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.

The Country of the Week is Vietnam! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.

  • LargePenis [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    6 months ago

    Western dipshits give money to the Ukrainian government to finance the war effort -> The Ukrainian government decides to build fortifications similar to the Surovikin line -> They give money and contracts to random private companies that are supposed to build those fortifications -> Capitalism + Ukrainian corruption in action:

    These concrete blocks were supposed to form lines of dragon teeth fortifications to stop Russian tanks. But some shitty corrupt company took the money, picked up these blocks, and just dropped them next to the street.

    • somename [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      In a perfect timeline, increased cooperation would lead to Russia backing off the social reactionary trend they’re diving into. God I hope so.

      China is rather hesitant about exerting influence in their partners affairs though, for good and for ill, so I’m unsure if it will. That said stronger economic conditions will hopefully help that front on its own.

  • Torenico [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    6 months ago

    I don’t have a title for this ancaptain

    Spain recalls ambassador after Argentina’s Milei calls PM’s wife ‘corrupt’

    MADRID, May 19 (Reuters) - Spain recalled its ambassador to Buenos Aires for consultations on Sunday after Argentina’s President Javier Milei made derogatory comments about Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s wife during a far-right rally in Madrid. Milei had called Sanchez’s wife Begona Gomez “corrupt” during a rally in Madrid organised by the far-right Vox party and attended by many of its international allies.

    Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said he expected an apology from Milei. Other ministers also condemned Milei’s speech, in which he described socialism as “cursed and carcinogenic”. Sanchez leads Spain’s Socialist Party. “With his behaviour, Milei has brought the relationship between Spain and Argentina to its most serious state in recent history,” Albares said in a video statement.

    Milei’s visit broke with diplomatic protocol as he refused to meet Spain’s King Felipe and Sanchez, instead preferring to promote his book alongside Vox leader Santiago Abascal at the party rally. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in a post on social messaging app X that “attacks against family members of political leaders have no place in our culture”.

    Spain’s main opposition party, the conservative People’s Party (PP), refused to support Madrid’s stance, with party sources saying that Sanchez should have provided explanations about the alleged corruption case weeks ago. “His silence generates internal doubts, but also distrust abroad,” a PP source said, adding that the party’s job was to oppose the Spanish government and not Milei.

    A city court said in April it was looking into accusations of influence peddling and business corruption against Sanchez’s wife, brought in a private complaint by Manos Limpias, or Clean Hands, an anti-corruption activist group. However, Madrid’s prosecuting authority later said it was appealing to have the case thrown out for lack of evidence.

    Sanchez decided to stay in office after five days of weighing his future once the probe against his wife was announced.

    milei going to a far right rally? B…b…but I thou…thought libertarians were pro-freedom or something. shocked-pikachu

    In other news my twitter feed has been completely coopted by pro-milei and general far right posts. Like from one day to the other I went from having posts from accounts like smol silly cat, Vijay Prashad and zei_squirrel (in other words, accounts I follow) to full posts from milei, his paid trolls, vox supporters, chuds and far right media. I don’t even follow none of these accounts nor see what they post, it was okay until yesterday. So twitter can fuck off and die and elon too.

      • Torenico [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Yeah, some are well into their 40s though lmao

        They are very cheap and unnoficial-ish spokespersons. They say “milei is going to do X thing next week” then milei retweets it and that’s it, that’s how communication in hanlded in ancap wonderland these days.

  • Rojo27 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    6 months ago

    Not shocked that the media is now trying to push the narrative that Hamas is abandoning Gazans because they are no longer providing government services and are now focusing on insurgency. Where exactly would the political wing of Hamas provide services? Schools? Bombed out. Hospitals? Bombed out. Government buildings? Bombed out. They said that Hamas is willing to keep up the insurgency at any cost. Well yeah no shit, Israel is fucking carrying out a genocide against its people and shows no signs of slowing down.

    Death to America. Death to Israel.

    • Dessa [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      “We’ve killed all the doctors amd teachers. Why do the warriors not lay down their arms to teach and care foe the sick?”

