Dr. Nguy˜ên Ðu´,c Hiê.p, an expert on environmental pollution in Australia, consulting engineer Ð˘a.ng Ðình Cung, an expert on mining in France… they all provide the “technical” rationale behind the heartfelt letters of the General. ij

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[7] All of these recommendations indicate the shortcomings and mistakes in the bauxite policy that are difficult to accept, and only these three points are enough to make anyone who has a conscience think twice: – The policy to establish the project was enacted at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009, but in reality it was signed off with the Chinese many years before without any consultation with our elected National Assembly.13 All of the feasibility studies have never yet been disclosed to the people or our official representatives in the National Assembly. – The Chinese have closed down bauxite mines in their own country to shift production to Vietnam, thereby shifting the heavy environmental burden of its pollution to the Vietnamese people of today and many generations to come. It will be like those very same activities that the Chinese have done and continue to do in Africa with the help of the corrupt regimes there, which the global community have been following closely and are downright offensive. – Science, technology, and labor are expected to be imported mainly from China, an emerging power with an increasingly strong economy

13 In fact, the national policy on bauxite mining, Decision 167, was enacted in November 2007. However, the public debate and government approvals of the first Central Highlands bauxite mining projects had begun in 2008.

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but still internally beleaguered with no small number of difficult situations. Among those situations most relevant to bauxite mining is China’s worldwide “fame” as the top environmental polluter today, not to mention other “problems” (for example, only this past March the Australian government had to cancel a mineral extraction project in Southern Australia signed with China for reasons of national defense).

Dear organizations: [8] The nation is the property of all the people, not only for the benefit of one group, one privileged group, or any one organization no matter how elite. [9] Anyone who is concerned for the people and the nation laments these things that are not being watched carefully in the bauxite affair and all feel the necessity to raise one’s voice. [10] So we recommend: 1. The Central Highlands bauxite project and each of its related policies must be passed and decided upon by the National Assembly; 2. The Central Highlands bauxite project must be suspended immediately and monitored closely until the National Assembly is able to review the entire feasibility study and make an appropriate assessment. We also request the National Assembly to consider thoroughly the wishes of the great majority of people, who do not want this project to continue because of all of its disastrous implications; 3. All feasibility studies for the Central Highlands bauxite must be discussed widely and monitored closely.

Dear organizations: [11] The people who have signed the petition below express their deep concern about the inadequate and incomplete preparations on many aspects of a project of strategic importance for the life or death of our nation like the bauxite project. [12] We request these organizations to consider our deep concerns and we hope that you will understand thoroughly the widespread consternation among us from both inside as well as outside the country. [13] On this occasion, we would also like to call on the people of China

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and especially its intellectuals to support the people of Vietnam, help the environment of your southern neighbor to remain healthy, and help with many of the ongoing problems between our two countries to be resolved in a peaceful and friendly way. Vietnam, April 12, 2009 Signed by: Prof. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, Writer Pha.m Toàn, and Prof. Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng

Reading the Petition On the surface, the text of the petition appears similar to “rightful resistance.” It deploys the rhetoric of the regime against itself. However, a deeper reading reveals how the petition confronts and challenges the party-state at the highest levels. The petition suggests an attempt to disarticulate the hegemonic link between the (Vietnamese) nation and (Socialist) state in Vietnamese political consciousness. The text of the petition begins by identifying the petitioners not so much as “intellectuals,” or even as scientists or experts, but rather more commonly as “We, Vietnamese people who have signed our names , ,, ,, below” (Chúng tôi, nhu˜ ng nguo` i Viê.t Nam ký tên duo´ i d-ây) (Para 1). The text further appeals to “Our Vietnamese nation” (Dân tô.c Viê.t Nam chúng ta) as one that has “endured many decades of war to secure independence and unity” (Para 3), rekindling the glory of the communist-led revolution and wars. Echoing the sloganeering of the party, the petition re-evokes its Marxist ideology of building a “stronger, richer” and “more civilized” nation into, while also reflecting its Confucian undercurrents, “one big, happy, prosperous and dignified family” (Para 3). The authority of the text is aligned with the will of the people, as derived from its particular history and ideological eclecticism. Hence, the text of the petition dips into the language and imagery of the party’s national-socialism, but marshals them to a different purpose. Rather, the petition seeks to “renovate the nation in an entirely different way” (Para 3). It argues that, with incidents like “the bauxite affair going on today, the honest people of our country are beginning to feel amiss” (Para 4). Party rhetoric is contrasted to the current situation, where the “old ideology of hand-in-hand building the country together has more or less disappeared because of how our governing organizations

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are currently running the country” (Para 4). In a reversal of state propaganda, the petition suggests that the nation’s leaders are the ones that have corrupted the revolutionary cause, as if they themselves have become the real opponents of the nation’s eternal quest for unity and independence. The petition repeats the promise of the Deputy Prime Minister at the Scientific Workshop, that bauxite would not “be done at any cost” (Para 5), only to juxtapose it with the government’s determination to mine bauxite. As the text creates a critical distance with the nation’s leaders, it simultaneously suggests new belongings with scientists, journalists, writers and the last surviving founding father of modern Vietnam, General Võ Nguyên Giáp. The petition does not “brush aside” or “ignore” these earlier analyses, as has been suggested in other scholarly accounts (Marston, 2012, p. 183; Thayer, 2010, p. 50), but rather recognizes them by name (Para 6). It suggests that these different strands of the opposition to bauxite mining were intertwined, not discrete. Having carefully positioned itself with the people and against their leaders, the petition then provides its own three points of criticism on bauxite mining (Para 7). The points all reflect in different ways China’s role in bauxite mining. They suggest that the bauxite-alumina policy was decided behind closed doors with Chinese leaders, that China will export its pollution burden to Vietnam, and that the technology being imported from China for the projects has a low standard and bad reputation. These points certainly reflect a heavy skepticism toward the northern neighbor, reflective of the online discussions that occurred between February and April. However, to read these points only as a historical xenophobia would miss a lot. As discussed at the outset, the petition takes pains to distinguish the people, as the embodiment of nation, from the state, as embodied by the Party and its socialist leaders. Essentially, it disrupts a trope that has been at the heart of socialist hegemony in Vietnam, that of the nationalist-socialist revolution. The trope has fixed in Vietnamese political consciousness that socialism was inseparable from nationalism in the Vietnamese struggle for independence, and vice-versa. And, hence, going forward, any attack on, or criticism of, socialism would be seen as an attack on Vietnamese nationalism and independence. But rather than reinforcing this hegemonic link of nationalism and socialism, as we would expect if the petition were using the language of “rightful resistance,” the petition draws a line of antagonism between them. By aligning the Vietnamese leadership with its historical nemesis in

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the form of China, the petition presents as a contrast between the historical struggle of the Vietnamese people for an independent nation and the current actions of the Vietnamese communist regime. By flipping socialist rhetoric, the petition intimates that the Vietnamese communist leaders are now the ones who are the foreign collaborators, seeking personal profit at the cost of independence. The surprising part is only that this can happen even through natural resource development, as had been suggested by General Nguy˜ên Tro.ng V˜ınh in his letter about the military risks of allowing China into the Central Highlands. Yet the petition does not end with reclamations against China. Rather, it turns the focus back to domestic politics in Vietnam. The petition provides three recommendations that all focus on Vietnam’s own political system. It demands that the National Assembly decide on the bauxite mining projects, that the Assembly be allowed sufficient time to review those projects before making a decision, and that this review be informed by broader public debate and expert opinion. In particular, the text emphasizes that the Assembly should “consider thoroughly the wishes of the great majority of people, who do not want this project to continue because of all of its disastrous implications” (Para 10). In other words, this petition does not attempt to work with government to better implement its policy decisions, as did the Scientists’ petition in the preceding chapter. It wants the state to walk back its own plans and listen to the people. The National Assembly is, in theory, the voice of the Vietnamese people in government. (In theory, the Assembly is a fairly and freely elected body of government, but in practice the elections giving legitimacy to this body are neither fair nor free.) Petitioning for the Assembly to decide on the bauxite projects, as well as fulfilling its duties to represent the Vietnamese people, was an argument for the public voice. It challenged state officials’ more typical manner of discounting public concerns, as they had largely done in the bauxite mining debates, and keeping decisions for itself. As I will show further below, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, Pha.m Toàn, and Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng did not necessarily believe that the National Assembly could turn these projects on their heads—and, sadly, the turn of events would prove them right—but they were making a point about who should be making the final decision about them. If the system was truly designed to be led by the people, then, at the very least, the National Assembly would be making the decision about the fate of Central Highlands bauxite.

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Although parroting party rhetoric, these statements did not so much reinforce as challenge and even mock party ideology. They also did not try to resolve bauxite mining at a local level but rather insisted on its national importance. They did so by invoking nationalist ideology to criticize its socialist embodiment in the Vietnamese party-state. From this perspective, it is then perhaps not surprising to find that the petition concludes with an appeal to the people of China, notably its intellectuals. Rather than exhibiting a general hostility toward all Chinese people, the petition calls on them “to support the people of Vietnam, help the environment of your southern neighbor to remain healthy, and help with many of the on-going problems between our two countries to be resolved in a peaceful and friendly way” (Para 13). In the petition, the line of antagonism is not so much between Vietnam and China as it is between the people and their socialist leaders in both party-states. In other words, it was putting a wedge into that historical articulation of nationalist-socialism that has bound the Vietnamese nation and people to their socialist leadership. The petition disarticulated this hegemonic link to create new possibilities for alternative political futures. The desire to dispense with the Vietnamese Communist Party from the lives of the Vietnamese people was further reflected in one peculiarity about the text: among the top leaders addressed in the petition, the General Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party was not one of them. When I asked Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi about it, he replied that “it is not [the party’s] responsibility; they do not have the authority.” When I asked Pha.m Toàn how can the communist party be omitted from a matter that concerned the “fate of the nation,” he replied to me that, yes, that was exactly the point.

The First 135 Signatures Initially, the three originators of the petition circulated the petition by email to a few dozen of their most trusted friends and colleagues (M˘a.c Lâm, 2009, April 19). When it came back to them, it had more than one hundred signatures; 135 signatures were enumerated, for which the petition was also dubbed as the Petition of 135.14 What made this figure 14 There is some numerical variation in the 133, 134, or 135 persons to have originally signed the petition. The petition was initially presented as a list of 135 signatures, but, later, a couple of names were removed and the initial list also had enumeration errors.

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especially impressive, however, was that among them were some of the most well-known and highly accomplished Vietnamese scientists, scholars, writers, and artists from across the country and around the world. When the France-based website Di˜ên Ðàn posted the petition online a few days later, it paid less attention to what the petition said than who said it: Among this first list [of signatures], besides the three that created the petition, we find so many famous persons from inside the country like ` V˘an Khê, Nguy˜ên Lân professors Hoàng Tuy., Phan Ðình Diê.u, Trân D˜ ung (National Assembly delegate), writer and translator Du,o,ng Tu,o`,ng, ` V˘an Thuy, architect Trân ` Thanh poet Nguy˜ên Tro.ng Ta.o, film-maker Trân Vân (a person who has many times raised her voice to protect the Hanoi environment), etc. From outside the country, there are the famous mathematicians Ngô ´ Cu,o`,ng, astronomists Nguy˜ên Quang Riê.u and Bao Châu and Ðinh Tiên ` V˘an Tho., historians V˜ınh Sính, Lê Xuân Tri.nh Xuân Thuâ.n, professor Trân Khoa, Ngô V˜ınh Long, and United Nations expert V˜ u Quang Viê.t. (Di˜ên Ðàn, 2009, April 17) ij

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Who exactly were these famous scientists and artists? To take just a ` V˘an Khê (1921–2015) was few examples, while he was still alive Trân regarded as the most important interpreter and performer of Vietnamese classical music in the world, and an important ambassador of traditional Asian music more generally.15 Mathematician Hoàng Tuy. (b. 1927) was The version originally posted on the Bauxite Vietnam website enumerates 135 names, but two are repeated so that the actual number of distinct signatures is 133. Nonetheless, the petition was continued to be called the Petition of the 135, a reference I maintain here. 15 Trân ` V˘an Khê’s own website describes him as “one of the greatest masters of the traditional Vietnamese music” (source: http://www.philmultic.com/tran/english.html, retrieved November 14, 2012). Born in the southern province of Tien Giang in 1921, ` V˘an Khê comes from a family of four generations of classical musicians. He moved Trân to France in 1949 to further his musical education, where he became a professor of ethnomusicology at Sorbonne University and Director of Research at the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) for many years. In 1999, he returned to live in Ho Chi Minh City, though he still traveled abroad frequently to perform and promote clas` V˘an Khê won numerous international awards, sical Vietnamese and Asian music. Trân including the Prize of the UNESCO International Council for Music in 1981 and the Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture and Information in 1991. He was also awarded Medals for Ethnic Culture (1998) and Labor (1999) by the Vietnamese government. He was a member of numerous professional musicology

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among the first Vietnamese scholars to make significant contributions to international scholarship with what is known today in the field of convexity cuts as “Tuy’s cut.”16 Hoàng Tuy. was the precursor to Ngô Bao Châu (b.1972), who one year after signing the petition, in 2010, was awarded the Fields Medal, which is the highest international award for mathematics and has been dubbed as the Nobel Prize for mathematics.17 Others were national icons in their fields, such as mathematician Phan Ðình Diê.u, former Vice-Director of the Vietnam Sciences Institute, who pioneered Internet-based services in Vietnam in the early 1990s; ` V˘an Thuy, whose controversial examinations of the documentarist Trân postwar period have earned him both censorship and sponsorship from the Vietnamese government, as well as international acclaim; and poet, ij

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societies in France, United States, Germany, and Asia and conferred an honorary doctoral ` V˘an Khê passed away in degree in music from the University of Ottawa, Canada. Trân 2015. 16 Hoàng Tuy was born into a mandarin family ancestrally related to legendary governor . Hoàng Diê.u (1828–1882). Hoàng Diê.u was nationally commemorated for his fierce, though unsuccessful, defense of Hanoi against French invasion in 1882. Hoàng Tuy.’s father was a mandarin under Emperors Duy Tân and Khaij i Ði.nh and five of his seven children earned PhDs. In 1959, Hoàng Tuy. became one of the first two students from ´ s˜ı). Vietnam to defend what was then considered as a pre-doctoral degree (phó tiên Hoàng Tuy.’s national and international distinctions include the Ho Chi Minh Award for lifetime achievement in 1996 and an honorary doctoral degree from Linkoping University in Sweden in 1995. For his “pioneering work and fundamental contributions” to global optimization theory, he also became the first recipient of the Constantin Caratheodory award in 2011. 17 Ngô Baij o Châu won the Fields Medal for his work on proving a long-standing

conjecture in algebraic geometry known as the Fundamental Lemma. Born in Hanoi in 1972, Ngô Baij o Châu was born into a family of academics, as both parents held doctoral degrees and his grandfather was a professor of mathematics. As a youth, Ngô Baij o Châu was domestically celebrated for his success at national and international contests in mathematics. In grade 11 and 12, he became the first Vietnamese student to win two gold medals at the International Mathematics Olympiad. Interestingly, he was also a student at the experimental schools of Hô` Ngo.c Ða.i and Pha.m Toàn during his primary school years. In 1992, Ngô Baij o Châu moved to France to study university mathematics. In France, he became a professor and researcher of mathematics at Paris University and CNRS, before moving to Princeton and Chicago universities in the United States. After winning the Fields Medal, Ngô Baij o Châu not only became a new national hero for millions of Vietnamese, but also a trophy for the Vietnamese government to herald as its own. To this end, the government gifted Ngô Baij o Châu a US$ 600,000 Hanoi apartment and announced plans to establish the Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics with Ngô Baij o Châu as director (VNB, 2010, August 28).

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musician, and artist Nguy˜ên Tro.ng Ta.o, winner of numerous of literary awards, including the National Arts and Literature prize for 2012. Many others were like Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng, senior figures in government institutes and professional associations. Hence, the contribution of these figures to the petition movement was not only their intellectual leadership but also social prestige and, critically, a nationalist authority. They were the brightest stars to emerge from the socialist educations system. Many of them had built their careers and reputations in service to state institutions and associations, as Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng had done. Many they had also fought for the communists during the Vietnam wars, or came from families with an illustrious revolutionary past. They embodied what Dan Slater (2009) has referred to as “communal elites,” which are a nation’s primary possessors of nationalist or religious authority.18 As Slater further argues, communal elites can become “pivotal players” for transformational political change when they begin to develop autonomous stances from the ruling regime. In Slater’s analyses, this lack of autonomy, combined with the Vietnamese Communist Party’s monopoly on nationalist authority, is a major factor in explaining the lack of significant democratic mobilization in the Vietnamese postwar era. With the online petition, however, the intellectuals were coming together both to stake out a more autonomous position from the party-state and challenging its nationalist authority with their own. In this second bauxite petition, Vietnamese intellectuals mobilized their public prestige and collective achievements to challenge state authority with a public discourse—what Edward Gu (2004), in the Chinese context, refers to as mobilizing their social and political capital to create “new non-governmental public spaces” (35). Their collective voice on the bauxite petition combined a scientific with a moral authority that drew deeply from within the rhetorical and ideological structures of the socialist regime itself. However, as interesting as these national icons on the list of signatures was the significant number of Vietnamese intellectuals who had emigrated from Vietnam. They included such luminaries as historian Ngô 18 Based on a study of seven Southeast Asian polities, Slater (2009) has argued that “democratic uprisings are more likely both to emerge and succeed when communal elites—a society’s primary possessors of nationalist and religious authority—assume an oppositional posture [to the regime]” (203).

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V˜ınh Long, who together with his wife in the 1960s became the first ever Vietnamese students to be admitted to Harvard University; nuclear ` So,n, a Vietnamese exile who became a NASA physicist Tru,o,ng Hông ` V˘an researcher for more than twenty years; as well as economist Trân ˜ Tho., philosopher Lê Xuân Khoa, and astrophysicists Nguyên Quang Riê.u and Tri.nh Xuân Thuâ.n, hailing from such prestigious institutions as Princeton, MIT and Johns Hopkins in the United States, Sorbonne and the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France, Waseda University in Tokyo, and the University of New South Wales in Australia.19 Ever since the Vietnamese Communist Party declared control of northern and southern Vietnam in 1976, it had effectively discredited and excluded overseas Vietnamese from political discussion by labeling them as “foreign collaborators” and opposed to Vietnamese independence, reinforcing that hegemonic link between nationalism and socialism. The petition, however, showed Vietnamese beacons of nationalist authority speaking in one voice with their overseas counterparts. Indeed, these two groups of Vietnamese signed the petition in almost equal proportions with 69 names on the petition from inside the country and 62 19 Among those that signed the petition but living outside Vietnam, many continued to follow and play active roles in Vietnam’s social and political development. For example, ` V˘an Tho. had served as advisory members on economic both V˜ u Quang Viê.t and Trân policy to the late Prime Minister Võ V˘an Kiê.t and Pha.m V˘an Khaij i. V˜ u Quang Viê.t, who left Vietnam before 1975, had also personally advised Foreign Minister Nguy˜ên Co, Tha.ch when the latter was visiting the USA in 1977. Yet many of them still visited Vietnam frequently, collaborated with Vietnamese organizations on research and education ` V˘an projects, and published actively in the Vietnamese domestic media. For example, Trân Tho. is a member of the Vietnam Asia-Pacific Economics Center in Hanoi; atmospheric scientist Nguy˜ên Ðu´,c Hiê.p for the Australian government collaborates with the Center for Environmental Technology and Protection in Ho Chi Minh City; IT specialist Hà ´ currently retired and living in France, collaborates with Vietnamese business Du,o,ng Tuân, on developing their information technologies; poet, translator, and essayist Nguy˜ên Bá Chung, a visiting faculty at Massachusetts University, coordinates a yearly Summer Study ´ has been active in Program with Hue University; and epidemiologist Nguy˜ên V˘an Tuân campaigns to support victims of Agent Orange, and Nguy˜ên Ðình Nguyên was active in limiting the spread of the H5N1 virus in Vietnam. Others still have set up websites and organized workshops outside Vietnam to provide venues for more open discussion on Vietnamese current events and specialist topics. Of note, Hà Du,o,ng Tu,o`,ng and Nguy˜ên ` Ha˘` ng operates Viet-sciences. Ngo.c Giao operate the Di˜ên Ðàn Forum, while Võ Thi. Ðiêu They maintained a political identity that was geographically as ideologically both inside and outside the country.

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from outside,20 spanning a fundamental politico-geographic divide that the Vietnamese Communist Party upheld as a wedge for dividing and discrediting its critics. By suggesting that regime critics were influenced by foreign elements trying to undermine Vietnamese sovereignty—deploying a popular communist trope of the anti-colonial revolution and Vietnam wars—state authorities attempted to discredit and turn public opinion against them. The list of signatures also spanned another critical politico-geographic divide that has remained a challenge for the communist regime in the postwar era, that between northern and southern Vietnam. The signatures included thirty-three (50%) from the north and twenty (30%) from the south, as well as fourteen (20%) from Central Vietnam (n = 67).21 Representation from the three main regions of Vietnam suggested a national unity that transcended historical political divisions, notably between the north and south. This was significant for a country where a national reconciliation process—despite calls for one by such illustrious persons , as former Prime Minister and architect of d-ôi mo´ i, the late Võ V˘an Kiê.t— has never occurred, and strong undercurrents of north-south divisions still endure today. However, nearly all these people were from cities and towns, indicating a clear urban bias to the petition movement. Most were from Hanoi (30) in the north and Ho Chi Minh City (19) in the south, while six each came from the cities of Ðà Na˘˜ ng and Huê´ in Central Vietnam. Again, this statistic emphasizes the role of the petitioners as intellectual or communal elites, as well as their lack of representation among the population’s rural majority. In addition to spanning these key politico-geographic divides, the petition also brought together these establishment scholars, as discussed above, with other more dissident and outspoken ones. Among them were leaders of one of the most outspoken dissidents groups “Friendly Dalat ij

20 Not all persons who initially signed the petition indicated their address or location, which is why the total number cited above is less than 135. Among those from inside Vietnam, they included significant representation from both the northern (43) and southern (24) regions of Vietnam, which is also a key politico-geographic division that continues to carry political tension despite state narratives of national reunification. Among those living outside of Vietnam, they also featured an extensive global geography, including notable clusters in the United States (22), France (15), and Australia (12). 21 Two signatories indicated only “Vietnam” as an address.

