It traces the emergence of the Vietnamese political society in the aftermath of the Doi Moi reforms that came to challenge the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)’s grip on power, and the foundations of the mono-organisational socialist system that the Party had established. Taking this as a starting point, he examines the impact of the new actors’ pressure on the CPV’s decision-making in relation to the most domestically controversial issues in Sino-Vietnamese relations: Chinese economic presence in Vietnam and theSouth China Sea Dispute. It finds that, while in the former, the political society succeeded in pressuring Hanoi to limit opportunities for Chinese investments in the country, it failed to compel the CPV to adopt a more aggressive stance vis-à-vis China in the South China Sea dispute. Please download the CAA Paper here.
