Vietnam’s Struggles against Chinese Spies, American Spies, and Enemy Ideological Attacks

In December 1980, the Government and Communist Party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) believed that it was under assault. Vietnam clearly was facing a host of serious problems: the country’s economy was in shambles as the result of a combination of the Communist Party’s disastrous Marxist-Leninist economic policies, by the American economic embargo, and by the nation’s requirement to sustain a massive army of over a million men to counter military threats on multiple fronts.

As Vietnam struggled to repair the damage inflicted by the February 1979 Chinese cross-border invasion all along Vietnam’s northern border, Chinese military forces were continuing to confront Vietnamese defenders along the northern border in a simmering border conflict that periodically erupted into artillery duels and small cross-border raids. The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) was required to maintain a large number of troops along the border as well massive strategic forces in the immediate rear (including five of PAVN’s six strategic army corps) to protect against another Chinese invasion, which the Chinese media called a potential “second lesson”.

Moreover, the quick victory that PAVN had won over Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia the previous year had degenerated into what appeared to be a long-term war of occupation in Cambodia that still required the maintenance of a massive PAVN troop presence (between 150,000 to 200,000 soldiers) inside Cambodia to combat Khmer Rouge and non-communist resistance forces based along the Thai-Cambodian border. These forces were already receiving political and military support from China, and there were increasing indications that they might also begin receiving support from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and from Western countries, including the US, in the near future.

Adding to these problems was growing internal dissent and criticism of the Party’s and the Government’s policies. Large numbers of Vietnamese citizens continued to flee the country by boat and overland (across Cambodia) for both political and economic reasons, and the regime was worried about the possibility of internal turmoil, riots, and even armed resistance.

These fears were not unfounded. A number of suspected Chinese “spies” had been captured crossing Vietnam’s northern border. China was also publicly advocating for the formation of an armed resistance organization headed by a former member of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Politburo who had defected to China in 1979.  The FULRO (Front Unifié de Lutte des Races Opprimées - or United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races) movement, an anti-Vietnamese armed opposition movement made up of ethnic minority tribes from Vietnam’s Central Highlands was reassembling in the remote jungles of northeastern Cambodia. Finally, several Vietnamese resistance organizations had begun to recruit followers from among the Vietnamese refugee communities in the West to send armed groups back into Vietnam to foment armed resistance.

Perhaps most alarmingly for the Party and the regime, during the course of 1980, by arresting an armed infiltration team shortly after it arrived inside Vietnam and then “doubling” several of the group’s members back against their parent organization, Vietnam’s secret police organization, the Ministry of the Interior (a cover name used for Vietnam’s Public Security forces) had discovered that this team was part of a newly-formed armed resistance group. The group consisted of Vietnamese exiles/refugees based in Thailand who were receiving weapons, supplies, and advice from China. The group also strove to obtain support from Vietnam’s major religions, and a number of senior leaders of at least one of these religions (the Cao Dai) had indicated that they were amenable to supporting this resistance group’s efforts to overthrow the Vietnamese Communist regime.[1]

On top of all of these problems, Vietnam had seen much of the international support it had previously enjoyed disintegrate due to international opposition to Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia, the flood of Vietnamese refugees fleeing the country and seeking asylum in the west, and, finally, Vietnam’s increasingly close alignment with the Soviet Union.

In spite of almost uniform international revulsion against the now-overthrown genocidal Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime, the United Nations continued to recognize the ousted Pol Pot regime as the legitimate holder of Cambodia’s seat in the United Nations General Assembly – and not the newly-formed pro-Vietnamese Communist government in Phnom Penh. Vietnam felt isolated and alone, and this isolation served to exacerbate the innate paranoia of Vietnam’s Communist Party and internal security forces, represented by the Public Security forces of Vietnam’s Ministry of Interior (MOI).

In response to this perceived growing threat against the regime, on 2 December 1980 the Vietnamese Communist Party Politburo issued Resolution 31-NQ/TW on maintaining internal political security and law and order in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, with a specific focus on increasing the power and the responsibilities of Vietnam’s Public Security and Police forces, which were subordinate to the Ministry of Interior. The Politburo resolution said:

“We must focus our struggle on striving to quickly punish the following targets:

1.-Chinese spies, their lackeys, and their accomplices;

2.-American spies, Japanese spies, French spies, British spies, and their lackeys

3.-The sharp point of out struggle must be aimed first of all at the Chinese spies and the American spies, because they are the most dangerous targets. The most direct danger is from the Chinese spies, and the most dangerous spies are the penetration agents [moles].”[2]

To carry out the Politburo’s instructions, just ten days after the Politburo resolution was issued, the Ministry of Interior convened a three-day conference of the Ministry’s top Public Security officers along with the Directors of Public Security of all of the nation’s provinces and major cities to receive instructions and to debate and approve three new Ministry of Interior Party resolutions.

