How Vietnam’s crackdowns on dissent clash with pledges of reform and trade

News Snapshot:

Open this photo in gallery: A guard keeps watch at a public security office in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam. Arrests, surveillance and censorship of dissidents are widespread in this Southeast Asian country.Photography by James Griffiths/The Globe and Mail On a Thursday night in late March, dozens of Canadian diplomats, trade officials and local support staff posed on the steps of Vietnam’s Independence Palace, in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City. In a giddy mood at the climax of a successful trade mission, they sang a few bars of the Canadian national anthem while waiting for the photographers to set...