BBC News Vietnamese includes insights from Edmund Malesky on the legacy of Vietnam’s Nguyễn Phú Trọng
BBC News Vietnamese included remarks from Edmund Malesky, professor of political economy and director of the Duke Center for International Development, in recent articles exploring the legacy of Vietnam’s Nguy ễn Phú Trọng.
The general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam passed last July after serving 13 years as the country’s top leader.
In the July 20 article “Di sản Nguyễn Phú Trọng: Tổng Bí thư Tô Lâm có còn 'đốt lò'?,” Malesky offered thoughts on the anti-corruption campaign spearheaded by Trọng that targeted government officials of all ranks.
Malesky told the BBC that the campaign has decreased petty corruption, explaining the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) and the Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) show a marked decline in the state of petty corruption encountered by businesses, starting in 2016.
While Trọng’s campaign has achieved tremendous results in the issue of reducing corruption and has resulted in the arrest of many senior officials, it’s more difficult to assess whether this campaign reduced high-level corruption, he added.
In the July 19 article “Di sản Nguyễn Phú Trọng: thăm Nhà Trắng, 'thay đổi vĩnh viễn quỹ đạo quan hệ Việt - Mỹ',” Malesky reflected on Trọng’s visit to the U.S. in 2015 to meet with President Barack Obama to discuss ways to strengthen the U.S.-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership.
It is rare for the president to welcome at the White House a foreign leader who is not the head of state or head of government. By the Obama administration making the exception and welcoming Trọng, it legitimized the sole leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Malesky explained.
A leading voice in international and comparative political economy, Malesky has produced groundbreaking research on governance, markets, and institutional reform in developing and authoritarian regimes, with a particular emphasis on Southeast Asia. He has been at the forefront of developing practical tools that translate academic insights into measurable governance improvements. Most notably, he pioneered the Vietnam Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), which has become a widely adopted model for assessing subnational economic governance from the perspective of private firms. Building on this foundation, he contributed to the design of the Provincial Administrative Performance Index (PAPI), which captures citizen experiences with government performance. He received a state medal from the Government of Vietnam for his contributions to the country’s governance reforms.