One of the resolutions concerned “the struggle against Chinese spies;” another focused on “the struggle against American spies;” and the last dealt with “the struggle against the enemy’s ideological attacks.” Shortly thereafter, in early 1981, the Ministry of Interior issued a “study document” on the results of this conference for internal use and study by Public Security personnel only. The study document contained the full text of the three Ministry of Interior resolutions approved by the conference along with the text of the conference’s opening speech, which was given by Deputy Minister of Interior Tran Dong.[3] It also included a speech given during the conference by Party Politburo Member Le Duc Tho, who at that time was viewed as Vietnam’s second most powerful leader, second only to Party General Secretary Le Duan.

The core of the changes in the Public Security’s missions, organizations, and operations made during this conference in response to the directives contained in Politburo Resolution 31 involved expanding Public Security’s intelligence and counter-espionage organizations and increasing their powers and responsibilities. Deputy Interior Minister Tran Dong’s speech emphasized that Public Security had now been given official authorization to conduct strategic intelligence operations aimed at collecting strategic intelligence (political, economic, science and technology, etc.) both domestically and abroad, rather than being authorized only to conduct intelligence-gathering operations against counter-intelligence targets, as had previously been the case.[4] Naturally, while Public Security’s previous lack of authorization to recruit agents and collect intelligence on targets that were not specifically counter-intelligence related had not totally prevented the Public Security service from conducting intelligence operations targeted against other targets in the past,[5] this new authority freed the Ministry of Interior to greatly expand its operations against such targets, and to do so with impunity.

The Ministry of Interior resolutions approved by this conference ordered the directors of all Public Security provincial and city offices to increase the intelligence-gathering operations conducted by their individual offices, to personally manage and direct their office’s local intelligence agent networks, and even instructed the individual Public Security province and city directors to personally recruit important targets such as prominent local figures as either agents or “honored collaborators”, a term that was likely borrowed from the KGB lexicon.

In his speech to the conference, Deputy Minister of Interior Tran Dong made it clear that the Ministry’s goal was to develop a massive network of secret informants throughout Vietnam’s civilian population, a network that would be every bit as extensive and intrusive as was the informant network established inside East Germany by the Stasi (also known as Ministry for State Security). Tran Dong told the senior Public Security officers who attended the December 1980 conference that, “Our goal is to have secret informants on every block, in every residential area, at every bus or train station, on every street, so that when anything happens in their area they will inform us.”

The resolution on combatting “American spies” called for Public Security to re-interview all confirmed or suspected “CIA” agents being held in re-education camps and to conduct careful reviews of the enormous volume of documents captured by Communist forces when they took over South Vietnam in 1975 in order to identify and arrest any “stay-behind” agents of the Americans as well as former “CIA” agents who had still managed to evade detection and arrest. The resolution on combatting “Chinese spies” directed Public Security to establish a special interrogation center to which all known and suspected “Chinese spies” who had been arrested would be sent for detailed interrogation by trained Public Security professionals in order to identify existing Chinese espionage operations and to obtain information on the Chinese intelligence organizations, their plans, and their targets.

Both resolutions called for utilizing technical reconnaissance equipment (radio intercepts, electronic bugs, wiretaps, covert photography, etc.) against the permanent missions of China and of allies of both China and the United States as well as against foreign delegations and individuals that visited Vietnam. Both resolutions also called for Public Security’s intelligence organization to recruit “foreigners” to serve as fully recruited Public Security agents or as “honored collaborators.” (In his speech to the conference, Politburo Member Le Duc Tho commented that while recruiting Americans would be easy, requiring only “money, women, and drinking and carousing,” recruiting Chinese would require a careful process of political education of the target.) Both resolutions called for close cooperation with the Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc countries when conducting counter-intelligence, counterespionage investigations.

