PERSPECTIVE: Why Vietnam’s To Lam moved so quickly to restructure the government

Read about this topic in Vietnamese

In less than a year as general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, To Lam has made moves likened to the drastic cuts that U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have implemented to U.S. federal agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

To Lam has merged ministries and central government agencies, reduced the number of provinces and cities by half, and dismantled district-level administrative units.

Why did To Lam move so fast with reforms, and what are the political, social, and economic impacts?

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University, or Radio Free Asia.

Below is a transcript of an interview with Zach Abuza by Truong Son from the RFA Vietnamese service:

RFA: What are your thoughts on the administrative reform in Vietnam that Secretary General To Lam just carried out? How significant is the government reshuffle in terms of its social, economic, and political impact, because we know that this is a massive change in Vietnam?

Zach Abuza: The changes in the government are really significant and they shouldn’t be underestimated. And we have to understand that they’re happening at multiple levels. There was the reform of central government ministries. Five were folded in, and some hundred thousand civil servants were either fired or retired.

At the provincial level, they went from 63 provinces or provincial-level cities down to 34. So that’s almost a 50% reduction — a huge consolidation there. And then they eliminated an entire level of governance at the district level. So it used to go province, district, and then down to the commune level. And they got rid of that mid-level. So they’re hoping for more efficiency.

Now, all three of those reforms at each level of government have important economic, social, and political implications. Let’s start with the government. Those reforms were done in part because the government is notoriously bureaucratic. It’s slow. And I think the general secretary really feels that Vietnam has to just be much more responsive, much more accountable, to respond to a rapidly changing international environment, in order to grow the economy, to attract foreign investment. Just had to get rid of red tape.

Some of the ministries that were eliminated really were legacy issues. They reflected much more of the government structure at the time of Doi Moi, not all these years into it. You know, the Vietnamese economy is fundamentally different than it was before.

And that’s why I think you really start to see some of the consolidation, especially in the economic ministries. I think now there are really three key ministries to pay attention to. The Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Ministry of Finance. These are kind of the three heavy hitters.

At the provincial level, it’s important to understand that this consolidation will have economic effects. And I think one thing that maybe we need to think about is, with the exception of the provinces

in the northwest which is landlocked, you know, bordering Lao and the Chinese frontier, almost every other province now has a piece of coastline.

And this is important because it was always the coastal provinces that were more advanced because they had access to ports, harbors and it was easier to get products to international markets. And so the reorganization at that level, certainly makes it easier. No province now, other than those northwestern landlocked ones, has an excuse that they cannot get goods to market anymore.

Now, I think the provincial reforms have very significant political implications. And let me explain this at several levels. The first is the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the era of Doi Moi has basically had about one third of their members coming from, you know, the provinces.

So provincial party chiefs, all of a sudden that is going to change. And we might see at the next Party Congress expected in January 2026 that we see a smaller central committee overall. And that’s one thing that I am looking for.

There are other political implications. And that is, you now have almost a 50% reduction in the number of governors in the number of party chiefs.

And so the general secretary, through this consolidation actually got to choose winners and losers, right? Going into the next Party Congress, To Lam clearly has the support of those who have kept their jobs. They owe him, right? They could have lost everything.

But, more importantly, the year before a party congress, normally nothing happens. And I mean, nothing happens. People are afraid to make decisions. People are afraid to make investments. Often, provinces or cities have funding allocated to them, but they’re afraid to use it because they just don’t know what’s going to happen at the Party Congress.

They don’t know who’s going to emerge on top. They’re afraid of implementing policies that then get reversed. So there’s traditionally a lot of caution. To Lam has completely thrown that off. He has pushed through the most radical reforms I can think of.

And he did it right ahead of a Party Congress. So that to me, says he is very confident that he has the full backing of the Central Committee and that he is very confident that he will be reelected to a full term at the 14th Party Congress.

Let me just make one quick point about eliminating the district level of administration. I think this is going to have an interesting impact down the line.

I don’t see it having a short term political impact, but for Communist Party cadres — they might have been in the cities working their way up, but, you know, all of a sudden you’ve eliminated a very important pathway to be selected and to be noticed, by the higher echelons of the party.

And I think that there is going to be a lot of unhappiness that this real, important level, maybe not administratively, maybe it’s not the most important for the functioning of government and efficiency, but for people looking for their career pathway to senior party membership. That is an important stepping stone that has been eliminated.

RFA: You just said that Secretary General To Lam is certainly very confident politically. That’s why he’s carried out this unprecedented reform, I must say, the year before the party Congress, and as you said, which traditionally has been a very quiet year.

And not just that he did this in the year prior to the Congress, but also, if we look into the manner in which he carried out this reform, which was really quick. The finish line was achieved within a few months.

So, if we look at the scale of the project and the pace it was done this begs the question: Why did he do it in such a manner? Why do you think he has to achieve this reform within such a short period of time?

Zach Abuza: The Vietnamese government and Communist Party are not known for quick decision making. They tend to be very slow, deliberative, and cautious. But these reforms happened at lightning speed. And I think that pace took everyone by surprise.

