VZCZCXRO1790
OO RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHGH RUEHHM RUEHVC
DE RUEHHI #0413/01 1191009
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 291009Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY HANOI
TO RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
INFO RUEHZS/ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHHM/AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH IMMEDIATE 5825
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK IMMEDIATE 0297
RHEHNSC/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC IMMEDIATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HANOI 000413 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR EAP/MLS AND EEB 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/29/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM ECON EMIN EINV ESTH SENV CM VM
SUBJECT: IN VIETNAM, CHINA AND BAUXITE DON'T MIX 
 
HANOI 00000413  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
Classified By: PolCouns Brian Aggeler.  Reasons 1.4 (b/d) 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary:  Planned Chinese involvement in bauxite 
exploitation projects in the Central Highlands, especially 
the use of Chinese laborers, has triggered an unusually 
high-profile "open" public policy debate.  Prominent 
Vietnamese, including famed war hero General Vo Nguyen Giap, 
have called for the project to be scrapped, or at least 
delayed.  Though the mainstream media generally repeats the 
official line, thousands of blog writers have written about 
the project on a daily basis, with journalists writing online 
what the censors wouldn't let them publish in their columns: 
jeremiads decrying environmental damage, jobs lost to 
foreigners and even a "quiet Chinese invasion" of the 
sensitive highlands region.  While the government has 
insisted that it intends to proceed with bauxite 
exploitation, the outcry -- echoed in a petition authored by 
prominent Vietnamese intellectual Nguyen Hue Chi and 
presented to the National Assembly -- has prompted 
Central-level authorities to address public concerns.  On 
April 26, the influential Chair of the Politburo Standing 
Committee, Truong Tan Sang, announced  that bauxite projects 
would remain in Vietnamese hands; meanwhile, the government 
announced that it would review the qualifications of foreign 
workers.  End summary. 
 
Feasibility and Environmental Concerns 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C) The bauxite mining projects -- Nhan Co in Dak Nong 
province and Tan Rai in Lam Dong province (septel) -- have 
generated on-line criticism almost since their inception. 
Many questioned the projects' feasibility, given the 
difficulties in attracting financing during a period of 
global recession, the highly volatile world market for 
aluminum, and possibly inadequate energy and water supplies. 
Others argued that the projects themselves make poor economic 
sense, particularly when compared to the area's current 
production of rubber, coffee, and tea.  The director of the 
Consultancy on Development, a Dutch-funded NGO, Pham QUang 
Tu, commented that the inability to smelt aluminum seriously 
undermines the economic rationale for the undertaking.  At a 
much-publicized October 2008 conference attended by officials 
from the state-owned Vietnamese Coal and Minerals Company 
(Vinacomin) and its potential foreign partners, the director 
of one of Vinacomin's subsidiaries, Dr. Nguyen Thanh Son, 
called attention to theQow domestic demand for aluminum and 
called for more attention to be paid to sustainable 
development. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Particular attention was focused on the possible 
environmental effects of the project as well.  In a gesture 
widely discussed on the internet, the revered war hero and 
Party patriarch General Vo Nguyen Giap issued an "open 
letter" to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, declaring the 
environmental costs of bauxite development to be too high and 
calling for a temporary halt to the bauxite project until 
international experts could review its ecological impact. 
Giap's January 5 letter noted that he had overseen a study on 
bauxite in the early 1980s, and that Soviet advisors had 
recommended against the project because of the environmental 
risks involved.  Buoyed by Giap's example, scientists, 
environmentalists, and other interested citizens voiced 
concern for Vietnam's "green roof" in the Central Highlands. 
Critics pointed to the possibility of water contamination by 
"red mud" (a combination of iron, manganese, and soda 
discharged during the production of alumina), the devastating 
effects of bauxite mining on soil, and Vietnam's failure to 
protect the environment in the coal mining region of Quang 
Ninh. 
 
