Vietnam has implemented significant anti-corruption measures over more than a decade. But serious questions remain, including those relating to current meg-construction projects.
For more than a decade, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) has pursued one of Southeast Asia’s most consequential anti-corruption campaigns. The CPV has concluded, sometimes painfully, that eradicating graft without rebuilding the institutions that enable it is a battle that cannot be won.
Thousands of officials, many senior, have been targeted
Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign, popularly known as đot lo or “blazing furnace“, was formally launched by General Secretary Nguyeeễn Phuuú Trọng in 2013. The logic was that corruption threatened the legitimacy and survival of one-party rule.
Over the next 10 years, according to the CPV, tens of thousands of senior government officials, party committees and party members, including Politburo members, incumbent and former members of the Central Committee, high-ranking officers in the army and public security were investigated, disciplined, arrested, tried and imprisoned in relation to corruption and misconduct.
The most striking cases were the demotion of President Nguyễn Xuân Phúc in 2023; and President Võ Văn Thưởng in 2024, along with the National Assembly chairman Vương Đình Huệ and Standing Member of the CPV Secretariat Trương Thị Mai.
Their punishment showed that Trọng had “no forbidden zones, no exceptions” to tackling corruption. The dismantling of the so-called “Four Pillars” of national leadership—the General Secretary, President, Prime Minister, and Chairman of the National Assembly—sent an unambiguous message throughout the party-state hierarchy that no one was untouchable.
This undoubtedly came with the reward of consolidating Trọng’ power and enabling him to set the future direction of the party.
Moves towards corruption prevention
The CPV’s anti-corruption strategy aims to achieve a durable goal captured in the slogan: “Officials should not have the chance to corrupt, not dare to corrupt, not need to corrupt, and not wish to corrupt”. This four-part formula reflects a shift in doctrine from punishment to prevention and institutional design.
Building and perfecting institutions is the stated focus of this prevention strategy. It requires constructing what party documents call a “strict prevention mechanism“: mandatory asset declarations for public officials, conflict-of-interest rules, transparency in public procurement, digitising administrative procedures to reduce direct human contact, and salary reforms to ensure that public servants earn enough to resist temptation. The goal, in theory, is to make corruption simultaneously difficult, unnecessary, and morally unthinkable rather than relying on enforcement alone.
Tô Lâm, a former Minister of Public Security and Trọng’ assistant in his anti-corruption campaign, was elected CPV General Secretary in August 2024, following Trọng death. On the first day of his leadership, an investigation into “Party’s rules violations” brought down a deputy prime minister, a young minister, and two provincial party chiefs. All four were removed from the CPV Central Committee on the day Lâm delivered his inaugural keynote pledging to continue the anti-corruption drive. He then removed their political titles and the benefits that came with the positions while held and in retirement.
Enabling economic growth through administrative reform
Lâm came to power with another mission: promoting economic growth for a prosperous Vietnam. Hence, he also sent the message that the anti-corruption efforts should not hamper development and institutional reforms.
In November 2024, the CPV’s Central Committee approved a plan to slim the bureaucracy—reducing central government to 17 ministries (previously 21), five party commissions (previously eight), and five National Assembly committees (previously nine).
At the local level, the reforms were more radical: on 1 July 2025, Vietnam reduced its 63 provinces and cities to 34 first-level subdivisions and eliminated the district tier of government entirely—its most extensive administrative reorganisation in decades.
The link between these structural changes and anti-corruption is direct. Overlapping agencies and opaque chains of authority have long created the grey zones in which graft flourished. By clarifying which level of government “decides, does, and takes responsibility,” the reforms aim to eliminate jurisdictional ambiguity that corrupt officials had exploited as cover.
Under Lâm’s direction, the non-local leadership policy that all provincial party secretaries and chairmen of people’s committees must come from other provinces has been implemented across the nation. Lâm has hailed the significant achievements of this policy as an anti-corruption measure. However, observers have linked the policy to his consolidation of power. He was appointed as the President in April, adding to his role as General Secretary, which has significantly expanded his power.
An unfinished reckoning
Transparency International’s 2024 (TI) Corruption Perception Index gave Vietnam a score of 41 out of 100, a significant improvement from 32 in 2015. Yet serious questions remain. TI’s 2025 report states that “corruption remains pervasive, continuing to undermine the country’s economic development”.
The on-going institutional reforms mark a recognition that enforcement alone cannot deliver integrity. Under a one-party-rule regime, internal checks and balances are insufficient. Corruption has even been found within anti-corruption agencies. Moreover, economic liberalisation cannot succeed without independent journalism and a functioning civil society.
The “no exception” principle and the four-part formula are ambitious goals. What distinguishes the current moment from earlier, quieter, pledges is the scale of institutional architecture being built around them—and the willingness to bring down even the highest leaders. Whether those institutions prove durable beyond the political imperatives of a single leader, or whether there is a trade-off between the anti-corruption drive and economic growth is one of the defining questions for the Vietnamese leadership to tackle.
A report jointly produced by the Government’s Inspectorate and the World Bank in 2012 warned that construction is one of the most corrupt sectors in Vietnam. As Lâm is pursuing his prosperity mission, grand infrastructure construction projects are underway. At a meeting of the Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption, Waste and Misconduct on June 18, 2026, Lam directed investigations on corruption relating to mega construction projects of Long Thanh international airport and the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The treatment of these projects, involving many former and incumbent high-ranking officials, is a test for Lâm.
This article is part of a special series on ‘Governing for Growth: Democracy and Development in Southeast Asia’ – a joint initiative of Insights and Melbourne Asia Review. It marks this year’s Southeast Asia Oration by Indonesian Economist and former Minister of Finance of Indonesia, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, hosted by Asialink and Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, with support from the ASEAN-Australia Centre.
Hai Hong Nguyen
Adjunct Associate Professor, the University of Sunshine Coast
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology.
Image: Vietnamese President Tô Lâm, Moscow, April 2026. Credit: photoibo/Shutterstock.
