Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Southeast Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Vietnam’s Communist Party reappoints its general secretary, Myanmar’s junta declares victory in its pseudo-election, Indonesia and Vietnam join Trump’s Board of Peace, and scientists prove the world’s oldest cave art is in Indonesia.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Southeast Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Vietnam’s Communist Party reappoints its general secretary, Myanmar’s junta declares victory in its pseudo-election, Indonesia and Vietnam join Trump’s Board of Peace, and scientists prove the world’s oldest cave art is in Indonesia.

Vietnam’s To Lam Tightens Grip

To Lam was reappointed on Friday as general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the country’s top political position.

The party congress ran Jan. 19-23. It is yet to be announced who will become president, as is the normal schedule. However, many predict Lam to also be appointed to this role.

The development would further concentrate power in Lam’s hands and end the collective leadership system that characterized Vietnam’s political system for decades.

Since first assuming office as general secretary in 2024, Lam has moved swiftly to boost growth and cement his grip on power. He has declared he wishes Vietnam to grow at 10 percent or more until 2030.

To this end, he has boosted the private sector and fired tens of thousands of civil servants.

Analysts I spoke to saw the congress as a success for Lam. “The main takeaway is that To Lam was given a very strong mandate to accelerate his reform,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a researcher in Vietnamese politics at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

Giang pointed to how the congress was cut short by a day and half, a sign of strong internal consensus. Should Lam become president—which would happen next month at an extraordinary session of the National Assembly or late March when a new National Assembly has been convened—this would further affirm his power, he added.

The question now is what will Lam’s power herald?

Hai Hong Nguyen, a senior lecturer of politics at VinUniversity, took an optimistic view of the power consolidation. “I think it will allow for swifter decision-making and more consistent implementation,” he told Foreign Policy.

Others, however, are critical. “We are entering an era of ‘Digital Securocracy,’” said Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, aka “Mother Mushroom,” a prominent Vietnamese dissident and founder of the human rights advocacy group WEHEAR. “To Lam’s background is in security and surveillance. We will see the aggressive deployment of technology not to empower citizens but to monitor them.”

Much may........

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