The authorities have stepped up their efforts to curb any negative political impact from the country's economic woes, given that quickly rising inflation is prompting many Vietnamese to question the government's stewardship of the economy. The more conservative approach to dealing with dissidents in recent weeks is also aimed at preventing any contagion from the political upheavals that have erupted throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). A number of prominent dissidents have drawn parallels between modest protests in Vietnam and the much larger revolts underway in the MENA region. But the comparisons are largely misplaced. Despite rates of inflation accelerating faster, reaching 13.9% year on year in March, ordinary Vietnamese, especially younger people, do not face the same threat of unemployment and stagnation that has bred demonstrations elsewhere in the world. The economy is still growing strongly and there continues to be demand for workers. Despite this, strikes and other labour disputes are increasing as prices rise further.

Nevertheless, political groups such as the outlawed Viet Tan (the Vietnam Reform Party) are stepping up their activities in the country, partly hoping to trigger a larger revolt against the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). As a loose network of pro-democracy activists drawing on support bases in the US, Australia, France and other countries with big ethnic-Vietnamese communities around the world, Viet Tan has succeeded in unnerving the CPV's leaders for years. The CPV regards Viet Tan as a terrorist organisation, but the group says it promotes non-violent means to turn Vietnam into a multiparty democracy. Viet Tan also tries to insert itself into causes that might prove popular in Vietnam, and has launched an Internet-freedom campaign against the government's efforts to block subversive material circulating online, in addition to spreading information on how to circumvent officials' periodic efforts to prevent access to Facebook (a social networking website). Similarly, Viet Tan has also been vocal in its opposition to the mining of bauxite ore in the Central Highlands region, a cause that has attracted a broad support within the country's environmentalist community and has even drawn the blessing of one of Vietnam's most prominent war heroes, General Vo Nguyen Giap. More recently, on March 16th three Viet Tan activists, all of whom are US citizens, were arrested in the country's largest city, Ho Chi Minh City, after lending their support to Vietnamese farmers who were protesting the government's confiscation of their land. Two of the three activists, Nguyen Ly Trong and Nguyen Quang Khanh, were released after several days' detention and returned to the US. The third activist, Jennifer Truong, continues to be detained by the Vietnamese authorities. Also, a French-Vietnamese Viet Tan activist, Pham Minh Hoang, is being held after he was accused of plotting to overthrow the government.

The authorities are also cracking down on home-grown dissidents. A legal scholar, Cu Huy Ha Vu, was brought to trial in late March after he was arrested in 2010 for allegedly spreading anti-government propaganda by calling for multiparty democracy. The trial is significant, in large part because of the stature of Mr Vu's father, Cu Huy Can, who was a member of the first cabinet of Vietnam's former long-time leader, Ho Chi Minh, in the years following the second world war, as well as a celebrated poet. The trial is notable for being another example of how the state moves quickly to rein in anyone using the Internet to criticise the government. Mr Vu actively used technology to discuss Vietnam's political climate. He also filed a lawsuit against the prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, in 2009 for pursuing the mining of bauxite ore in the Central Highlands. Mr Vu could face a jail term of between three and 12 years.

Further arrests of dissidents are likely in the coming months as Vietnam struggles to bring inflation under control, and this could bring it into conflict with the US, which is keen to fold Vietnam into a new free-trade grouping, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, along with countries such as Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia and Chile. Human-rights issues threaten to stall that process, and Vietnam has already served notice that it will not relent. On March 10th the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Vietnam would not hesitate to return a prominent Roman Catholic priest, Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, to prison if his health condition improves. Father Ly was temporarily freed in March 2010 from an eight-year prison sentence (for spreading propaganda) to seek medical treatment for a brain tumour. US officials regularly call for Father Ly's release and a human-rights advocacy, Amnesty International, describes the priest as a "prisoner of conscience". (A prisoner of conscience is a term coined by Amnesty that includes any person "imprisoned solely for the peaceful expression of their beliefs or because of their race, gender or other personal characteristics.")