Latest: Corruption and Money Laundering.

Vietnam targets families of public officials in anti-corruption drive.

The anti-corruption bill looks to scrutinize the assets of their spouses, minor children.

Of the one million public officials required to disclose their assets in 2015, only five were found to have made false declarations. Over the past decade, Vietnam has disciplined a mere 17 officials for making false financial disclosures.

At first glance, these rosy findings appear to give the country an almost squeaky-cleancorruption record. But in fact, Vietnam's poor international corruption ranking has chipped away at investors and public confidence.

In 2014, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, an international standard gauge of government malfeasance, ranked Vietnam 119 out of 175 countries and territories; the country was ranked 116 in 2013 and 123 a year earlier. Its position has barely budged, moving to just 112 in 2015.

Vietnam’s officials often bristle at negative international assessments of its domestic affairs, saying they fail to reflect the real picture here. But corruption is indeed serious enough for the country’s leadership to use strong words when they speak of the problem.

“The fight against corruption has failed to achieve its target,” Truong Hoa Binh, the deputy prime minister in charge of the anti-corruption drive, said at a meeting in July to review Vietnam’s Anti-Corruption Law. “Corruption remains complicated in a number of sectors, eroding public confidence, creating social backlash, widening the rich-poor gap and holding back our country’s development.”

Authorities have repeatedly acknowledged that Vietnam’s fina

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