Reviewing 35 years of innovation, the 13th National Party Congress stated that we “will keep comprehensively, synchronously stepping up innovation”. However, some people have argued that “innovation in Viet Nam has run out of resources”, “innovation is over”, and “we don’t need it any more”. Let’s take a look at different aspects of this topic to prove the above-mentioned view's wrongness.
Innovation and its resources
As defined in the Vietnamese Language Dictionary, innovation is a “change or thing that makes a better, more progressive change than before, meeting development requirements”. The nature of innovation is the dialectical negation of the old, in the form of a new better, more progressive one. In society, innovation is an unceasing revolutionary movement aimed at replacing the old with a new better, more progressive one. In Viet Nam, innovation has always been seen as a revolution aimed at human development, “wealthy people, strong nation, democracy, equity, and civilisation”. It could be said that innovation is closely associated with development, acting as a way of development. In addition to resources and incentives for social development, innovation has always been confronted with barriers created by old mindsets, institutions, and habits.
For any activity, resources serve as the indispensable factor in producing its outcome. Innovation will not be successful without resources. Resources for comprehensive innovation of the country constitute mobilised material and mental strength. Territorially, there are internal and external resources. Internal resources include natural resource reserves, geographical location, labour resources, economic and defence and security potential, political institution, tradition, culture, human creativity, value system, and policies of a country. External resources consist of capital, market, science, technology, and experiences in management and business from other countries. In terms of origin, there are natural and non-natural resources. Natural resources are comprised of geographical conditions, land, mineral, and water resources, solar energy, wind energy as well as other living and non-living resources on the ground, under the ground, and in the ocean, while non-natural resources are mainly created by human beings, such as management institutions, human resources, capital, cultural values, and aspirations for development, leadership thinking, and intellectual property. Within the system of resources, internal resources play a decisive role in the cause of innovation, while external ones act as an important element. Properly combining and exploiting all those resources will be the key to the success of innovation.
 |
| The 13th National Cngress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (Photo: VNA) |
Malicious implications in the notion that “innovation in Viet Nam has run out of resources”
In the most general way, “run out” is understood as “to use all of something so that there is none left”. Accordingly, “run out of resources” means there is no resource left. Not just a comment, a judgement, or an assessment, the above-mentioned argument implies a complete negation of resources for innovation, which also means a negation of innovation. Without resources, innovation will come to an end by itself. That implication is clear and very malicious. Instead of a direct negation, they invalidate resources of innovation. More dangerously, they “advise” us to stop innovation as it has finished; in other words, “innovation is dead”. No innovation will lead to the derailment of the selected development goals and path; it also means that we give up, compromise with, and surrender to the old and the backward. We experienced moments of grim historical choice: “Innovate or die”. We chose “innovation”, and we have been successful.
Furthermore, after 35 years of innovation, our country has gained major, historic achievements, which have been recognised by our Party and people as well as by the international community. However, those who provoke that above-mentioned argument see only “the exhaustion of the country’s resources” as a result of innovation. For that way of thinking, one question will be raised: Who will be responsible for the exhaustion of resources? Everyone knows that innovation policies have been initiated and led by our Party; therefore, a very deep corollary can be drawn, and everyone understands its implication. They don’t directly put the blame on anyone or attribute the blame to anyone, but their aim remains unchanged: they deny our innovation and the leadership role of the Communist Party of Viet Nam. Only a weak party incapable of leading the country and innovation has brought about such a terrible result, used up all resources of the country, and destroyed the driving force of development. Apparently, the only argument mentioned above aims at both innovation and our Party’s leadership role like “killing two birds with one stone”.
Is it true that “innovation in Viet Nam run out of resources”?
We could confirm that Viet Nam’s innovation has never and will never run out of resources for the following reasons.
First, Viet Nam’s innovation is a creative and self-conscious innovation. That is an innovation programme with clear goals, strict principles, and proper steps, initiated and led by the Communist Party of Viet Nam. Innovation has been planned and guided by our Party’s political platforms, strategies, guidelines, and viewpoints. In each period or at each crucial moment of innovation, our Party adopt sound strategies and decisions to discover and activate resources via mechanisms, policies, and measures with a view to exploiting and bringing into play resources for national development and innovation. According to the review of 30 years of innovation by our Party, “It is necessary to renew thinking, perfect institutions, mechanisms, and policies, and settle difficulties and drawbacks to unleash potential and resources of the country as a new incentive for the innovation process”.
Second, innovation in Viet Nam is for the goal of “wealthy people, strong nation, democracy, equity, civilisation”, thereby having exploited all major resources from the people. That goal not only helps orientate our innovation but also acts as a motivation for innovation in other fields. Successfully fulfilling this goal will enable us to bring into play tremendous resources, including human and material ones from the people, even overseas Vietnamese. Over the years, our Party and State have always formulated proper mechanisms and policies, created favourable conditions, and promoted the role of socio-political organisations and social organisations to attract and utilise resources for national development. At its 12th National Party Congress, our Party advocated attracting and strongly encouraging all resources and creativity of the people to synchronously step up the cause of innovation.
Third, a combination of “the Party’s will, the people’s hearts, and the State’s law” has created enormous, decisive resources for innovation. Viet Nam’s innovation represents a combination and consensus from the grassroots level to the highest-level organs of the Party. That is also a consensus between “the Party’s will and the people’s hearts”, transforming Viet Nam’s innovation into a common cause of the entire people under the Party’s leadership. All those things prove that major resources for innovation are from the people, and the strength of innovation constitutes the strength of the people, democracy, unity, and a close-knit bond between the Party and the people. Since its inception, our Party has always taken “unity” as its core value and considered “great national unity” as a strategy in the process of leadership over our revolution as well as a main resource and incentive for the Vietnamese nation. Thanks to the consensus between “the Party’s will and the people’s hearts”, when our Party launched innovation policies, our people immediately demonstrated their support, thereby producing positive effects and huge resources for the cause of innovation.
Fourth, innovation itself is the most important resource to maintain development advantage. Innovation is not only a method of development but also gives resources to development. Resources are produced as a result of the innovation process. Those self-produced resources come from the historic significance and strategies of innovation, from the philosophies of liberation, creativity, and development of innovation, and from the characteristics of innovation. Those resources will fuel innovation and create a new position and strength for our country. Without innovation, all other resources will be managed, exploited, and distributed via old methods and thinking; thus, they will not be brought into play. Thanks to innovation, resources will be more properly distributed, nurtured, and recreated when being exploited. As a result, patriotism, national self-reliance, national great unity strength, and aspirations for developing a prosperous, happy country are strongly stimulated as inexhaustible resources for national innovation and development.
Innovation has various resources for itself, including material and mental ones, coming from our economy, politics, culture, traditional values, and new values as part of the innovation and development process. There is a fact that in addition to successfully exploiting and promoting resources, we have witnessed weaknesses in management together with negative practices and wastefulness causing a serious loss of the country’s resources. That made some people misunderstand the nature of innovation and the nature of our Party; taking advantage of that situation, political opportunists have provoked wrong, hostile arguments to incite and distract a section of our people, cadres, and party members. Unmasking and combating those political opportunists’ foxy artifices and wrong arguments are extremely necessary and must be a routine task. Doing so will help us better understand and believe in the path selected by our Party and people towards the building of a prosperous, happy country.
Associate Prof. PHAN TRONG HAO, PhD, The Central Theoretical Council