To make headway, the task needs to be assigned to an official with the clout to compel collaboration among disparate and often quarrelsome national security bureaucracies.
Mr Dao, a former official, carried particular clout in Vietnam's blogosphere, as did Truong Duy Nhat, another blogger, who was arrested in the city of Danang on May 26th.
Before that meeting, the Chinese have let the other participants know that He Yafei, the vice minister of foreign affairs, an official with sufficient clout to give an answer on sanctions proposals, would be unlikely to attend.
Austria's Benita Ferrero-Waldner (external relations) is tenacious, say officials, but lacks clout and confidence.
Government officials have real clout.
And during hard times, elected officials respect the clout of the K-12 education lobby.
When roadblocks appear, a public official with visibility and clout must be able to call attention to the issue and have it resolved.
But the vice president decided it was a unique chance to heal relations with a country with a $2.2 trillion economy and growing diplomatic clout, one official said.
Parents and university officials who used the clout list to bypass the merit-based application process, the brief said, "cannot now claim any reasonable right to privacy to cover their actions, as it is far outweighed by the newsworthiness of the scandal and the right of the public to hold accountable those responsible for perpetrating a fraud".
With the group's overall chief in exile, the Gaza-based officials have wielded more clout in the past decade. .