A "Chinese Military Base" in the Highlands 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Though the project's environmental effects provided 
the hook for much of the public opposition, anxieties about 
China's involvement in the project provided the emotional 
core.  The GVN always expected challenges, and early on 
recognized the need to line up foreign investors.  (Note: 
Neither the World Bank nor the Asian Development Bank (ADB) 
are currently interested in the project: the ADB does not 
finance projects in the extractive sector, and the World 
Bank's resident environment officer recommended that the Bank 
stay away from bauxite in Vietnam.  End note.)  As described 
 
HANOI 00000413  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
by Nhan Co Alumni Joint Stock Company Director Bui Quang 
Tien, the Central Highlands' utter lack of human resources, 
infrastructure, environmental remediation capacity and 
capital always meant that the Vietnamese companies would have 
to rely heavily on foreign partners -- including a 
significant Chinese presence.  Agreements were signed in 2008 
to bring Chinese (Chinalco), Russian and U.S. partners into 
the various bauxite projects.  But it was the Chinese 
involvement that drew people's ire, particularly the 
potential presence of "thousands" of Chinese workers. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Vietnamese luminaries -- old-line Party stalwarts 
such as Vietnam's ambassador to China, General Nguyen Trong 
Vinh -- asserted that the presence of "up to 10,000 Chinese 
workers" posed an "unacceptable" national security threat, a 
"Chinese military base" in the middle of the strategically 
sensitive Central Highlands.  Documents were posted online by 
a consultant for Vinacomin asserting that the bauxite 
exploitation tender terms were written specifically to favor 
low-tech, low-cost Chinese investors that would not be able 
to meet Vietnam's environmental standards.  In a typical 
posting, one blogger referred to bauxite mining as an 
"attempt by Chinese capitalists... to take over Southeast 
Asia and the South China Sea," while another wondered whether 
China would openly back Montagnard separatists in the Central 
Highlands.  Still another saw the project as a plot to shift 
its pollution-causing industries to a pristine part of 
Vietnam. 
 
Publicly Indignant--From Paper to Blogs to Petitions 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶6.  (C) Newspapers gently probed the edges of the environment 
story -- press contacts told us their "official guidance" 
allowed reporting on the environment, though not about the 
China angle -- but photos of Chinese laborers in Lam Dong 
provinces began to appear on blogs alongside essays raising 
concerns about national security.  The Office of the 
Government (#17/TB-VPCG) instructed journalists to stop 
reporting on bauxite, but indirect reporting continued as 
various press outlets ran stories decrying the number of 
Chinese workers active on other projects that have been 
awarded to Chinese contractors, as well as the tendency of 
Chinese general contractors to use exclusively Chinese-origin 
equipment and supplies even when competing local products are 
available at competitive prices.  Further instructions 
limiting reporting on Chinese contractors in particular did 
nothing to quell continued press attention to (unnamed) 
foreign firms bringing in excessive number of laborers and 
showing a marked preference for imported inputs.  The 
attention most likely led to the April 21 decision by the 
Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) to 
announce plans for a crackdown on illegal foreign workers. 
 
¶7.  (C) Official instructions limiting the mainstream media's 
ability to report directly on the Bauxite/Environment/China 
controversy only served to further aggravate the already 
heated discussion in the blogs.  One ConGen spot check found 
more than 3,400 Yahoo360 blogs discussing bauxite, with 
another 4,300 on Google Blogs.  Former Central Committee 
Party Ideology Chief Huu Tho probably stoked the flames even 
more when he alluded to "new forms of invasion" (read: from 
China) on the internet news source VietnamNet, and advised 
the authorities to "trust the patriotism of the young people." 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Against this backdrop, on April 12 the Hanoi-based 
Nguyen Hue Chi, Vietnam's version of a public intellectual, 
submitted a petition, with the signatures of 150 other 
intellectuals in and outside of Vietnam, to the National 
Assembly asking the government to reconsider Vietnam's 
bauxite development.  By April 27, the list of signers had 
grown to over 1,000.  One HCMC signatory reported that when 
Chi tried to deliver the petition to the offices of the Prime 
Minister and President, staff told him there was "no 
precedent for receiving petitions" and asked him to mail the 
petition instead. 
 
