What to Expect from Vietnam’s New Leaders

After a year-long battle behind closed doors, Vietnam has a new political leadership. At its Congress, which finished on February 1st, the Communist Party selected a new Politburo to run the country for the next five years.  In this episode of Asia Matters we find out why the Party thinks a 76-year-old man with serious health problems is the best person to lead this rapidly changing society.

More than a third of the Politburo are now men with a background in the security services. What does this tell us about the Communist Party’s intentions? And how will the leadership navigate Vietnam’s relations between the United States and China? What will the next five years bring for the country, and for its place in the wider Asia region?

Our presenter for this episode is Bill Hayton, Associate Fellow with the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House. His guests are Nguyen Phuong Linh, Vietnam analyst with Control Risks in Singapore and Nguyen Khac Giang, researcher at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.