Rewind to the early days of January 2016 when the famous Cu Rua, or Great-Grandfather Turtle, that had inhabited Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem Lake for decades (some say centuries) passed away. This occurred a week prior to the Vietnamese Communist Party’s (VCP)’s Twelfth Party Congress, and appeared t
Rewind to the early days of January 2016 when the famous Cu Rua, or Great-Grandfather Turtle, that had inhabited Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem Lake for decades (some say centuries) passed away. This occurred a week prior to the Vietnamese Communist Party’s (VCP)’s Twelfth Party Congress, and appeared to be a deeply ominous incident for this one-party, semi authoritarian state. 1 In April of that year disaster struck. Dead fish began washing up along the central coast of Vietnam. Fish carcasses choked waterways and lay scattered across the ocean floor in an unprecedented environmental disaster, dealing a huge blow to the local fishing and tourist industries. 2 The culprit was The Formosa Ha Tinh Steel complex, owned by Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics Corporation, which had emitted waste containing toxins such as cyanide and carbolic acids into the sea. Protests erupted across the affected areas and even in the major cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. Authorities quickly dispersed these protests. In June, Formosa agreed to pay $500 million to clean up the environment and compensate affected people. 3 In January of this year four officials were subsequently punished (but not named) in response. 4One year on and the incident has far from gone away, with pockets of protests continually erupting, meeting with repressive responses from the government.
This is not the first time an environmental related issue has eroded the legitimacy of the VCP. In 2006 a Chinese company won a partnership contract with the Vietnam National Coal Industries Group to build two alumina plants in the central highlands of Vietnam. By 2008, environmentalists and scientists voiced their concerns regarding the environmental impact of the project. Lending his voice to the opposition, infamous General Vo Nguyen Giap, published three letters opposing the project based on environmental and security reasons. The opposition snowballed from there, with a broad coalition of scholars, bloggers, retired military officers, retired state officials, and religious leaders coming together. Despite the VCP’s initially repressive measures to clamp down on criticism, the depth of opposition led to engagement. The government agreed to conduct regular reviews of the project. 5
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