Saplings have sprouted on several streets in Hanoi, Vietnam’s leafy capital. They are puny replacements for at least 500 grand old trees that were uprooted last month without public consultation. The clearance was supposed to be the first phase of a city-government project to replace 6,700 mature specimens. But it spawned outrage on Facebook in a campaign which gathered 20,000 supporters in 24 hours, some of whom speculated that officials were motivated by the chance of selling the valuable timber. Three days later, on March 19th, the city’s leader, Nguyen The Thao, put the cutting on hold. He later suspended scores of officials and commissioned an investigation, due to be completed in a few days.Such U-turns are rare in one-party Vietnam. Yet the tree-felling controversy is among several recent cases in which online criticism has prompted back-pedalling by the government. Last year a plan to build a cable car near a UN-recognised world-heritage site was also stalled by Facebook critics. In January Nguyen Tan Dung, Vietnam’s prime minister, told senior members of the Communist Party that it was “impossible” to block social media, and that the government should make more effort to put out “correct” information through them.
http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21648706-online-will-communist-party-hear-anything-if-tree-falls