Communist State and Religious Policy in Vietnam: A Historical Perspective

Presently, the Vietnamese State is facing two challenges. On the one hand, it has to integrate the country into the free world market and its corollary of religious freedom, in order to provide prosperity to its people and to preserve its legitimacy. On the other hand, it has to deal with the growing influence of religious forces, which it suspects to embody opposition against the absolute power it has exercised since its victory after 30 years of war. This article discusses the Vietnamese religious policy and the Vietnamese Communist Party’s (VCP) approach to religion from a historical perspective. Is the VCP’s policy the result of a principled approach by a strong state based on an immutable atheist ideology or the result of a pragmatic approach by a state looking for legitimacy and regional and global integration?