The resolutions approved by this conference called for special attention to be devoted to the effort to detect, arrest, interrogate, and, if possible, recruit Chinese and “CIA” spies and members of Chinese or “CIA”-supported armed resistance groups who were caught trying to infiltrate into Vietnam in order to “double” them and send them back to collect intelligence on the plans and activities of their parent organizations.  The resolutions also stressed the danger of both Chinese and “CIA” spies trying to exploit ethnic minority issues among ethnic Chinese, ethnic Khmer, ethnic Cham, and other ethnic minority groups (the H’Mong, the Tay, the Thai, the Zhou, montagnards in the Central Highlands, etc.). Both the resolution on Chinese spies and the resolution on “CIA” spies said that while strict attention must be paid to treating members of the ethnic Chinese and other minority communities properly, Public Security needed to devote special attention to efforts by Chinese and “CIA” spies to exploit ethnic differences to sow dissent and to conduct espionage.

Both resolutions warned against Chinese and “CIA” cooperation to support the FULRO dissident movement in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. Of particular interest, in his speech to the conference Deputy Minister Tran Dong admitted that prior to the February 1979 Chinese attack, Vietnam had been guilty of ethnic cleansing when he said that it had “purified” its northern border areas and northern coastal and offshore islands of all of their ethnic Chinese residents and had moved “almost 100,000” ethnic Vietnamese into those areas to take the place of the deported ethnic Chinese residents. It should be noted that at the time this ethnic cleansing took place, Tran Dong was the Secretary of the Haiphong City Party Committee and would have been intimately involved in the removal of Haiphong City’s large ethnic Chinese community.

The resolution on combatting “ideological sabotage” lumped Chinese ideological propaganda, Western propaganda operations, international human rights and humanitarian relief activities, religious radio broadcasts and religious missionary activities, etc. together with the spreading influence of Western culture and music in Vietnam as part of a vast, insidious effort by the country’s enemies. This purported effort was designed to corrupt Vietnam’s society and to weaken its “revolutionary” spirit in order to cause the overthrow or collapse of the Vietnamese Communist Party and government.

The over-the-top rhetoric used in this resolution illustrates the widespread paranoia that infected the upper ranks of Vietnam’s Party and security apparatus during this period of the Cold War. It was not until six years later, in December 1986, that the pressures of growing internal dissension (even within the Party), the country’s desperate economic situation, and reductions in Soviet military and economic aid to Vietnam resulted in the decision by the Communist Party’s 6th Party Congress to shift to a policy of reforms, called “Renovation” [Đổi Mới] reforms, and to new Vietnamese efforts to normalize relations with China and the United States.

Connected Documents

Politburo Resolution No. 31-NQ/TW on the Protecting Political Security and Maintaining Law and Order in Our Society in the New Situation, December 2, 1980

In response to this perceived growing threat against the regime, on 2 December 1980 the Vietnamese Communist Party Politburo issued Resolution 31-NQ/TW on maintaining internal political security and law and order in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, with a specific focus on increasing the power and the responsibilities of Vietnam’s Public Security and Police forces, which were subordinate to the Ministry of Interior. 

Trần Đông, 'Key Issues in the Struggle against Chinese Spies and American Spies and in the Struggle against the Enemy’s Ideological Attacks' [Excerpts], December 1980

In a speech, Deputy Minister of Interior Tran Dong makes it clear that the Ministry of the Interior’s goal is to develop a massive network of secret informants throughout Vietnam’s civilian population, a network that would be every bit as extensive and intrusive as was the informant network established inside East Germany by the Stasi, or the East German Ministry for State Security.

Resolution on Policy Guidelines and Missions for the Struggle against Chinese Spies in the New Situation, December 15, 1980

A resolution on combatting “Chinese spies” in Vietnam. The resolution directs Vietnam's Public Security to establish a special interrogation center to which all known and suspected “Chinese spies” who had been arrested would be sent for detailed interrogation by trained professionals. The interrogations would help Vietnam to identify existing Chinese espionage operations and to obtain information on the Chinese intelligence organizations, their plans, and their targets. 

Resolution on Policy Guidelines and Missions for the Struggle against American Spies in the New Situation, December 15, 1980

A resolution on combatting “American spies." The document calls for Public Security to re-interview all confirmed or suspected “CIA” agents being held in re-education camps and to conduct careful reviews of the enormous volume of documents captured by Communist forces when they took over South Vietnam in 1975 in order to identify and arrest any “stay-behind” agents of the Americans as well as former “CIA” agents who had still managed to evade detection and arrest.

