Bulletins and News Discussion from May 13th to May 19th, 2024 - The Blazing Furnace - COTW: Vietnam

An image of a Central Committee meeting in Hanoi. Image taken from this article.

General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng implemented an anti-corruption campaign in 2016 called "blazing furnace" in shorthand. Since then, the fire has ripped through both politicians and businesses, up to even the Presidency. Nearly 200,000 party members, 36 Central Committee members, and 50 police/military generals have been disciplined since the initiative began. In 2018, Dinh La Thang, the former party chief of Ho Chi Minh City, became the first sitting Politburo member to be criminally charged, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. In 2023, President Nguyễn Xuân Phúc was implicated in a corruption scandal and resigned. He was replaced by Võ Văn Thưởng, who was then also caught in a corruption scandal a year later in March 2024, making him the shortest serving President in Vietnamese history. The Presidency is current headed by Võ Thị Ánh Xuân while they find a new President; she also took that role in 2023.

The ousted leaders tend to also be part of the more West-friendly, technocratic faction inside Vietnam, either reflecting how these people also tend to be more easily corrupted, or how the Communist Party is slowly moving away from a foreign policy which allies itself with the West (as Vietnam has comprehensive strategic partnerships with several Western countries), or some combination. Of course, this shouldn't be overstated - Vietnam has maintained a close friendship with China for years, and both incumbent leaders are intimately familiar with anti-corruption campaigns and how and why they must be conducted in order to deliver maximum public benefit.

America clearly desires Vietnam to pick their side, because America strongly desires another vassal state in East Asia like the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan to further encircle and isolate China. And so the headlines and commentary of Western state propaganda like Radio Free Asia, the BBC, WaPo, Business Insider, etc reveal their increasing annoyance with Vietnam's government. They often couch this in the standard "objective" economics language); about how removing leaders who foreign investors were reassured by might mean economic pain for Vietnam ahead. As Bhadrakumar noted in 2023, perhaps the BBC revealed their intentions the best:

Reading Vietnamese politics is always difficult — the Communist Party makes its decisions behind closed doors. But hard-line General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, who was given an unprecedented third term at last year’s party congress, appears to be consolidating his authority by ousting senior officials seen as more pro-Western and pro-business. Officially this is all happening in the name of fighting corruption,.. but it’s indicative of a power struggle at the top of the party… the likely rise now of more security-focused officials to the top of the party will be bad news.

Even a quick google search right now will show a bunch of articles by clearly nervous Westerners: Why Vietnam’s Escalating Anti-Corruption Campaign Might Backfire because, as we all know, only authoritarian regimes are vulnerable to things like public opinion and discontent, while Western "democracies" are insulated from such petty phenomena. Leaders here can have disapproval ratings of 60-70% and not even the slightest consequence will happen to them - a real sign of democratic freedom and justice over those primitive regimes in the East! Or, take: ‘Blazing Furnace’ Turns Vietnam Into Another Chinese Province; China turning both Russia and Vietnam into their provinces in just two years was a real diplomatic masterclass. Or, back in 2022: Vietnam's 'blazing furnace' crackdown burns $40 bln off stocks. Not the stocks! Anything but the stocks!

If your actions as a leader are pissing off Bloomberg, you are going in the right direction.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

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1.5K comments

Comrades I need to talk Ukraine War with you otherwise I'm going to explode from the pure energy. My pregnant wife doesn't understand what's going on, my Dad thought that Russia already won and I even called my communist uncle to talk about Kharkov but his favorite news channel on Youtube hasn't talked about Ukraine since the fall of Avdeevka so he didn't have a clue about the situation.
So what's our analysis of this Kharkov offensive by Russia? Am I right when I say that this is the biggest overall development of the war since the Russian withdrawal from Kherson in November 2022? For people who have checked out of Russia-Ukraine news, here's a little breakdown:
Russia has crossed the Russia-Ukraine border north of Kharkov again after withdrawing from this region in September 2022. It has been successful so far, with numerous villages captured and some serious progress close to Volchansk and Lyptsi. Those two towns are pretty much the only places where Ukraine has built any serious fortifications, so if those towns fall soon, Russia can pretty much drive down to the outskirts of Kharkov, and more importantly, to Velykyi Burluk and Chuhuiv, which could collapse the entire Oskil river region for Ukraine. Ukraine has also panicked now and started sending units from other parts of the frontline, which has already caused small collapses east of Chasiv Yar, in the southern parts of Krasnogorovka and in central Klishchiivka.
Honestly this has been so exciting to follow, we're finally learning names of new places and the line moving is actually visible on a zoomed out map. The good part is that this move could make other stagnant parts of the line finally move. Will Russia move into Sumy? Or will they cross the border north of Kupiansk? Or do a daring cross-Dnieper assault on Kherson again? Or could they finally move in Zaporozhye? Thank you mr Putin for making things move again
- Do the Russians actually intend to take Kharkov? Maybe. Maybe not. They've been bombing thermpower plants to encourage the population to leave the city, which suggests at a minimum that the Russians predict the fighting will cause massive damage to the residential areas of the city. It's hard to say whether they want to take it, or are simply leveraging it's potential to tie up Ukrainian troops. Either way, Ukraine will redeploy troops from Donbas to Kharkov, which means Donbas will fall within a couple of months.
  Ukraine has essentially lost all capability to fight on the battlefield. Russia is now at peak performance in production and targeting times. Russia has gone from obsessing over destroying key enemy systems (artillery, anti-air, tanks) to casually flinging tons of cheap precision ordnance at conscripts.
  The mounting number of Ukrainian casualties is actually nauseating, and the only thing the Ukrainians are now winning for their blood is a harsher peace deal.
  
