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HONG KONG – Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, a former police chief who presided over the crackdown on freedom of expression in the one-party state, died on Friday, state-controlled media reported. He was 61 years old.
The cause of Mr. Quang's death was described as a "serious illness" by the official Vietnam news agency, which contained no other details. Nguyen Quoc Trieu, a government doctor, quoted by the official press, said that Mr. Quang had died of a "rare and serious viral disease" in a military hospital in Hanoi, the capital.
Dr. Trieu said that Mr. Quang fell ill last July and went to Japan six times for treatment.
Vietnam, like China, is ruled by an authoritarian communist party but promotes a version of state capitalism. Unlike China, where Xi Jinping is both president and leader of the Communist Party, Vietnam has a power structure in which responsibilities are shared between a party leader, a chief president, and a prime minister who heads the government. .
Of the three roles, the president is generally considered the least powerful. Mr. Quang was however part of a group of uncompromising influential who took the reins in 2016 during a transfer of power that takes place every five years within the party. He was also a former head of the country's powerful Ministry of Public Security, which oversees uniformed police and a network of intelligence agents known to spy on civilians.
Since 2016, senior party officials have used the Ministry of Security to intensify the purge of corruption against some of their comrades. Some political analysts see this campaign as internal rivalries between political parties, rather than a genuine project to eliminate systemic corruption in Vietnam.
Several former Vietnamese officials declined to comment on Mr. Quang's death when they were contacted by telephone on Friday. But on Facebook, Vietnamese intellectuals spoke of him in scathing terms. Many criticized him because he was supporting the adoption of a cybersecurity law in June, which would require Facebook and other technology companies to open offices in Vietnam and store "important" user data on local servers. Human rights groups say such an initiative would allow the government to crack down on political dissidents.
"Since Mr. Tran Dai Quang was very educated, many people had a lot of hope for him," said human rights lawyer Tran Vu Hai in an interview. But when he took over the security ministry, Mr. Hai said that "the situation of the dissidents remained the same".
Tran Dai Quang was born in the northern province of Ninh Binh in 1956, two years after Vietnam overthrew colonial rule by defeating the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
In the 1970s, Mr. Quang joined the Ministry of Security, where he obtained a doctorate in law. He became chief of security in 2011 and received the rank of police general a year later.
He spent the latter part of his career at the party elite, the 19-member Politburo, which essentially defines the Vietnamese government's agenda.
The party has never tolerated internal political dissent, but many analysts and human rights activists say that domestic repression has worsened in Vietnam since 2016. Human Rights Watch reported in January that at least 119 people were serving "long" prison terms in the country for expressing criticism of the government, adhered to banned political organizations or participated in "long – term" prison sentences. other activities that the party considered a threat.
According to one theory, the decision by President Trump last year to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have included Vietnam, has prompted Vietnam to comply with US pressure on human rights . The Obama administration had defended the trade deal as a way to extract concessions from Vietnam, among other things, on labor and environmental laws.
Other analysts have linked the recent crackdown in Vietnam to the influence of Communist Party leader Nguyen Phu Trong, who allegedly won an internal power struggle against his party rivals before the 2016 upheaval. .
In 2015, Mr. Trong became the first Vietnamese party leader to visit the White House, a sign that party elites saw the development of better relations with the United States as a priority and a cover against growing regional influence. China. But he is still widely seen as a key player in the relationship between Vietnam and China, its northern neighbor and its ideological ally.
Mr. Quang was one of the two top Communist Party officials who once thought he would lead the party if Mr. Trong, 74, retired before the end of his five-year term, he wrote. in January the Vietnamese expert Carl Thayer.
The kidnapping of Trinh Xuan Thanh, the former head of a state-owned electricity company last year, was a "big political embarrassment" for Quang, who was threatening his chances of becoming chief. party.
Mr. Quang is survived by his wife and two sons, the official press reported.
It is rare that a Vietnamese president in office will die, and the death of Mr. Quang will leave a political vacuum in the 19-member Political Bureau, said Huong Le Thu, Asian security expert at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. from Canberra. She said the choice could affect the party faction – that of Mr. Trong, or that of his political rivals – that takes over.
Chau Doan contributed to the reportage of Hanoi.
