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HO CHI MINH, LELEMUKU.COM - If a basic tenet of communism is equality, including based on gender, then from some points of view the Socialist Republic of Vietnam would seem to be faring well on its founding ideology.

Women are visible everywhere across the country of 100 million people, whether they are running iconic companies, government ministries, or single-parent households. Female Vietnamese also show up in jobs stereotypically associated with males, such as construction workers, taxi drivers, and police officers.

But when considering all of the data that indicate Vietnam is ahead of most other countries in gender equality - like the percentage of women who are in the labor force or who are chief executive officers - it is easy to overlook the fact that men still have an edge in so many areas.

The average income of women in the Southeast Asian country is $224 (5.2 million Vietnam dong) a month, according to figures released in March by Adecco Vietnam, a firm that sells staffing services. That pay level amounts to just 81% of the average income of men.

In addition to the wage gap, there is the matter of unpaid labor. Beyond the official work day, Vietnamese women spend another five hours daily on tasks like cleaning the house or looking after a sick relative.

“Every day has just 24 hours, to be divided among work, family, and oneself,” said Nguyen Hong Phuong, the director of finance at Adecco Vietnam. “It will not always be divided evenly, but balance and prioritizing will always be the key.”

While men are starting to pick up the slack, they still enjoy pride of place in the household. For a man, the advantage begins even before birth, when parents prefer to bear a boy rather than a girl, through a childhood without the expectation he will help with domestic chores, until adulthood, when the man switches from having his mother care for him to having his wife take on the burden.

​The rate of men who have indefinite term work contracts with foreign invested companies is 73.9%, compared with 67.7% for women, according to Adecco Vietnam. It also said that in job interviews, employers tend to ask female candidates not about their work experience or their professional goals, but about their marriage and family plans, as it would cost money for them to hire someone who eventually gets pregnant and goes on leave.

In an indication of the responsibility that still falls on women in Vietnam, one of the key priorities for female employees when they are seeking out an employer is that the company has a suitable parental leave policy, according to a study released March 8 by the United States Agency for International Development. That is in contrast to the Philippines, where women who were polled said they want diversity in the workplace, and in contrast to Singapore, where women said they want flexible work arrangements, like working from home. The research was conducted jointly by USAID Green Invest Asia and Moxie Future, which both advocate sustainable development.

As in so many countries, women in Vietnam bear the brunt of poverty and the repercussions of natural disasters. That is why there are programs like Technologies for Equality, a competition overseen by the Women’s Initiative for Startups and Entrepreneurship.

Contestants submit inventions that can improve the lives of women in the countryside for a chance to win up to $7,000. So far there have been innovations like Safe Journey, a mobile app that helps migrant workers find jobs and housing, since many rural women move to urban areas to find employment and send money back to their hometowns.

Another is a facility where ethnic minority tea farmers can process their crops for higher value-added products. Ireland and Australia, which are funding the project, will announce the winners later this month.

“This aims to unearth and support innovative solutions to ensure rural women and girls can fully participate and prosper in the workforce and the economy,” Vice Minister Bui The Duy at the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam said at the event launching the competition.

There is plenty that is going right in Vietnam. With its 71% female workforce participation, and the 25% of CEOs who are women, Vietnam probably has some insight for the rest of the world on equality. Local women generally have maternity leave, workplace protections relating to pregnancy and childcare, low rates of sex based violence, and overall freedom and respect in society.

At the same time, some of Vietnam’s metrics look good because other countries’ do not. Even in a socialist society there is still a ways to go for complete gender equality. (VOA)

SINGAPORE, LELEMUKU.COM - Vietnam’s tough stance against China over sovereignty of the South China Sea will put Beijing on the defensive during regional talks on easing the regional maritime dispute, people who follow the process say.

Officials in Hanoi have suggested establishing a code of conduct that, among other things, would bar construction on artificial islands in the South China Sea and ban militarizing disputed features, said Carl Thayer, a University of New South Wales emeritus professor, in an online commentary about a preview of a draft code text written last year. Vietnam, he added, wants to ban any blockades of vessels and nix the possibility of any single country’s air defense identification zone.

Vietnam also would deem “unacceptable” any agreement excluding the sea’s Paracel Islands, which it claims but China effectively controls, according to a report posted by Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative think tank project in the United States.

China's island building

Analysts say China has landfilled and militarized more of the 3.5-million-square-kilometer sea than any of the other five claimants. It will oppose the Vietnamese agenda, further setting back the 23-year-old code of conduct process but keep it at the bargaining table to show it’s a good neighbor, they expect.

“Chinese hegemony of the South China Sea is not accepted by any of the states within the region,” said Stephen Nagy, senior associate politics and international studies professor at International Christian University in Tokyo.

“The problem is, their asymmetric capabilities basically mean that they can’t push back,” he said. “The only way they can push back is to try to forge consensus on code of conduct or at least raising awareness that these issues still remain a core challenge to security and territorial sovereignty within the region.”

Code of conduct

After 23 years of on-again, off-again efforts, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China decided in 2017 to restart talks on a code of conduct aimed at preventing accidents while leaving sovereignty issues aside. China has said a final code should be signed by 2021.

Four association countries and Taiwan dispute China’s claims to about 90 percent of the sea. China and Vietnam have gotten into three clashes there since the 1970s.

