Communist Review -Developing vision is an essential skill required for any organization or individual who desires to successfully lead the designated political path. Over the past 90 years, the Party’s success in leading the Vietnamese revolutionary cause has been attributed by outlining and developing vision for revolutionary targets of each particular period. In order to make Vietnam a developed and prosperous country in the mid-21^st century, the whole nation is being enlightened by the Party’s vision to constantly strive further for development.

Since its birth, the Vietnam Communist Party has determined its direction, revolutionary path, and strategic and tactic goals. This acts as the lighthouse and the basis to gather and unite the whole nation as well as encourage people to fight for national liberation and defence. Embarking on the Doi moi (Renewal) period, while inheriting from the determined revolutionary path and basing on domestic and international contexts as well as scientific foundation and practice, the Party figured out the goals and vision for national development till mid-21^st century on the occasion of 100^th founding anniversary of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

1- Literally, vision defines the farthest distance an eye can see; nevertheless, in socio-politics, vision means the ability to look at distance not only in space but also in time; it is the ability to foresee the future, practically determine the future to be achieved. That is the Party’s capacity to foresee, analyze, synthesize, assess the situations, forecast and determine what its organization or the country will become in the future of at least ten or twenty years. Accordingly, vision is normally strategic which is associated with targets and serves as the basis for setting possible targets and strategic tasks. The Party’s vision is also linked with the mission of expressing desires and beliefs in the role, the values ​​and the meaning of existence as well as the development of its future organization and country.

Vision is one of the key requirements and qualities a leader possesses, especially those leading organizations, countries, and political parties (principally those in power). State leaders’ vision illustrates the ability to determine the country’s distinctive features in the future. That relies on in-depth analysis and accurate assessment of the international contexts and events as well as the modern development trend. It also entails recognizing advantages and shortcomings, opportunities and challenges, and fundamental contradictions for national development. State leaders’ strategic vision lays the groundwork for building and preparing the forces to seize opportunities of political revolutions when the time comes. It also facilitates the connection, inheritance, constant and consistent enhancement among yearly plans and targets, in 5 years or 10 years’ time or in long-term development. Also, when state leaders’ vision, targets and tasks are set basing on the people’s benefits and aspirations, the then bright outlook for the country’s development will unite people from different walks of life and strongly encourage them to overcome all difficulties, challenges, hardships and sacrifices.

The Party and President Ho Chi Minh’s comprehensive vision has been one of the decisive elements for Vietnam’s glorious victory over the past 90 years. The first political credo written by Nguyen Ai Quoc which was passed at the Party Founding Meeting in the early 1930s determined our revolution’s nature and targets respectively to be democratic national, to drive imperialism and feudalism out of the country, and to finally achieve independence and progress towards socialism. That vision reflected and resolved the fundamental contradictions, the most important urgent requests of the country and its people; hence, it gained popular approval and support to tremendously encourage revolutionary movements culminating in the 1930-1931 Nghe Tinh Soviets, the 1936-1939 democracy movement. When World War II broke out in 1939, Nguyen Ai Quoc with his great vision forecasted the Nazi defeat would open up a golden opportunity for Vietnam’s Revolution. He sought his way home and together with the Party led the national revolution, which prioritized fighting against the invaders and gaining national independence. He established the Viet Minh Front to unite and empower the whole nation, founded the Vietnam Propaganda Liberation Army using armed resistance and dissemination to generate profound revolutionary influence. When the time was ripe (Japan surrendered to the Allies), those together roared to the historic victory of 1945 August Revolution that smashed the colonialist and feudalist rules and formed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, ushered in the Vietnamese independence and freedom.

When the French reinvaded Vietnam in late 1945 and was then replaced by the Americans who established the Republic of South Vietnam in 1954 to split the country, suppress the Southern masses, wage a destruction war to the Northern area, the Party and President Ho Chi Minh with their strategic vision were not passive or surprised but well-prepared for an enduring, arduous war of resistance to gain great victories which culminated in the historic 1954 Dien Bien Phu Victory and Great 1975 Spring Victory, resulting in the national liberation and unification. In the resistance against the American destruction war in North Vietnam, President Ho Chi Minh predicted that the Americans would only be defeated after B52 bombings in Hanoi; therefore, Vietnam’s people and army were in a state of readiness for “Dien Bien Phu in the Air” victory and so won the American destruction war. This is a valuable historic lesson as well as a glorious tradition of the Party, the people and the Vietnamese nation.