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Group” (Nhóm thân hu˜ u Ðà la.t ) inside Vietnam. The history of this , group goes back to the coi trói affair in the late 1980s, when poet Buì ´ organized a walk through the provincial chapters of the VietMinh Quôc namese Association of Literature from the Central Highlands to Hanoi to protest the dismissal of then Chief Editor of the party’s V˘an Nghê. magazine, Nguyên Ngo.c (see discussion in Chapter 3). Also in this group were biologist Hà S˜ı Phu and educator Mai Thái L˜ınh. For their political opinions, they have suffered time in prison, periods under house arrest, and relentless police harassment and surveillance. However, perhaps a more illustrative example of the complex positioning and varied trajectories of these outspoken critics in relation to ` V˘an Thuy. In the early 1980s, the party-state is documentarist Trân ` Trân V˘an Thuy produced documentaries that showed a more realist view of Vietnam in the war and postwar periods, in stark contrast to the socialist propaganda of the party-state. In 1985, however, the Vietnamese ` V˘an Thuy’s documentaries, one of which was government banned Trân dubbed the “bomb from Vietnam” and won a major prize at the 1988 ` V˘an Thuy Dok Leipzig international film festival. During this time, Trân was put under state surveillance and possibly escaped imprisonment only because of personal intervention from a high-level government official (Anonymous Personal Communication, July 2012). , However, in the new winds that emerged with d-ôi mo´ i in the late ` 1980s, the government reversed its ban on Trân V˘an Thuy’s documentaries and honored him as an “Artist of the People” (Nghê. s˜ı Nhân Dân)—the highest honor that the Vietnamese state can confer upon an artist. The government further commissioned what became the 1999 Asia-Pacific Film Festival’s Best Short Film, Sound of the Violin in My ` V˘an Thuy represented a mix of an Lai (1998).22 In this regard, Trân ij

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22 Born in the northern province of Nam Dinh in 1940, Trân ` V˘an Thuij y has won many honors, including the Silver and Golden Dove Prizes at the Dok Leipzig international film festival (1988), the Best Short Film Award at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival (1999), and the Silver and Golden Lotus Prizes and the Best Director awards at the Vietnam Film Festival (1970, 1980, 1988, 1999). The Vietnamese government has also recognized ` V˘an Thuij y as an “Artist of the People” (Nghê. s˜ı nhân dân). However, Trân ` V˘an Trân Thuij y’s achievements have not been without significant turmoil and controversy. Like the ` V˘an Thuij y questioned and challenged the partydoi moi writers of his generation, Trân state’s glorified depictions of the Vietnam wars and postwar era. In 1985, the government banned his first two-part documentary of Hanoi in One’s Eye (1982) and Story of Kindness

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outspoken voice but also a loyalist critic of the party regime. While this kind of schizophrenic positioning vis-à-vis the party-state was common among many of its critics in the post-reform era, they rarely spoke out collectively as they had done in the online bauxite petition. One of the most significant features of the online bauxite petition was , that it suggested a collective statement of Vietnam’s intellectuals (gio´ i trí , thu´ c), and their re-emergence in domestic politics. But this was not a term that they identified themselves within the text of the petition, as discussed above. Rather, it was a term attributed to them, partly due to the high level of education among the first 135 signatures on the petition, more than a third of whom (43) held PhDs or equivalent degrees and nearly all of whom indicated a profession that required a university education. More importantly, however, their attribution as intellectuals was a recognition of their public role, as embodiments of nationalist authority, in mobilizing their scientific and moral authority for a common good. Their collective effort suggested a new role for the Vietnamese intellectuals in the postreform political landscape.

Delivering the Petition Although the petition was posted online, the three men who wrote it still felt the need to hand-deliver it to the government, as they had also ` Dân ` petition. What they encountered at government done with the Trân offices, however, demonstrated just how outlandish their intervention had (1985) on the hardship and suffering that followed the Vietnam wars. The latter film was described as the “bomb from Vietnam,” when it won the Silver Dove at the Dok Leipzig ` V˘an Thuyij himself was allegedly put under state surveillance from festival in 1988. Trân 1982 to 1987 and may have escaped imprisonment only by a personal intervention from ` former Prime Minister Pha.m V˘an Ðông [Pers. Comm. Anonymous, July 2012]. However, ` V˘an Thuyij in the late 1980s during its brief the government reversed its stance on Trân period of liberalization in the arts and literature. It removed its bans on his earlier films ` and commissioned his award-winning film the Sound of the Violin in My Lai (1998). Trân V˘an Thuij y continues to be a controversial political figure today, speaking out frequently on the need for democracy and political transition in Vietnam (Sprole, 2003, November 19). ` V˘an Thuyij ’s early documentaries inside Even today, it is difficult to obtain copies of Trân Vietnam. As a personal anecdote, to obtain a copy of A Story of Kindness in Hanoi, I had to ask at half a dozen DVD shops that otherwise appeared to have copies of every single film that has ever existed, before I finally found one man, who, after some persistence on my part, reached under the counter to sell me a copy of the documentary on an unmarked DVD.

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been in the Vietnamese political context. It also demonstrated important differences between the three men, which, while creating some tension between them, also appealed to different audiences with a wider array and perhaps even conflicted feelings toward the party-state. With Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng having flown up to Hanoi the night before, the three men set out to deliver the petition on April 17th. Pha.m Toàn’s lyrical description of the early morning reflected their optimism: It was a cool April morning. The waters of West Lake were still dusky, while the early hour made the colours of the Botanical Gardens appear deeper and richer than usual, as if the leaves were still hanging onto the autumn. The beauty of Hanoi at this hour can bring a tear to your eye, my friends! (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19)

Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi had arranged for a car to pick them up. One of his former student’s daughter, who was studying in Germany, spoke English well, and “came from a good and rich family,” drove them. As Pha.m Toàn described, “it was the new generation driving two old men of the older generation and one young professor from Ðà Na˘˜ ng” (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19). The mood changed, however, as they approached the offices of the government on No. 1 Hoàng Hoa Thám Street. They were stopped at the gate and told they could not enter. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi interjected that they were “representing the renown intellectuals” of Vietnam on an important mission for the entire nation. But his words only perplexed the young guard. As Pha.m Toàn described, the guard was “embarrassed and smiling nervously—for sure he found all of this very strange!” (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19). Then another guard approached. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi repeated his message and handed him a copy of the petition. The guard read the title and flipped straight to the list of signatures (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19). He instructed the petitioners to wait, as he went back inside the offices. After a moment, he returned to invite inside only Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi. But Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi insisted the three of them must go in together. The guard hesitated and then agreed. “This guy was easy going,” thought Pha.m Toàn (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19). Inside the gate, the offices had a Kafkaesque feeling:

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After the gate, we passed along a large corridor, passing by each door labeled “Room No. 1” until “Room No. 5.” However, all of these rooms were locked. So then this guard in the green shirt led us around as we knocked on a few other doors, but still we couldn’t find anyone anywhere. Even the guard seemed disappointed, like he too had no idea what was going on. So, finally, there came another guard from even deeper inside the building. He was tall, dark and had an athletic build. He didn’t shake our hands, but he brought us back to the room before Room No. 1, whose placard on the door read “Room for receiving documents.” (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19)

The room had a table and four chairs, but they were not invited to sit down. Awkwardly, the three petitioners pulled out the chairs for themselves. The guard then explained to them that the government had no procedure for receiving this kind of petition. He instructed them that if they wanted the government to receive it, they must return home and mail it in. “The three of us were stupefied,” recounted Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi. “So we suggested just leaving a few copies behind. But, ‘No,’ [the guard] responded, ‘if you leave them here, they will just get thrown into the garbage.’” Then, in a moment of comic juxtaposition, Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng took out his video camera to film the placard on the door. He was stopped immediately. Both Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn had to suppress their surprise. Neither could believe that “somebody could be so bold and naïve as to try to take a picture of that sign!” (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19). Another moment of divergence emerged as the three men were leaving the government buildings. Pha.m Toàn was thanking the guard who had brought them inside, when Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi suddenly turned around and said, “Today, only you comrade have been sympathetic to our efforts. All the rest of them are just bureaucrats. On behalf of more than 130 signatories, I thank you comrade” (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19). Comrade? “That’s great, really great,” Pha.m Toàn later commented in his blog. “Even at this minute, we are still comrades!” (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19). Between Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng’s photo of the placard, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi’s “thank you comrade,” and Pha.m Toàn’s ridiculing descriptions of the whole experience, the three of them showed different degrees of attachment and disdain towards the country’s socialist legacy.

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The adventure did not stop there, however. After the government’s offices, the three men continued to the National Assembly. They were also joined by octogenarian poet Du,o,ng Tu,o`,ng, another friend and signatory to the petition, who had also previously joined Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi to ` Dân ` petition. At the Assembly, the men were received deliver the Trân more cordially. The Vice-Chair of the Committee for Culture and Educa´ whom they had also met when they delivered tion, Nguy˜ên Minh Thuyêt, ` ` the Trân Dân petition, came down to greet them. But Nguy˜ên Minh ´ was also Pha.m Toàn’s old rival in education. As Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi Thuyêt ´ and recounted, “Here we were coming to meet Nguy˜ên Minh Thuyêt ˜ one of us was holding his nose up to him.” Nguyên Huê. Chi nipped in front of Pha.m Toàn and put a friendly face on their mission. ´ led the petitioners to After chatting over tea, Nguy˜ên Minh Thuyêt the office of the Vice-Chair of the National Assembly. The Vice-Chair was also an old acquaintance of Pha.m Toàn. Pha.m Toàn teased the Vice-Chair about whether he had already marked an “x” on the map behind his desk for bauxite. The Vice-Chair expressed more sympathy to their mission than what they had experienced in the government’s offices. To be sure, personal connections in the Assembly had made this more sympathetic relation possible. The Vice-Chair even allowed the petitioners to use his personal directory for addressing envelopes with copies of their petition to Assembly delegates. But when Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi asked if he could make a copy of those addresses, the Vice-Chair quickly took his book back. “Not so fast Huê. Chi!” thought Pha.m Toàn. It was a small reminder of where they were, despite the cordiality on display. As the three men were leaving the Assembly, Pha.m Toàn commented to the Vice-Chair, “We are doing this just to do it, but I don’t believe it will have any effect. But if we don’t do it, then we don’t feel good inside.” Pha.m Toàn’s comment revealed their sense of moral responsibility behind their actions—one that I often encountered among other intellectuals that I had interviewed.23 Being an intellectual was about speaking up. It was 23 As one example, in an interview with Phan Ðình Diêu, who had written a personal . letter to the Prime Minister to protest a government policy on IT development in 2001, he described his intervention as follows: “I wrote the letter. If the PM read it or not, I don’t know. I didn’t care. I just wrote the letter... I wrote it because it was my responsibility as a normal citizen” (Interview No. 5, October 12, 2009). Phan Ðình Diê.u was also once known as an outspoken advocate for multi-party democracy (see Murray Hiebert, “Dissenting Voices,” Far Eastern Economic Review, December 2, 1993, 26).

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a responsibility they carried as citizens and intellectuals, even when the people in power may not listen. When I met Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi at his house about one month later, I asked him what effect the petition might have on the National Assembly’s bi-annual meeting, which, at that time, was just starting up in Hanoi. He also expressed that he did not believe it would have much effect. The government was already too committed to mining bauxite, and the Assembly was too weak to oppose it. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi described the , Assembly as stocked with “yes-men” (vâng lo` i). Only a handful would be willing to speak up about bauxite (Interview No.2, May 28, 2009). His remarks were remarkably prescient, as discussed in the next chapter. But then, he added, this was never the petition’s purpose. According to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, the primary purpose of the petition had always been to “sound an alarm.” He wanted the leaders to know that they had exceeded the limits of their authority, and he objected to the communist party over-riding the country’s governing institutions, such as the National Assembly. Their actions of writing, posting, and hand-delivering the petition to government were at least as much performative as instrumental. If the Scientific Workshop had been the regime’s public spectacle of how government was working for the people, delivering the petition was a public spectacle of how it was not. Asking the same question about the effect of the petition to Pha.m Toàn, he replied that “the National Assembly will vote with two hands in the air,” indicating a gesture of surrender (Interview No. 1.1, May 22, 2009). For Pha.m Toàn, the petition was never meant to influence government figures; it was an act of public education and awareness raising. Rather than inform or collaborate with state officials, he wanted to expose who they really were. As he reported to me, the petition was to make “some people lose face.” It was for the Vietnamese public to know that “there are thieves among you.” Regardless of what happens with the mining projects, Pha.m Toàn insisted that they were doing something deeper: “We are preparing the minds of the people, by exposing the bandits among them.” Pha.m Toàn, perhaps more so than the two others, was clear on the need to disarticulate nationalism and the Vietnamese people from their socialist version of the Vietnamese state. The online bauxite petition was a step in this direction.

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Conclusion: Being and Becoming an Intellectual in Vietnam This chapter has examined the emergence of the online petition against bauxite mining and, through this petition, the re-emergence of the Vietnamese intellectuals as a collective voice in domestic politics. A collective voice does not mean that they spoke for all intellectuals, but more importantly they created a space that enabled intellectuals and, as we will see in the next chapter, ordinary citizens to discuss and criticize Vietnamese government policies and politics. Identifying as intellectuals enabled the petitioners to mobilize their nationalist authority to transcend the bounds of an embedded approach and shift toward a more autonomous and oppositional one. As discussed above, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chí, Pha.m Toàn, and Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng did not initially identify themselves as “intellectuals.” Not until an open letter to the National Assembly on May 7th (their third petition on bauxite mining, in about as many weeks) did they explicitly refer to themselves as “Vietnamese intellectuals from inside and outside the country” (Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi et al., 2009). Even as private correspondence around the first petition suggested that they were already thinking of themselves as in this way, intellectual was a public identity that they had to grow into.24 In other words, positioning oneself as an intellectual was not so much a being as a becoming. Identifying as an intellectual suggested an aspiration, at least as much as an actuality. When once asked by a Vietnamese students’ magazine to define what is an intellectual, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi gave two criteria. He argued that, first, in addition to specialist knowledge, intellectuals must also have a “general knowledge” (Lê Ngo.c So,n, 2009, June 23). That is what provides them with a “broad vision for society’s development” and enables them to “raise their voice when an urgent problem threatens the existence of the entire people or entire nation.” Second, he argued that intellectuals 24 Pham Toàn explained that he had referred to themselves more generally as the . “people of Vietnam” in the petition because he did not consider himself as an intellectual, for the reason that he did not have a graduate degree. However, he also noted that, after looking through the list of 135 signatures again, “it was true, so many of the signatures on the petition are true intellectuals” (Pha.m Toàn, 2009, April 19). Others who read the petition also saw its authors and list of signatures as intellectuals, such as the Di˜ên Ðàn website that described the petition as “expressing the hopes of our Vietnamese intellectuals” (Di˜ên Ðàn, 2009, April 17).

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must be able to raise their voice and express a vision that is “free from ideology.” They require a degree of autonomy commonly associated with scientific and artistic production. Equally important, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi stated that it is not necessary to have a PhD or a formal education to be an intellectual. He gave examples of Pha.m Toàn and Nguyên Ngo.c, two of the most influential voices on the bauxite mining debates, as discussed in this and the previous chapter. What was necessary was that an intellectual showed an “intellectual spirit” and was ready to take on “personal sacrifice.” For Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, intellectuals are defined more by what they do with knowledge than their ability to build a career on it. At the same time, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi also believed that intellectuals occupied a special role in society as an “elite” class (tinh hoa). As he described to me, they have the “prestige, knowledge and understanding” ´ và cam nhâ.n) about history and society (Interview, May (trình d-ô., ho.c vân 28, 2015). In this regard, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi’s definition of an intellectual reflected Slater’s (2009) ideas of a “communal elite,” as a vanguard group that helps to articulate the grievances and aspirations of the wider population. For Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, the petition was written on behalf of the intellectuals and the citizens (công dân), indicating both their alliance and their distinction. In this regard, the intervention of the intellectuals may be regarded as democratizing—it helped to widen the public debate—but not yet democratic. For the intellectuals discussed in this chapter, they reflect the “moralist tradition” more than Karabel’s (1996) sociological reality. Not by accident, the moralist tradition traces its roots in nineteenth century France and Russia, arguably the two countries that most shaped Vietnamese cultural and educational institutions in the twentieth century. As a definition of an intellectual, the moralist tradition is loose and amorphous. However, the ambiguities inherent in this definition also generate a degree of openness in what is and who can be an intellectual. By signing the online petition, many of the scholars and professionals could identify , , themselves with the intellectual community (gio´ i trí thu´ c), a trend that would later ripple out toward a much wider group of Vietnamese people, as discussed in the next chapter. The line between who should be considered a bona fide intellectual and who should be an ally is necessarily blurry. More important is the movement, as embodied by the petition, that brings them together as a collective, even if a contradictory or momentary one. ij

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Although the petition—like the earlier bauxite petition, the letters of General Võ Nguyên Giáp, and the extensive online discussion—also fell short of stopping bauxite mining, it created a new platform for intellectuals and generated a new political practice that continues to have ramifications today. The bauxite petition was only the first of a series of petitions led by prominent intellectuals and influential figures that have emerged nearly every year since in Vietnam, with increasing frequency, popularity, and boldness, as discussed in the conclusion of this book. The petition of 61 party members in 2014, which brazenly advised party leaders to “leave off from the mistaken path of socialism for a definitive change to the path of the people and democracy” (“Open Letter to Vietnamese Communist Party,” 2014, July 29) had its roots in the online bauxite petition.

References BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). (2008, March 4). Thu, ngo phan d-´ôi ` Dân. ` BBCVietnamese.Com. http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/ vu. tho, Trân vietnam/story/2008/03/080304_trandan_letter.shtml Bourdieu, P. (1990). In other words: Essays towards a reflexive sociology. Stanford University Press. Castree, N. (2006). Geography’s new public intellectuals? Antipode, 38(2), 396– 412. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2006.00585.x ˜ ´ nghi. vê` vu. khai thác bauxite o, Tây Nguyên. Diên Ðàn. (2009, April 17). Kiên ˜ Ðàn. http://llcschpg.net/TinTuc/KytenkiennghiBXTayNguyen.htm Diên Gu, E. X. (2004). Social capital, institutional change and the development of non-governmental intellectual organizations in China. In Chinese intellectuals between state and market. RoutledgeCurzon. Hiebert, M. (1993, December 2). “Dissenting Voices.” Far Eastern Economic Review, 26. Huê.-Tâm Hô` Tài. (1994). Du,o,ng Thu Hu,o,ng and the Literature of Disenchantment. Viê.t Nam Forum, 14, 82–91. Karabel, J. (1996). Towards a theory of intellectuals and politics. Theory and Society, 25(2), 205–233. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00161141 Lê Ngo.c So,n. (2009, June 23). Phâm cách quan tro.ng cua ngu,o`,i trí thu´,c [The key quality of an intellectual]. Báo Sinh Viên Viê.t Nam. http://danluan.org/ tin-tuc/20090622/pham-cach-quan-trong-cua-nguoi-tri-thuc ´ nghi. cua gio´,i trí thu´,c vê` du., án khai thác M˘a.c Lâm. (2009, April 19). Ban kiên bauxite. Radio Free Asia. http://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/in_depth/Pet ition-from-intellectual-about-bauxite-project-mlam-04192009114027.html? searchterm=None ij

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Marston, H. (2012). Bauxite mining in Vietnam’s Central Highlands: An arena for expanding civil society? Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs, 34(2), 173–196. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, Pha.m Toàn, & Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng. (2009, May 7). Thu, ngo sô´ 2: Gu,i quý vi. lãnh d-a.o nhà nu,o´,c cô.ng hòa xã hô.i chu ngh˜ıa Viê.t Nam [Open letter No. 2: To the honourable authorities of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam]. Bauxite Vietnam. www.bauxitevietnam.vn ˜ Thê´ Hùng: Lý li.ch khoa ho.c. (n.d.). Ða.i Ho.c Ðà Na˘˜ ng. Retrieved Nguyên February 12, 2012, from http://scv.udn.vn/hungnt/ Pha.m Toàn. (2009, April 19). Thong tha sáng chu nhâ.t [A leisurely Sunday ˜ Ðàn. http://www.diendan.org/giot-muc-giot-doi/thongmorning]. Diên tha-sang-chu-nhat Slater, D. (2009). Revolutions, crackdowns, and quiescence: Communal elites and democratic mobilization in Southeast Asia. American Journal of Sociology, 115(1), 203–254. https://doi.org/10.1086/597796 ` V˘an Thuy: Vietnamese filmmaker mediSprole, R. (2003, November 19). Trân tates on war, films. Yale Daily News. http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2003/ 11/19/vietnamese-filmmaker-meditates-on-war-films/ Thayer, C. A. (2010). Political legitimacy of Vietnam’s one party-state: Challenges and responses. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 28(4), 47–70. Thu, ngo gu,i BCH Trung u,o,ng và toàn thê d-ang viên Ðang CSVN [Open letter sent to the Central Committee and all members of the Communist Party of Vietnam]. (2014, July 29). BA SÀM . http://anhbasam.wordpr ess.com/2014/07/29/thu-ngo-gui-bch-trung-uong-va-toan-the-dang-viendang-csvn/ , ` Thanh. (2008, March 9). “Trân ` Dân—Tho ` ` Tuân, ´ Du,o,ng Thi., & Trân ”: Trân ` pha.t 15 triê.u d-`ông. Tiên ` Phong Online. http://www.tie Không thu hôi, nphong.vn/van-nghe/114059/%E2%80%9CTran-Dan--Tho%E2%80%9DKhong-thu-hoi-phat-15-trieu-dong.html Turner, S. P. (2013). Was real existing socialism a premature form of rule by experts? In The politics of expertise (pp. 209–222). Routledge. VNB (Vietnamnet Bridge). (2010, August 28). Hundreds welcome Fields Medal winner Ngo Bao Chau back. Vietnamnet Bridge. Zinoman, P. (2011). Nhân V˘an-Giai Phâm and Vietnamese “reform communism” in the 1950s: A revisionist interpretation. Journal of Cold War Studies, 13(1), 60–100. ij

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CHAPTER 5

Two Arms of the Party-State

Up until late April, the party-state had taken no obvious actions on specific individuals or organizations speaking out against bauxite mining, apart from the Prime Minister’s temporary suspension of bauxite coverage in the domestic press from January to April, 2009. For the most part, state authorities had tried to manage the debate through apparently responsive measures, such as dialoguing with experts and hosting a Scientific Workshop. But as more and more people came forward to express their opinions on bauxite mining, almost unanimously in opposition to it, state authorities increasingly felt the need for a stronger reaction. What is the nature of the Vietnamese party-state and its relations with wider society in the post-reform era are questions that have interested social and political scientists alike. The Vietnamese government and communist party are opaque institutions, whose opacity increases the closer we get to the highest levels of decision-making. Earlier political science scholarship tended to emphasize the Vietnamese state’s authoritarian structure, dominated or monopolized by the Vietnamese Communist Party, described as bureaucratic socialism (Porter, 1993), mono-organizational socialism (Thayer, 1995, 2009), state corporatism (Jeong, 1997) and, more recently, Market-Leninism (London, 2009).1 This conventional view of the party-state has been used to explain its 1 See Chapter 1 for more details.

