Is Beijing “training Vietnamese officers” or training spies to sabotage Vietnam?

General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Xi Jinping in Beijing

Public opinion on Vietnamese social networks is heatedly debating why Vietnam’s senior party leaders must go to China every year to attend the Communist Party of China‘s “training for future cadres.” This also did not change after Hanoi upgraded its diplomacy with Washington to the highest level.

A photo published by state media on September 26 shows Politburo member Dinh Tien Dung, Secretary of Hanoi, giving a closing speech to the cadre training class in Guangzhou city, Guangdong province, China.

For a long time, there have been concerns that, under General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam has increasingly sent to China to train high-ranking officials, or future officials, as part of the program Selecting key leaders for the Party and state apparatus in the future.

However, one worrying thing is that with its “deep” nature, China is a “master” in seducing, bribing, trapping… the people they target, including manipulating and threatening them, forcing these people to work for them.

According to the Voice of America VOA, once imprisoned with Chinese spies, prisoner of conscience Pham Van Troi said: “Since 1993, there have been delegations of Vietnamese officials going to China to study the modelSocialism with Chinese characteristics.’ Each delegation has about 20 to 30 people, from sectors such as the military, police, administration, health, education, especially customs, etc. At these courses, people from the China Intelligence Bureau under the different guises will participate in their training. This study tour program is organized by the Central Organizing Commission of the ruling party. When they return home, through Beijing’s guidance, they will be promoted to positions and then gradually into key leadership positions. This is a form of planting people by the China Intelligence.”

Writer Pham Viet Dao, member of the Vietnam Writers’ Association, studied literature in Romania, was an officer of the Ministry of Culture and then an Inspector of this Ministry until 2007. In early 2013, Mr. Dao received a 15-month prison sentence for “Abusing democratic freedoms” under Article 258 of the Penal Code 1999.

Mr. Pham Viet Dao wrote on his personal Facebook page, saying that during his time in prison, he lived with many Vietnamese people imprisoned on charges of spying for China. Writer Pham Viet Dao also revealed that he was imprisoned with a younger brother of Nguyen Xuan Phuc and a nephew of Tran Dai Quang.

According to Mr. Pham Viet Dao, the Vietnamese people spying for China are very diverse. Some people are border guards, some people work in the customs industry, some people are Vietnamese spies who sent to China but were discovered, then turned to spy for the enemy, etc. Most especially among the prisoners was Pham Minh Duc, born in 1957, from Hanoi, who used to be Deputy Head of the Party Central Committee’s Organization Commission. Thanks to Beijing’s intervention, Mr. Duc only received a 5-year prison sentence, even though he was classified as a “class 1 spy.”

In the second story, Mr. Pham Viet Dao said, according to an inmate who was arrested for trading VAT invoices, in Hanoi, there are parallel two sources of Ministries of Finance red invoices – VAT, one at No. 9 Phan Huy Chu and the second “Ministry of Finance” is located at the black market… Because of this incident, Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung was disciplined. But for unknown reasons, after the 13th Congress, Mr. Dung was still promoted to the position of Politburo member and Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee. It is known that the black market VAT invoice case is related to Major General Do Huu Ca – former Director of Hai Phong Police.

The stories just told, with witnesses who are insiders and once had social status, show that Mr. Nguyen Phu Trong and the Vietnamese leadership send high-ranking officials in the category of source cadres to Beijing. Training – which is essentially assigned to China Intelligence for training – is likened to proactively bringing “fat to the cat.” This is an extremely dangerous job for the country.

Let’s ask, will China teach Vietnam’s key leadership cadres in the future the question, “To which country the Hoang Sa (Paracels) and the Truong Sa (Spratlys) as well as 90% of the East Sea (South China Sea) belong to?” Surely, asking is also the answer.

Thoibao.de (Translated)