An impending US decision on whether or not to punish Vietnam for its poor record on religious freedom has put the communist country under mounting pressure that could already have yielded significant changes.
The US State Department last year classified Vietnam as a "country of particular concern" for violating religious freedoms and Washington must decide by March 15 if Hanoi is to face sanctions.
In recent weeks, Hanoi has made a number of goodwill gestures that some analysts see as an attempt to please the United States.
Just before the first day of the Lunar New Year, Hanoi released several dissidents including Catholic priest Tadeus Nguyen Van Ly, who had been detained since 2001.
At the same time, the government made a gesture in favour of Protestants in the country's troubled central highlands.
An instruction signed by Prime Minister Phan Van Khai in early February called on officials to "ensure that each citizen's freedom of religious and belief practise is observed (and) outlaw attempts to force people to follow a religion or to deny their religion".
The instruction also signals that religions so far not officially registered could be recognised in the future.
It also gives Protestants the possibility of holding religious ceremonies on their premises provided they have no contact with the rebel United Front for the Struggle of the Oppressed Races (FULRO).
The officially dissolved FULRO movement fought on the side of the Americans during the Vietnam War and against the communist state until the beginning of the 1990s, with the objective of creating an independent state.
"The Protestants who undertake purely religious activities are authorized to organize their masses at home or in suitable and registered places," an official from the Commission for Religious Affairs told AFP.
Khai's instruction was "aimed at separating the leaders from the Protestants operating for FULRO and others," he said, on condition of anonymity.
Taken literally, it means the followers of religions without any political ambitions could be allowed to practice their faith.
If implemented, it would be a major reform in a country accused by human rights organisations of persecuting Protestants, bulldozing churches and organising sessions for the forced renunciation of faith.
The message to Washington is clear.
"There is a clear will to launch a political message taking into account the date of March 15," said one foreign observer. "The question of the forced renunciation of faith, in particular, was one of the requests by the Americans.
"Now, we have to wait and see if the substance of these nice words is implemented."
If applied to the letter, the directive could help alleviate some of the tension in the central highlands.
Thousands of members of ethnic and religious minorities, primarily Protestants, held demonstrations in April 2004. They followed earlier protests in February 2001.
They protested against the confiscation of ancestral lands for the benefit of large coffee producers from the majority ethnic kinh group. And they demanded freedom of worship and an end to religious persecution.
On both occasions the demonstrations were severely repressed, leading several hundred people to flee to Cambodia.
Foreign diplomats warn that even if the central government is serious about bringing change, the reality at the provincial level is less clear.
"The instructions of the government are not always applied at the bottom of the scale," said the observer. "And many things are prone to interpretation".
This view was echoed by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an American consultative body which campaigned for sanctions against Hanoi.
"The new instructions are an attempt by the government of Vietnam to address some of the concerns that, for the first time last fall, placed Vietnam on the State Department's countries of particular concern list," said USCIRF chairman Preeta D. Bansal.
But the text, it observed, remained "vague and open to interpretation by local government officials and public security forces."
"Many of last year's most serious religious freedom abuses could still have occurred under these guidelines. We need to wait and see what concrete actions accompany the new instructions."