  where are you getting casualty numbers from?
- It's interesting that this is coinciding with both that incident with the Russian diplomat(?) giving a stern lecture to the British and French, as well as the shifts in military office like Surovikin and Shoigu. not sure precisely how they're connected but I'd appreciate any and all takes
  
  as someone with only the quintessential trans experience of thousands of hours of hearts of iron 4, maybe they are doing the thing where you know your opponent is about to take huge deliveries of lend-lease aid and about to get a swarm of new foreign volunteers so you try to collapse their front lines during that 15-30 day window before all the people and stuff shows up
  or they just want to end this thing as fast as possible before NATO troops are actively fighting Russians in uniform and they don't want a nuclear apocolypse over this conflict. i'm in the always assume NATO and the west are completely irrational actors at this point just based on their leadership alone
- its a neutral development by itself, as it is either
  exploiting increased production and recruitment (speeding up attrition by widening contact line, roughly neutral, will get reinforced in case of counteroffensive there)
  someone is doing probing (
  ) attacks to see how ukraine is with reserves and to pin them there (raid attack to test, will retreat upon counteroffensive)
  
  if somehow ukraine really doesn't have reserves (and not give money "not have"), then it might be a development in 1-3 month time when new recruits haven't been battle readied, and contact forces became unstable number-wise.
  imo
- I keep hearing (in Western media) that Russia doesn't have enough reserves to take Kharkiv. I guess we'll find out if that's cope, or if Russia is just trying to spread the Ukrainians out, especially in light of new ammunition deliveries from the US. Spreading the front will make it harder for Ukraine to use that ammunition to concentrate firepower and create tactical advantages.
  
  Assuming the Russians continue with their attrition strategy, it would make sense they just widen the front and move slowly so as not to expose themselves too much. I expect they will only move quickly if/when the Ukrainians abandon their positions.
  
  Thinking about it a bit more and I don't see a direct value in taking Kharkiv considering the inevitable costs of urban warfare. The only thing Russia needs to continue doing is not overextend themselves. As longs as they do that, they won't loose the initiative. Getting caught in a grinding fight in the city might be inadvisable.
  Kharkiv oblast was not among those officially annexed by Russia so it is not as politically important as capturing the whole of Donbass. There is a political and military value in creating a buffer zone for the Belgorod region, but that goal does not necessitate the capture of Kharkiv city.
  But ofcourse you're right that the calculation changes when there's very little resistance.
- I don't know that it is "the biggest thing" but it definitely could become the biggest thing. I think the fall of Avdiivka was the biggest thing. It was the "key log" in ukraine's defence for a long time. It's fall signalled the UAF reached a breaking point in terms of men, equipment and morale. For now I think the north is just a way to put further stress on ukraine and depending on how they respond to that pressure Russia will ether make a bigger push up north because it hasn't been reinforced or exploit the area where troops are being transferred from. I feel like the northern advance is an effect of the collapse in the Donetsk region.
  I get the impression that the north was much harder to take/hold and now that the meat grinders in the south have started to run dry the RAF feel that the norther advance is viable. I don't know if it was terrain, logistics, civilian sentiment, or something else but I get the feeling there was something in the Kharkov area that gave the Ukrainians the edge which is why Russia had such a hard time moving forward and was willing to retreat.

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