Aren't these traits similar to Falun Gong's?
"There is no replica of Falun Gong in Vietnam," ex-Politburo member Oanh replied when asked of the apparent similarities.
Both are loose associations of believers, were developed or first publicly performed in the 1990s, and their numbers both rival communist party membership.
Yet Tung also dismisses any connection, saying the Chinese group focused more on the spiritual and meditation techniques.
"Falun Gong had the wishes of the people but not the will of the party," he explains. "It strays into superstition. It rips people of self-consciousness."
In July, Beijing cracked down hard on the sect, which claims tens of millions of adherents throughout China, arguing that it promoted superstition and destroyed social order. By Beijing's own account, Falun Gong was the greatest threat to party rule in China since the student democracy movement of 1989.
Hanoi, for its part, focuses much of its own paranoia on groups that subvert traditional Vietnamese mores, creep into superstition and illicit religious prosyletizing, or cheat people out of money.
Tung points to a number of local sects recently banned by the party for their role in promoting adverse behavior such as trance- inducing meditation and the conjuring of mediums.
"If we do not ban these devious religions, it will be dangerous," Tung says.
"But (which will be banned) is for the state and the party to decide," he says.
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