Source: China Newsweek

According to the news released by the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam on April 22, Fan Taihe, assistant to the President of the Vietnamese National Assembly and deputy director of the General Office of the National Assembly, has been arrested on suspicion of abuse of power.

(Information picture) Fantai River.

In Vietnamese politics, assistants are different from "secretaries" in general. Only the members of the Political Bureau, the Secretariat, the Vice President of the State, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government, the Vice President of the National Assembly and other leaders are equipped with assistants, who are senior officials, mainly assisting leaders in their government affairs and policy formulation.

The President of the Vietnamese National Assembly is known as one of the "four carriages" in Vietnamese politics. After the resignation of Vietnamese President Nguyen Chun Phu in January 2023 and the dismissal of his successor, Wu Wensang, in March 2024, Wang Tinghui, as the President of the National Assembly, ranked third in the current ranking of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam. After Wu Wenshang left office, Wang Tinghui was regarded by foreign media as a popular candidate to take over the post of President of the country.

According to the police report, Fan Taihe's arrest was suspected of "using his power to influence others to seek personal gains", and the police found his illegal clues when investigating the bribery case of Shun'an Group in bidding. The Shun'an Group case is very similar to the Fushan Group case that led to Wu Wenshang's dismissal and the arrest of many of his old subordinates in March this year.

Founded in 2004, Shun'an Group has grown from a regional company with a registered capital of 3.9 billion Vietnamese dong (about 1.11 million yuan) to a leading enterprise in the industry with a registered capital of more than 300 billion Vietnamese dong and undertaking major infrastructure projects in Ho Chi Minh City and other places within ten years. Behind it is the exchange of interests with local officials. On April 15 this year, the head of the group was arrested by the police. Since then, several officials involved in the case in Beijiang Province have also been taken away.

It is unclear when Fan Taihe was involved in the relevant cases. In January 2023, Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh and Deputy Prime Minister Wu Dedan were dismissed due to their "political responsibility" for epidemic prevention corruption cases. Before that, their assistants were arrested by the police in September and November 2022 respectively.

Carey Sayer, a Vietnam affairs expert and professor emeritus of the University of New South Wales, Australia, who has provided advice to Vietnamese governments at all levels for many times, pointed out that in the context of such serious mistakes committed by officials and subordinate departments, "if the leader in charge personally benefits from them, he will be disciplined; if he does not know or act, he must also be responsible for it."

Fan Taihe was born in Taiping Province, northern Vietnam, and has a doctorate in economics and a qualification as a certified auditor. When he became the Deputy Director of the General Office of the National Assembly in 2022, Chen Qingmin, the Standing Vice President of the National Assembly, once commented that Fan Taihe was "well-trained, experienced a variety of work, and served in the National Audit Office, the Ministry of Finance, the Central Economic Department of the Viet Nam Communist Party and other institutions for a long time". The official resume shows that since then, Fan Taihe has served as the assistant to the Vice Premier, the assistant to the secretary of Hanoi Municipal Party Committee, and even became the assistant to the President of the National Assembly.

It is worth noting that in 2001, Wang Tinghui, an economic expert, entered the Vietnamese political arena and served as the Deputy Auditor General of the National Audit Office. Since then, he has successively served as the Auditor General of the National Audit Office, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Economy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Since 2016, Wang Tinghui has successively served as Deputy Prime Minister of the Vietnamese Government, Secretary of Hanoi Municipal Party Committee and President of the Vietnamese National Assembly.

Among Vietnamese leaders, there are quite different promotion systems for cadres who have worked in the economic front for a long time and have worked in the south, and cadres who have worked in the party or public security front for a long time and have worked in the north. Among the members of the Political Bureau elected at the Thirteenth National Congress of the Viet Nam Communist Party in 2021, Nguyen Phu Trong, Nguyen Chunfu, Fan Mingzheng, and Wang Ting hui ranked in the top four. Among them, Ruan Fuchong is from the party affairs front, Fan Mingzheng is from the public security system, and Ruan Chunfu and Wang Tinghui are from the economic front.

After Ruan Chunfu resigns in 2023, Wu Wenshang, ranking fifth and having both north and south work experience, will take over, and the pattern will remain balanced. Wu Wenshang's position as the standing secretary of the Central Secretariat of the Viet Nam Communist Party was succeeded by Zhang Shimei, the secretary of the Secretariat ranking next to him. However, after Wu Wenshang resigned from his post in the Party and was dismissed as the President of the country in April this year, the pattern of the "four carriages" has changed: if Wang Tinghui succeeds the President of the country and Chen Qingmin, the Executive Vice President of the National Assembly, succeeds to the President, both of them will come from the economic front. If Zhang Shimei, who currently ranks fourth, or Su Lin, who ranks fifth, succeeds as President of the country, at least three of the "four carriages" will be born in the party affairs or public security system. In addition, Pan Tingzhuan, the secretary of the Central Secretariat ranking behind Zhang Shimei, also came from the public security system.

Since Nguyen Phu Trong launched the "melting pot" anti-corruption campaign in 2013, the number of senior Vietnamese officials who were dismissed or forced to resign due to suspected corruption and dereliction of duty has been increasing, and the personnel system of "being able to rise and fall" due to political responsibility has gradually formed. Among the 18 members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, in addition to Ruan Chunfu, ranking second, Wu Wenshang, ranking fifth, and Fan Pingming, ranking seventh, Chen Junying, the Minister of Economy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, also resigned in January this year because of his historical responsibility as Minister of Industry and Trade.

Wu Wenshang and Chen Junying were the youngest members of the Politburo. After their withdrawal, the members of the Political Bureau who can still meet the age requirement of 65 and continue to hold leadership positions by 2026 will be left with Chen Qingmin, the Standing Vice President of the National Assembly, Chen Jinxiu, the Secretary of the Central Secretariat in charge of anti-corruption work, and Ding Jinyong, the Secretary of Hanoi Municipal Party Committee. The Central Committee of the Viet Nam Communist Party has an "age exemption" system, but judging from the situation before the party congress in 2016 and 2021, only Nguyen Phu Trong was exempted twice.

According to some analyses, at the next meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, in addition to deciding on the candidates recommended by the President, members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee may also be added. However, under the new circumstances of Van Tae Ho's arrest, whether the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Communist Party will have a larger personnel adjustment due to the anti-corruption issue has attracted much attention from the outside world.

Author: Cao Ran

Editor in charge: Zhang Yu