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more politically repressive characteristics, such as its brutal treatment of critics, suppression of the domestic press, and persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, labor leaders, and democracy and human rights activists (Abuza, 2001; Hayton, 2010; Templer, 1999). A glance at everyday life in Vietnam, however, suggests that, for such a powerful and dominating political apparatus, it appears to exert a surprisingly little amount of control over its citizens. As a short jaunt down any street of any Vietnamese town or city will show, traffic laws, sidewalk laws, building codes, and government regulations for markets, restaurants and pretty much every other public space imaginable are violated everywhere. This paradoxical kind of subverting, evading and bartering state control has spawned an alternative view of the party-state that emphasizes its fragmentation, contradictions, and the capacity of citizens to play different parts of it off one another (see summaries in Koh, 2006; Wells-Dang, 2012). From this view, the party-state has been seen as more accommodating and responsive. Even in the dark halls of the Ministry of Public Security, the capacity to accommodate and respond is also present (Kerkvliet, 2014). Attempting to reconcile these views, Benedict Kerkvliet (2010) has called Vietnam a “responsive-repressive” state, suggesting that the partystate may react to challenges from civil society with both responsive and repressive measures. By responsive, Kerkvliet means the state may “significantly accommodate or make concessions to concerns, criticisms or demands coming from individuals, groups or sectors of society,” while repression refers to efforts that forcibly “put down, quell, [or] forbid” them (36). In a study of “dissidents,” Kerkvliet (2014) notes that the state’s reaction is not uniformly repression. There are also degrees of engagement and tolerance, even for “dissidents who advocate major political reforms and oppose the present political system” (128). Repression of dissidents, such as arrests and incarceration, is also not uniform, or easily predictable (Kerkvliet, 2014). Similarly, Koh (2006) has suggested a more “mixed picture,” where a “control mechanism squeezes tight, but can be loosened by the mediation mechanism” (x). One question left unanswered by these approaches, however, is whether this dual nature of the party-state is by accident or design. The responsive-repressive state gives the impression of a Janus-faced institution, one where the left hand is operating in contradiction to, perhaps without awareness of, the right. While that may be an accurate portrayal of how many Vietnamese state organizations actually work, it is also

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important not to read too much purpose into their apparent lack of coordination or resolve, especially in the party-state’s overall relations with the citizens. The responsive arm and the repressive arm of the party-state usually work for a single purpose, which is to maintain the Vietnamese Communist Party’s ultimate authority over state and society. The events described in preceding chapters also reflect this mixed and sometimes confusing portrait of how the Vietnamese state reacted to the opposition to bauxite mining. However, rather than analyzing these reactions as two disparate or opposite approaches, I want to focus on how they worked together to achieve a single objective, which was to maintain the exclusive authority of the party-state on decisions related to the bauxite mining projects. Rather than arbitrary and confused, I want to suggest that the responsive and repressive arms of the state were carefully calculated and possibly coordinated. As Koh (2006) also concedes, an important function of the mediation mechanism is that “people breathe easier and are less likely to demand revolutionary change” (xi). Hence, responsive may not mean sharing state authority, as much as it means reinforcing and preserving the political domination of the Vietnamese Communist Party. For these reasons, I also argue against applications of “soft” or “semi” authoritarianism to describe the Vietnamese, or Chinese, party-state, as is common among those describing embedded approaches to politics (see Chapter 3). “Soft” authoritarianism may just be a more sophisticated way of dealing with critics than repression alone. In either case, the end goal is to conserve and protect the authoritarian political structure. In the aftermath of the double event of the government’s Scientific Workshop and the online petition of Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, Pha.m Toàn and Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng, the public discussion about Vietnamese bauxite grew wider and more radical. Emboldened by the intervention of the intellectuals, more and more diverse people joined the debate and began to express themselves in more daring ways. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi also created the Bauxite Vietnam website, which became a new platform for the bauxite mining discussions. It hosted the bauxite petition, which, by July, had attracted an unprecedented 2,700 online Vietnamese signatures. These events marked the high tide of the public’s opposition to bauxite mining. With the growing crisis in public confidence towards the ruling regime, state officials reacted at the highest levels. Part of that reaction wore the trappings of responsiveness. The Politburo issued official Communication No. 245. It offered a few carefully crafted points on the national

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bauxite policy, which included an opening for the National Assembly, if not to decide, then to become involved in the issue. The bi-annual Assembly meeting of May and June, 2009, became an uncharacteristically raucous event, where bauxite mining, while despite being excluded from the official agenda, dominated question periods and the domestic media’s coverage of the meeting. However, at the same time as state officials were showing their responsive face, they were also rolling out a much harsher repressive plan to quell the discussion. The plan was a secretive one, as usual, the designs of which we can only guess at by the events that unfolded. It began with a series of arrests on activists that had the effect of quelling public discussion at the height of the controversy. Then as public discussion on bauxite mining begun to fade, the party-state quietly went after the Bauxite Vietnam website and other activists. The way that state authorities dissimulated their repressive tactics, while trumpeting out their responsive ones, suggests that handling citizen protest, even in an authoritarian state like Vietnam, is a delicate business. This chapter examines these processes and the relations between them, especially the state’s combined, possibly coordinated, use of responsive and repressive tactics.

The Politburo Speaks, as the Debate Continues to Swell As the tide of public discussion continued to swell, the public’s attention turned more and more toward the Politburo. The online petition had been exceptional in disregarding the communist party altogether, but most people still looked to Party leaders for a final say. People wondered not only what the Politburo would decide, but how it would react to its growing legion of critics. Rumors began to circulate of division within the Party’s ranks, or else why had state authorities not cracked down on ´ Sang, the Party’s this debate already? Some suspected that Tru,o,ng Tân “number two”, was opposed to bauxite mining, even if only to advance his own political ambitions (Vuving, 2010). The Politburo finally pronounced itself two weeks after the government’s “Scientific Workshop” and the online petition through official Communication No. 245/TB-TW/2009 (Communiqué No. 245, 2009). Communication 245 appeared to make a few key concessions. As

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the domestic NGO CODE and its network of experts had originally suggested in early 2008, the Communication required the government to conduct a full Strategic Environmental Assessment. A Strategic Environmental Assessment is a much broader assessment than conventional Environmental Impact Assessment because it must consider the cumulative impacts of multiple projects at a regional level, rather than confining itself to single projects. The Communication instructed the government to give more consideration to the impacts of bauxite mining on socioeconomic development specifically for the Central Highlands region and more generally for the entire country. Remarkably, the Communication included a temporary suspension of the Nhân Co, project until an Environmental Impact Assessment and a re-assessment of the project’s economic potential was completed. It also endorsed the idea of beginning with “pilot projects” before implementing the entirety of the national bauxite policy. When CODE’s Director Pha.m Quang Tú saw this announcement, he was pleased. In his view, it endorsed two of the three main recommendations of the scientists and experts from their petition of November 2008. An editorial piece written for Tuan Vietnam, written by a former employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, blithely stated that “We can see this as a decision taken by our nation’s leaders that is correct, timely and consistent with the hopes and expectations of the people” (Lê ` Hông Hiê.p, 2009). Another one written by former National Assembly delegate Nguy˜ên Ngo.c Trân and Lecturer of International Relations at Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City also applauded the Communication and its contents (Nguy˜ên Ngo.c Trân, 2009). Even the three originators of the online bauxite petition, in an open letter to the delegates of the National Assembly, suggested that the Communication “reflected a realistic attitude and respect for the public, an act of connecting with the public” (Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi et al., 2009a). Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, however, the whistle-blower who had led the early criticisms on bauxite mining, was more measured in his response. Simply noting that the Politburo “has made its conclusions,” Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n drew attention to many key issues that still needed to be made clear before “creating consensus” (Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 2009, May 4). However, despite these concessions, Communication 245 implicitly signaled a more important point: bauxite mining in the Central Highlands was going ahead. It showed that little had changed in the Party’s stance on these projects. Even the idea of beginning with “pilot projects”

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was used as a justification to going forward with the Tân Rai and Nhân Co, projects, the two largest projects that had been pushed by the Vietnamese government since the 1980s. They were also the two largest and most important projects of Decision 167, the Prime Minister’s national bauxite policy issued in late 2007. Furthermore, the key question raised by the intellectuals’ online petition—who decides?—was ignored, or perhaps implicitly answered by the Politburo’s Communication. A key demand from the online petition was for the National Assembly to vote on bauxite mining. The Communication made a gesture in this direction by requiring the government to prepare a report on the national bauxite policy for the Assembly. Preparing a report, however, fell far short of allowing the Assembly to vote or decide on the fate of bauxite mining in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Nevertheless, these half-hearted attempts to appease the public did not stop a few emboldened Assembly delegates or the domestic media from making bauxite a central topic of the Assembly’s upcoming bi-annual meeting. A Disquieted Public: Leading up to the National Assembly’s Bi-Annual Meeting The Politburo’s Communication 245 motivated Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, Pha.m Toàn and Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng, to write a “supplement to the petition” (Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi et al., 2009a, April 30). This time, however, their letter was addressed to the delegates of the National Assembly, in view of their upcoming meeting, and it was signed by Bauxite Vietnam, as represented by the three men. What soon became dubbed as the intellectuals’ “second petition” prodded the Politburo to make their recommendations into law. As they wrote: “in the spirit of democracy and openness and building a modern rule of law State, it is certain that the Politburo also wants its conclusion to be made into law to have sufficient legal standing and force to implement them” (Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi et al., 2009a, April 30). Making these decisions into law would, of course, require the National Assembly to vote on them. Yet, anticipating the challenges for individual Assembly delegates to break with its more habitual deference to the party leadership, the letter concluded by saying:

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… even one little intervention, one time raising one’s hand even if hesitantly, is one stone laid in the road to give our people and Nation a chance to raise our faces up to the five continents of the world. The reverse will be the death that has already been forewarned; it cannot be any other way! (Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi et al., 2009a, April 30)

As Bauxite Vietnam published these words, the controversy continued to spiral outwards. More and more diverse people joined the discussion, and in increasingly daring ways. The first mass demonstration inside Vietnam on bauxite mining occurred on April 26th at the Thái Hà Catholic parish in Hanoi. Redemptorist Priest Peter Nguy˜ên V˘an Khai organized an evening vigil with 1,000 parishioners, where he circulated a petition against bauxite mining (AFP, 2009, April 26; CNA, 2009, April 28). Around the same time, another Redemptorist Priest from Ho Chi Minh City, Joseph Lê Quang Uy, also posted online a petition against bauxite mining for Catholics inside and outside of Vietnam (AsiaNews, 2009, April 29; CNA, 2009, July 7). Their acts foreshadowed that of the Archbishop of Saigon, Cardinal Jean Baptiste Pha.m Minh M˜ân, who, on May 28th, wrote a pastoral letter to condemn the government’s plans for bauxite mining. The Archbishop also called on all Catholics to protect the natural environment as a “Christian’s duty” (AsiaNews, 2009, May 30). While the Vietnamese Catholic community has a long history of antagonism with the party-state, it was unusual for them both to be part of a mainstream protest in Vietnam. For state officials, the ability of the Church to influence its more than six million members nationwide— more than twice the entire membership of the Vietnamese Communist Party—is a constant worry. Overseas Vietnamese communities also became active in organizing anti-bauxite events around the world. A French group organized a workshop in Paris on April 19th to support Thích Quang Ðô.’s call for civic disobedience to protest bauxite mining. An American group of overseas Vietnamese organized a workshop on bauxite mining at UC Berkeley on April 20th, as well as a protest march in San Francisco on May 22nd. On the occasion of Earth Day on April 22nd, the anti-communist overseas organization Viê.t Tân organized a Save Tay Nguyen (i.e., Central Highlands) Facebook campaign (Viê.t Tân, 2009); and on May 1st, the US-based Viet Ecology Foundation sent to the United Nations a petition with 260 signatures in opposition to bauxite mining (Viet Ecology Foundation, 2009). As with the Catholic church in Vietnam, anti-state ij

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campaigns by the overseas Vietnamese community were not new—for which reason their activities inside Vietnam are closely monitoring by state authorities. But their coming together with domestic voices of protests was nearly unprecedented. The extent of these protests captured international media attention. Major international media agencies ran feature stories on the bauxite debates, including features by the Economist on April 23rd, the Wall Street Journal on May 2nd, the Financial Times on May 6th, Al Jazeera on May 7th, and the New York Times on June 29th (Fawthrop, 2009, May 7; Hookway, 2009, May 2; Mydans, 2009, June 29; Pilling, 2009 May, 6; The Economist, 2009, April 23) International news agencies operating inside Vietnam, such as the Associated French Press, also ramped up their coverage of these events. Websites operated by overseas Vietnamese followed the lead of Viet-studies by opening up threads specific to bauxite mining, such as the France-based website Dien Dan Forum on April 20th. Famous bloggers also chimed in on the debates, such as Osin’s Blog (by Huy Ðu´,c) (April 27th), Nguoi Viet Online (April 28th), Everywhere Land ,, (April 29th), and Nguo` i Buôn Gió (May 12th). Hence, while the Politburo’s concessions to its critics on bauxite mining were applauded by some, they motivated even more protest by others. Following Bauxite Vietnam, many continued to demand for the National Assembly, not the Politburo, to decide on bauxite mining. The opportunity for it presented itself with the National Assembly’s bi-annual meeting in May and June.

The National Assembly’s Bi-Annual Meeting: The Responsive Arm? Preparing for the Bi-Annual Meeting Communication No. 245, made clear that party leaders were not going to submit the bauxite mining projects to the National Assembly for a vote. It did, however, require the government to prepare a report on bauxite mining for the Assembly’s upcoming bi-annual meeting. The report provided another opportunity for the media and commentators to push this discussion further. On April 30th, the domestic media announced that the Prime Minister had instructed his cabinet to prepare a report on bauxite mining for the party and the National Assembly (Vân Anh, 2009a, April 30). The

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Vietnamese language version of the BBC followed up by interviewing National Assembly delegates Nguy˜ên Lân D˜ ung, who had been among ´ the first 135 people to sign the online petition, and Nguy˜ên Minh Thuyêt, who had greeted the petition’s creators when they had delivered it to the National Assembly (BBC, 2009a, May 1). Both delegates expressed skepticism about the government’s plans for bauxite mining, but emphasized the importance of discussing it at the upcoming Assembly meeting. Their comments contributed to the growing public pressure to involve the National Assembly in making decisions on bauxite mining. The sudden enthusiasm for the role of the Assembly was in itself odd, as it was largely regarded as a rubber stamp organization for the government and party. However, an explosive debate around re-zoning of Hanoi capital the year before had begun to change perceptions. In those discussions, a few individual delegates had used the Assembly as a platform to challenge government decisions and inform the general public. Even if delegates were elected through a dubious electoral process, where all candidates are vetted by the communist party, the National Assembly was still the closest thing to representation in government; and, in theory at least, the Assembly is the highest body of government. The clamor for the Assembly’s involvement in bauxite mining was a challenge to the communist party’s monopoly on state power. As Assembly delegates prepared for the bi-annual meeting, they made their usual, if often staged, visits to their constituencies. The ostensible purpose of these visits is to sound out voter concerns, but they are also spectacles of government responsiveness. Participants to the meeting are usually vetted, if not preselected, by local party bosses. But even among these docile crowds, bauxite mining emerged as a topic of concern. In early May, VietnamNet ran the headline, “Hanoi voters want the National Assembly to monitor the bauxite projects,” (Lê Nhung, 2009a, May 4). This article reported on the meeting of the Chair of the National Assembly, Nguy˜ên Phú Tro.ng, with his constituents. These constituents expressed concerns over the use of foreign labor on the bauxite mining projects, their economic feasibility, and demanded more respect for scientific opinion. The article also noted that, during the Assembly Chair’s recent travels abroad, many overseas Vietnamese had expressed similar concerns, and demanded the National Assembly to monitor the projects. However, the article juxtaposed these concerns with the Assembly Chair’s dubious answers. Rather than reaffirming the role of the National Assembly, the Chair preferred to dismiss it, explaining that “it’s not just

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any project that should be passed through the National Assembly, but rather it depends on the scale and size of each project. And in this case, the scale of the Tân Rai and Nhân Co, projects is only around 600 million dollars” (Lê Nhung, 2009a, May 4). The Chair further suggested that foreign labor will not be only from China, but also “many other countries.” He personally reassured them that foreign laborers will be strictly regulated by the law, even as concerns abounded about the effectiveness of Vietnamese law enforcement to control cross-border movements. As one journalist reported, “even though the policy is to start with pilot projects and only highly-skilled foreign labour is to be used, the reality is that many foreign workers are ‘spilling’ into many construction projects [in Vietnam]” (Lê Nhung, 2009a, May 4). Finally, the Chair tried to reassure his constituents by suggesting, like the Deputy Prime Minister at the government’s Scientific Workshop, bauxite will not be mined if it is unprofitable. He added that “these projects are only being piloted; there’s nothing to be concerned about yet.” More than listening to constituents, the Chair used this meeting to manage the public debate. But the Chair’s “yet” must have had an ominous ring to his audience.. Another telling example of how the government appeared to be managing more than responding to public concerns was when, five days later, the Prime Minister met with his constituents in the port city of Hai Phòng. An article from the government’s own website described these discussions as “honest and open.” However, the article betrays its purpose when it reports that the Prime Minister assured voters that bauxite mining will go ahead, adding that it “will be managed seriously and monitored strictly to ensure that it is economically effective, environmentally sustainable, provides jobs to local people, and bauxite mining becomes a major industry of the country” (Công TTÐT Chính phu & TTXVN, 2009, May 9). With such a firm commitment to bauxite mining, the reader is left wondering what is left to be discussed openly and honestly. As discussion began to focus more on the government report, questions began to emerge on what kind of report it would be and how it would affect decision-making, if at all. One of those questions was whether the government would prepare the report as a part of its socio-economic report, or a make a separate report for bauxite mining altogether. In the final week leading up to the bi-annual meeting, at a meeting of the National Assembly’s Executive Committee on May 14th, the Assembly Chair insisted the government would prepare a separate ij

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report on bauxite mining, rather than just adding it on as a section of its socio-economic report (Lê Nhung, 2009b, May 14). However, the next day, the Deputy Prime Minister, Hoàng Trung Hai, contradicted these remarks by instructing the Ministry of Planning and Investment to coordinate with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to complete the report on the bauxite projects as “a supplement to the socio-economic report” (Vân Anh, 2009b, May 15, emphasis added). As discussion then heated up about whether or not the report should be separate from the socio` Ðình economic report, the Deputy Chair of the National Assembly, Trân Ðàn, announced that, whatever the form of the report, “For sure the National Assembly will completely support bauxite mining” (Huy Ðu´,c, 2009, May 20; Lê Nhung, 2009d, May 18). Wittingly or not, the Deputy Chair’s remark raised more questions on what exactly was the Assembly’s role when all the decisions on bauxite mining were already made. One reporter, who had attended a preparatory meeting of the National Assembly, conveyed to me her shock at hearing how the Deputy Chair explained to delegates that they were free to discuss the bauxite policy, but in the end they all had to support it (Interview No. 31.1, March 3, 2010). Meanwhile, the Vice-Director of the National Assembly’s Committee for Science, Technology and Environment added that he had assigned neither tasks nor responsibilities to its Committee members for reviewing the government’s report (Lê Nhung, 2009c, May 18). Their statements suggested that the National Assembly was still deep in the business of rubber stamping, only that now they had to be more sophisticated in their management of public opinion. However, the government’s confusing statements only added fuel to the fire. Three days before the Assembly meeting, Bauxite Vietnam sent another open letter to the National Assembly, reminding delegates’ of their “infinitely important” duties to speak out for the people on bauxite mining (Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi et al., 2009b, May 17). On the day before the meeting, VietnamNet reported on interviews with two outspoken ´ who had recommended Assembly delegates, namely Du,o,ng Trung Quôc, that the National Assembly vote on the projects at the government’s Scientific Workshop, and Nguy˜ên Ðình Xuân, a member of the National Assembly’s Committee for Science, Technology and Environment (Lê ij

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´ considered the governNhung, 2009e, May 19). Du,o,ng Trung Quôc ment’s quibbling over a separate report as “sophistry,”2 while Nguy˜ên Ðình Xuân complained that the trivial discussion on the form of the report was taking time away from delegates to review it. The BBC also published a long article by a Vietnamese student in Indiana, USA, who argued that the government should rightfully present the bauxite mining projects to the National Assembly while cautioning for a “realistic” perspective on what could be accomplished at that meeting; as the student recalled, 90% of delegates were also party members (Thanh Thuy, 2009, May 6). Even as public pressure mounted, bauxite mining was still not on the official agenda and the government was still discussing whether to prepare a separate or supplementary report on bauxite mining. Assembly delegates, as intuited by Nguy˜ên Ðình Xuân, had seen neither. As the meeting opened on May 20th, the role of the National Assembly in the discussion on bauxite mining was still unclear. ij

An Explosive Debate in the National Assembly On the opening day of the meeting, General Giáp chimed in for his third time on the bauxite mining debates. He wrote another letter, this time addressed to the National Assembly and party leaders. More forcefully than his first letters, General Giáp implored the government to “cease the Central Highlands bauxite projects, including the pilot projects,” while urging Assembly delegates to “mobilize democracy, discuss carefully, and make a serious decision” (Võ Nguyên Giáp, personal communication, May 20, 2009). Even the great General seemed to invest his hopes in the National Assembly’s theoretical position as the highest organ of government. 2 Du,o,ng Trung Quôc ´ argued that “Until now, the conclusions of the Politburo along with the ideas of the National Assembly’s Executive Committee and the Government’s instruction to present the report [on bauxite mining] in the socio-economic report shows the sophistry of their way of responding. However, even though the meeting’s agenda doesn’t include monitoring the bauxite issue, the public debate has shown the necessity of having a separate report on bauxite mining by the Government for the National Assembly to discuss it separately. However, in my opinion, whether a separate or a supplemental report, if the Assembly delegates fulfil their duties, contribute their ideas and reflect accurately the expectations of voters, it will have a positive impact to implement the projects better and attain a higher level of agreement” (Lê Nhung, 2009e, May 19).