Part of the answer is it took everyone by surprise. He made the announcement. And for the government ministries, for example, they had less than three months to implement these major restructuring, government reshuffle, 100,000 civil servants, either being retired or found redundant.

Part of the reason he moved quickly is before there could be real resistance to it. He wanted to make sure that no one had time to kind of dig in their heels and resist these reforms, because people, these reforms, create winners and losers, and that was clearly a concern of his.

I think that To Lam — and while I certainly find the way he came to power, as the minister of Public Security who completely weaponized the anti-corruption campaign, eliminated all of his rivals on the Politburo in just absolute Machiavellian fashion — I actually think that he is maybe the right man for the job right now.

I think he really does understand that Vietnam has this very narrow window of opportunity to push through major economic restructuring and reforms.

Vietnam’s demographics have peaked. The country will start to see its population decline and fairly rapidly, especially with the rapid urbanization, the increased number of women in the workforce, higher education levels.

All those three factors always lead to sharp declines in demographics. So Vietnam has the challenge of soon it’s going to start getting old before it gets rich. You know, it’s one thing for Japan to get old because it’s already rich.

Thailand has had a little harder time, and I think Vietnamese policymakers do look to Thailand as a country that has gotten old before it got rich. The second thing is that To Lam is very fearful of being caught in the middle income trap, where Vietnam simply assembles. It does not produce; it doesn’t have those ecosystems there.

In the current trade negotiations with the United States, the Americans always pointed to the fact that Vietnam’s trade deficit with China was very close to its trade surplus with the United States. Now, the United States’ thinking was that Vietnam was simply being used as a transshipment point for Chinese goods.

To a degree, yes, but that doesn’t explain all of it. What explains it is the fact that things that are produced in Vietnam, whether it’s Samsung, mobile phones or VinFast cars, are made with components imported from China. So Vietnam hasn’t developed that ecosystem.

To Lam is very interested in getting the higher value added foreign investment. We hear a lot about semiconductors and other high-end manufacturing.

He needs a much more efficient government structure to attract foreign investment. One of the reasons we know foreign investors — there’s often a delta between pledged investment and actual shovel in the ground building something is because of bureaucratic red tape.

I think To Lam is really concerned that foreign investors are going to get frustrated and move on to the next place because Vietnam’s labor costs are going up. It has shortages of electricity. You know, it’s been a darling of foreign investors, but that is not a given. That foreign investors can be very fickle. We have watched them leave Vietnam in the past.

And let me just make one last point about why he did it so fast. I think this is To Lam really asserting himself politically. He has done what many of us probably would have said, “Impossible.”

No way is he going to get through such momentous restructuring in a quick period of time. There will be too much, you know, resistance to it. He really showed that he has full control over the Central Committee. Now, he still has his former deputy minister, now the Minister of Public Security. He’s got another former deputy minister of Public Security in charge of the Central Inspection Commission.

He has many levers of power that he can wield against people who are opposed to him. He can still investigate corruption and destroy careers, but I think he really has won over this Central Committee with his vision.

One last point we should probably make about these reforms. There is going to be a major shift in power to the South.

You have created a huge megacity now. Ho Chi Minh City, all the way out to Vũng Tàu around Bien Hoa.

This is now a massive place. Under the former General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng there was a real attempt to crush any southern autonomy. I think we understand that the South is the driver of the economy. To Lam knows that he has to empower the South. He knows that legitimacy is coming from economic development.

RFA: I guess he got what he wanted. He restructured the entire governance system not just at the central level, but also the local level as well.

So the entire country now is basically governed under a new system that looks very different from when he took power in August 2024. But I’m curious because we understand that this kind of project has massive implications and consequences. And usually people do it with great caution because they need to study.

They need to experiment to find the best model. But the way To Lam carried it out was that it was just too quick, too rapid. There was no opportunity for experimentation, for research at all. He just said, “This is what we are going to do,” and he achieved that within a few months.

So what do you think would be the consequences and the challenges that he has to face, given that he has done this too quickly and gave no room for deliberation, for experiment, for research, for debate.

Zach Abuza: No doubt there will be growing pains. And a lot of this was rushed. And I imagine in many cases, you are not going to only see some resistance to this and kind of pushback.

But just complications and everything from accounting and getting bank accounts and tax collection and all these things are going to be very different. Now, from the central government’s position, this is hopefully easier. There are now almost 50% fewer provinces to basically negotiate with. And should make some coordination a little bit easier. But without a doubt this was pretty rushed.

Now, I would go back to a point I made earlier, and that is the party chiefs that are in power today after the restructuring owe To Lam — they owe him their jobs and I imagine they will be very responsive, because they’re all interested in climbing up the ladder and those who do not perform well and have problems are going to find their political careers might not last much longer than January.

So I think he’s using the clock very effectively, you know, like a good football coach uses the clock in a game. I think he is doing that. But yeah, there will be problems, and we just haven’t seen them yet.

There are going to be issues with spending and infrastructure development. You now have these party chiefs that are going to think about which part of the province, these larger provinces to invest in.

You know, there are going to be rural communes that are going to feel they’re being left behind because the emphasis will be on more development to the coast and where industry is. And so, yeah, without a doubt, we will see how this plays out.

Edited by Charlie Dharapak