Resolution on the Status and Mission of Combatting Enemy’s Ideological Sabotage Efforts During This New Period, December 15, 1980

This resolution on combatting “ideological sabotage” lumps Chinese ideological propaganda, Western propaganda operations, international human rights and humanitarian relief activities, and religious radio broadcasts and religious missionary activities all together with the spreading influence of Western culture and music in Vietnam as part of a vast, insidious effort by Vietnam’s enemies designed to corrupt Vietnam’s society and to weaken its “revolutionary” spirit in order to cause the overthrow or collapse of the Vietnamese Communist Party and government. 

The over-the-top rhetoric used in this resolution illustrates the widespread paranoia that infected the upper ranks of Vietnam’s Party and security apparatus during this period of the Cold War.  It was not until six years later, in December 1986, that the pressures of growing internal dissension (even within the Party), the country’s desperate economic situation, and reductions in Soviet military and economic to Vietnam resulted in the decision by the Communist Party’s 6th Party Congress to shift to a policy of reforms, called “Renovation” [Đổi Mới] reforms and to new Vietnamese efforts to normalize relations with China and the United States.

Speech Given by Comrade Le Duc Tho to the Leaders of Public Security’s Departments, Bureaus, and City and Provincial Offices during the Conference to Discuss the Three Specialized Drafts and to Implement Politburo Resolution 31 [Excerpts], December 15, 1980

A speech given by Party Politburo Member Le Duc Tho during a three-day conference of the Ministry’s top Public Security officers along with the Directors of Public Security of all of the nation’s provinces and major cities, where the attendees received instructions on three new Ministry of Interior Party resolutions - one on “the struggle against Chinese spies”, one on “the struggle against American spies”, and one on  “the struggle against the enemy’s ideological attacks.” At the time of the speech, Le Duc Tho was viewed as Vietnam’s second most powerful leader, second only to Party General Secretary Le Duan. 

Le Duc Tho commented that while recruiting Americans would be easy, requiring only “money, women, and drinking and carousing”, recruiting Chinese would require a careful process of political education of the target.

[1] Nguyen Phuoc Tan [Nguyễn Phước Tân], with Nguyen Khac Duc  [Nguyễn Khắc Đức]. Hồi ký chuyên nghiệp: Kế hoạch phản gián CM-12 [Professional Memoir: The CM-12 Counter-Espionage Plan] (Hanoi: People’s Public Security Publishing House, 2005), pages 22-73

[2] Major General Pham Dung [Phạm Dũng]. Tổng Kết Lịch Sử Đấu Tranh Chống Gián Điệp [Review of the History of the Struggle Against Spies (1945-2005)] (Hanoi: People’s Public Security Publishing House, 2009), page 209. Also available online at  https://www.quansuvn.net/index.php/topic,31813.0.html .

[3] Tran Dong [Trần Đông] (true name Bui Thuyen [Bùi Thuyên]), was a Soviet-trained Public Security officer and member of the Party Central Committee who had served as Chief of Public Security of Haiphong City for 16 and then as Secretary of the Haiphong City Party Committee for two years (1977-1979) before being appointed as Deputy Minister of Interior in 1979. See https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trần_Đông_(Việt_Nam).

[4] In 1951 Public Security’s strategic intelligence responsibilities and personnel - both agents and case officers - had been taken away and given to a newly-formed unified strategic intelligence organization, the Liaison Department, under the Officer of the Prime Minister. The Liaison Department was later transferred to the Ministry of Defense, and is now called General Department II.  Lieutenant Colonel Tang Van Sy [Tăng Văn Sỹ], Editor. Công An Nhân Dân Việt Nam Lịch Sử Biên Niên (1945-1954) [Vietnam’s People’s Public Security: Chronology of Events (1945-1954)] (Hanoi: People’s Public Security Publishing House, 1994), pages 257-259.

[5] See the article series titled “Điệp Bao An Ninh T4 Trong cuộc Tổng Công và Nổi Dậy Mùa Xuân 1975” [Security Section T4 Espionage Operations During the 1975 General Offensive and Uprisings] published in the 21, 24, and 28 April and the 01, 05, and 08 May issued of the Ho Chi Minh City Public Security newspaper, and the book titled Từ Vĩ Tuyến 17 Đến Paris tập truyện - ký [From the 17th Parallel to Paris: Collection of Stories - Memoirs] by Ho Nam [Hồ Nam], a Public Security espionage department officer stationed under cover in Paris as a member of the North Vietnamese diplomatic delegation in Paris from 1969 through the mid-1970s (People’s Public Security Publishing House, Hanoi, 2006.