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Continuing to toe the party line, however, Deputy Prime Minister Nguy˜ên Hùng Sinh opened the meeting by reaffirming the importance of exploring and extracting minerals for industrialization and to support Vietnam’s recovery from the 2008 global financial crisis. He further ramped up the importance of the still non-existent bauxite industry, noting that the country’s bauxite ore reserves were second in importance only to its near ubiquitous supply of limestone (Lê Nhung & Vân Anh, 2009, May 22). The Minister of Environment, Pha.m Khôi Nguyên, also weighed in on the debate, not, however, to highlight or explain the environmental risks of the projects. Rather the Environment Minister tried to reassure delegates that the “environmental problems can be entirely ´ d-u,o.,c) (Lê Nhung ´ d-`ê môi tru,o`,ng là hoàn toàn giai quyêt resolved” (vân & Vân Anh, 2009, May 22). Turning embedded advocacy back on itself, the Environment Minister’s statements implied that resolving the bauxite issue would lie entirely within the purview, and authority, of government institutions. Despite the concerted message of the government’s top leaders, a handful of Assembly delegates took it upon themselves to voice other opinions. At first, they voiced their opinions primarily by answering ´ was reporters in the hallways of the meeting hall. Du,o,ng Trung Quôc , , described as “annoyed” (bu´ c xu´ c) about the lack of information from government, hindering their ability to discuss and do their job effectively (Hoàng Phu,o,ng & Lê Nhung, 2009a, May 21). The Director of the Assembly’s Committee for National Defense and Security, Lê Quang Bình, re-emphasized the need for a separate report to address the topic thoroughly, while also complaining about the lack of information from the government. He noted that Assembly delegates had received their ´ nghi. cua information only from the press, the academics’ petition (kiên , ,, ´ gioi ho.c gia) and scientists (Hoàng Phuong, 2009a, May 21). He also affirmed his Committee’s readiness to monitor these projects (Hoàng Phu,o,ng & Lê Nhung, 2009a, May 21). Delegate Nguy˜ên Lân D˜ ung argued that the National Assembly should directly monitor the bauxite mining projects, while a member of the Central Committee for the Fatherland Front, Nguy˜ên Anh Liêm, argued that the National Assembly should vote on them (Hoàng Phu,o,ng & Lê Nhung, 2009a, May 21). He stated, “the voters have spoken clearly. This is a problem with many different ideas. They demand the National Assembly to discuss and decide on the matter to create unity in society ij

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and internal agreement, above all in the National Assembly” (Hoàng Phu,o,ng & Lê Nhung, 2009a, May 21). The government’s report was finally completed on May 22nd (Toàn ´ Hô.i, 2009, May 24) and V˘an Báo Cáo Bô-Xít Cua Chính Phu Gu,i Quôc submitted to the National Assembly on May 23rd, three days after the bi-annual meeting had opened (Tuôi Tre, 2009, May 24). VietnamNet posted the entire report online. Finally, it came as a sub-section of the socio-economic report. The report reaffirmed, once again, the government’s commitment to bauxite mining, but promised that the mining would be economically profitable, use all Vietnamese labor once fully operational, and increase environmental protection. Far from assuaging fears, however, the report seemed only to incense delegates further. As delegate Lê Quang Bình expressed: ij

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If you ask me, the report does not meet the expectations of National Assembly delegates. For example, the solutions proposed for the environmental problems are very general. They only say that with modern technology all of the environmental problems can be surmounted, including management of toxic waste. OK, management is good, but how they will manage it is not made clear. Similarly, with concerns about national security and defense, the report ensures that they will not be affected, but it does not give out any specific solutions on how to avoid these problems. (Hoàng Phu,o,ng & Lê Nhung, 2009b, May 25)

Lê Quang Bình further complained delegates were only able to express their individual opinions rather than speak on behalf of the National Assembly or its Committees. Summing up this predicament, he said, “Assembly delegates are left to trust the Government and that is all” (Hoàng Phu,o,ng & Lê Nhung, 2009b, May 25). More delegates also began to join the discussion. Delegate Nguy˜ên Anh Liêm3 defiantly argued that the “National Assembly will not discuss something that is already done.” A member of the Committee for Ethnic Minorities and one of the few indigenous peoples from the Central Highlands among the Assembly delegates, Danh Út (Kiên Giang), also voiced the need for more National Assembly delegates to speak up about these

3 The article includes an erratum in the spelling of the delegate’s name as Nguy˜ ên Anh Liên.

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projects. The position was surprising because, until now, local government in the Central Highlands had largely supported the government’s position on bauxite mining. Other delegates called for adding an extra day to the bi-annual meeting to allow for a whole day of discussion on bauxite mining. The government’s socio-economic report was presented on May 25th, which gave the delegates their first opportunity to discuss bauxite mining in an Assembly meeting. They did not waste it. Delegate Nguy˜ên Minh ´ captured the day’s headlines when he accused the government Thuyêt of “evading the law” (Lê Nhung, 2009f, May 26). In Vietnam’s political context, especially in 2009, this was a bold statement. By law, government projects whose total investment exceeds 20 trillion VND (approximately 1 billion USD) or meets other criteria on national security, cultural heritage and natural environment—all of which would appear to apply to the bauxite mining projects, as months of public debate had suggested—have ´ accused to be approved by the National Assembly.4 Nguy˜ên Minh Thuyêt the government of having deliberately split the bauxite mining projects into numerous smaller ones to avoid triggering the National Assembly’s investment criteria. In contrast, provincial delegates from the Central Highlands expressed their support for bauxite mining. The head delegate from Ða˘´ k Nông, an indigenous person, Ðiêu K’ré highlighted the economic and development ` delegate, Lê Thanh Phong, said benefits of the projects, while Lâm Ðông that “not because of environmental problems will we forego developing the region’s natural resources (Lê Nhung, 2009f, May 26). However, ` the Lâm Ðông delegate added that “not only for the sake of economic gains will we develop these resources without special attention to the environment.”5 It is not certain, however, that these statements reflected the ij

4 Those criteria are that the total investment capital exceeds 20 trillion VND, of which at least 30% is government invested, the project has a “large” negative impact on the natural environment, requires relocation for more than twenty thousand people in the mountainous areas (or 50,000 in other areas), it affects an area important for national defense, security or cultural and historical heritage, or requires a special policy mechanism (BBC, 2009b, May 5; Lê Nhung, 2009c, May 18). 5 The Minister of Environment also addressed the Assembly on the morning of May 27th once again reassuring his audience that all of the environmental problems could be resolved, while not forgetting to add that the situation will require some extra budget for his Ministry to address and monitor all of these problems effectively (Lê Nhung, 2009f,

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´ majority or even any of their constituents. Delegate Nguy˜ên Minh Thuyêt nonetheless had an answer for them, saying with more than a dash of irony, “This morning I was very enthused to hear a National Assembly delegate from a Central Highlands Province say that the projects will contribute 500 billion [Dong] for the locality and 1,000 local workers will be trained. I recommend the National Assembly to write down all of these numbers so that several years from now we can check back to see if they were correct or not” (Lê Nhung, 2009f, May 26). As the Assembly meeting turned to topics on its official agenda, the domestic media’s attention to bauxite also subsided. This did not, however, stop the wider public from continuing to discuss it. During this time, prestigious mathematician Ngô Bao Châu, then working at Princeton University, sent a personal letter to the National Assembly (it was sent by email to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi to personally deliver to the National Assembly on his behalf). The letter suggested that the bauxite mining projects were a form of Chinese “neo-colonialism” (Ngô Bao Châu, 2009, May 29). Bauxite Vietnam played a central role as a hub or discussion and critical commentaries on the events at the National Assembly, including critical assessments of the government’s report. Unlike other overseas Vietnamese websites that also provided critical commentary, Bauxite Vietnam was still not firewalled inside Vietnam. It was not long, however, before bauxite mining started to feature again in Assembly discussions, primarily during open question periods. On the afternoon of June 11th, the Minister of Industry, V˜ u Huy Hoàng ´ accusations of evading the tried to respond to Nguy˜ên Minh Thuyêt’s law by simply reasserting that the two bauxite projects currently under construction did not require Assembly approval because they did not exceed 20,000 trillion Vietnam Dong. He added that the railway line and deep seaport required to bring bauxite-alumina to market would also be considered as separate projects because, “of course, they are also meant to serve residents and transport other goods than just alumina” (Lê Nhung, 2009g, June 11). But this response did not convince Nguy˜ên Ð˘ang Tru`,ng, Assembly delegate for Ho Chi Minh City. ´ point that Nguy˜ên Ð˘ang Tru`,ng reiterated Nguy˜ên Minh Thuyêt’s these projects became separate only when the government cut them ij

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up and made them so. For the scale and severity of their impacts on the environment, economics, and national security, Nguy˜ên Ð˘ang Tru,ng demanded that the bauxite mining projects “absolutely must be decided on by the National Assembly” (Lê Nhung, 2009g, June 11). Delegate Nguy˜ên V˘an Ba from Khánh Hòa further argued the railway and port projects were integral to, not independent of, the bauxite mining projects. Their price tags must also be seen as an integral part of the government’s investment in bauxite mining. To these objections, the Minister only replied, if somewhat ominously, splitting up the projects “was not the Ministry’s idea but what was already in the Government’s plan” (Lê Nhung, 2009h, June 12). Nguy˜ên Ð˘ang Tru`,ng returned that even this response was inadequate because the Ministry is a part of the government. He recalled the Politburo’s recommendation to review the entire project and suggested that the Minister was bent on “mining bauxite at any cost,” in contrast to the promise that Deputy Prime Minister Hoàng Trung Hai had made at the Scientific Workshop in April. In the government’s umpteenth effort to stem the public debate, Deputy Prime Minister Nguy˜ên Sinh Hùng took advantage of his address to the Assembly on June 13th to trod a well-worn path. He repeated common knowledge about the size of the bauxite reserves, disingenuously re-asserted their policy bases in the 9th and 10th National Party Congresses, minimized the wide range of serious concerns that had been raised against these projects, and then elaborated on the government’s solutions for a select few of these concerns. He also emphasized that the government had listened to some “revolutionary veterans” (without naming names) and scientists, as well as organized workshops and seminars to hear their ideas and consult with them. In effect, the Deputy Prime Minister was making the argument that the government had been responsive. ´ was not convinced. Immediately But delegate Du,o,ng Trung Quôc after the Deputy Prime Minister’s presentation, he declared that “the Deputy Prime Minister has still not answered my question of whether the purpose of cutting up bauxite mining into smaller projects was to avoid having to pass them through the National Assembly?” (Lê Nhung, 2009i, June 13). He further accused the Deputy Prime Minister of blaming the ij

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National Assembly for not requesting to review the projects.6 On the point of the Congress Decisions, delegate Pha.m Thi. Loan from Hanoi complained that the rationale that every government decision already “has a document or policy mechanism” was only self-justifying rhetoric. She further pointed out that mining bauxite contradicted the Party’s policy from the same Congresses not to export raw materials. To this, the Minister could only reply that government did not consider alumina as a raw material because it required processing from bauxite. Charged with closing the Assembly meeting, the Chair of the Assembly, Nguy˜ên Phú Tro.ng, then tried his hand. He lauded delegates for “ideas that were constructive, responsible and honest” and avowed that “they were critical reminders for us, forcing us to be completely honest with ourselves” (Lê Nhung, 2009i, June 13). He also reminded the government to “continue” listening, provide information and be ready to change their opinions when necessary. However, in the final analysis, he reaffirmed once again that the “National Assembly together with the Government guaranteed [the safe and effective] implementation of these strategically important projects.” And with these words, the Chair concluded that the Assembly had now reached “consensus” (d-`ông thuâ.n)7 and closed further discussion on the topic, leaving many delegates wondering where the Chair had gotten the impression of “consensus.” As Assembly delegates had no power to vote on bauxite mining, however, these fiery exchanges had little opportunity to change policy. In sum, the bauxite mining debate had gone to the highest organ of government and found a stalemate. The public’s concerns were still

6 “The Deputy Prime Minister says that he is not blaming the National Assembly, but when the Deputy Prime Minister says that the projects did not need to be presented [to the National Assembly] because the National Assembly did not raise the issue, it is like he is pushing the responsibility for them onto the National Assembly” (Lê Nhung, 2009i, June 13). 7 A few days after the bi-annual meeting, Nguy˜ ên Phú Tro.ng visited again with voters in Hanoi, where he once again reassured them that these projects would be implemented in a way that is “tightly controlled, effective and responsive to the ideas of the former leaders of the Party and State and the scientists” (Xuân Linh & Lê Nhung, 2009, May 27, paraphrased).

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not addressed, yet the government still refused to change course in a significant way.8 Yet, even if unsuccessful in stopping or seriously reassessing the bauxite mining projects, the discussion in the National Assembly, like the creation and delivery of the petition of the intellectuals, had provided a kind of counter-spectacle. It had demonstrated, for all to see, the duplicity and facetiousness of government and limits of a political system enabled such behaviour. The domestic media and Internet activists also played key roles in playing and re-playing the counter-spectacle, notably through countless critical commentaries and reporting online. The Bauxite Vietnam website, in particular, operated as a clearinghouse for many of these commentaries and questions. As the Assembly meeting closed, Bauxite Vietnam posted a critical piece on the spectacle at the National Assembly. Starting with the closing speech of the Assembly Chair, they mockingly described the scene: … speaking like a village elder with soft words and an intimate drawl, the [Assembly] Chair got up to give a comment on each delegate that spoke up during the question period (except for those delegates that he considered to have misbehaved, as if they were school children), in an atmosphere that the press described with words like “grading” [the school pupils] together with “praising and reprimanding” and “sound encouragement,” and then he quickly proceeded to conclude that the bauxite issue had reached consensus. It was as if he was trying to make the public, who have been following the bauxite case, feel like they were participating in some fun game worth tens or hundreds of thousands of billion Vietnamese dong, while the foundations of our independence are hanging by a thread. (Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi et al., 2009c, June 15)

To Bauxite Vietnam, the debates in the National Assembly had only shown that, apart from a few brave delegates, the Assembly was unable to 8 The outcome was not of course entirely unexpected. Already in February, Nguyên Ngo.c had suggested:

If you allow me to speak honestly, I don’t think that passing this issue [i.e., bauxite mining] through the National Assembly will reflect our criticisms or have the result that we all desire./ There have been other instances, such as criticisms and calls to cancel plans to expand Hanoi City limits [last year], but in the end they still did it. We are not that hopeful. (Thiê.n Giao, 2009, February 26)

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hear or respond to the people. Discussion in the National Assembly was only for show. What remained was not consensus, but rather deep and irreconcilable division. In the Aftermath of the Assembly Debates The spectacle and counter-spectacle at the National Assembly brought more attention to the bauxite mining debates, as still more unlikely groups spoke out on the topic while activists became even bolder. Until now, international environmental organizations and the international development community, more broadly speaking, had remained conspicuously silent on bauxite mining. For international NGOs and development organizations, this is typical behavior because their permission to operate, let alone be successful, in Vietnam depends on good relations with government. However, after the Assembly meeting, a few of the foreign embassies in Hanoi began to raise the issue at the government’s mid-year meeting with members of its development assistance consultation group on June 8th and 9th. Prior to this meeting, the Norwegian Ambassador, Kjell Storlokken, personally visited the bauxite mining projects on behalf of the international donor community. At the meeting, he warned the government about “protecting the interests of the Vietnamese people in mining bauxite, especially the ones in the Central Highlands” (Hoàng Phu,o,ng, 2009b, June 9). His warnings were echoed by Swedish, British and American diplomats, who also cautioned the government about long-term environmental impacts and resettlement issues (BBC, 2009c, June 9; Tro.ng Ngh˜ıa, 2009, June 10). They advised the government to implement the projects “carefully” and “transparently,” while also offering technical support to do so. Though diplomatic in tone, these statements reflected a new level of circumspection towards the Vietnamese government, one that could potentially pull at its purse strings. Two days later, on June 11th, Vietnamese lawyer Cù Huy Hà V˜ u tried something much bolder. He filed the first ever lawsuit to sue a standing Prime Minister in Vietnam. The lawyer brought his case to the Hanoi People’s Court, accusing the Prime Minister of violating national laws on environment, national security, cultural heritage, and the administration of legal documents in the national policy on bauxite mining, Decision 167. When questioned about it, Cù Huy Hà V˜ u declared that he sued the Prime Minister personally because the Prime Minister was the one who

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had signed the national policy (BBC, 2009d, June 12). He explained he was within his legal right to do so because, citing the Constitution, all Vietnamese citizens are equal before the law (BBC, 2009g, September 24). Unsurprisingly, the Hanoi Court held a different point of view. On June 15th, the Court refused to hear the case on the grounds that it had no legal basis upon which to pass a judgment (Công TTÐT Chính phu, 2009, June 23). Cù Huy Hà V˜ u appealed the decision to the Chief Justice of the Hanoi People’s Court two days later, but his case was upheld again. On July 3rd, he filed the case with the Supreme Court of Vietnam, which also refused to hear the case. Even though, as Cù Huy Hà V˜ u later recounted, the representatives of the Supreme Court were sympathetic and helpful, they let him know that the “official opinion of the Supreme Court is that, currently, Vietnamese law has no basis to allow for a citizen to sue the Prime Minister” (BBC, 2009g, September 24). As with the National Assembly debates and the intellectuals’ petition, Cù Huy Hà V˜ u was also performing a counter-spectacle to demonstrate the gaps between what is said under Vietnamese law and how it is practiced.9 Another bold example of opposition to bauxite mining occurred in July, as a group of anonymous activists, who referred to themselves as ,, ,, “Vietnamese Who Love Vietnam” (Nguo` i Viê.t Yêu Nuo´ c), printed and distributed T-shirts to protest bauxite mining and Chinese encroachment in Vietnam’s Eastern Sea (also known as the South China Sea). The backside of the T-shirts featured the acronym S.O.S, where the “O” was depicted with a red bar over the words “Chinese Bauxite” (Bô xít Trung ´ (See Fig. 5.1). Beneath it was written “Keep Vietnam Green and Quôc) , Nationally Secure” (giu˜ màu xanh và an ninh cho Viê.t Nam). On the front, the T-shirt proclaimed that the Paracels and Spratlys Islands are Vietnamese. Media reports suggested that around one hundred of these T-shirts were handed out in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Nha Trang, and Ðà ij

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9 As surprising as Cù Huy Hà V˜ u’s lawsuit was the fact that he was not apparently punished for it. This could have been because Cù Huy Hà V˜ u came from an illustrious line of revolutionaries and maintained connections with persons high enough up in the party apparatus, possibly including General Secretary Nông Ðu´,c Ma.nh, to provide him with protection. However, Cù Huy Hà V˜ u’s day would come when he was arrested in November 2010 and then sentenced to seven years in prison in April 2011. In the interim, he made several other increasingly bold denunciations against individual state leaders.

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Na˘˜ ng. This group also began a blog site, on which they posted pictures of people wearing the T-shirts in each of the four cities. Testifying to the increasingly performative nature of Vietnamese activism in the bauxite mining debates, these activists demonstrated their resolve to protest and resist. Apparently, a handful of these activists were also arrested for selling the T-shirts (Interview 45.1, January 2010). State authorities made these arrests without fanfare, perhaps fearing to give even more publicity to the activists. However, later in August, they quietly continued to track down the activists responsible for them, by interrogating three promi´ (Nguy˜ên Ngo.c Nhu, Qu`ynh), Ngu,o`,i Buôn Gió nent bloggers Me. Nâm ´ (Buì Thanh Hiêu), and Pha.m Ðoan Trang, whom state authorities alleged were behind this campaign.

Fig. 5.1 Backside sample of T-shirt by Vietnamese Who Love Vietnam group (Source http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thaoluan9/message/44083, Retrieved on January 5, 2013)

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As June turned into July, the online petition created by Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, Pha.m Toàn and Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng had also become something of a new phenomenon. By July 7, the number of persons who had signed onto the petition through the Bauxite Vietnam website had reached 2,300 signatures (and would later reach more than 2,700). While 2,300 may appear as a small number, especially in today’s age of Internet petitions that can reach tens and hundreds of thousands of signatures overnight. However, for post-reform Vietnam, the number was unprecedented. At minimum, to sign the petition one had to provide one’s name, position or title, and country. Many also provided their organization’s name and a detailed address. In short, the Vietnamese people who joined the petition movement were openly expressing their opposition to a major government policy in a way that had not been seen in the post-reform era. While this list of signatures counted on many overseas Vietnamese— again showing a rare political solidarity between overseas and domestic Vietnamese—more than two thirds of the people who signed (68%) were from within Vietnam. As with the original 135 signatures, they were also widely represented across Vietnamese regions. Only ten of the country’s 54 provinces were without a representative in the list.10 They also hailed from each of Vietnam’s seven main regions, including the south (766 signatures), north (544) and central regions (92). However, the overwhelming majority was again from major cities, namely 661 from Ho Chi Minh City, 487 from Hanoi and 55 from Da Nang. Rarely, if ever, in post-reform Vietnam, can we find examples of a cross-national movement of this scale before this petition. Among the Vietnamese signatures from outside Vietnam, their geographical distribution was also impressive. Most came from North America (44%) or Europe (36%), while a smaller portion came from Australia (10%), East Asia (8%), and Southeast Asia (2%). Their open solidarity with domestic Vietnamese in protest of the party-state had also been previously unheard of at this scale. 10 The provinces that had no representatives were Cao Ba˘` ng, Ba˘´ c Kan, and Lang So,n, . . in the northeast; Hà Giang, Lai Châu, So,n La, and Hoa Bình in the northwest; and Sóc ` Tr˘ang, Ðông Tháp and Hâ.u Giang in the Mekong Delta. These provinces are among the poorest and most remote in Vietnam, where Internet services are the least accessible and time and resources for activism most rare. Interestingly, however, most of these provinces in the northwest and northeast are located on or very near the border with China.

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The people who had signed onto the list also indicated a wide range of professions and occupations, again testifying to the diversity of people who were speaking out against bauxite mining. Surprisingly, the most commonly cited occupation was student (253). While an important contingent of activist movements in other countries, including the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, students rarely, if ever, spoke out against the Communist government in Vietnam and even less as a group. Fifty-two of these students who signed the bauxite mining petition identified themselves as grade school students, including twenty from Quang Trung High School in Hà Ðô.ng—Hanoi (#1630-1641 and #1921-1928). Other common professions on the list were scientists (244), engineers (250), managers (202), teachers (94), researchers (92) and business persons (81), reporters (69), and writers (64). Like the original 135 signatures, they were a highly educated group. However, they were also joined by sixty laborers (công nhân), nineteen farmers (nông dân), and twenty, one domestic workers (nô.i tro. ). There were also eleven who identified themselves as working for the government, two for the police, and fifteen from the military. The suggestion of a national movement was not only regional, but also cross-sectoral. However, as the public discussion on bauxite mining became wider and bolder, state authorities were already beginning to mobilize the other side of their management strategy.

State Crackdown: The Repressive Arm Indirect Control: A Crackdown on Bloggers and Intellectuals Even as top-level officials were trying to placate their critics in the halls of the National Assembly, the signs of a state crackdown were already appearing. It began with a series of high profile arrests of online activists, sending a chill through the public debate. From late May to early July, approximately the same period of the National Assembly’s bi-annual meeting, five Vietnamese bloggers were arrested. While none of them were arrested because of bauxite mining—they had most likely been targeted by state authorities long before—all of them had at some point contributed to that discussion. ` Hu`ynh Duy Thu´,c, who was rumored to be operating Blogger Trân the website Change We Need, which had posted the scandalous story

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about the General Secretary receiving money from China in exchange for Central Highlands bauxite, was arrested on May 24th. His brazenly anticommunist post was entitled “Central Highlands Bauxite: the Communist Party Dynasty is digging its own grave” (Change We Need, 2009, May 16). On June 4th, blogger Lê Th˘ang Long, who was a member of the ` Hu`ynh Tran Dong Chan blog site (alleged to have been created by Trân Duy Thu´,c) was arrested (VietnamNet/VNA, 2009, August 20). On June ` 13th, activist lawyer and blogger Lê Công Ði.nh, alleged to be Trân , ´ Hu`ynh Duy Thuc’s partner on Change We Need, was arrested. And on ´ Trung, who blogged on Tran Dong Chan and July 7th, Nguy˜ên Tiên ` Anh Kim, a member of the Vietnam DemoChange We Need, and Trân cratic Party, were both arrested. All of these activists were arrested on charges of spreading propaganda or sedition against the party-state. The most well-known among this group was Lê Công Ði.nh. His arrest sent shockwaves through the Vietnamese activist community, and drew international attention. Lê Công Ði.nh earned his reputation as an activist lawyer when he joined the legal defense team for the leaders of democracy activist coalition Bloc 8406. Born in 1968, Lê Công Ði.nh had been a Fulbright Scholar, studied at Sorbonne in Paris, and earned his Master of Law degree at Tulane University in the United States. Lê Công Ði.nh was not a prominent figure in the anti-bauxite campaign, but he had signed the online petition as number 241. He had also written an article admonishing government against bauxite mining, which was published by Le Monde on June 26th, after his arrest. While the indictment against Lê Công Ði.nh made no mention of these specific activities, a commentary in the Vietnamese Communist Party’s daily, Nhân Dân, did not fail to note it, saying that the lawyer had “exploited the Central Highlands bauxite and Paracels-Spratlys issues to incite anti-party and anti-state ideology” , (Luâ.t Su Lê Công Ði.nh và Bauxite [Lawyer Lê Công Ði.nh and Bauxite], 2009, June 22). Whether by coincidence or by design, state authorities made use of these arrests as a warning to critics of bauxite mining. At the same time, state authorities appeared to have exercised its control over domestic media again. For the months following the Assembly meeting, domestic media stopped discussing or reporting on bauxite mining. For example, through the summer months, VietnamNet posted only a handful of articles on bauxite mining and they were sourced only from government mouthpieces, such as Thông tin Xã hô.i Viê.t Nam ` thoa.i Chính phu. and Công Thông tin Ðôi ij

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On July 24th, the government took another measure that appeared to target the Vietnamese intellectuals. This was the Prime Minister’s Deci´ d-.inh 97/QD-TTg, 2009). Decision 97 limited the scope sion 97 (Quyêt and autonomy of “scientific and technology organizations” established under the 2000 Law on Science and Technology (Law on Science and Technology, 2000). The 2000 law was what had initially allowed the domestic NGO CODE to establish itself as an “independent” organization. Decision 97 put an end to this, however. First, Decision 97 now proscribed research by scientific and technology organizations to be conducted only on the 300 or so topics specified in the Decision (Article 1). Second, it required that if these organizations “had any ideas that were critical of the directions, orientations or policies of the Party or State, they must send these ideas to the relevant Party or State authority” (Article 2.2); they would not be allowed to make their criticisms public on their own. Third, the Decision required scientific and technology organizations to be licensed under the Ministry of Science and Technology. For those organizations that were already registered without a government sponsor, they would have to re-register under the Ministry (Article 3). In other words, the loophole that had allowed CODE to refer to itself as an “independent” organizations had been closed. However, CODE was not the main target of Decision 97. The real target was the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), which had been touted as the “first ever independent policy think tank in socialist Vietnam” because it had established itself under the 2000 Law on Science and Technology (Vuving, 2010, p. 376 emphasis added).11 However, IDS was a reputed organization not only because it was independent, but because it brought together some of the most accomplished policy analysts and researchers inside Vietnam. As described by Vuving (2010): Members of the think tank included such personalities as the economists Lê ` Ðu´,c Nguyên, and Trân ` Viê.t Phu,o,ng, who had served Ð˘ang Doanh, Trân generations of party and government chiefs as major advisers; former Ambassador Nguy˜ên Trung, who was an adviser with a ministerial rank to former Prime Minister Võ V˘an Kiê.t, former Vice President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry Pha.m Chi Lan; leading scholars such 11 One of its co-founders shared with me that he founded IDS as a bet with a friend, who did not believe that an independent research organization was legally possible in Vietnam (Interview No. 9, July 13, 2010).