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    China doesn’t need to invade to achieve Taiwanese unification

    https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4657439-china-doesnt-need-to-invade-to-achieve-taiwanese-unification/

    China is more likely to pursue a “short of war coercion campaign,” as we call it, centered on political and economic warfare accompanied by limited kinetic action than an invasion of Taiwan for three main reasons:

    First, annexing Taiwan by means short of war significantly limits possible damage to other Chinese grand strategic objectives. The People’s Republic of China’s long-term strategic goals are to continue to build-up what it calls its comprehensive national power and become the world’s leading power. It then aims to decisively reshape international politics and place itself at the center. Although Chinese leader Xi Jinping clearly believes that unifying Taiwan with the mainland is a key component of this grand strategy, he may be loath to risk China’s march to geopolitical dominance by starting a full scale and likely global war.

    Second, a short of war strategy centered on political warfare and limited kinetic action could be successful. Taiwan’s most recent elections highlighted deep domestic political divisions, coinciding with a rise in skepticism of America’s support. These sentiments are further reinforced by the fact that Taiwan remains internationally isolated. Taiwan status is sui generis in international affairs: it is a fully functioning nation-state not recognized by the international powers. This creates an opening for China’s manipulation of Taiwan’s understandable fears of abandonment.

    Third, strategies short of war are consistent with Chinese strategic thinking and previous behavior. A number of Chinese warfighting concepts reference the utility of fighting wars using means beyond traditional applications of kinetic force. These concepts have been employed regularly in Chinese “gray zone operations” in the South and East China Seas and Taiwan Strait. Given their general success, China will likely intensify their employment in a campaign to annex Taiwan.

    Ok so… Stupid language aside.

    1. They’ll apply pressure!

    2. They’ll do politics!

    3. Nothing, this number is just here to write three things. Uhhh, they’ve done “no-war strategy” before? Yeah put that down.

    TL;DR The Hill is saying China won’t invade Taiwan now but they’re doing it in the most insufferable way possible framing it in the most sinister way possible when it’s just… Politics? They’re just saying that reunification will happen politically but they’re using SHORT OF WAR and POLITICAL WARFARE and LIMITED KINETIC FORCE to frame it.

  • Torenico [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    So I was leaving my university today when I heard some noise by the main entrance. When I got there I found a group of people waving palestinian flags and using a megaphone to shout different things like “Prison for the war criminal Netanyahu” and “Stop the Rafah offensive and the genocide”. All cool, but then I saw one of the guys waving a Syrian Republic flag. No, not the one used today by the Ba’athists, the one used by the Free Syrian Army, green, white and black with three stars in the middle.

    I thought it was weird like, why, why that flag?

    Also remember the Free Syrian Army? I haven’t heard that name in many years. The “moderate” rebels as they said.

    • Torenico [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      Who is PM Robert Fico?

      Robert Fico has served as Slovakia’s prime minister since he came out on top in the September 2023 elections.

      He caused concern in Europe for his pro-Russian stance, previously telling the Telegraph that “arming Ukraine brings nothing but killing”. He pledged to end Western arms deliveries heading to the besieged country through Slovakia.

      That it? Is that the entire reason why he is “pro-russian”? Pretty heavy label for someone who said something quite rational…

      Seems fishy, the wording makes it look like The T*legraph is subtly (not so) trying to justify this shooting lol

      • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        He is a leftist socdem who used to be part of the communist party of Czechslovakia. He was probably attacked by some ukrainian nationalist that got pissed because Fico decided to stop wasting Slovakia’s money and time with a war that they would have gained nothing from.

        • DivineChaos100 [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          He’s not really a leftist tho, he might’ve been earlier but his policies are literally indistinguishable from any other central european centre/right government’s, big fan of IMF diktats as well.

  • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Blinken visits Kiev, suddenly the Kharkiv Offensive fizzles out, Putin’s faction sure can work quick when the goal is pleasing the west

  • ziggurter [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Thanks, reddit-logo, for helping me understand what the “the trains (and the genocide) ran on time” take of our current era is.

    Since Oct 7, Biden has bypassed Congress at least three times to send large weapons

    Unfortunately that’s because the Republican Congress hasn’t been doing fucking shit all year long. Someone has to sign off to keep things flowing.

    Listen dude, I don’t like biden and wish we had a 30 or 40-year-old president like the rest of the fucking world…

    But biden’s not a bad dude, He’s literally just doing his job that most people are too incompetent to understand.

    All Trump did this play golf and slow down the government… At least biden is signing shit even if he disagrees with it to keep the government functioning and flowing.

    How many government shutdowns have we had under Biden???

    How many poor USDA milk corn and meat factory workers had to go without pay under Biden?

    ZER0.