2- Today, the Party is guiding the drafting of documents of the 13^th National Party Congress that is expected to take place in early 2021. The drafting of the Political Report is required to define not only the national development targets in 2021-2025 period but also those till 2030 (100^th founding anniversary of the Party) and vision to the mid-21^st century (100^th founding anniversary of the State). This important guideline is an inheritance and promotion of the Party’s experience and glorious traditions. Determining the Party’s vision for national development till the mid-21^st century (30 years and multiple National Party Congresses from now) ensures the consistency in national development direction of national independence and socialism, the inheritance and development of the Party’s views and guidelines over its Congresses. This proves its essential part in the context of international complicated ongoing challenges, the country’s broader international integration, hostile forces’ sabotage on the Party’s revolutionary cause, the State and the socialist regime, and violation of Vietnam’s independence and territorial and maritime sovereignty. In addition, deterioration in political viewpoints, behaviour and ethics, “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” in part of the Party members that has yet been stopped and repelled, etc. cannot be despised.

However, not until recently while preparing the 13^th Congress documents has the Party asked to determine the national development vision till the mid-21^st century. The Platform on national construction in the period of transition to socialism was adopted by the 7^th Party Congress in 1991 (Platform 1991), especially The Platform on national construction in the period of transition to socialism (supplemented and developed in 2011) set the vision “Until the mid-21^st century, our entire Party and people must strive to turn our country into a modern industrialized socialist-oriented country”⁽¹⁾. According to the Party’s views in the Platform, a modern industrialized country is defined as a country with a “rational, modern, effective and sustainable economic structure, closely linked to industry, agriculture, and service.”⁽²⁾ It also “attaches importance to the development of heavy industries, fundamental manufacturing industries and advantageous industries; hi-tech agriculture, forestry and fishery associated with processing industry”⁽²⁾. It has “an independent and autonomous economy, as well as active, proactive integration into the international economy”⁽³⁾. The characteristics of the socialist society developed by Vietnam are as follow: “This is a society of wealthy people, a powerful country, a democratic, just and advanced society owned by the people; a society possessing a highly-developed economy based on an advanced production force and a public ownership regime on major production materials with a progressive culture imbued with national identity, a life of well-being, freedom, happiness and comprehensive conditions for development. All ethnic minorities within the Vietnamese community not only are equal and united, but also respect and assist each other to strive for mutual development; a country, with a rule-of-law socialist State of the people, for the people and by the people led by the Communist Party, which established the friendship and co-operation with all peoples in the world.”⁽⁴⁾

The Party Platform represents a vision of further development of the country until the end of the transition to socialism. The Platform clearly identifies “The overall goal in the end of the transition stage is to fundamentally develop the foundations of socialism with an appropriate political, ideological and cultural superstructure, laying the groundwork for Vietnam to be a socialist country of greater prosperity and happiness. From now to the mid-21st century, the Party and people of Vietnam will strive to build it a modern industrialized and socialist-oriented country.”⁽⁵⁾. At the same time, the Platform also outlines eight basic directions and eight major relationships that need to be thoroughly understood and well implemented to successfully implement the above objectives.

Following are eight major directions to achieve the above-mentioned goals: 1- Accelerating the national industrialization and modernization aligned with developing a knowledge-based economy and protecting natural resources and environment; 2- Developing a socialist-oriented market economy; 3- Building an advanced culture imbued with national identity; developing human; improving people’s life, realising social progress and equality; 4- Safeguarding national security, defence and social safety; 5- Pursuing a foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, peace, friendship, co-operation and development; actively participating in international integration; 6- Building a socialist democracy; forming national unity, strengthening and expanding the people’s unity front; 7- Building up a rule-of-law socialist-oriented State of people, for the people and by the people; 8- Building a clean and healthy Party.