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as the mathematician Hoàng Tuy. and the historian Phan Huy Lê; and prominent thinkers such as Nguy˜ên Quang A, Tu,o,ng Lai and Nguyên Ngo.c. (p. 376)

Many of the intellectuals had been special advisors to the Prime Minister’s Research Council of Võ V˘an Kiê.t and his successor Phan V˘an Khai. Many of them had also been closely involved with CODE and the bauxite mining controversy, notably Nguyên Ngo.c and Nguy˜ên Trung as discussed in Chapter 3, but also Pha.m Duy Hiên, who had participated in the early discussions organized by CODE and VUSTA; Nguy˜ên Quang A (President of IDS), Phan Ðình Diê.u and Hoàng Tuy. (Chair of IDS), who had signed the online petition; and Lê Ð˘ang Doanh and others who had commented publicly on bauxite mining. Indeed, it would not be difficult to imagine that state authorities suspected that IDS was the main organization behind the anti-bauxite campaign, and especially the intellectuals’ petition. If shutting down IDS was the intended effect of Decision 97, it succeeded. On September 14th of 2009, the day before the policy would go into effect, IDS issued a public statement announcing its dissolution (IDS, 2009). Again, the new legislation may not have targeted the bauxite mining debates directly, but it was another step in dismantling the vehicles and personalities that made them possible. ij

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Direct Control: Cyber-Attacks and Police Interrogations12 By December 2009, Bauxite Vietnam was still, surprisingly, accessible inside Vietnam. It had not yet been firewalled like other websites that post critical commentary on Vietnamese politics. Why state authorities did not target key figures in the anti-bauxite campaign or even firewall the Bauxite Vietnam website is a good question. Possibly there were too many of them? Perhaps the scientists and intellectuals leading the discussions were too high profile, or had protective connections within the state machinery? Or perhaps state authorities mostly wanted everyone to forget about bauxite mining? Whatever the reason, the authorities did 12 Unless otherwise indicated, quotes by Nguy˜ ên Huê. Chi and other information pertaining to him in this chapter are derived from an unpublished interview conducted with Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi on October 2010 in Berkeley, California, by Peter Zinoman ` and Nguy˜ên Nguyê.t Câm, who have kindly granted permission for its usage here.

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not forget. Once the public debate on bauxite had quieted down and even Bauxite Vietnam had moved onto other topics, anonymous hackers disabled Bauxite Vietnam and the police came knocking on the doors of Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn. Starting on December 12th, Bauxite Vietnam suffered a series of anonymous cyber-attacks (BBC, 2009e, December 20). The attacks were primarily Denial of Service (DNS) of attacks, where a large number of computers, remotely operated through viruses and botnets, made simultaneous demands for service on Bauxite Vietnam. The sheer number of demands paralyzed the website. When I had first met with Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi in May 2009, he was already complaining about hackers trying to sabotage Bauxite Vietnam. Back then, however, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and his small group of young technicians had managed to fend off the attacks successfully. This time, however, the attacks were more sophisticated and coordinated. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi had to call a university student from southern Vietnam to help him fix the problem. From December 12th to the 24th, this student stayed with Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and they managed to re-establish the website. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and his team were elated. They congratulated themselves on having fended off the most sophisticated attack yet. One of the website’s supporters in V˜ ung Tàu sent Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi a bottle of 21 year-old Chivas Whiskey and some money to organize a dinner celebration. However, as Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was toasting his success, the university student was picked up by the police as he disembarked from his return flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi later learned that the student was released with no news of a punishment, but Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was never able to contact him again. And only one day after Bauxite Vietnam was re-established, it was attacked and disabled again. However, this time the attack was more serious and invasive, destroying content and planting counterfeit documents. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi later suggested that the cyber-attacks were because of funds they had raised through Bauxite Vietnam for flood victims in Central Vietnam in November.13 However, on December 21st, similar

13 Bauxite Vietnam had raised funds through its website while Nguy˜ ên Huê. Chi,

Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng and others organized a trip to deliver it directly to households hit by catastrophic floods in the Central Region in late 2009. One of their principles in doing so

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attacks disabled the website Talawas, which was a website operated over, seas by former d-ôi mo´ i writer Pha.m Thi. Hoài that also posted critical commentary on the Vietnamese government and its policies. The attacks on the two website left the exact same message: “For technical reasons, [website name] has suspended its activities indefinitely” (BBC, 2009f, December 21). Over the next several weeks, similar Vietnamese language websites, hosted both inside and outside of Vietnam, were also anony´ Tho.ai, Cao Trào Nhân Ban, mously hacked and disabled, including Ðôi , Tâ.p Ho. p Vì Dân Chu, X-café, Dân Luâ.n, blog Osin and Ðàn Chim Viê.t (Gia Minh, 2010b, February 2; RFA, 2010, February 5). Reporters described these attacks as “stealing and forfeiting documents, infiltrating email accounts, usurping names and propagating false information, and defaming and provoking division among the founders of these websites” (Thanh Quang, 2010, February 3). The attacks went further than focusing only on websites, however. One day after Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi had accessed his email account at an Internet Café near his house, he discovered it had been infiltrated. A counterfeited email was sent from Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi’s account complaining that Pha.m Toàn had become unreliable and left the group. It also asserted that Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi had received payments from Vietnamese abroad to ˜ operate Bauxite Vietnam, namely from physicists Pha.m Xuân Yêm and Ðô Ð˘a.ng Giu and retired scientist Phùng Liên Ðoàn (BBC, 2009i, December 30). Another email containing two attachments appeared to circulate under the name of Pha.m Toàn. The first attachment was a two-page letter in which Pha.m Toàn requested to withdraw from Bauxite Vietnam because of health problems. It read, “I am like Pavlov. I only work well with dogs, not with people!” (Trân V˘an, 2010, January 1). The second one included emails between Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and his technical assistants that gave an impression of Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi as “two-faced” (Trân V˘an, 2010, January 1). These emails also suggested that Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was using the Bauxite Vietnam website for his own personal profit. However, Pha.m Toàn soon discovered that this email had been sent from a counterfeited account. The address was exactly as his own except that the “i” in his ij

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was not to pass any money through the hands of local officials. Based on certain encounters they experienced during this mission, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi believes that it “incited” the ire of state authorities against them and possibly prompted DNS attacks on Bauxite Vietnam.

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username “phamtoankhiemton” had been replaced by an inconspicuous “j.”14 Clearly, the counterfeited emails were being circulated to raise doubts about both the motivations and moral character of the two men. Phùng Liên Ðoàn, who lived in the United State and who had helped to set up Bauxite Vietnam and contributed money to the flood relief effort, also had his email account infiltrated. A counterfeit email circulated that slandered the reputations of Pha.m Toàn and Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, and corroborated allegations of a division between them (Ðu´,c Tâm, 2010, December 30; Gia Minh, 2010a, January 1). Once again, by casting suspicion over their connections with Phùng Liên Ðoàn, the hackers aimed to portray Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn as foreign collaborators aiming to undermine an independent Vietnam. They were alleged to have acted as self-interested pawns of hostile foreign forces, as these attacks attempted to deploy the old nationalist-socialist trope that whoever was against the communist party was also against the Vietnamese nation. In retrospect, these ruses may appear too crude to convince anyone. However, they were not without effect at the time, when much about the anti-bauxite campaign was still unclear and uncertain. Shortly after the emails were circulated, I canvassed opinions about the Bauxite Vietnam group among various Vietnamese friends and colleagues, including several who worked with NGOs in Vietnam. They tended to hesitate and waiver when giving their opinions. While they could not make any definitive claims, they expressed wariness of who was behind Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn. Even one person, who was a longtime friend to both Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn, admitted that she had felt confused and deeply disappointed by the emails, even as she doubted their authenticity. 14 Pham Toàn first found out about the counterfeit email from Nguy˜ ên Quang Lâ.p, . while both of them were attending a friend’s wedding in Hanoi (BBC, 2009h, December 29). Pha.m Toàn rushed home immediately to investigate. There he discovered that the email had not originated from his account at all. Pha.m Toàn then sent out an email to explain this situation and deny the information circulated by this email, except for the part that he had indeed at one point requested to resign from Bauxite Vietnam for reasons of personal health and commitment to other projects. Nguy˜ên Quang Lâ.p later related a corroborating account to RFA, as follows: “After hearing about the two emails, writer Pha.m Toàn was completely shocked. He left the wedding immediately to run back home. One hour later, he called me many times, saying those guys [i.e., hackers] counterfeited my email. They just switched the letter ‘i’ with a ‘j’ in the email address. At 10.30 p.m., I then received an email from Pha.m Toàn explaining this to everyone” (Trân V˘an, 2010, January 1).

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Not everyone was fooled by them, however. In an interview with RFA, Nguyên Ngo.c commented: This dirty plot has been contrived by feeble persons. Deep down inside they know that they are feeble even though they are very aggressive on the outside. Of course, they are not powerful people, who are confident of themselves. People who are strong know how to dialogue. They are decent and transparent. They don’t use violence and underhanded ways like this. (Nhâ.t Hiên, 2009, December 29)

While Nguyên Ngo.c’s comments may appear directed at specific individuals, they were general comments on state tactics. Meanwhile, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and his assistants continued to work to re-establish Bauxite Vietnam, which they finally did again on January 11th. The new website was created with four different url addresses, only for all of them to be attacked and disabled the next day. As these cyber-attacks continued, the police turned up at the home of Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi with a search warrant. They confiscated his computer hard drive, some books, and a pile of DVDs.15 They also took Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi to the police station for questioning. He was released later that night. However, they returned every day for the next four days ´ (Lunar New and then intermittently until February 4th, just before Têt Year). While admitting that the interrogations caused stress and anxiety for himself and especially his wife, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi described his discus,, sions with the police as “just normal” (bình thuong thôi). He described his , ´ interrogators as young, intelligent, and “earnest” (tu tê). He also related instances of joking and playful banter. When he was first taken in, he recounted that a couple of plain-clothed female officers stayed behind with his wife because she was anxious and had a history of high blood pressure. On the way to the station, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was even able to ij

15 Specifically, the police confiscated along with the hard drive a book by “dissident”

` Ðô. and a pile of illicit CDs, which Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi claimed had been General Trân left there by his son-in-law. The particular selection of these items was not random. Their purpose was to prove connections with “reactionary forces” and attack the moral character of the accused. As exemplified in the arrest of Cù Huy Hà V˜ u half a year later, who was nabbed while sharing a hotel room with a female companion, highlighting allegedly illicit sexual behavior is a choice tactic for getting the public attention and attacking the moral character of the accused.

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convince the officers to stop at a computer shop for him to pick up the modem that was supposed to be delivered to his house that afternoon. Pha.m Toàn was also taken in for questioning on the morning of January 14th, but he was released by noon without further interrogation. In an interview with the BBC, Pha.m Toàn described his interrogators in almost friendly terms. As he reported, “Their attitudes were not harsh. I always felt comfortable. We laughed as we spoke. I thought to myself that I just needed to make them understand who we were. So I wasn’t tense. I think I was very respectful today. We often say that they [i.e., authorities] are very respectable. Today, I think I was very respectable” (BBC, 2010a, January 14). However, these appearances of respect and cordiality should not obscure the harsh realities underlying this situation—as, indeed, such appearances may have been designed to do. That police officers stayed behind with Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi’s wife was an indication that the situation was anything but “just normal.” It was a courtesy only within the context of the harsher situation that the authorities had created for Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and his family. Being in Hanoi at the time, I recall how many persons close to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi expressed deep concerned about his situation. Among them, they had organized for somebody to stay with his wife for each of the twenty-two days during which he was taken in for questioning. The interrogation process was also very long and disruptive. Sometimes Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was brought to the station from early in the morning and returned home only late at night. A lot of that time was just waiting around, as Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi described the actual time for questioning each day was “only about four hours.” As Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi expressed to the BBC, it was “exhausting” (BBC, 2010b, January 22). The stakes rose when Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was one day brought to see the Vice-Director of the Department of Security. After initially praising Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi’s scholarly work and certain revolutionary members of his family, as if to remind Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi of his allegiances, the ViceDirector then asked Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi to write a confession. Surprised, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi asked why. The Vice-Director then compared him to ` Hu`ynh Huy Thu´,c, who, one week the case of Lê Công Ði.nh and Trân earlier, had just been sentenced to five and sixteen years of prison, respectively. The difference was that Lê Công Ði.nh had “agreed” to write a ` Hu`ynh Huy Thu´,c had not. For the first time, confession, while Trân Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi said he became really “upset in his gut.”

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The next day, the Vice-Director called him in again and asked Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi to rewrite eight pages of his statement. He was clearly trying to intimidate Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi. However, rather than being afraid, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi described himself as feeling insulted and suddenly angry. Because of this, he then excused himself to go to the toilet to avoid acting inappropriately or “losing face.” From the toilet, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi then called his friend, lawyer Cù Huy Hà V˜ u. At that time, Cù Huy Hà V˜ u said he was sitting in the office of the Party’s Secretary General, Nông Ðu´,c Ma.nh. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi said to him, “You have to come here immediately. Now, , ` It’s not like before I am being pressured for real (bi. truy bu´ c thâ.t rôi). anymore, now it’s real pressure. You need to come here immediately. If my blood pressure rises, it will become dangerous.” Cù Huy Hà V˜ u rushed over together with his brother. According to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, the two brothers slipped through the gates of the station and began yelling from below, “You sons of bitches! If Professor Huê. Chi collapses there because of his high blood pressure, I will send the lot of you to jail!” Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi gently encouraged the police to go down to speak to Cù Huy Hà V˜ u. A couple officers did just that and managed to dissipate the tension. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was then released without further delay. The accounts of both Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and Pha.m Toàn suggest a certain bravado. Never do they admit to feeling afraid or uncertain. Rather, their emotions are ones of anger and indignity. Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi’s situation is resolved heroically by Cù Huy Hà V˜ u, whisking himself away from the apparently trivial business of speaking with the Party’s General Secretary only to shout obscenities at Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi’s persecutors. However, the turn of events also suggests that Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was much less comfortable than he may have let on, notably when he expressed concern about his rising blood pressure. Their bravado suggested a certain fearlessness before the power of state authorities, but it should not obscure the harshness of the situation either. Furthermore, their bravado highlights the performative character of their activism, as dignified and fearless individuals ready to stand up to their oppressors. Five days after this last encounter, the police called Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi again. This time their purpose was to reassure him that everything was now settled. According to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, the police had concluded that the Bauxite Vietnam “website was entirely patriotic.” They also returned confiscated items to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi and issued a statement of exoneration. However, the exoneration was for charges that never

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existed or, at least, were never made clear to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi. The ` Dân ` petition police also added, in a statement reminiscent of the Trân (see Chapter 3), there had only been an “an administrative error.” That error was related to the posting of one article on the website that had spoken libelously of former Prime Minister Pha.m V˘an Ðông and former President Lê Ðu´,c Anh. According to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, the police concluded by saying, “Your website is patriotic. It is clearly passionate about the nation, and it represents the voice of the intellectuals wanting to contribute to finding the best solution to the urgent issues of the nation.” However, they did not forego the opportunity to add, “we just request of you this one thing. You are all intellectuals, but intellectuals in different fields. Therefore, you should only talk about micro issues. For macro issues, or specific or technical things, you should let the government experts speak. They will raise their voice. You do not need to intervene because if you intervene on a topic that you are not an expert on, you will speak incorrectly.” In other words, they issued their own verbal version of Decision 97: let the authorities take responsibility for their own criticism. Bauxite Vietnam was finally, again, re-established on February 4. Despite the police officer’s words of approbation, the website was now put under a firewall inside Vietnam, like so many other websites that offer critical commentary on Vietnamese politics.16 The police also made it known to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi that he was now under observation. Hence, while Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi described the situation as “case closed,” Pha.m Toàn’s description was more accurate. As he commented to Radio Free Asia, “we never say they [i.e., authorities] are finished, we just say ‘temporarily suspended!’” (M˘a.c Lâm, 2010, January 14). Examining state repression in Vietnam is always a difficult task because it is near impossible for anyone outside of high-level decision-making circles to know exactly what has happened for what reason. The partystate is always engaged in a game of cracking down on specific individuals to send messages of admonishment to its would be critics, while simultaneously dissimulating the extent of its repressive machinery. Why would a repressive state need to dissimulate? The answer re-emphasizes the point 16 Bauxite Vietnam had actually managed to re-establish a combined web and blog site on February 1st, but again it was attacked and dismantled. It is worth noting that that these attacks on Bauxite Vietnam finally ceased on the same day that the police communicated their conclusions to Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi.

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that repression requires a veil of legitimacy, for both domestic and foreign audiences. If state officials want to instill the belief that they are a modern nation-state, fighting for the freedom and happiness of its people, then evidence of brutal repression would undermine this narrative. At the same time, however, for repression to be effective, it has to be made known to its targets, such as activist communities. Understanding the party-state’s “responsiveness” must also recognize its role in supporting, by dissimulating, repression. Examining how these two arms of the party-state responded concurrently, perhaps in coordination, to the bauxite mining controversy helps to make this point.

Conclusion The Politburo’s concessions on bauxite mining that emerged with its official Communication at the end of April suggested a degree of responsiveness from the nation’s top leaders. Among these concessions was a requirement that the government prepares a report on bauxite mining for the National Assembly. The explosive discussions that then ensued at the National Assembly’s bi-annual meeting in May and June suggested, on the surface at least, a vigorous and healthy debate among Vietnam’s elected officials. The scene gives credence that the Vietnamese Communist Party runs an accommodating and responsive state. However, closer analysis shows how the discussions at the National Assembly were a kind of residual involvement left available to delegates when a more significant input, namely the right to vote on the projects, was not. The debate that ensued at the National Assembly was less a sign of its function than its dis-function. It is what delegates were allowed in place of their legally protected right to vote on development projects of national significance. The debates themselves were also subject to a variety of controls imposed upon them by the government. This included limiting time for discussion (e.g., in response to delegate requests to add a separate day to discuss bauxite mining), providing inadequate or vague information to delegates, and, as the discussion became more intense, deploying the state’s top brass to defuse and dismiss discussion. These, of course, are not tactics that exist only under authoritarian regimes, but they are an essential part of the tactics used by the Vietnamese party-state to manage and suppress public criticism. If the Assembly meeting was another spectacle of government responsiveness, then the actual crackdown on activists was carried out behind

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the scenes. The series of high profile arrests of bloggers and Decision 97 targeted bloggers and intellectuals, who were at the center of the discourses being generated about bauxite mining. Six months later, a series of somewhat mysterious events occurred that targeted Bauxite Vietnam, namely successive cyber-attacks that paralyzed the website and infiltrated email accounts. These events happened as Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was subjected to 22 days of police interrogations. What was particular about these incidents was their apparent anonymity and the almost amicable ways the interrogations seemed to proceed. However, behind these surface appearances was the reality that state authorities were using intimidation and harassment as a way to curtail activities on the Bauxite Vietnam website. Finally, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi was “exonerated” for charges that were never made clear to him. The police told him that they had found nothing wrong with the Bauxite Vietnam website. However, even this did not prevent it from being firewalled inside Vietnam once it was finally re-established on February 4th, 2010. Examining the objectives and intentions behind the party-state’s repressive acts is always difficult to do, mainly because of the opacity with which decisions are made. Without access to the inner circles of the Politburo, it is difficult to discern whether a particular act of repression (e.g., arrest of a blogger, enactment of Decision 97) was related to the bauxite mining debates, or verify an act of sabotage was carried out by state authorities (e.g., anonymous hacking of Bauxite Vietnam). The irony of it, however, is that repression appears less as a show of strength than a sneak attack. The reasons would seem puzzling. Yet they testify to how repression is a multi-pronged strategy, which includes maintaining a delicate balance between the public spectacle of dialogue and justice and the surgical, if clandestine, application of force. What is perceived as responsiveness in the Vietnamese state must also be considered in how it works together to enable, and cover for, its mechanisms of repression. In this chapter, I have argued that the debates carried out in the National Assembly, especially as they were manipulated by the nation’s top leaders, and the repressive measures that followed over the next eight months, manifested both sides of this calculus. The party-state’s repression is less a flexing of muscle than an elaborate dance.

