Yearbook 2010
 Vietnam. An ongoing campaign to silence dissent continued
at the beginning of the year. According to
COUNTRYAAH, a Haiphong court in January
sentenced author Pham Thanh Nghien to four years in prison
for spreading propaganda against the state. She had been
detained for close to a year and a half and was sentenced
after half a day's trial behind closed doors. In a trial in
Hô Chi Minh City, four democracy activists were sentenced to
prison for between 5 and 16 years. Among them was the famous
human rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh. The men were arrested in
the summer of 2009 and initially accused of spreading
hostile propaganda. They were eventually prosecuted for
revolt, accused of trying to overthrow the communist regime.
Several other dissidents were arrested later in the year.
According to human rights organizations, the government
clearly wants to highlight that political resistance will
not be accepted before the Communist Party Congress in early
2011.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Vietnam in
July to attend a meeting with ASEAN. The parties also noted
the 15-year anniversary of the resumed diplomatic relations
between the countries after the end of the Vietnam War in
1975. Increased defense cooperation was discussed, and
Clinton pledged increased support to deal with the medical
and environmental effects of the Agent Orange plant poison
used by the war. Clinton also visited Hanoi in October, even
to attend a regional meeting.
Due to the 15th anniversary, the two countries carried
out their first joint fleet maneuver ever in August. The
exercise was held near some disputed island groups in the
South China Sea, where several incidents occurred earlier in
the year between Chinese and Vietnamese vessels. China had
unilaterally introduced a fishing stoppage in the area that
both countries claim.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) warned Vietnam
of a very rapidly growing imbalance between the number of
boys and girls born in the country. The imbalance, which has
risen sharply in just five years, threatens to create social
problems in the long run as many men find it difficult to
find a woman to marry. According to UNFPA, three reasons
contribute to the imbalance: a traditional preference for
sons, a tendency to have fewer children and a general
availability for selective abortions, where girl fetuses are
rated.
In October 2013, the United States eased its nuclear
trade restrictions on Vietnam. The superpower signed an
agreement under which it will deliver nuclear fuel and
technology to Vietnam, which is expected to complete its
first nuclear power plant in 2014 - listed in collaboration
with Russia. In October 2014, the United States announced
that it would ease its restrictions on arms sales to
Vietnam. The superpower is seeing its competitors
increasingly run with the orders to the lucrative Vietnamese
market.
A new constitution came into force in November after an
unprecedented - but still heavily controlled - popular
debate over the constitutional draft, which ran for over 9
months. The new constitution, in general terms, allows
freedom of expression and assembly, but at the same time
opens up restrictions on these freedoms through clauses in
the general laws. The right to fair litigation is only
guaranteed to a limited extent. The country signed the UN
Convention against Torture in November and the National
Assembly ratified the signature a year later. The country's
new constitution prohibits torture, but the Criminal Code
lacks precise descriptions of what torture is.
In February 2014, Vietnam was subjected to the periodic
review of human rights in the country by the UN Human Rights
Council. The country chose to follow 182 of the Council's
227 recommendations. A much higher percentage than e.g.
Denmark. Vietnam was in January elected to sit on the
council for a two-year term.
The territorial conflict between Vietnam and China peaked
in May when China moved an oil drilling platform into a
disputed waters. The incident triggered violent
demonstrations among tens of thousands of Vietnamese workers
who attacked not only Chinese but also South Korean,
Taiwanese and Japanese-owned factories. An unknown number of
workers were killed or injured. 700 were arrested for their
participation in the protests.
6 dissidents were released in April and June. Then there
were 60 prisoners of conscience in the country's prisons.
Among them were many bloggers who had been convicted of
spreading "false information" on the Internet, but among the
prisoners were also labor and peasant activists, as well as
religious and political activists. There continued to be
spontaneous violent attacks on dissidents freely, carried
out by groups of men suspected to be in contact with the
security police. In other words, the attacks were intended
to intimidate the activists.
Vietnam's economy grew by 6% in 2014. Slightly smaller
than its Southeast Asian neighbors, but far above western
levels.
In April 2016, the National Assembly elected Trần Đại
Quang as the country's president with 91% of the vote. He
was a member of the CCP Central Committee and Political
Bureau and had been Minister of Public Security since 2011.
Also in April, Nguyễn Xuân Phúc was appointed prime
minister.
Dead fish began to wash up on the beaches of Hà Tĩnh
province in central Vietnam in April 2016. The following
weeks, the Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị and Thừa Thiên – Huế
provinces were also affected by the disaster. The person
responsible for the environmental disaster was the company
Formosa Ha Tinh Steel - a steel plant owned by the Taiwanese
group Formosa Plastics. Only at the end of June did the
company accept that it was responsible for the disaster. It
had illegally discharged heavily polluted industrial
wastewater directly into the sea. The disaster had major
economic consequences for the country. In the central part,
fishing within 20 nautical miles from the coast was
prohibited. It hit the fishermen. At the same time, foreign
tourists canceled 30% of the planned nights in the central
parts of the country. The Group agreed to pay DKK 500
million. US $ in compensation to the affected communities,
but even at the end of 2017, pollution was so extensive that
fishing continued to be impossible. About 270,000 Vietnamese
were affected by the disaster.
In May 2016, a further "normalization" of the Vietnam-US
relationship occurred when President Obama repealed the
superpower ban on arms exports to the country.
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