Eight major relations are namely: 1- The relation between innovation, stability and development; 2- between economic innovation and political innovation; 3- between complying with market laws and ensuring socialist orientation; 4- between developing production forces and building and perfecting socialist production relations step by step; 5- between economic growth and cultural development, social progress and justice; 6- between building socialism and defending the socialist country; 7- between independence, self-reliance and international integration; 8- between the Party leadership, the State management and the people’s mastery⁽⁶⁾. The Platform’s views and visions are the foundation for determining the Party's vision for national development until the middle of the twenty-first century in the 13th Congress Party documents.

3- The Party's vision of developing the country until the mid- 21^st century in the 13^th Party Congress Document, on the one hand, requires thorough grasp of the contents and views stated in the Party's Platform and inherits views on the national development goals in the past Party congresses; on the other hand, it is highly recommended to adopt a right approach to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industrial Revolution 4.0) which is accelerating economic globalization despite emerging protectionism in some countries. Vietnam has integrated more deeply and widely into the international economy, and has become a member of numerous organizations and forums at both regional and global levels, signed a number of bilateral and multilateral trade and investment agreements with countries and economic sectors in the world, including a wide range of new-generation free trade agreements with full commitments. Vietnam has committed to complying with many international standards and practices. In this context, it is necessary to appropriately adjust and supplement a great deal of provisions of laws, mechanisms, policies, standards, norms and criteria to suit international standards and practices.

For more than 30 years of national renewal, after the 1994 Mid-7^th Tenure National Conference, it was assessed that Vietnam had overcome an important step in the socio-economic crisis and launched the policy of “pushing a step towards national industrialization and modernization”⁽⁷⁾, the Party’s 8^th, 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th Congresses set the goal of “laying the basis to turn Vietnam into a modernity-oriented industrial country by 2020”. The 12^th Party Congress (January 2016) forecasted the unfeasibility of the goal set in 2020, and requested to adjust to “striving to make Vietnam basically a modernity-oriented industrial country”⁽⁸⁾. Thus, the Party's vision for the mid-21st century to build Vietnam a modern and industrial country stated in the Platform has been thoroughly and consistently grasped and implemented by recent Party congresses.

Over the years, there have been many studies conducted domestically and globally to clarify what an industrial country is and set the criteria of an industrialized country. A number of foreign scholars and researchers have come up with suggestions on this issue⁽⁹⁾. Within the country, there have been a great deal of scientific programs and studies, and researchers proposing their views on this over the past 10 years⁽¹⁰⁾. Various viewpoints and criteria have been proposed; some people suggested only 1 criterion, others laid out 5, 11, 12, 15 or even 16 criteria. In particular, most studies have proposed GDP per capita. Some other criteria such as the contribution of agriculture in GDP, proportion of agricultural labor to total social labor, urbanization rate are common (results are varied though) while some criteria receive least support, by only one or two researchers. Some recent studies offer new criteria for new issues of social concern such as the environmental sustainability index ESI (or the environmental quality index EPI), the global innovation index (GII); the Industrial Revolution 4.0 Readiness Index, etc. In summary, the views and criteria of an industrialized country are of variation. Moreover, there are a number of other issues namely defining a modern-oriented industrialized country is difficult; determining how to build a foundation for a modern-oriented industrialized country is even harder. Consequently, this issue has not been resolved satisfactorily so far.    

Meanwhile, many international organizations, such as the United Nations (UN), World Bank (WB), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) have proposed a number of ways to classify countries in the world over the years. Due to their different functions and objectives, those organizations offer different classifications yet with reference, coordination, and agreement on some aspects. The United Nations divides world countries into three categories: 1- Least developed countries; 2. Developing countries; 3. Developed countries, based on per capita income. This income level is adjusted for different historical periods based on World Bank data. The World Bank classifies countries based on per capita income (GNI/person) into four groups: 1- Low-income countries; 2- Low middle-income country; 3. Average high-income country; 4- High-income country. In 2019, World Bank laid out the following specific criteria basing on the per capita income of countries in 2017:

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reviews and selects the countries eligible for ODA (official development assistance) every 3 years. All low-income countries (including all least developed ones according to the United Nations classification) and average income countries according to the World Bank’s classification criteria, which means underdeveloped and developing countries are eligible for ODA funding. As per capita income of a country increases, the amount and incentives of ODA capital for that country will decrease. When a country has a per capita income in excess of the World Bank’s average income, that country is excluded from the list of recipients of ODA.

