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Common propaganda tactic: take normal processes Vietnam has and make them sound scary and authoritarian. Example: you have to file with the election commission to get on the ballot, Western journalists describe this totally normal process as "requiring approval."
Remember when Kanye West had controversy because he was late to file for election? Nobody in the West described this as "requiring approval from the government." Things that are totally standard and normal processes get otherized in Vietnam! https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.jsonline.com/amp/3307134001
Vietnam has MORE independent members of the national assembly by percentage than either the supreme court or house of representatives in the USA. These independent members are not communist party members, they just ran for office, as was their right.
Another example is unions. Western propagandists like to say "there are no independent unions in Vietnam, all unions must register with the government." This is true in the USA, as well: all unions must register with the National Labor Relations Board for full legal protection.
It was true that we did only allow our national labor union until 2019, when we began allowing non-national unions, but every workplace has always had an independently organized union structure. https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/society/20191123/vietnam-to-allow-independent-trade-unions-raise-retirement-age/51960.html
And it has never been a bad thing that EVERY worker is protected by a national union, which is still the case. Prior to COVID, Vietnam had more major strikes per capita than the USA, almost one strike per day. https://www.google.com/amp/s/ampe.vnexpress.net/news/news/80-percent-of-strikes-in-vietnam-occur-at-foreign-companies-3961952.html
Many of these strikes occur without union approval, and in those cases not a single worker has gotten in trouble. Instead, the local union gets in trouble with the national union for not taking care of employee grievances.
Compare this to the USA, where many trade unions have "no strike" clauses and workers can get fired with union approval for striking!
Just don't trust anything in capitalist media about Vietnam. Be skeptical, almost always they project failures of YOUR capitalist system onto us.
Just don't trust anything in capitalist media about Vietnam. Be skeptical, almost always they project failures of YOUR capitalist system onto us.