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Viê.t Tân. (2009, April 22). Save Tây Nguyên Campaign Sheds Light on An Inconvenient Truth. Viê.t Tân. http://www.viettan.org/Save-Tay-NguyenCampaign-Sheds.html VietnamNet/VNA. (2009, August 20). Trial nears for defendents in “extremely serious” national security case. Vietnamnet Bridge. Võ Nguyên Giáp. (2009, May 20). Letter to Central Committee and Politburo [Personal communication]. Vuving, A. (2010). Vietnam: A tale of four players. Southeast Asian Affairs. http://www.scribd.com/doc/43386176/Vuving-Vietnam-A-Tale-of-FourPlayers Wells-Dang, A. (2012). Civil society networks in China and Vietnam: Informal pathbreakers in health and the environment. Palgrave Macmillan. ´ d-`âu tu, Xuân Linh, & Lê Nhung. (2009, May 27). Bô-xít: TKV phai tính la.i vôn [Bauxite: Vinacomin must recalcuate investment capital]. Vietnamnet. http:// vietnamnet.vn/print/ ij

CHAPTER 6

Conclusion: What Came Next

In 2009, the bauxite mining controversy suggested a scope and scale of collective opposition to the government ruling regime that had rarely, if ever, been seen before in post-reform Vietnam. Yet the outcomes were ambiguous. The National Assembly had one of its most controversial meetings in recent memory—though signs of a growing mood for debate had already been seen the previous year—but, in the end, a minority of outspoken delegates could do nothing to change decisions that had already been taken. Nearly 3,000 Vietnamese persons, nearly two thirds of which were from inside Vietnam, openly signed their names and addresses to an online petition that mocked government plans and decision-making, but received no clear response from the government. The Bauxite Vietnam website that hosted this petition and attracted millions of hits was ultimately attacked, dismantled, and firewalled, while its creators suffered police intimidation and interrogation. The domestic press, taking advantage of its new tools for online media, played pivotal roles in bringing the government’s plans for bauxite mining to the public, but once again it was forced by the government into a grumbling silence. For the domestic NGO that had quietly removed itself from the spotlight and assembled a small network of scientists and experts to start a public debate, it lost its ability to exist without a government sponsor. After activists from across the country spoke loudly and fearlessly about bauxite

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mining, a high profile crackdown arrested and eventually sentenced a group of them to up to sixteen years of prison. Meanwhile, the few concessions that were granted to the critics, such as ordering environmental and economic reassessments, served only to reinforce, rather than diminish, the government’s authority to decide on the fate of these projects. The first two bauxite mining projects, the ones that had been in the works since at least the late 1970s, continued to move forward as before, only now carrying the epithet of “pilot projects.” The initial furor and ebullience that had driven the public debate on bauxite mining seemed to have been doused by a strong dose of government-as-usual. But that was over ten years ago today. With some retrospective vision, we can now see more clearly how and where the bauxite controversy had effects. Since 2009, political culture in Vietnam has changed significantly. It has become significantly more active and engaged. Of course, the bauxite mining controversy was not the single cause of these changes. The controversy itself was the result of social and economic transforma, tions advancing since the d-ôi mo´ i reforms of the late 1980s, and perhaps sparked also by the economic slump in Vietnam that followed the Global Financial Crisis in 2008. However, as I have argued in this book, the bauxite mining controversy was a pivotal point, as well as a catalytic event for what came next in Vietnamese domestic politics. In this chapter, I will trace in more details the links between a more active political culture in Vietnam today and the personalities, networks, and discourses that emerged with the bauxite mining controversy. In the years following the bauxite mining controversy, more Vietnamese people from across the country and increasingly diverse backgrounds have become increasingly involved in contesting national level policy, or speaking out openly against the political system and ruling regime. The range of ways of expressing themselves has multiplied, as well as the degrees to which they have become willing to directly challenge or oppose the government and communist party. Mass demonstrations, which used to be rare and mostly confined to local issues, often over land expropriation, have become cross-national, multifaceted, and almost yearly events. With the help of online platforms, activists have become bolder in speaking out collectively and forming their own “independent associations” without the government’s blessing, or permission. ij

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Most of these developments cannot be explained by shifts in government policy or practice, let alone in structural changes in the Partydominated political system. Neither can they be explained with a resurgence of historical anti-Chinese sentiment, or a sudden interest in environmental issues. These transformations have emerged from complex social and political dynamics within Vietnamese national identity and reflect broad changes in political awareness and culture. Changes in mentality and culture are difficult to track or measure, however. By examining the bauxite mining controversy as a pivotal point, we can understand better the significance, and origins, of the political transformations in Vietnamese domestic politics over the past decade. For activists, the events of the last ten years show they have become more autonomous and oppositional. By way of conclusion to this book, I review three important forms of autonomy and opposition that have taken shape since and in many ways built from the diverse forms of opposition that came together during the bauxite mining controversy. They are an examination of the online petition movement led by the Vietnamese intellectuals; the emergence of cross-national protests often organized, promoted, and coordinated by online activists and intellectuals; and the re-emergence of independent associations that have found a way to escape state licensing by simply not requesting it. Each of these three trends over the past ten years indicate how Vietnamese activists, as the beachheads of wider political sentiments and attitudes, have become more autonomous and oppositional. Their surge in political activity has raised new challenges for the political domination of the ruling regime. Each of these three tends have an important legacy in the bauxite controversy, and especially the online petition and Bauxite Vietnam website of Nguy˜ên Hu.e Chi, Pha.m Toàn and Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng. The online bauxite petition gradually led to many more such petitions and open letters by Bauxite Vietnam, other intellectuals and an increasingly wide cross section of Vietnamese persons and eventually associations. I refer to it as the online petition movement. While the Internet enabled activists to share information, raise awareness and keep in contact with one another, the intellectuals’ particular use of the Internet as a platform for publicizing and garnering support for their petitions helped to reinforce their status as communal elites staking out autonomous positions from the party-state, generating a more mainstream discourse of

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opposition, and building increasingly wider networks of socio-political activism. In this chapter I follow these processes over the next ten years, notably as the main entities leading these petitions transformed from prominent intellectuals to a new breed of self-declared autonomous associations and helped generate wider forms of organized, yet almost invariably peaceful, protest (The 2014 riots were an outlier whose mysterious and suspicious origins are discussed further below). Throughout these transformations the tone and texts of the petitions also became increasingly oppositional and openly political.

Online Petition Movement The petition against bauxite mining posted online in April 2009 with the signatures of many prominent Vietnamese intellectuals broke new ground. It was the first time in a longtime that so many prominent Vietnamese scientists, scholars, writers, artists, and others had come together to speak out collectively on a national policy. It was also a rare example of Vietnamese from inside and outside the country banding together in opposition to the party-state. Not least of all, it was unprecedented that nearly 3,000 Vietnamese citizens, two thirds of whom were from inside Vietnam, openly signed their names online to such a petition. Even as the petition earned no explicit reply or recognition from the government, it had an extraordinary effect. It created a new template for Vietnamese activists to apply public pressure on the party-state. In the years that followed, these petitions only grew in frequency, popularity and became increasingly oppositional. In this section, I review these petitions over the next six years, from 2010 to 2016. In 2016, a group of 61 party members boldly petitioned the Vietnamese Communist Party to “leave off from the mistaken path of socialism.” It was around that time too that these petitions were led no longer by individual intellectuals and activists, but organizations that had formed, in several cases, around the petitions. The online petitions I discuss in this section have been called different names, including petition ´ nghi.), declaration (tuyên bô), ´ appeal (lo`,i kêu or recommendation (kiên , go.i) or open letter (thu ngo), or simply statements to “oppose” (phan ` or “contribute ideas” (góp ý). For simplicity, d-ôi), “demand” (yêu câu) I refer to them collectively as online petitions. These petitions vary in ij

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length from a few paragraphs to several pages, though generally they are short texts articulating key demands or insights supported with varying degrees of analysis. Adjoined to these texts is usually a list of the original sponsors of the petition, who have typically been prominent Vietnamese intellectuals or activists. Sometimes they are a little more than a dozen to begin with, and at other times they are more than one hundred, as was the case with the first online bauxite petition and its 135 signatures. The number of initial signatures often serves as a shorthand to reference the petition itself, such as the Petition 135. When the petition is posted online, it is often, though not always, done so with an invitation for the wider public to add their online signature. In most cases, and this is what makes them notable in the Vietnamese context, the signatures are not anonymous. Signers are asked to provide their true name, employment (which can be employment type, position or organization), and address (which can be as specific as a street address or as general as a country). New lists of signatures are usually regularly updated onto the website hosting the petition, leading to an eventual total of all the people who have signed their support to the petition. Over the past ten years, these petitions have addressed a wide range of issues, typically the most hotly contested issues of the moment in the domestic media, on the Internet or, in later years, on the streets. The composition of the initial sponsors of the petitions varies according to the subject of concern, although there is often significant overlap between them. Another remarkable feature of these petitions is that the people that have signed, even when they were circulated internationally, are almost entirely Vietnamese (as indicated by their names). This is likely because most, though not all, of the petitions were posted uniquely in Vietnamese, but it also reflects the highly nationalistic character to these petitions, whether among Vietnamese citizens or foreign nationals. Examining together these different types of petitions allows us to see how online activism, the re-emergence of the intellectuals, and the shifting dynamics of state–society relations in Vietnam came together to present new challenges to the ruling regime and foster other forms of contentious politics at the national level. Their initial development, however, was gradual and tentative. Even after the initial success of the online petitions and open letters around the bauxite mining controversy in 2009, the next high profile online petition did not appear for another year, and it was more of a follow up on bauxite mining. The petition was inspired by a massive spill of 30 million tons of “red mud” at a

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bauxite-alumina processing facility in Ajka, Hungary, in October 2010. The industrial disaster that claimed the lives of nearly a dozen people, while making uninhabitable two nearby villages and killing off life in two local rivers, provided a sharp reminder to Vietnamese activists of the risks in which the Vietnamese government was partaking in the Central Highlands.1 The 2010 online bauxite petition was hosted on the Bauxite Vietnam website, whose three founders, Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, Pha.m Toàn, and Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng, led the initial list of sponsors together with members of the former Institute of Development Studies (IDS). As discussed in Chapter 5, IDS was a think tank of former high-level policy analysts, which has been described as Vietnam’s first independent think tank. The collaboration of Bauxite Vietnam and IDS on the new petition was significant. They were two of the most important nodes of activist intellectuals inside Vietnam. Minus a couple of individual members, IDS did not endorse the first online bauxite petition in 2009, despite having to pay the price for it when the government enacted Decree 97 which led to IDS’s disbanding. But in 2010, key figures of IDS sponsored the online bauxite petition together with Bauxite Vietnam, and signed it as former IDS members. As with the 2009 petition, the new online bauxite petition received nearly 3,000 signatures when it was posted online. However, one signature in particular drew a lot of attention, that of former Vice-President Nguy˜ên Thi. Bình. Madame Bình, as she was popularly known, was internationally recognized and domestically revered for her role in negotiating the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, which effectively ended American military intervention in the Second Vietnam War. As we saw in Chapter 3, Nguy˜ên Thi. Bình was, in fact, one of the first high-level former government officials to have raised her voice on bauxite in November 2008. But at that time she had done so quietly and out of the public view by writing a personal letter to the Prime Minister. Her intervention then relied on 1 The red mud was so caustic it decimated two local rivers, while also for a moment threatened the great Danube. Villagers were evacuated from two villages, and testimonies emerged of the red mud burning through the jeans of residents caught wading through it. Several were treated for third degree burns. These events led to another public discussion of Central Highlands bauxite online, in the domestic media and, again, at the National Assembly’s bi-annual meeting in October and November of 2010. Apart from the online petition, however, these discussions did not lead to any significant new developments in the implementation of the national bauxite policy.

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her historical status within the communist party and personal connections to try to influence government decision-making. It was not meant to create or even contribute to a public debate, at least not until the letter found its way online in the spring of 2009. Yet, like the letters of General Võ Nguyên Giáp, her intervention signaled more communal elites taking an oppositional stance toward the party regime. From its inception in 2009, Bauxite Vietnam had been active in forging discussion on important social and political events in the country, having long transcended its initial focus on Central Highlands bauxite. In 2011, Bauxite Vietnam took another bold step. It posted on its website another petition, this time demanding the release of activist lawyer Cù Huy Hà V˜ u, who had been sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of “spreading propaganda against the state.” Cù Huy Hà V˜ u was the same person, who in 2009, audaciously sued the Prime Minister on bauxite mining (see Chapter 4). To the surprise of many, however, he was largely left alone at the time. This was perhaps due to personal connections within that shielded him from harm, as he also had a prestigious background as the adopted son of celebrated socialist poet Xuân Diê.u. However, emboldened by his bauxite stint, Cù Huy Hà V˜ u’s confrontations with state authorities only became more brazen after 2009, until he was eventually arrested in mid-2010. He was finally sentenced in 2011 with seven years in prison. If the two online bauxite petitions, which could still provide a degree of political cover as ostensibly, environmental issues, the petition for Cù Huy Hà V˜ u was overtly political. It addressed one of the most tabooed discussion topics in Vietnam, the imprisonment of activists. This petition was also posted on Bauxite Vietnam and, again, it garnered nearly 3,000 online signatures. It was not, however, the only form of protest to Cù Huy Hà V˜ u’s arrest. Other activists and sympathetic citizens sent flowers to Cù Huy Hà V˜ u’s office and held a vigil around his house. The online petition both demonstrated support and brought attention to the case of Cù Huy Hà V˜ u and the people supporting him. As the authors of this petition were the same ones as the bauxite petition, their criticisms of the ruling regime and its suppression of political rights and free expression further connected activist networks around bauxite mining to those around prisoners of conscience. The petition for Cù Huy Hà was a sign of things to come in 2011. When a Chinese marine vessel cut the cables of a Vietnamese petroleum explorership in the South China Sea later that summer, Vietnamese from

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across the country and around the world took to the streets in protest in a way that had not been seen since the wartime or colonial eras. Confrontations between China and Vietnam on the South China Sea had been simmering for several decades, including during the Vietnam wars. As China became increasingly assertive over its claims in that maritime area during the 2000s, confrontations and skirmishes with Vietnam had begun to pick up again. Vietnamese citizens also began to speak up about them, protesting the perceived inefficacy of the Vietnamese political leaders. In December 2007, a few dozen demonstrators protested Chinese expansionism in front of the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi. One year later, similarly small demonstrations occurred in Ho Chi Minh city to protest Chinese expansionism during the Beijing Olympics torch relay in Vietnam. In 2011, however, demonstrations gathered in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and other major cities across Vietnam. Though the size of the demonstrations was still relatively small, perhaps exceeding one hundred only in Ho Chi Minh City, cross-country demonstrations in cities across Vietnam were nearly unheard of at the time. Furthermore, the demonstrations put the Vietnamese leaders in a bind. If the authorities forcibly suppressed the demonstrations, then the leadership could appear weak or, even worse, complicit with Chinese interests. Having long discredited human rights and democracy activists as “foreign collaborators,” subtly invoking the rhetoric of the Vietnam wars, political leaders risked appearing as complicit with a foreign power, notably the most vilified foreign power in Vietnamese historiography and folklore. Yet simply allowing the protests to continue risked further damaging their credibility, especially as the issue was being used, as it was in the bauxite mining controversy, to highlight the problems and injustices of the authoritarian political system. The authorities appeared to do their best to bear out the demonstrations, which continued every Sunday for eleven straight weeks. In the end, however, they resorted to their usual tactics of intimidating protestors and forcibly removing them. However, conscious of the image that this produced, a lot of the policing was done by plain-clothed officers, who appeared as thugs busting up crowds with random violence. These apparent thugs also helped herd demonstrators onto busses that transported them to nearby police stations for detention and investigation. Again, the Vietnamese intellectuals posted petitions online to draw attention to this situation. On July 11th, former director of the Vietnam

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Union for Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA), Hô` Uy Liêm, led an online petition by twenty Vietnamese intellectuals that decried the current situation as a domestic political crisis (Petition 7/11, 2011). It condemned the Vietnamese leadership’s weakness in the face of the Chinese threat. Its accusations of government failure to defend the national territory was a damning of indictment of the Vietnamese Communist Party, and a brazen contradiction to the historical narrative upon which the party had built its political legitimacy. This online petition was followed by an open letter signed by thirty, , six overseas Vietnamese intellectuals in August (“Thu Ngo Gui Các Nhà , ´ Hoa. Ngoa.i Bang và Su. c Ma.nh Dân Tô.c [Open Letter Lãnh Ða.o vê` Hiêm to Leaders on External Threats and the Nation’s Strength],” 2011), and then another one in September, dubbed as the 9/11 Petition, posted by fourteen others (Petition 9/11, 2011). Remarkably, even as these two petitions were led by overseas Vietnamese, whom the party-state had repeatedly portrayed as against an independent Vietnam, they were also signed by hundreds of Vietnamese from inside the country. In addition to posting the petitions online, several key figures leading the petitions, such as Nguy˜ên Huê. Chí (leader of the Bauxite Vietnam group), Chu Hao and Nguyen Ngo.c (former members of IDS), joined demonstrators on the streets. At the time, this was a bold and risky gesture. However, by doing so, these intellectuals demonstrated their solidarity with the protestors. Their blogs and commentaries on their participation in the demonstrations connected their political discourse with widespread popular grievance. This new trend of connecting political discourse with popular grievance continued in 2012 over another highly controversial issue in Vietnam, state expropriation of farming lands. In 2012, a couple of spectacular incidents of popular resistance to state land expropriation occurred in the northern provinces. One was near the port city of Hai Phòng, where farmer Ðoàn V˘an Vu,o,n hid out in a tree and shot at local police officers as they entered his orchard to evict him and his family. The story received wide coverage in the domestic press and drew public sympathy. The other incident occurred in V˘an Giang District in Hu,ng Yên Province on the border with Hanoi, at a commercial development project disingenuously called the Eco-Village. A few thousand farmers and their supporters demonstrated against the state’s acquisition of their agricultural lands at a low price, only to rezone it as commercial land for the developers of the Eco-Village. Protests over state land expropriation are common in Vietnam. Most of them remain shrouded ij

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in censorship and forcible containment. These ones, however, became a topic of national debate, notably in the domestic press and online. The networks of Vietnamese intellectuals and activists who wrote petitions on the demonstrations against Chinese expansionism also drew attention to the issue of land expropriation with more online petitions ,, (Ðoàn V˘an Vuon Petition, 2012; Tuyên Bô´ V˘an Giang, 2012). Again, their involvement helped connect a popular grievance to a more pointed political discourse. If a major limitation of previous confrontations with state authorities was that they did not connect with broader population groups of farmers, workers, or students—groups that in other places have often been associated with revolutionary activities—then the two petitions on land expropriation were starting to make these connec´ province tions. Hundreds of residents from V˘an Giang and Hu,ng Yên also signed the petitions. By signing these petitions, not only were they expressing their grievances on land expropriation, but they were also attaching it to a critique that emphasized liberal-democratic rights and freedoms, including the right to freedom of assembly, rule of law, and private property. The petitions reached a new height in popularity in 2013. While government had opened up its process of constitutional reform for public feedback, seventy-two prominent intellectuals—for which it was dubbed as the Petition of the 72—led an online petition that pushed for a stronger ´ Pháp [Petition on Consti´ nghi. vê` su,a d-ôi Hiên reform agenda (Kiên tutional Reform], 2013). Employing an increasingly liberal-democratic language of rights, the Petition of the 72, as it was dubbed, boldly called for a “society based on democracy, equality and rule of law” (Para 11), protecting the “natural rights of humans” according to the criteria of the United Nations’ Declaration on Human Rights (Para 18), limiting powers of the state to expropriate land (Para 24), and “protect[ing] in reality the independence of the judicial system” (Para 25). In addition, the petitioners reminded government leaders that a main purpose of the Constitution is to “limit abuse of power by the authorities” (Para 5) and not, they emphasized, to spread propaganda for any particular organization (Para 7)—they did not name any particular organization to which they might be referring, but the insinuation was clear. The Petition of the 72 included the petitioners’ own draft of the revised Constitution. Notably, their version omitted the famous Article 4. This article describes the Vietnamese Communist Party as the sole force ij

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leading State and society, and it has been interpreted as the legal basis for single-party dictatorship. This omission was tantamount to calling for a multi-party democracy. The petition also proposed to change the name of the nation-state from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Ironically, this was exactly what North Vietnam was called when the communist state was first recognized internationally in 1954, reflecting the complex positionality of the petitioners and the hybrid nature of political ideology. Nonetheless, the petitioners’ opposition to socialism was becoming increasingly apparent. What was most remarkable about the Petition of the 72, however, was not only its brazenness—this was far beyond the folds of embedded advocacy or rightful resistance—but that, even despite such brazenness, nearly 15,000 people openly endorsed the petition online. This petition was and still remains, by far, the most popular of the online petitions to date. It was also followed up with two other online statements, signed again by similar though shifting coalitions of intellectuals. One petition voiced opposition to the final draft of the new Constitution approved by the National Assembly in June, while one month later another one suggested further amendments to the Constitution and the Land Law (“Eminent Intellectuals Provide Further Feedback,” 2013; “Declaration on Draft Revision of Constitution,” 2013). The latter one again raised the issue of state expropriation of land, linking to the discussions of the 2012 petitions. Around the same time, an overlapping network of activists and intellectuals, led by co-founding IDS member Nguy˜ên Quang A, protested new government regulations that enabled the party-state to control and monitor Internet use and service providers (“Declaration on Decree 72,” 2013, p. 72). From the beginning, the online petitions have consistently challenged the Vietnamese party regime on its monopoly over political power and suppression of political rights and freedoms, which, as petitioners often noted, are protected under the Vietnamese Constitution and international agreements that the Vietnamese government has endorsed. While the early petitions were subtle in articulating these critiques, often deriving their rationale from referencing socialist struggle during the Vietnam wars and anti-colonial revolution, the petitions became increasingly explicit in demanding liberal-democratic forms of political expression and terminating the authoritarian control over the state by the Party. This transformation was most evident in the Petition of the 72, which was also the most popular online petition by far. And if the first petitions had begun

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with indirect criticism of state governance through ostensibly environmental issues, such as bauxite mining, the online petitions increasingly confronted the most sensitive political issues, such as state censorship, the persecution of prisoners of conscience, and authoritarianism. The Petition of the 72 in 2013 was not the end of the online petitions; in many ways, it was just their beginning. One message that had been articulated in different ways, with varying degrees of explicitness, and related to a range of issues, including bauxite, political prisoners, Chinese expansionism, and land expropriation, was made explicit in the Petition of the 72. This message was that petitioners rejected the authoritarianism of nationalist-socialism. They demanded political freedoms and protection of human rights, as defined but not implemented under the national Constitution. The Petition of the 72 delivered this message by dropping Article 4, which enshrined the Vietnamese Communist Party as the sole leader of state and society, from its recommended revisions to the Constitution. The Vietnamese people responded with nearly 15,000 signatures, which, while only a minute proportion of the entire population, had a symbolic significance that reflected the voices of many others. There was yet at least one more petition that would make this statement even more pointedly. Before arriving to it, however, we need to examine how the petitions began co-evolving with the growing frequency and popularity of mass demonstrations.

Going to the Streets: Mass Demonstrations In 2016, mass demonstrations that had begun in Central Vietnam found supporters across the country to protest contamination by a Taiwanese steel factory in Hà T˜ınh, which had allegedly contributed to hundreds of tons of fish and one small whale washing up dead on the beaches of four Central Vietnamese provinces. The demonstrations involved thousands of people in four central provinces and major cities across the country. Yet, these demonstrations were only the latest in what has become a growing trend of cross-national urban-based demonstrations in Vietnam to protest a wide range of issues. While cross-country demonstrations were almost unheard of prior to the bauxite mining controversy, ever since the China protests in 2011, they have become almost a yearly occurrence. Some have endured for weeks or months, and their numbers have been steadily growing from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands.