Thus, most reputable international organizations classify countries in the world based on per capita income (GNI per capita) and divide them into low, average and high-income; or categorize countries into underdeveloped, developing and developed ones. These two classifications are interconnected and have a mutualistic relationship. Underdeveloped countries are low-income countries, developing countries are middle-income countries, and developed countries are high-income countries. Although there is no official regulation, the terms “developed countries” and “industrialized countries” are used interchangeably in documents of international organizations.

With the role and function of an organization promoting industrial development in countries around the world, UNIDO often prefers using the terms “industrialised” than “developed”. As showed in the industry development report for many years, UNIDO has applied manufacturing value added (MVA) per capita (MVA per capita) for measuring a country’s levels of industrialization. Accordingly, UNIDO classifies the world economies as four separate groups, namely industrialized countries, emerging industry, developing and underdeveloped countries.

Industrialized countries are among those can achieve MVA per capita that equal or more than 2,500 USD. For many years, UNIDO has witnessed the wave of offshoring manufacturing activities in many industrialized countries led to the fact that the MVA per capita went down, even below 2,500 USD. It does not mean that those industrialized countries no longer industrialized. Accordingly, UNIDO argues that no matter how much MVA per capita is, any country whose GDP per capita equals or exceeds 20,000 USD/year is an industrialized country. An emerging industry is a country that achieves MVA per capita more than 1,000 USD and less than 2,500, or GDP per capita exceeding 10,000 USD/year.  Developing countries are the remaining countries (except underdeveloped countries). Least developed countries are underdeveloped countries according to the United Nations’ criteria.

Although UNIDO has applied MVA per capita criterion for identifying industrial and emerging industrialized countries, the classification of countries is basically based on those defined by the United Nations and World Bank. Countries are categorized into underdeveloped, developing and developed countries, based on the levels of GNI per capita of respectively low, medium and high income. This is internationally recognized and used by a number of countries and international organizations.

In Vietnam, grasping the viewpoint of defining the country’s development goals until 2025, 2030 and a vision to 2045 is to thoroughly comprehend the Platform, absorb the conclusion of the previous National Congress while having necessary supplementation that suitable to the context of the country’s increasing global integration as well as the country’s capabilities. In the process of preparing the documents for the Party’s 13^th National Congress, especially after a range of seminars, exchanges, discussions of experts, scientific agencies and receiving opinions from agencies and leaders of ministries, branches, departments, the national socialist-oriented development goals to 2025 and 2030 have been initially identified. As such, Vietnam will basically become a modern industrial country, have a high average income by 2025; by 2030, it will become a modernly industrialized country, part of the upper middle-income countries. Moreover, the national development vision also points out that Vietnam will strive to become a developed country with high income by the middle of the 21^st Century (2045).

The addition of income criterion, that can be quantified annually, is not only the basis of an objective assessment but also consistent with the general assessment applied internationally. By 2045, the middle of the 21^st Century, Vietnam will become a developed country with high income (which considered as an industrial or industrialized country, according to the general world view). As such, Vietnam will stand shoulder to shoulder with friends from the five continents as the wish of Uncle Ho. It is not the Vietnamese people’s aspiration, but also the Party’s vision and leadership mission towards the country’s new stage of development./.

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(1), (2), (3) Documents of the 11^th National Congress, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 2011, p. 71, 75.

(4), (5) Documents of the 11^th National Congress, pp. 70 – 71.

(6) Documents of the 11^th National Congress, p. 73. The 12^th National Congress supplement a weighty relationship that needs to be thoroughly comprehended and properly dealt with, is the connection between the state, the market and the society.

(7) Documents of the National Congress in the Era of Doi Moi (The 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, 9^th National Congress), National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 2005, p. 405.

(8) Documents of the 12^th National Congress, Party Central Committee’s Office, Hanoi, 2016, p. 76.

(9) Scholars, notably W. Rostow, A. Inkeles, H.Chenery or Junho Yoo.

(10) See more from Trương Văn Đoan, Đỗ Quốc Sam, Cao Viết Sinh, Lưu Bích Hồ, Bùi Tất Thắng, Nguyễn Hồng Sơn, Nguyễn Kế Tuấn, Trần Thị Vân Hoa.

This article was published in the Communist Review No.935 (February 2020)