Vietnam has been described by many commentators as being about two decades 'behind' many of its East Asian neighbours in terms of economic and social development, although a series of economic reforms initiated in 1986 under a banner of i mi (renovation) are credited with closing the gap. At the same time, as has been the case in many other socialist countries, science and technology in Vietnam have been seen as central forces for national development, progress and health. Although molecular biology and genetics (especially in agricultural but also medical fields) have come to play an important role in successive government-sponsored science and technology programmes since the mid 1990s, Vietnam is not considered to be one of Asia's 'emerging biotech giants'. By analysing national efforts to revive traditional medicine in Vietnam, I propose in this paper to empirically restore the concept of bio-politics as one of the poles of a bio-power that continues to administer, optimise and multiply human vitality. I will show how a national effort to revive traditional medicine has been both bio-political (when contributing to the improvement of 'population health') and a case of bio-nationalism (when contributing to the 'building of national culture').
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Ayo Wahlberg (2009) studied this question.