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Demonstrations are of course not new to Vietnam. But, until recently, the party-state had been largely successful in hiding them from public view and effectively containing their grievances to local issues. A few notable exceptions were the demonstrations in Thai Bình Province in 1997, which led to the Grassroots Democracy Decree 29 one year later, and the demonstrations in the Central Highlands in 2001 and 2004 led by ethnic minority groups, whose numbers have been unconfirmed but are believed to have been in the thousands and possibly tens of thousands. However, in neither of these cases did the demonstrations extend beyond their initial areas of conflict. There was no cross-national element to them. Even a couple of anti-China demonstrations before 2011 were small and insignificant. A demonstration in front of the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi in 2007 and another over Beijing’s Olympic torch parade in Ho Chi Minh City in 2008 involved less than a hundred persons. They were over in one day and they elicited little public attention or apparent sympathy. These dynamics changed with the demonstrations over the Chinese ship that cut the cables of a Vietnamese surveying vessel in 2011 and provincial demonstrations around state land expropriation in 2012. The online petitions were only one component of these complex struggles, but their role was an important one. The online petitions that emerged in support of these demonstrations helped heighten the visibility and credibility of demonstrators, while also articulating these popular grievances with a more pointed and sustained political critique. By examining three of the largest demonstrations in 2014, 2015, and 2016, we can see how they evolved closely with the re-emergence of the intellectuals and a growing sense of contentious politics in Vietnam. This is not to suggest that state authorities have become any more tolerant of demonstrations than they previously were. Rather the size and popularity of demonstrations have been making them increasingly difficult for the party-state to manage and control through traditional means. Cross-Country Mass Demonstrations Cross-country mass demonstrations are a common sight in Vietnam now. But before 2011, they had never occurred in the post-reform era. The largest cross-country demonstrations in post-reform Vietnam took place in 2014. Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in cities across the country, including thousands and possibly tens of thousands of

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demonstrators in each of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The trigger for these demonstrations was, as in 2011, conflict with China in the South China Sea. In May 2014, the multi-billion dollar Chinese oil rig, named the Hai Yang Shi You 981 (HYSY981), or Hai Du,o,ng 981 (HD981) in Vietnamese, entered waters within 200 nautical miles of Vietnam’s coastal shelf to drill for hydrocarbons. Vietnam claimed that China was drilling in Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), as defined by the International Law of the Sea. It was a brazen maneuver. By drilling inside the EEZ of another country, China had violated the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct in the South China Sea, and, according to Vietnamese officials, several bilateral agreements between high-level leaders of the two nations (Malesky and Morris-Jung, 2015). Beijing leaders were clearly aware of the precarity of the maneuver, as the oil rig was accompanied over the course of one month by more than one hundred other protective Chinese vessels, including seven navy vessels and two fighter jets. The reaction of the Vietnamese public was quick and incredulous. It began with initial reports in the domestic media, which were quickly circulated and amplified on the Internet and social media. Several open letters, online petitions and calls for demonstrations were posted, primarily by the networks of activists and intellectuals that had organized previous online petitions. Notably, a petition of 20 Civil Society Organizations called for demonstrations in front of the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi and the municipal Cultural House in Ho Chi Minh City at 9 am on Sunday, May 11th. A group of fifty-three southern intellectuals called for other demonstrations at the Opera House in Ho Chi Minh City at the same time on the same day.2 The organizers, day and timing of these calls for demonstrations echoed the demonstrations of 2011, which had also been organized on Sunday mornings by many of the same activists and intellectuals. Yet the reclamations in these online petitions and declarations were not only directed toward China. Their main target was the Vietnamese ij

2 On the Friday before, a small group of persons had held out signs and banners in front of the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi—and received many sympathetic honks from passing traffic—but they were reported to be less than a couple of dozen. A simultaneous but smaller demonstration was also reported to have taken place in the Central Region city of Da Nang also on May 11th.

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leaders, and especially the Vietnamese Communist Party. They criticized the party leaders for failing to protect the Vietnamese fisherman and national sovereignty, and ultimately for having led Vietnam into the current crisis because of their complicity with the socialist brotherhood. This line of argumentation resumed discussions that had emerged with the demonstrations of 2011. At the same time, many other groups across Vietnam became involved with the planned demonstrations, including a number of parastatal organizations. While these groups may not have been connected to activist networks, their involvement exemplified the difficult situation in which state officials were caught. On one hand, the optics of repressing the demonstrations would be very bad for the party-state. It would raise the question of whose side the Vietnamese leaders were on. On the other hand, allowing the demonstrations to continue risked allowing further visibility and sympathy for the type of criticisms that were being circulated against the party regime. In the Chinese context, it has been argued that political leaders used domestic protest to gain leverage in their international negotiating positions and then suppressed them once that purpose had been fulfilled (Weiss, 2013). For Vietnam, this would have been a risky calculation because, unlike in China, protesters were not praising but rather criticizing Vietnamese leaders for their handling of the situation. The protests did not signal regime support, but rather they accused political leaders of the highest treason: selling out to a foreign aggressor for personal gain. What happened next was both surprising and, ultimately, mysterious. Massive riots broke out in three sites, two in Special Industrial Zones ` for foreign investors on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City in Ðông Nai ,, and Bình Phuo´ c provinces and another, one day later, at the Taiwanese Formosa factory in the central region province of Hà T˜ınh. Up until then Vietnamese demonstrators had been exemplary in their commitment to peaceful measures. That these demonstrations turned into riots was surprising, and difficult to explain. And in the end, no clear explanation ever emerged of what happened over those two days. Both mainstream and non-mainstream media reported gangs of young people that worked the crowds, riding around on motorcycles. They crashed through factory gates, called on employers to release their workers for protest, and handed out flags, banners and possibly even, as some reported, money. They also carried their own sticks, crowbars, combustion fuel, and other equipment for organizing and inciting riot.

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Questions emerged about who these mysterious groups were, where they came from, how they were organized and who might have been supporting them. However, despite having detained more than 1,000 persons in connection with the riots, domestic security was unable to offer any credible explanations. They blamed the same old scapegoats, like the US-based anti-communist organization Viê.t Tân and eventually sentenced a couple dozen of mostly teen-ager and young men. These key questions have left the riots in a shroud of mystery. Are they an argument against a more permissive attitude toward mass demonstrations in Vietnam? Or do they reflect a desperate attempt by state leaders to find a way out of their initial dilemma? After the riots, more online petitions and declarations emerged, including several that chastised demonstrators that used violence. They condemned Chinese aggression, chastised the Vietnamese leadership for complacency and incompetence, and supported more public demonstrations while also admonishing against violence. Over the two and half months that the Chinese oil rig was stationed inside Vietnam’s EEZ, at least a dozen online petitions and collective statements were posted online. However, an open letter of sixty-one party members, which was posted online shortly after the Chinese rig unilaterally withdrew in midJuly, was a climax in the growing challenge being leveled at the party regime (“Open Letter to Vietnamese Communist Party,” 2014). Building on the bold statements of the Petition of 72, the sixty-one party members—twenty-five of whom had also signed the Petition of 72—explicitly demanded an end to socialism in Vietnam. They called for a definitive shift toward democracy as the only solution to the current crisis. “Confronting the poor and dangerous situation of the country,” they demanded all party members to: voluntarily and proactively … leave off from the mistaken path of socialism for a definitive change to the path of the people and democracy, and most importantly change the political system from totalitarianism to democracy in a decisive but stable way. (Para 6)

The online petitions played an important role in both organizing the demonstrations and condemning violent actions. They provided visibility and legitimacy to protestors’ concerns, as they had also done in the protests in 2011, as well as in 2012. They also connected popular grievances toward an external threat to a political discourse targeting

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the party-state regime, as was most evident in the open letter of the 61 party members. When demonstrations turned violent, the online activists also condemned violent actions and provided critical analyses on their potential causes, while continuing to encourage peaceful demonstration.

Self-Declared Autonomous Organizations During the chaos around the Chinese oil rig in 2016, a self-described group of “20 Civic Organizations” posted an online petition in protest (“20 Civic Organizations,” 2014). By this time, online petitions to confront the political leadership on major issues had become common. What was noticeably different about this petition was that it was signed by representatives of organizations, rather than as individuals. The difference was subtle but important. With the bauxite petitions, including the first one by scientists and experts in 2008, which was not made public, petitioners signed as individuals. They did this primarily to avoid implicating the organizations they worked for, and possibly also to dissimulate their degree of collective organization, which entailed more personal risk. With the petition of the 20 Civil Society Organizations, petitioners now signed as representatives of specific organizations. But what organizations were they? Among this group of twenty were civic and political activist organizations, such as the Civil Society Forum (formed earlier that year), the Friendship Association for Political and Religious Prisoners, and the human rights and democracy activist coalition Bloc 8406, which scholar Carlyle Thayer (2009) once described as the most advanced expression of an interconnected “political civil society” inside Vietnam; blogger groups and networks, such as the Vietnam Bloggers Network (also formed earlier that year) and some of the most contentious websites and blogs on Vietnamese politics of the time, such as Dân Làm Báo [Citizen Journalist], Dân Luâ.n [People’s Forum] and Anh Ba Sam; and religious organizations and advocacy groups, such as the Association for the Protection of Religious Rights and Freedoms, Nguyen Kim Dien’s Clergymen Group, and the Unified Sangha Buddhist Church of Vietnam, whose political struggles with the party-state date back to the Vietnam wars. Among them were self-labeled patriotic groups, such as the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City chapters of the No-U Group (referring to the U-shaped territorial claims of China in the South China Sea) and the Facebook group Patriotic

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Diary, which have also emerged to raise public awareness on and criticize the lack of Vietnamese leadership on the South China Sea conflict. In sum, these organizations were known regime critics, many of whose members had suffered ongoing state surveillance, harassment, and imprisonment for their views. Other collective statements were also issued by the Vietnam Independent Writers’ Association, which is a group of Vietnamese writers from inside and outside the country (whose announcement to establish the Association earlier that year recalled the Nhân V˘an Giai Phâm Affair of the 1950s); the Vietnam Episcopal Council, which was formed in the 1960s to declare its ultimate allegiance to the Vatican, as well as assert its independence from the party-state; and Bauxite Vietnam, whose online petition against bauxite mining in 2009—which also involved a Chinese state-owned enterprise operating in a geo-politically sensitive region—catalyzed the re-emergence of the politically activist Vietnamese “intellectuals.” These organizations were of a different ilk than the NGOs and parastatal organizations typically discussed in the academic literature on civil society in Vietnam. Most of these organizations tend to remain silent on politically sensitive issues, as they largely did on the issues addressed by the intellectuals’ petitions. But the twenty organizations that signed the petition of 20 Civic Organizations were closer to what Thayer (2009) described as “political civil society.” They represented some of the most politically contentious Vietnamese activist groups to have emerged inside Vietnam in recent years, though some also had a much longer history. These organizations averted the dilemma of having to register under a government organization simply by declaring their establishment online. Indeed, this was exactly how the Bauxite Vietnam group developed from an activity led by three men to a loosely organized group of activists. The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) also continued to act in this way, even after they officially disbanded as a result of Decree 97. The members of this group showed their persistence as an association when they signed the 2010 online bauxite petition, in response to the “red mud” disaster in Hungary, and the 2011 online petition for the release of lawyer Cù Huy Hà V˜ u, as former members of IDS. There was a small explosion of these organizations after the Petition of the 72, emboldened perhaps by the growing culture of political activism. For example, a group of Vietnamese bloggers established the Vietnam Bloggers Network on July 18th, 2013 (Ma.ng lu,o´,i Blogger Viê.t Nam). The network established itself with its online Declaration 258, in ij

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reference to Article 258 of the Criminal Code which domestic security frequently invokes to arrest and sentence bloggers and activists. Around the same time, activist intellectual Nguy˜ên Quang A, who had co-founded IDS and was one of the first signatures on the first online bauxite petition, ˜ Ðàn Xã hô.i Dân led the establishment of the Civil Society Forum (Diên , su). The Forum operated via a restricted webpage, but posted its activities on a public Facebook page. These two associations were a couple of the foremost examples of activists wanting to establish civil society organizations on their own terms, independent of the party-state’s legal framework. In January 2014, the Free Viet Labor Federation announced its formation at a conference in Bangkok. The Federation was a coalition of the Independent Vietnamese Trade Unions (which had originally been stablished on October 20, 2006, by Lê Thi. Công Nhân, who had been imprisoned as one of the leaders of Bloc 8406 coalition); the United Worker-Farmer Association of Vietnam, originally established on December 30, 2006; the Vietnamese Labor Movement, established on October 29, 2008; and the Committee to Protect Vietnamese Workers, established in 2006 with members based in western nations and Malaysia. The Federation appeared as a reincarnation of Bloc 8406, albeit focusing more on the rights of workers and farmers. Their stated purpose was to “bring into the open the existence of the Free Viet Labor as one among the civil society community in Vietnam which is meant to protect the legitimate rights of Vietnamese workers—rights which up to now are being neglected” (Announcement of FVNLF , 2014). One month later, 68 former political prisoners formed an association of Former Vietnamese Prisoners of Conscience (FVPOC) by signing and posting a proclamation online, again reminiscent of the first online bauxite petition. Among them were Lê Công Ði.nh, who listed under his credentials three and a half years in prison and three years of police surveillance. As discussed in Chapter 5, Lê Công Ði.nh had been the most high profile activist arrested in the summer of 2009, during the explosive debates on bauxite mining and sentenced to seven years of prison in 2010. The association also included Lê Thi. Công Nhân (three years in prison and three years under police surveillance) and lawyer Nguy˜ên V˘an Ðài (four years in prison and four years under police surveillance), both celebrated labor activists who were sentenced in 2007 as leaders of Bloc 8406; Nguy˜ên ´ who had served a total of twenty years in prison since 1978; Ðan Quê,

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and journalist Pha.m Chí D˜ ung (six months in prison in 2012). This was a bold move from one of the most closely monitored groups in Vietnam. Later, in July, one of these former prisoners, Pha.m Chí D˜ ung, along with Catholic Bishop Anton Lê Ngo.c Thanh and forty others, announced the online formation of the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam. Pha.m Chí D˜ ung was its President. Three months earlier, in March, writer Nguyên Ngo.c, who had been a key figure in publishing , , the controversial d-oi mo´ i writers in the late 1980s and a central voice during the bauxite mining debates, announced the League of Independent Vietnamese Writers, along with another 58 members that signed onto its online declaration. I mention these last two organizations together because their autonomous establishment was a challenge to the existing system of state-based professional organizations, such as the Vietnam Association of Journalists and Vietnam Writers’ Association. As discussed in the first chapter, the state-based organizations form part of a broader network of organizations that enable the party-state to incorporate different professions and sectors of society into party-led organizational structures. State authorities use these associations, especially the professional associations, not only to monitor the activities of these groups, but also to manage their careers and punish individuals who violate party principles. Examples of punishment include demotions, expulsions, and coordinated defamation campaigns. The purpose of these organizations was to be independent of state control or incorporation. The names of a few, as in the Independent Journal of the organizations indicate their deliberateness on this pointists’ Association of Vietnam and the League of Independent Vietnamese Writers. The League emphasized that it is “completely independent of any other organisations existing inside and outside the country” (Declaration of VIWA, 2014). In addition to—and by virtue of—being independent, the League took on an added role, when compared to its state homologue, of fighting against “the indifference of its writers to their social responsibilities, their insensitivity concerning daily events, and, most importantly, their lack of independent thinking, which has also limited their creative capabilities.” Hence, not only was the League asserting independence from the party-state, but also challenging the mentality of state servitude that it had instilled upon Vietnamese writers. The Independent Journalists’ Association of Vietnam similarly described its mission to ij

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“reflect honestly and deeply on the hot topics of society and the country” and “protest” [phan biê.n] inappropriate policies of the state related to social control and freedom of the press. The continuities between the independent organizations and the online petition movement are notable. For both of them, their primary form of existence is through online commentary and interventions. They rely on bringing together their membership through online declarations, and many of the persons that led the online petition movement, also led the formation of these new organizations, such as Nguyên Ngo.c, Pha.m Chí D˜ ung, and Nguy˜ên Quang A. Like the online petitions, these organizations appealed to liberaldemocratic traditions for human rights and political freedoms as a direct challenge to party-state authoritarianism. The Vietnam Bloggers Networks listed as its “core values” on its Facebook Page “transparency, community spirit, democracy, pluralism, and inclusiveness.” The Civil ` Society Forum’s blogsite is called Civil Rights (Dân Quyên). Its website suggests liberal-democratic values, based on arts and culture, social justice, public health, women’s rights, global trade, human rights, development cooperation, and environment. The Former Vietnamese Prisoners of Conscience association based their demands on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and International Covenant on Social Economic and Cultural Rights. The Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam announced itself on the anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence. This does not mean that these organizations are instruments of western ideological wars but rather that they appealed to these traditions of political and human rights to help develop their own. Being in a loose association with a primarily online presence created a space where activists could be active and significantly complicated the task of state surveillance and control. However, these online activities, as discussed with the mass demonstrations, also generated actual, not only virtual, interventions. The Free Vietnam Labor Federation was one of the strongest examples of this, perhaps because it could count on pre-existing networks and resources of several different organizations. Nonetheless, the Federation has helped workers to organize strikes (e.g., 10,000 workers at My Phuong shoe factory in 2010) and claim unpaid wages (e.g., 4000 workers at Vina Duke claimed 10 days of owed pay). ij

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Another such group, called Viet Youth for Democracy, organized a ´ Vòng Tay Lo´,n” (Extend Embracing demonstration and petition to “Nôi Arms) prior to the 2006 APEC summit in Hanoi. It has helped coordinate international demonstrations to show universal support for democracy (e.g., in Paris for Tibetans on March 21, 2008 and with Amnesty International in front of the Vietnamese Embassy in London to protest arrests ´ Trung, Le Công Ði.nh, and other democracy activists of Nguy˜ên Tiên in May 2010). It supported more than 8,000 Vietnamese workers in a Nike factory in Malaysia to regain their passports in 2008, and helped free ten Vietnamese workers who had been jailed in Malaysia in 2013 for having no passports. It also campaigned for the government to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership,3 which included conditions to allow the formation of independent labor unions. Not least of all, the Viet Youth for Democracy has circulated newsletters and leaflets on the Vietnam Labor Code and worker rights, and it has produced reports on rights violations, promoted labor rights, monitored companies, and advocated for release of imprisoned labor activists in Vietnam. Others include the Vietnamese Women for Human Rights, which hosts an Annual conference on human rights for Vietnamese women, raises money for families, and conducts visits to women prisoners of conscience. The League of Independent Vietnamese Writers provides annual literary awards to writers, exercising their independence in judging and recognizing prized literary contributions, as well as made declarations on the Chinese HYSY 981 oil rig incident. Viet Youth for Democracy developed its own AHEAD Magazine, available in print and online, a radio program ´ nói Thanh niên, and translated a Handbook for Bloggers and Radio Tiêng Cyber-Dissidents from Reporters Without Borders. Not only are these associations helping to give political voice to a range of interests within the country, they have also built allegiances with international organizations and, like the online petitions, overseas Vietnamese communities. Borrowing from the reunification discourse that propelled the Vietnamese communists during the wars, Viet Youth for Democracy has set itself the goal of “uniting all Vietnamese, in-country and overseas.” The Free Vietnam Labor Federation identifies itself as a coalition

3 The agreement is now called the Comprehensive and Progressive Transpacific Partnership and it went into effect in 2019. Vietnam is one of eleven member states.

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of domestic and international labor advocacy organizations. The Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam has four main chapters, namely North, Central, South, and Overseas. Nearly all of these associations, if not all, count on members from inside and outside the country. Even as the total number of these autonomous associations is still few, and the participation of their members remains as precarious as ever, their emergence has been significant. They are not just burgeoning interest groups, but they reflect a direct challenge to the party-state’s existing structure of incorporated civil society organizations. They challenge the dominance of party structures in the arts, journalism, and labor. Even as they are a small network, they are led by prominent persons in their fields. Their overlapping membership in these associations also helps to build common cause. In their scope, language and members, they suggest a growing appetite for political reform and liberal democracy in Vietnam. Thus, by 2014, many of the activists that had been leading the petitions had become connected with online activist network-associations. They did not hold back in their calls for liberalization of the political sphere. Later in 2014, they issued an online petition to support pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong in October (“Declaration on Hong Kong and Vietnam,” 2014). While the petition’s ostensible purpose was to commend and support Hong Kong protestors in their “opposition to the communist regime” of Beijing (Para 4), it also decried the current situation in Vietnam as “a thousand times more undemocratic and hostile to human rights than Hong Kong” (Para 8). It encouraged young people in Vietnam to take up the struggle for democracy by wishing them to gain a “deep awareness of democracy” (Para 8) and for parents, teachers, and leaders to help “cultivate the democratic mindset in our young people” (Para 9). It also cited the general example of young people in Eastern Europe and, more recently, Northern Africa, the Middle East, Ukraine, Shinjang, and Tibet as models for Vietnamese youth (Para 11) and called on the “youth of Hong Kong to be the hope of the world” (Para 13).

Conclusion In 2014, in an edited volume on Politics in Contemporary Vietnam, Jonathan London described Vietnam’s political development as in an “extraordinary, if indeterminate, phase” (1). He noted that, until recently, politics in Vietnam had been “long a predictable affair,” while today it was

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“characterized by a sense of uncertainty and possibility that has no precedent in the country’s postwar history” (1). London described the changes as happening on multiple levels, and the collection of essays in that volume, which were authored by authoritative scholars on contemporary Vietnamese politics, were an exploration these changes across different spheres of politics and society. In particular, London highlighted the recent changes in Vietnamese “political culture,” as he wrote, “unfiltered political speech and contentious politics, only recently a rarity in Vietnam, have swiftly become commonplace. While the art of political commentary, dormant for decades, has seen a spirited revival” (1). The bauxite mining controversy was both a bellwether for and a catalyst to these changes. By detailed examination of the events leading up to and driving that controversy, Unearthing Politics has taken an in-depth look into a critical moment in Vietnam’s contemporary political transformation. The bauxite mining controversy spawned new networks of activism, networks that were already in the process of formation but that made new connections and reached new audiences. New networks spawned new forms of activism, especially through online activities. Through the medium of the Internet, which was just beginning to become popular in the early 2000s, activists found not only new ways they could communicate with the broader public, but also ways that they could associate together without having to be licensed by the party-state. The online petitions that emerged with the bauxite mining controversy became a way for activists to raise awareness on important issues, organize activities of protest, and eventually form activist collectives of like-minded persons and professionals. New networks and new forms of activism also brought life to new discourses of resistance and opposition. Such discourses are not so clean cut that they can be called anti-communist without complication. Rather, even the loudest calls for democracy or a multi-party electoral system in Vietnam emerged from the political history and culture of nationalsocialism. Their narratives showed that political transformations are never a complete rejection of the old, nor a wholesale embracing of the new. More often they are a more intricate and often subtle re-articulation of the old hallmarks of nation, people, or country into new combinations and new aspirations of evolving political communities. Like no other time in the postwar era, dissident and marginalized social groups have found common cause with mainstream voices in their criticisms of the government policy and the party-state. After decades of

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silence and suppression, the Vietnamese intellectuals have re-emerged as an important political voice, helping to articulate popular grievances of farmers, workers and citizens and propagating ideas for alternative political futures. Traditional voices of dissent, which had been so effectively suppressed and fragmented in the postwar era, now come together regularly to speak out against important policy and national security issues. They have included political dissidents, exiled writers and artists, persecuted Catholic and Buddhist churches, and anti-communist overseas Vietnamese communities. Despite divisions in political vision still lingering from the Vietnam wars, Vietnamese from the north and south speak together to express their dissatisfaction with the party regime and critically discuss national issues. Vietnamese overseas, who were so long isolated from the nation’s politics, have also featured prominently in these conversations. These groups have also begun to form—in part thanks to the new connective capacities of the Internet—their own independent associations. They include such organizations as the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vietnam, the Vietnamese Independent Writers’ League, and many other such organizations that have formed independently of the Vietnamese government’s registration and licensing requirements. Often, their association is primarily online, but, like the online petitions and websites, online networking has led to more concrete activities. And because these associations did not ask the government’s permission to exist, the government cannot disband them. However, probably the most visible change in the past ten years has been the increase in the number and frequency of mass demonstrations, especially cross-national multi-sited demonstrations. Prior to 2009, mass demonstrations were rare. Where they occurred, they were usually small, local, and quickly contained, with few exceptions. Since the anti-Chinese demonstrations in 2011, mass demonstrations have become increasingly frequent, popular, and visible. Cross-national demonstrations occurred almost every year in the ten years that followed the bauxite mining controversy. Often they protested Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea, as in 2011, 2014, and 2017, which, as I have argued above, was often as much a protest of the Vietnamese leaders as it was of Chinese ones. At other times, they protested state land expropriation, as in 2012; government malfeasance in the scandal of Hanoi’s 6,700 trees in 2015; and government complicity in industrial contamination that contributed to a massive fish die-off in Central Vietnam in 2016.