Dissidents Sense an Opening 
--------------------------- 
 
¶9.  (C) More traditional opponents of the regime quickly 
jumped on the bandwagon as well.  Petition signatories 
include the prominent Hanoi-based dissident Pham Hong Son, 
usually considered a relative moderate.  Perhaps sensing an 
 
HANOI 00000413  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
opportunity to tie their ongoing land disputes to the bauxite 
controversy, on April 26, over one thousand Vietnamese 
Catholics affiliated with Hanoi's Thai Ha parish staged a 
prayer vigil to protest bauxite mining.  Afterwards, the 
vigil protestors signed a petition against bauxite mining. 
Other outspoken critics of the regime such as the 
internationally recognized dissident Dr. Nguyen Dan Quei and 
the leader of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam 
Thich Quang Do have also attempted to use this issue to 
undercut the GVN, as has the outlawed U.S.-based opposition 
party Viet Tan, which in an editorial in the Asia Times 
blasted Vietnam's leadership for failing to "stand up" to 
China. 
 
Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶10.  (C) ConGen HCMC and Embassy contacts speculate that the 
government recognizes that it misjudged the depth of public 
dissatisfaction with the bauxite project, China's involvement 
in particular, and is scrambling to remedy the situation.  As 
early as April 9, DPM Hoang Trung Hai hosted a seminar in 
which he reiterated the government's commitment to bauxite 
development but suggested that the government would be 
prepared, in the name of environmental protection, to delay 
the projects.  (Note: On the eve of the seminar, General Giap 
issued a second letter in which he declared that "the 
exploitation of bauxite should not be allowed as it would 
cause extremely serious damage to the environment, society, 
and national defense."  End note.) 
 
¶11.  (C) On April 21 PM Dung asked the Ministry of Labor, War 
Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) to review regulations on 
managing foreign workers and their enforcement.  More 
importantly, on April 26, the influential Chair of the 
Politburo Standing Committee Truong Tan Sang announced a new 
Politburo decision on bauxite that allows small-scale 
excavation by Vinacomin subsidiaries Nhan Co (Dak Nong) and 
Tan Rai (Lam Dong) but limits future development.  Press 
reports with titles like "Miners Should Not Profit to 
Detriment of Environment: Politburo" described the decision 
as centered on environmental concerns.  While no mention is 
made of China, the decision instructs Nhan Co and Tan Rai not 
to sell project shares to foreign partners, to prioritize 
Vietnamese companies and workers, and not to employ foreign 
manual workers "unless necessary." 
 
Comment: Back to the Drawing Board? 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶12.  (C) While these moves may calm Vietnamese patriots, it 
is unclear what long-term impact they will have.  Even as 
they hedge, the central-level leadership has consistently 
reaffirmed its commitment to bauxite development.  Proponents 
of bauxite excavation, moreover, have the firm support of 
provincial party leaders hoping to develop the impoverished 
provinces with the help of foreign, most notably Chinese, 
investors.  And finally, there is the simple fact that the 
projects represent a high-profile commitment to the Chinese, 
affirmed in joint statements. 
Still, the "public debate" that the bauxite controversy has 
engendered is significant, both for its widespread 
dissemination and emotional content and for the apparent 
effect it has had on the government.  It is difficult to say 
for certain that public letters, leaked memos, blogs and 
petitions forced the government to recalibrate its position, 
the episode provides heavy circumstantial evidence that 
public opinion in some instances can have a marked influence 
on policy.  End comment. 
 
¶13. (U) This cable is a joint product of Embassy Hanoi and 
ConGen HCMC. 
MICHALAK