As West draws closer to Vietnam, Hanoi gets more like Beijing

Dien Luong is an associate fellow with the media, technology and society program of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and a doctoral student in communications and media at the University of Michigan.

The leak earlier this month of a purported Vietnamese Communist Party Politburo policy directive about internal security has sparked concerns that authorities in Hanoi are preparing to further increase domestic surveillance and social controls.