اقتصاد سیاسی سیاست نوآوری اینترنت در ویتنام

Despite the government's central role in Internet innovation, Vietnam has one of the lowest Internet subscription rates in the world. This paper presents an analysis of Internet innovation in Vietnam. It is argued that one of the major reasons for the modest success is that Internet innovation policy is influenced more by ideo-political than socio-economic realism. To further Vietnam's integration into the world economy, it is recommended that the government relinquish control and liberate the sector to generate genuine competition.

Due to its economic and socio-political significance, the Internet is increasingly the focus of technology policy of nations around the world [1]. To reduce socio-economic development disparities, governments in developing countries are formulating policies to sustain and accelerate the nation's technological innovation rate [2]. At a national level, information and communication technology (ICT) policy did not exist in Vietnam until 1993, when the first governmental resolution 49 [3] for information technology (IT) was enacted as part of the country's IT2000 plan [4]. Resolution 49 [3] mandated the overall goal of IT and data communications networking development up until the year 2000. It was aimed at building the foundation for the information infrastructure and thereby meeting the increasing demand for information in state management and socio-economic activities. The first transformation wave in the Posts and Telecommunications (P&T) sector occurred in 1992. Under the pressure of economic reform, and to better address the growth of the telecommunications sector, the government issued Decree 3 [5] in October 1992 to legally detach the Directorate-General of Post and Telecommunications (DGPT) from the former Ministry of Communication and Transportation. The DGPT institution held a ministerial status and served as the regulatory and policy-making organization. To separate the provision of services from DGPT regulatory functions, Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications (VNPT) was formed. Several subsidiaries were created to handle various operating activities [6]. During this initial period, VNPT did not have an independent legal entity status. It operated under the direct control of the DGPT. Backed by political power combined with the control of strategic resources and physical facilities, VNPT was allowed to become a de-facto monopoly in the Vietnamese telecom sector. The DGPT's functions, duties, power and organizational structure were later redefined by the governmental Decree 28 [7] in May 1993.

In Vietnam, technological innovation policy reflected the ideo-political structures characterized by a centralized system and a bureaucratic and authoritative decision-making process. In the ICT sector, all major players are state-owned enterprises. Yet, according to Welfens [107], competition in the telecommunication sector is vital for all transforming economies because market orientation and network competition will bring down prices and improve service quality for telecom users. From a political economic perspective, technical, economic and legal controls were used to monitor and manipulate Internet development in Vietnam. Although the physical infrastructure of the Internet was in place and functioning since 1995, the Vietnamese government retained full control of Internet access and used the ‘national security’ pretext to keep the Internet out of reach of its people [14] and [108]. Such control prevented business people and R&D scientists, educators and students from freely using relevant services accessible through this new communication medium. According to Tran [109], the lack of access to information, the Confucian tradition of obedience and the unlimited power of a mono-political system gave Vietnamese policy-makers a free hand in making socio-economic decisions and exercising their influence over the technological policy-making process. From a technical point of view, firewalls servers were implemented to filter undesirable information, and application restrictions were set to limit the diversity of the information and the variety of Internet services accessible to users. From an economic perspective, Internet and telecommunications sectors were considered issues of national security concern. Therefore, a monopoly status was implicitly granted to the major dominant state-owned enterprises. Additionally, the Internet access price scheme was designed to limit the number of Internet users in Vietnam. From a socio-legal standpoint, to centralize and strengthen the control and coordination of Internet development, numerous regulations were promulgated to regulate every aspect ranging from ISP licensing conditions to pricing schemes.