Has the tree guard been a success? Enlightenment of Urban Governance from the Case of Vietnam

Author: Far East Fisherman

* (【Listen to Articles】#182, absorb knowledge by listening)

The past July in Macau can be described as quite "eventful". After the chopping down of trees at the base of the chopsticks and the removal of the statue of the Virgin of Seac Paiwan caused social concern, the government "re-announced" the construction of a youth experience camp and a statue of Guanyin at the Hac Sa Reservoir. . The Avalokitesvara project immediately caused a backlash, and even led to a rare collective signature in recent years, asking the government to stop and re-examine. Under sudden social pressure, the government finally announced the suspension of the construction of the Guanyin statue a week later.

Although the three incidents had different social reactions and government responses, they all involved a common key issue: what role should citizens play in urban governance.

In the three events, we can see a rather similar government-society interaction pattern: there is a certain urgency in the policy, but it is impossible to foresee and know what kind of social response a certain municipal measure will receive, The government adopts the mode of "do first, plan later" in order to achieve the goal. Citizens are only (among others) a reference object (as the case may be) or a source of opinion gathering that does not unduly influence the final decision.

How can citizens influence the process of urban governance if they are not seen as stakeholders in urban governance? Just as the "Avalokitesvara incident" used social media to gather public opinion and stir up the incident, in this article, we just use a 2018 study to introduce an event and political background that has a certain relationship with Macau. Case of similarities: Vietnam.

In 2015, there was a tree protection operation against the government's tree cutting in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. Netizens finally succeeded in forcing the city government to stop the tree cutting plan. With limited conditions for direct action, Vietnamese citizens successfully used social media to get the government to withdraw the plan. They happen to use a method that is quite "Vietnamese" to participate in urban governance.

no need to ask everything

Time goes back to March 2015. At that time, the Hanoi Municipal Government was re-planning the green area in the city, and one of the goals of the plan was to eliminate and replace the old and diseased trees in the city. According to the plan at the time, it was estimated that 6,700 trees in the city would need to be removed.

For the government, it is only a part of urban regeneration, but these abandoned trees have a completely different meaning for the local citizens: these "older" trees were originally planted as early as the French colonial period, and became the French colonial town planning: an integral part of the boulevards. Therefore, for the local residents, these old trees are witnesses of Hanoi's urban development and have important historical and collective memory value.

Therefore, just like the netizens in Macau, the citizens of Hanoi first spread the news about tree removal on Facebook. In just two weeks, Yishu's page has received more than 60,000 likes. At this time, most of the discussion strategies of Vietnamese netizens focused on the value of the "tree" to the community:

For "us", trees are not only of historical and cultural importance, but also of "spiritual" importance. Trees are not only the common sustenance of citizens' collective emotions, but also the resting place for the souls of the deceased. The very act of cutting down a tree is, in fact, a destructive act of keeping the souls of the dead from rest.

Expressing love for trees actually avoids a key question: "who" is the culprit that makes trees have nowhere to live in the city. Perhaps it is precisely because of this non-confrontational discourse that the illusion of limited public response was created, and the city government did not respond much to the appeal at first. When the media pointed out whether the tree removal plan needs to be reviewed, the Hanoi city government gave a familiar answer:

The government does not need to consult the public on every matter.

Stress with Vietnamese characteristics

Faced with the government's cold treatment, Vietnamese netizens further adopted strategies similar to the "Avalokitesvara" incident. For example, discussions on social media pointed out whether the government adopted due process for tree removal, or emphasized the importance of trees in urban planning, etc. By framing the tree and moving the tree as a scientific statement, Vietnamese netizens further attributed the incident to the government's mishandling.

If scientific discourses are not enough for the city government to create pressure to make concessions, then the next actions of Vietnamese netizens can be said to hit the core of the government and even Vietnamese politics.

On social media, netizens began to question the "quite questionable" morality of the city government. For example, some netizens pointed out that the removal of trees may be related to official corruption, reflecting the moral corruption of the city government; and the decision to start the tree removal project without consulting the public's opinions caused even more confusion and uneasiness among the citizens.

At first glance, the accusation of "harmless to humans and animals" has another meaning in the special political background of Vietnam. In Vietnam, moral legitimacy turned out to be an important basis for government legitimacy. To put it simply, the key to a government or official's ability to take on the role of governance lies in his "virtue", that is, his ability to face up to the needs and even the plight of the people. Therefore, to accuse an official or the government of corruption and disregard for public needs is to question the legitimacy of their governing role through "shame".

When the code of ethics combines the characteristics of Vietnamese communism in urban governance, that is, emphasizing a top-down, functional governance model, restoring the moral status of the government becomes its priority. Therefore, after a new round of discussions, the Party Secretary of Hanoi stated that the government expressed "sympathy" for the troubles caused by the citizens and that it needs to listen to public opinion; officials should also examine their own deficiencies through "self-criticism" in order to Restore the ruler's reputation.

In the end, after three months of online mobilization, the city government finally announced in June that it would shelve the tree removal plan and set up an investigation committee for the incident. Some officials also entered the internal investigation process.

Then what?

Although the tree-moving incident, like the Avalokitesvara incident, ended with the government withdrawing its original plan, it seems that the tree-moving incident still has certain limitations when it comes to discussing the deeper meaning:

The incident did not change the local government's knowledge and understanding of public participation in urban governance, and it still returned to the existing solution of the existing system, that is, the incident was regarded as a "no way" in governance; the power of urban governance Still necessarily in the hands of the government. For the government, the public is only the object of consultation when "necessary", rather than the stakeholders of urban governance.

Such a situation is believed to be no stranger to the citizens of Macau. When the government withdraws the "Avalokitesvara" plan, but the "Youth Camp" is still going on as usual, we need to think about whether "we" are focusing on the government finally giving in due to public pressure, or whether we regard ourselves as having the right to participate in the city governing citizens.

#Number of articles: 1️⃣8️⃣2️⃣

*This article was simultaneously published in "Lunjin"

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