Vietnam’s authoritarian drift: How police expansion and elite alignment with China’s governance model reflect deeper structural crises

Vietnam’s ethnic minorities, particularly the Montagnard and Khmer Krom, have long practiced communal land tenure and dispute resolution outside state control, offering alternatives to police expansion. Their knowledge systems emphasize collective stewardship over individual property rights, contrasting with the China model’s top-down securitization. However, these perspectives are systematically excluded from national policy debates, which prioritize ethnic Kinh dominance and economic growth.

Vietnam’s historical relationship with China spans millennia of tributary states, resistance wars, and cultural exchange, with the current alignment echoing the 19th-century Nguyen Dynasty’s centralization under Chinese Confucian influence. The 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War and subsequent border conflicts demonstrate the fragility of this relationship, yet elite narratives now frame alignment as inevitable. This ignores Vietnam’s tradition of 'bending but not breaking' under foreign pressure, as seen in its 1954 Geneva Accords maneuvering.

Comparing Vietnam’s trajectory to Myanmar’s post-2021 coup reveals a shared pattern of military-backed regimes using 'stability' as a pretext for authoritarian consolidation, despite differing historical contexts. In contrast, Indonesia’s 1998 reformasi movement shows how mass protests can force elite concessions, though its democratic backsliding today underscores the fragility of such gains. These cross-cultural cases highlight the role of urban middle classes in either resisting or enabling police expansion.

Research on authoritarian consolidation in Southeast Asia (e.g., Slater 2010) demonstrates how economic crises and elite fragmentation create incentives for security-state expansion, as seen in Vietnam’s 2016-2021 anti-corruption campaign that actually centralized power under the Politburo. Studies on police militarization (e.g., Neocleous 2014) show how 'public order' policing serves as a tool for suppressing labor and environmental activism, not just crime. Yet these mechanisms are rarely linked to Vietnam’s current alignment with China.

Vietnamese folk traditions, such as *hát chèo* theater and *đờn ca tài tử* music, have historically critiqued state power through allegory, as seen in the 1930s peasant uprisings depicted in *Truyện Kiều*. Contemporary artists like Trịnh Công Sơn used music to challenge war and authoritarianism, though their work is now sanitized in state narratives. Meanwhile, Buddhist and indigenous spiritual practices emphasize interdependence over state control, offering a counter-framework to the China model’s utilitarian governance.

Scenario modeling suggests that Vietnam’s current alignment with China could either stabilize into a 'Sino-Vietnamese developmental state' (similar to Singapore) or trigger internal fractures if economic inequality and environmental degradation worsen. A 'third path' might emerge if labor movements and ethnic minorities forge cross-border alliances, as seen in the 2018 wildcat strikes in Vietnam and Cambodia. The rise of AI-driven surveillance, already piloted in China, could further entrench this model unless countered by decentralized digital resistance.

Vietnam’s ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ communities, and independent labor organizers face systemic exclusion from policy debates, with their grievances framed as 'social evils' by state media. The 2020-2023 crackdown on environmental activists, including the imprisonment of land rights defenders like Can Thi Theu, reveals how police expansion targets those resisting land grabs for foreign investors. Meanwhile, Vietnamese diaspora groups in the U.S. and Europe, particularly former political prisoners, provide critical but ignored counter-narratives to the 'China model' discourse.