VI - Government Policy and Solutions

Summary

For a system that is so used to central control in so many areas of life, it begs the question of policy makers' attitude towards this highly visible migration phenomenon. While the need for doi moi was based on broad consensus within the Vietnam Communist Party, the leadership engaged in intense internal debate on several ideological issues (such as the right to own land or privatization of state-owned enterprises, just to name two examples) over its implementation. There has been no indication that rural-urban migration had been the subject of such ideological contention but, at the same time, a debate between those who want to be stern and those urging a liberal approach are becoming evident. For a start, the problem has been deemed serious enough to engage policy makers at the highest level of government (7 January 1988 Resolution No. 4 of the Council of Ministers discussed in Chapter One) as well as the attention of the Party Central Committee (Fifth Plenum of its Seventh Congress).

At that meeting, Party General Secretary Do Muoi made the following resolute statement in his report:

[We should] block the flow of rural to urban migration, mainly with economic methods. Rural to urban migration has created difficulties to economy and society, as well as brought serious consequences in [the] long term, as has been seen from other countries' experience. This is a grave lesson which we should learn from. We should avoid the problem, and we absolutely have the ability to do that (hoan loan co kha nang lam viec do).

This view can certainly find its supporters among cadres in Hanoi. The Director of the Hanoi Police Bureau took the view that “Along with the development of the country … quite a number of people took the chance to ask for ‘freedom of residence’, and ‘freedom of travel’, without considering about the reality of the country, nor the necessary laws of managing the society and the country.”