Architect of Đổi Mới and prime minister of Vietnam
In a 2007 BBC Vietnamese Service interview he said "There are a hundred ways of being a patriot. The motherland of Vietnam doesn't belong to one person, one party or one group only", acknowledged the party's "serious mistakes" in the south after 1975, and urged national reconciliation.
Vietnamese politician and economic reformer. Born in 1922 to a peasant family in Vĩnh Long province in the Mekong Delta, he joined the Indochinese Communist Party in 1939 and fought in the wars against the French and then the US and South Vietnamese forces. He was party chief in Ho Chi Minh City from 1976 to 1982 and deputy prime minister from 1982 to 1991; as prime minister (1991–1997) he drove the Đổi Mới reforms and Vietnam's opening to the outside world. He died in Singapore on 11 June 2008.
Career Timeline
- 1939Joined the Indochinese Communist Party
- 1946–1954Fought in the First Indochina War
- 1976–1982Party chief in Ho Chi Minh City
- 1982–1991Deputy prime minister
- 1991–1997Prime minister
- 1995Vietnam joined ASEAN and normalised relations with the US