Vietnam’s suggestions for the code, if they carry forward, would affect China the most because of its reach over the sea valued for fisheries, shipping lanes and energy reserves. China has reclaimed about 1,200 hectares of land to build out tiny islets and placed military hardware such as aircraft on some, maritime scholars believe.

The wording from Hanoi would spotlight China’s expansion at sea, a trend Beijing seldom publicizes. It might also serve as a bargaining chip during later stages of talks about the code of conduct, they say.

“Vietnam is in a difficult position as perhaps the country that is pushing back most vociferously against the gradual expansion of Chinese control over the South China Sea,” said Denny Roy, senior fellow at Honolulu-based research organization the East-West Center.

“Hanoi must draw the attention for playing the role of standing up to China,” Roy said. “Otherwise China will meet less resistance from ASEAN. In that sense Vietnamese pushback might make a difference.”

Hanoi lost control of the Paracel chain of some 130 islets to China in the 1970s. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam vie with China sovereignty in the Spratly Island chain.

Chinese reaction

China would oppose Vietnam’s ideas for the code, experts say. Beijing is unlikely to show foreign policy “weakness” this year before celebrations of its 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule, said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan.

“I expect if the Vietnamese government continues to insist (on) putting language that the Chinese cannot tolerate, it would be more like a kind of bargaining chip,” he said. “It’s going to touch the nerve of the central leadership.”

China bases its maritime claims on fishing records it says date back some 2,000 years.

But China will keep negotiating the code of conduct because it’s under “tremendous pressure” to reduce tensions in Southeast Asia so it can focus instead on ties with the United States, Nagy said. The U.S. government helps train troops in the Philippines and periodically passes ships through the sea to show it’s open to all.

Despite historical jousting between China and Taiwan over territory, the two countries’ communist parties regularly discuss maritime issues. They have agreed the Paracel dispute should stay between them, said Termsak Chalermpalanupap, fellow with the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

Vietnam’s conditions for the code would delay code negotiations, he said.

“I think it will be slow, because the Chinese side already said three years’ time frame, so they will just go through the motions of having meetings,” Chalermpalanupap said. (VOA)

HANOI, LELEMUKU.COM - Before Facebook, Vu Kim Chi thought something was lacking in her job, which is to promote the economy in and around Vietnam's famed Ha Long Bay. Posting updates to her department's website, or photocopying missives to send to constituents, she said, was mostly one-sided.

But after she set up an official Facebook page for Quang Ninh province, the conversations started to flow in both directions, between Chi and the local residents or businesses. That's why, when it comes to social media, she thinks more civil servants need to catch up with the rest of the country.

"Social media, especially the Facebook application, is really used a lot in Vietnam," said Chi, who is deputy head of the province's investment promotion and support office. "But for public agencies that use it as a tool to interact with people and businesses, it's still not necessarily used a lot."

Facebook on charm offensive

Even as governments around the world are demanding more accountability and transparency from Facebook, public officials in Vietnam are looking for more ways to use the website. And Facebook is happy to oblige.

The company is on something of a charm offensive in Vietnam, where it has roughly 42 million members, nearly half the country. Besides sending top officials to visit Vietnam last year, Facebook has been instructing small businesses on how to sell their products on the site, and now it is giving civil servants like Chi advice for engaging with the public.

The chance to win some good will in Vietnam comes at a time when pressures are piling up on Facebook both inside the country and abroad. Globally, it has been accused of complicity in plots to convince voters to vote for Brexit or for candidate Donald Trump, as well as in what the United Nations calls ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. The company reportedly paid for research that could damage its critics' and competitors' reputations, as well as gave users' data to dozens of other firms without consent.

New cyber law

In Vietnam, the government told advertisers to boycott Facebook and other sites in response to users' postings that criticized the one-party state. Next month, the country will enact a cyber law requiring firms to store data domestically, which Facebook opposes.

But those troubles were not front and center at a workshop in Ho Chi Minh City this month where a company representative gave bureaucrats tips on making a Facebook page.

"We have to understand and put more attention to the social aspect of the platform," said Noudhy Valdryno, who handles government outreach for Facebook. "That means you have to understand your followers, who are they, where do they live, what are their interests? Then you can formulate an accurate strategy to engage with your followers."

The workshop included suggestions for government officials, such as posting updates on Facebook at regular intervals, shooting videos vertically to retain the attention of mobile users, and encouraging conversations among followers on the page.

Tech companies welcome

The event was an example of how Vietnamese officials are open to working with the tech company. It is so ubiquitous in the Southeast Asian country that when Vietnamese people say "social media" they mean Facebook, and when asked what newspapers they read, they give the answer: Facebook.

"What we're talking about is effective use of technology in this day and age to achieve our goals," said Le Quoc Cuong, vice director of the Ho Chi Minh City department of information and communications. "What we're looking for is being effective, being engaging and enhancing cooperation between the government and the people."

Chi says more Facebook data would help her better engage with residents around Quang Ninh, a northeastern province that hugs the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Chinese border on another. She would like regular reports, perhaps every month, with information to help analyze the province's fan page, from key words to number of "likes." So as many people worldwide have begun to decry tech companies for abusing and cashing in on users' data, there are those who still continue to see untapped potential in gathering further data. (VOA)