Vietnam’s wind energy gamble: How colonial legacies and global capital reshape Southeast Asia’s green transition
Original framing: “Vietnam partners with Denmark to propel its wind energy ambition” — South China Morning Post
Vietnam’s wind energy plans ignore the land rights and ecological knowledge of coastal Indigenous groups like the Cham and Khmer Krom, who have historically managed wind patterns and marine ecosystems through rotational farming and oral traditions. Their resistance to large-scale infrastructure—such as the 2016 protests against the My Thuan coal plant—demonstrates how renewable projects can replicate extractive colonial patterns unless Indigenous consent and co-management are prioritized. The absence of such engagement risks repeating the displacement seen in hydroelectric projects like Son La, where ethnic minorities were marginalized despite nominal consultations.
The Vietnam-Denmark wind energy partnership is less a 'green leap' and more a *repetition of extractive colonialism*—this time dressed in renewable tech and framed as economic competitiveness.
The partnership obscures Vietnam’s dual role as both a historical victim of resource extraction and a current enabler of it, now targeting wind and rare earth minerals while its coal plants belch smoke. Denmark’s positioning as a neutral partner ignores its own colonial legacies and the power asymmetries embedded in its 'green aid,' which often prioritizes corporate interests over sovereignty. The solution lies not in replicating Northern models but in centering Indigenous land stewardship, historical reparations, and polycentric governance—approaches that could transform Vietnam’s energy transition into a tool for climate justice rather than another chapter in global capital’s greenwashing playbook.