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The bauxite mining controversy was certainly neither the beginning, nor the singular cause, of these transformations. But it was a pivotal moment, the legacies of which are still being played out and fought over today. At the same time, however, other things have not changed at all. State repression of activists, journalists, and religious leaders still continues. The communist regime still opposes multi-party democracy, suppresses the domestic press and free speech, and regularly violates internationally codified human rights. But what has been changing are the mentalities and activities of many Vietnamese people in the political sphere. The question remains whether communist leaders in Vietnam choose to evolve along with these transformations, or continue to do battle with them.

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´ vê` Hiên ´ Pháp và Luâ.t Ðât ´ d-ai [Emininent intellecNhân s˜ı Trí thu´,c Góp ý Tiêp tuals provide further feedback on the constitution and the land law]. (2013, ˜ - BLOG. http://xuandienhannom.blogspot.sg/2013/07/nhanJuly 3). TÊU si-tri-thuc-gop-y-tiep-ve-hien.html. Thayer, C. A. (2009). Vietnam and the challenge of political civil society. Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs, 31(1), 1–27. Thu, ngo gu,i BCH Trung u,o,ng và toàn thê d-ang viên Ðang CSVN [Open letter sent to the Central Committee and all members of the Communist Party of Vietnam]. (2014, July 29). BA SÀM . http://anhbasam.wordpr ess.com/2014/07/29/thu-ngo-gui-bch-trung-uong-va-toan-the-dang-viendang-csvn/. ´ hoa. ngoa.i bang và su.,c ma.nh dân tô.c Thu, ngo gu,i các nhà lãnh d-a.o vê` hiêm [Open letter to leaders on external threats and the nation’s strength]. (2011, August 21). BA SÀM . https://anhbasam.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/thungo-gui-lanh-dao-vn-cua-tri-thuc-hai-ngoai/. ´ Pháp d-ang Trình Quôc ´ Hô.i Tuyên bô´ Phan d-´ôi Ban Du., thao Su,a d-ôi Hiên [Statement of objection against draft revision of the constitution presented ˜ - BLOG. http://xuandienh by the national assembly]. (2013, June 3). TÊU ij

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Images of Bauxite-Alumina Production at the Tân Rai Mining Sites in Lâm Ðông Province (2017)

An orangey-reddish clay—bauxite excavation in the Tân Rai project in Lâm ` Ðông province

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 J. Morris-Jung, Unearthing Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3124-5

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Typical landscape for bauxite excavation in the Central Highlands

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Excavation landscape in Tân Rai (Photo taken by author in 2017)

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Bauxite washing and processing in Tân Rai (Photo taken by author in 2017)

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Red mud cesspool (Photo taken by author in 2017)

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Red mud cesspool (Photo taken by author in 2017)

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Pipelines for bauxite sludge (Photo taken by author in 2017)

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Landscape rehabilitation after bauxite excavation—but how many will survive (Photo taken by author in 2017)

Index

A Activism, 9, 18, 21–23, 26, 100, 108, 123, 174, 175, 200, 201, 203, 214, 220 embedded, 65, 66, 108, 120 environmental, 6–8, 65 Agriculture, 69, 74, 80, 82, 95 Alcoa, 36, 39, 46, 49, 50, 85, 92, 105 Alumina, 35, 36, 45, 52–55, 79, 80, 85, 92, 96, 168 Aluminum, 1, 32–37, 39–41, 43–46, 49, 56, 79, 86, 96, 101, 106 Hall-Héroult process, 35, 36 smelting, 35, 49 Aluterv-FKI, 44 Annamite Mountain Range, 38, 51 Anti-Party Affair, 94, 126 ASEAN. See Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct in the South China Sea, 210 Asian Financial Crisis, 43, 45, 47, 48, 56 Asia Pacific Summit, 2006, 49

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 47 Australia, 34, 36, 37, 43, 80, 132, 133, 141, 142, 175 Authoritarianism, 6, 7, 18, 65, 66, 89, 108, 109, 153, 155, 156, 187, 204, 207, 208, 217 B Bao Lô.c District, 54 Bauxite, 1–4, 9, 12, 19–26, 31–46, 48–56, 64, 66–69, 73, 75–77, 79–81, 84–107, 109, 119, 120, 123, 126–138, 140, 144, 147–151, 153, 155–169, 171–174, 176, 177, 179, 187, 188, 197–204, 208, 213–216, 220–222 geology, 32, 33, 75, 77 technology, 32, 34, 77, 79, 107, 130, 132 Bauxite deposits May 1st, 42, 79 Nhân Co,, 54, 55 ij

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 J. Morris-Jung, Unearthing Politics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3124-5

233

234

INDEX

Tân Rai, 42, 54 Bauxite mining colonial era, 37 northern Vietnam, 37 southern Vietnam, 46, 103 Bauxite Petition 2008. See Scientists’ Petition Bauxite Petition 2009. See Intellectuals’ Petition Bauxite, political economy, 35 Bauxite processing, 39 alumina, 96, 202 Bayer process, 34, 35, 79 red mud, 1, 201 Bauxite projects Nhân Co,, 55, 158 Tân Rai, 54, 67 Bauxite Research Centre, 44 Bauxite reserve northern Vietnam, 37, 38 southern Vietnam, 45 Bauxite varieties boehmite, 33, 41 diaspore, 33, 38 gibbsite, 33, 39 Beijing, China, 209, 210 BHP Billiton, 39, 45, 49, 50, 92 Biên Hoà City, 44 Bình Phu,o´,c, 38, 51, 52, 211 Bình Thuâ.n, 53, 79 Bloc 8406, 2, 74, 101, 177, 213, 215 Brunei, 47 ´ 99 Bùi Minh Quôc, Bulgaria, 6, 42, 43, 64

C Cambodia, 39, 46, 48, 92, 99 Cao Ba˘` ng, 38, 175 Central Highlands, 1, 3, 11, 20, 26, 32–34, 38, 41, 43, 44, 46, 48–52, 54–56, 64, 67–69, 73,

75, 76, 79–94, 96–99, 101, 102, 107, 120, 129, 131, 133, 136, 143, 157, 159, 164, 166–168, 172, 177, 202, 203, 209 Central region, 38, 91, 142, 175, 180, 210, 211 Chalco. See Chinese Aluminum Corporation Chalieco, 50, 55 Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 44, 178 Chernobyl disaster, 65 China, 3, 20, 36–38, 43, 46–49, 53, 55, 56, 65, 85, 97–101, 109, 132, 133, 135–137, 162, 175, 177, 204, 208, 210, 211, 213 1979 border war/China war, 47, 48, 99 Chinese Aluminum Corporation (Chalco), 46, 50 Chu Hao, 205 Civil Society Forum (CSF), 213, 215, 217 Civil society networks, 18, 19, 66 CODE. See Consultancy on Development COMECON. See Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation Communal elites, 140, 142, 150, 199, 203 Communication 245, 156–158 Communist Party of Vietnam. See Vietnamese Communist Party Consultancy on Development (CODE), 64, 70–74, 76, 77, 84, 85, 87, 89, 90, 93, 104, 106, 109, 157, 178, 179 Council for Mutual Economic Cooperation (COMECON), 20, 31, 41, 42, 44, 46, 68, 80, 94 CSF. See Civil Society Forum Cuba, 41–43 ij

INDEX

Cù Huy Hà V˜ u, 23, 172, 173, 183, 185, 203, 214 Czechoslovakia, 42, 43, 64

D Daewoo Corporation, 44 Ða˘´ k La˘´ k, 38, 45 Ða˘´ k Nông, 42, 45, 46, 49–51, 54, 55, 73–76, 80–82, 84–86, 97, 103–107, 167 Ða˘´ k R’lap, 55 Ðà Na˘˜ ng, 24, 121, 129, 130, 142, 145, 174 Danh Út, 12th National Assembly delegate, 166 ´ 86 Ðào Công Tiên, Decision 97, 178, 179, 186, 188 Decision 167, 32, 50, 51, 53–55, 64, 76–78, 106, 172. See also National bauxite policy Democratic mobilization, 140 Di˜ên Ðàn, 138, 141, 149 Ðiêu K’ré, 12th National Assembly delegate, 167 ´ Cu,o`,ng, 138 Ðinh Tiên , Ðôi mo´ i, 12, 19, 43, 72, 78, 95, 125, 142, 143, 198 , Ðôi mo´ i writers, 100, 125, 181 ` Ðông Nai, 38, 44, 211 Dreyfus Affair, 122 Du,o,ng Thu Hu,o,ng, 81, 100, 125 ´ 12th National Du,o,ng Trung Quôc, Assembly delegate, 102, 107, 163–165 Du,o,ng Tu,o`,ng, 125, 126, 138, 141, 147

235

Eastern Sea. See South China Sea East Germany, 42, 43 East Timor, 47 Elite, 19, 63, 119, 122, 133, 150 Energy Magazine, 68, 69 Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts, 50, 55 Environmental activism China, 7, 65 Eastern Europe, 6, 65 Soviet Union, 6, 64 Ethnographic approach, 24 Everyday politics, 17–19 Experts, 2, 21, 24, 31, 41, 42, 51, 73, 74, 81, 91, 93, 103, 105, 108, 109, 128, 132, 134, 136, 138, 153, 157, 186, 197 Hungarian, 42, 80 Soviet, 31, 42 Vietnamese, 21, 24, 31, 42, 74, 91, 134

ij

ij

ij

E Eastern Bloc countries/Eastern Europe, 64

F FDI. See Foreign Direct Investment Fence-breaking (phá rào), 17 First Vietnam War, 12 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), 48 Forestry, 69, 74, 86 Former Vietnamese Prisoners of Conscience (FVPOC), 215, 217 Formosa, 63, 211 France, Les Baux, 33 Free Viet Labour Federation (FVLF), 215 Friendly Dalat Group, 143 FVPOC. See Former Vietnamese Prisoners of Conscience G Gia Lai, 51, 52, 95

236

INDEX

Global financial crisis, 99, 165, 198 H Hà Giang, 37, 38, 175 Hai Du,o,ng, 37 Hai Du,o,ng 981. See Hai Yang Shi You 981 (HYSY981) Hai Yang Shi You 981 (HYSY981), 210 Hanoi, 2, 21, 23, 24, 43, 44, 46, 48, 49, 63, 73–75, 88, 90, 93, 100, 101, 103, 119, 123, 126, 127, 129, 130, 138, 139, 141–145, 148, 159, 161, 170–173, 175, 182, 184, 204, 205, 209, 210, 213, 218, 221 Hà S˜ı Phu, 143 Hindustan Zinc, 44 Hoàng Hùng, 125, 126 Hoàng Trung Hai, Deputy Prime Minister (2007–2016), 77, 96, 104, 163, 169, 202 Hoàng Tuy., 138, 139, 179 Ho Chi Minh City, 24, 42, 74, 75, 86, 88, 103, 138, 141, 142, 157, 159, 168, 173, 175, 180, 204, 209–211, 213 Hô` S˜ı Giao, 74, 105 Huai River campaign (China), 7 Hu Jintao, 49, 50, 97 Hungary, 36, 41–43, 64, 202, 214 Hydropower/hydroelectricity, 86, 129 ij ij

Institute of Development Studies (IDS), 72, 102, 178, 179, 202, 205, 207, 214, 215 Intellectuals, 2, 21–23, 109, 119–123, 129, 131, 134, 137, 140, 144, 145, 147–151, 155, 178, 179, 186, 188, 199–202, 205, 207, 209, 210, 215 Intellectuals, Vietnamese, 3, 21–25, 66, 109, 125, 130, 144, 149, 199–201, 204–206, 214, 221

J Jiang Zemin, 48, 97 K Kon Tum, 38, 51, 52, 79

ij

I IDS. See Institute of Development Studies IJAVN. See Independent Journalists’ Association of Vietnam Independent Journalists’ Association of Vietnam (IJAVN), 216, 221 India, 36, 37, 43

L ` Lâm Ðông, 38, 42, 44, 50–52, 54, 67, 80, 85, 86, 95, 105, 106, 167 La.ng So,n, 37, 38, 175 Laos, 39, 92, 99 League of Independent Vietnamese Writers (LIVW), 216, 218 Lê Công Ði.nh, 99, 177, 184, 215 Lê Ð˘a.ng Doanh, 102, 178, 179 Lê Duân, former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (1977–2984), 126, 127 Lê Ngo.c Thanh, Bishop Anton, 216 Lê Quang Binh, 12th National Assembly delegate, 165, 166 Lê Quang Uy, Joseph, 159 Lê Thanh Phong, 12th National Assembly delegate, 167 Lê V˘an Cu,o,ng, Major General, Vietnam People’s Army, 93, 99, 103, 107 ij

INDEX

Lê Xuân Khoa, 138, 141 LIVW. See League of Independent Vietnamese Writers Local politics, 66 M Mai Thái L˜ınh, 143 Malaysia, 39, 47, 215, 218 Market-Leninism, 153 Ministry of Energy, Vietnam, 68 Mongolia, 41 Mono-organizational socialism, 153 Moralist tradition, 122, 150 Movement environmental, 4, 64 social, 5, 8, 64 N National Assembly, 2, 23, 67, 71, 74, 85, 90, 91, 93, 102–104, 107, 108, 125, 131–133, 136, 138, 147–149, 156–158, 160–173, 176, 187, 188, 197, 202, 207 National bauxite policy, 32, 51, 78, 156, 157 Nationalist authority, 22, 140, 141, 144, 149 Nghê. An, 38 NGO, 2, 21, 24, 67, 70–73, 84, 104, 157, 172, 178, 182, 214 China, 7 environmental, 7, 64, 65 international, 24, 172 Vietnam, 24, 64, 70, 72, 182 Ngô Bao Châu, 85, 127, 138, 139, 168 Ngô V˜ınh Long, 138, 141 Nguy˜ên Anh Liêm, 12th National Assembly delegate, 165, 166 Nguy˜ên Ð˘a.ng Tru`,ng, 12th National Assembly delegate, 168, 169 ij

237

Nguy˜ên Ðình Hoè, 38, 51, 93, 103, 105 Nguy˜ên Ðình Xuân, 12th National Assembly delegate, 163, 164 Nguy˜ên Huê. Chi, 119–123, 125–130, 134, 136, 137, 140, 145–150, 155, 157–159, 163, 168, 171, 175, 179–186, 188, 202 Nguy˜ên Hùng Sinh, Deputy Prime Minister (2006–2011), 165 Nguy˜ên Huy Thiê.p, 81, 125 Nguy˜ên Kha˘´ c Kính, 67, 68, 103 Nguy˜ên Lan D˜ ung, 12th National Assembly delegate, 102 ´ 12th National Nguy˜ên Minh Thuyêt, Assembly delegate, 147, 161, 167, 168 ´ President Nguy˜ên Minh Triêt, (2006–2011), 91, 99, 131 Nguyên Ngo.c, 80–84, 87, 92, 97, 103, 106–109, 132, 150, 171, 179, 183, 216, 217 Nguy˜ên Phú Tro.ng, Chair, 12th National Assembly, 131, 161, 170 Nguy˜ên Quang A, 102, 179, 207, 215, 217 Nguy˜ên Quang Lâ.p, 182 Nguy˜ên Quang Riê.u, 138, 141 ´ D˜ Nguy˜ên Tân ung, Prime Minister (2006–2016), 49–51, 85, 91, 131 Nguy˜ên Thanh So,n, 37, 38, 53, 64, 67–70, 73–80, 83, 84, 86–88, 90, 100, 103, 106, 132, 157 Nguy˜ên Thê´ Hùng, 121, 129, 130, 134, 136, 140, 145, 146, 149, 155, 175, 202 Nguy˜ên Thi. Bình, Vice-President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (1992–2002), 37, 90, 202 ´ Trung, 177, 218 Nguy˜ên Tiên

238

INDEX

Nguy˜ên Tro.ng Ta.o, 125, 138, 140 Nguy˜ên Tro.ng V˜ınh, Major General, Vietnam People’s Army, 3, 98, 136 Nguy˜ên Trung, 86, 89, 103, 105, 106, 109, 132, 178, 179 Nguy˜ên V˘an Ba, 12th National Assembly delegate, 169 Nguy˜ên V˘an Ban, 39, 93, 107 Nguy˜ên V˘an Khai, Peter, 159 Nguy˜ên V˘an Linh, General Secretary, Central Committee, Vietnamese Communist Party (1986–1991), 81, 125 Nhân Co, Aluminum Joint Stock Company, 55 Nhân Co, project. See Bauxite Nhân Dân, 25, 76, 87, 100, 143, 177 Nhân V˘an-Giai Phâm Affair, 124–126, 214 Ninh, Bao, 81, 125 Nông Ðu´,c Ma.nh, General Secretary, Central Committee, Vietnamese Communist Party (2001–2011), 48–50, 86, 91, 97, 99, 173, 185 Norway, 37 ij

ij

ij

ij

P Paracel Islands, 98 Pechiney, 36, 45 People’s Committee Ða˘´ k Nông, 50 ` Lâm Ðông, 50, 54 Petition 7/11, 205 Petition 9/11, 205 Petition Bauxite 2010, 127, 202, 214 20 Civil Society Organizations, 210, 213 Cù Huy Hà V˜ u, 173, 203, 214 Ðoàn V˘an Vu,o,n, 206 intellectuals, 3, 23, 134, 149, 150, 158, 173, 179, 207, 214. See also Petition of the 135 online, 21–23, 25, 120, 125, 127, 144, 149–151, 155, 156, 158, 159, 161, 175, 177, 179, 197, 199–210, 212–215, 217–221 scientists and experts, 157, 213 ` Dân, 124, 125 Trân V˘an Giang, 205, 206 Petition of the 135. See Petition, Intellectuals Petition of the 72, 206–208, 214 ung, 216, 217 Pha.m Chí D˜ Pha.m Duy Hiên, 75, 130, 132, 179 Pha.m Khôi Nguyên, Minister of Environment and Natural Resources (2006–2011), 165 Pha.m Minh M˜ân, Cardinal Jean-Baptiste, 159 Pha.m Quang Tú, 71–74, 77, 91, 93, 103, 106, 157 Pha.m Thi. Hoài, 125, 126, 181 Pha.m Toàn, 120–122, 125–129, 134, 136, 137, 139, 145–150, 155, 158, 175, 180–182, 184–186, 202 ij

O ODA. See Overseas Development Assistance OECD. See Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 41 Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), 41

INDEX

Phan Ðình Diê.u, 130, 138, 139, 147, 179 Phan V˘an Khai, Prime Minister (1997–2006), 49, 86, 179 Philippines, 47 Phùng Liên Ðoàn, 181, 182 Phú Yên, 38 Poland, 6, 42, 43, 64 Politburo, 91, 95, 96, 98, 100, 103, 155–158, 160, 164, 169, 187, 188 Political civil society, 213, 214 Politics contentious, 9, 21, 201, 209, 220 embedded, 26, 66, 67 Pollution, environmental, 69, 78, 86, 96, 132 Post-politics, 8 Protests dead fish, 63 Hanoi trees, 63 Thai Bình, 209 Public intellectuals. See Intellectuals ij

Q Quang Ngãi, 38

239

Scientists, 2, 17, 24, 25, 41, 67, 68, 73–76, 80, 81, 88, 89, 91–94, 101–106, 108, 109, 120–122, 129, 130, 132, 134–136, 138, 141, 153, 165, 170, 176, 179, 181, 197 Scientists’ Petition, 89–94 Scientists, Vietnamese, 21, 22, 31, 74, 103, 120, 138, 140, 200. See also Experts Second Vietnam War, 39, 40, 43, 56, 202 Semi-authoritarianism, 108, 109, 155 Singapore, 47 Sino-Viet relations, 48, 98 Social Policy Ecological Research Institute (SPERI), 70, 71, 91 South China Sea, 98, 173, 203, 204, 210, 213, 214, 221. See also Eastern Sea Southeast Asia, 45, 85, 175 South Korea/Korea, 43, 44 Soviet Union, 31, 41–44, 48, 56, 64, 65, 68, 126 Spratly Islands, 98, 173 State corporatism, 153

ij

R Red mud. See Bauxite processing Research Centre for Mining and Metallurgy, 44 Responsive-repressive state, 154 Rightful resistance, 66, 134 RusAL, 46 Russia, 37, 122, 150

S Saigon Economic Times , 67, 69, 70, 73, 76, 91, 103

T Tây Nguyên. See Central Highlands Tay Nguyen Research Program, 40 Thailand, 43, 46, 89 Thanh Niên, 25 Thông Tin Xã Viê.t Nam, 49, 177 ` Ðình Thiên, 75 Trân ` Dân, ` 123, 126, 127, 144, 147, Trân 186 ` Thanh Vân, 138 Trân ` V˘an Khê, 138 Trân ` V˘an Tho., 138, 141 Trân ` V˘an Thuy, 138, 139, 143, 144 Trân ` So,n, 141 Tru,o,ng Hông ij

240

INDEX

´ Sang, Standing SecreTru,o,ng Tân tariat, Central Committee, Vietnamese Communist Party (2006–2011), 103, 156 TuanVietnam, 87, 89, 107 Tuôi Tre, 25, 85, 88, 96 ij

ij

U United Arab Emirates (UAE), 37 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 101, 210 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 138 United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), 44 United States (USA), 35–37, 41, 43, 99, 139, 141, 142, 164, 177, 182 , Unshackling Days (coi trói), 81, 129, 143 ij

V V˘an Nghê., 81, 143 VBN. See Vietnam Bloggers Network Vegetation loss, 68 Vietnam north region, 11, 22, 142, 175 South Central Region, 31, 69 south region, 22, 68, 80, 103, 142, 175 Vietnam Bloggers Network (VBN), 213, 214, 217 Vietnam-China Joint Declaration 2001, 97 Vietnam-China Joint Declaration 2006, 97 Vietnam Coal and Mining Corporation (VINACOMIN), 46, 50,

53–55, 64, 76–80, 92, 93, 95, 104–108, 128 Vietnam Coal Corporation, 54 Vietnamese Communist Party (or Communist Party of Vietnam), 4, 13, 18, 23, 25, 75, 76, 81, 83, 84, 86, 93, 97, 100, 101, 103, 104, 126, 134, 137, 140–142, 153, 155, 177, 187, 199, 200, 203, 205–208, 218 Vietnamese Women for Human Rights (VWHR), 218 Vietnam Minerals Corporation, 54 Vietnam Mining Association, 106 Vietnam Mining Company (VIMICO), 45 Vietnam National Institute of Mining-Metallurgy Science and Technology (VIMLUKI), 44 VietnamNet , 25, 85, 87, 96, 106, 161, 163, 166, 177 Vietnam News Agency, 49, 54 Vietnam Union for Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA), 89, 91, 93, 102–105, 179, 205 Vietnam wars, 2, 20, 120, 140, 204, 207 Viet-Sciences , 25 Viet Youth for Democracy, 218 VIMICO. See Vietnam Mining Company VINACOMIN. See Vietnam Coal and Mining Corporation Võ Nguyên Giáp, General, Vietnam People’s Army, 31, 93, 94, 132, 135, 151, 164, 203 Võ Quý, 40, 41 Võ V˘an Kiê.t, Prime Minister (1991– 1997), 72, 86, 89, 141, 178, 179 V˜ u Huy Hoàng, Minister of Industry and Trade (2007–2016), 168

INDEX

V˜ ung Tàu, 180 V˜ u Quang Viê.t, 138, 141 VUSTA. See Vietnam Union for Science and Technology Associations V˜ u Thu, Hiên, 126 VWHR. See Vietnamese Women for Human Rights

241

W Watershed degradation, 3 Workshop Ða˘´ k Nông or regional (October 22-23, 2008), 75, 86, 104 scientific or government (April 9, 2009), 77, 93, 104, 108, 163 Vietnamese Communist Party (February 20, 2009), 83