Understanding the logic of Vietnam’s reconciliation policy
Hanoi is willing to let bygones be bygones, but many RVN sympathizers refuse to accept the legitimacy of the country’s communist political system.
Every year, Vietnam’s celebrations of the “Liberation of the South and the Reunification of the country” on April 30 provoke heated arguments both at home and abroad. Overseas Vietnamese in Western countries, many of whom are refugees of the Vietnam War or their descendants, generally perceive Hanoi’s celebration as opening the wounds of war, while some Vietnamese living in the country question why the Vietnamese government has not made amends with its South Vietnamese brethren even though it has normalized relations with former enemies such as the United States and China. These arguments blame Hanoi for its discriminatory treatment of former Republic of Vietnam (RVN) citizens and its efforts to erase the memory of a sovereign state in service of its own totalitarian control.
However, these arguments are devoid of any logic. Vietnam has adopted a consistent reconciliation policy since at least 1946, under which it pledges to work with any individuals or entities regardless of their political affiliation, social class, and place of residence so long as those individuals respect the country’s territorial integrity and political system. The idea was to establish a United Front against the immediate threat from France and further the survival of the communist movement. One of the most remarkable examples of the policy of reconciliation before the First Indochina War was the communist acceptance of the abdication of Bao Dai, the last emperor of Vietnam, and his appointment as President Ho Chi Minh’s “supreme advisor” in 1945, in contrast to the political banishment of the royal family typically seen in other communist revolutions. Hanoi also enlisted overseas Vietnamese educated in France or those who served under the French colonial government to help modernize its military and run the recently established government.
On the precipice of the Second Indochina War, Hanoi reconciled its differences with the North Vietnamese bourgeoisie and landlord class after launching land reform campaigns in service of the Dien Bien Phu campaign and the consolidation of communist rule in North Vietnam between 1953 and 1956. In 1956, Ho personally admitted mistakes in the disastrous application of Chinese land reform campaigns to the Vietnamese context, which unfairly targeted pro-Viet Minh bourgeoisie and landlord elements. North Vietnam allowed both small and large private enterprises to operate under governmental supervision because it understood that these enterprises produced most of the country’s food and consumer goods, while the government was more occupied with harnessing material and manpower to send to South Vietnam. In 1960, the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLFSV) was formed. Hanoi made clear that the government cherished contributions from any individual and was willing to unite with any social elements that could help it defeat the United States and the RVN.
Throughout the war, Hanoi collaborated with the NLFSV to win the support of South Vietnamese intelligentsia and bourgeoisie at Washington and Saigon’s expense, the same way that it utilized French-educated individuals to fight France. And to reduce unnecessary bloodshed, Hanoi did not order its troops to attack Saigon when the U.S. evacuation was ongoing. Only when Hanoi was suspicious that the United States was exploiting its goodwill to buy more time to establish a neutral government comprised of the RVN did it resume the attack to end any lingering hope for the survival of a non-communist government. Hanoi’s military restraint and its reconciliatory gestures explain why Saigon suffered little damage to its infrastructure in 1975 compared to the rest of Vietnam and why the communist takeover on April 30 was largely peaceful.
When the Second Indochina War ended, Hanoi sent many former RVN officials to reeducation, but it also pardoned high-ranking RVN officials after their reeducation and had some of them serve in the Fatherland Front or in the newly unified government as a gesture of national reconciliation. Some even served as advisors to Nguyen Van Linh, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), and to Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet. As the Third Indochina War was in the offing, Hanoi enlisted former RVN soldiers in its army because they could better operate leftover U.S. weapons and have them fight against the Khmer Rouge. Hanoi recognized their efforts after the war.
However, Hanoi could not pardon former RVN officials en masse because those based in the United States were actively raising money to field a guerrilla army comprised of former RVN soldiers in northern Thailand to invade Vietnam via Laos. Hanoi was afraid that these groups could link up with the pardoned RVN soldiers and challenge the communist government. Once the anti-communist guerrilla front was defeated in 1987, Vietnam began to release RVN personnel from prison and let them resettle in the West.
After the end of the Cold War, Vietnam strengthened its reconciliation policy to win support from overseas Vietnamese for its national economic development plans. The CPV viewed remittances, which totaled $160 billion between 1993 and 2023, as one of the main sources of Vietnam’s economic growth. In 2004, Hanoi welcomed back former Vice President of the RVN Nguyen Cao Ky, who took the opportunity to call on former RVN citizens to drop their hatred toward the communist government in the spirit of reconciliation. Ky returned to Vietnam several times after 2004.
Importantly, Hanoi did not erase the legacy of the RVN from public memory. The country commemorates the RVN’s 1974 naval clash against China over the Paracel islands and regards the RVN’s assertion of sovereignty as the basis of Vietnam’s modern claims over the offshore islands. In 2007, Vietnam civilianized Bien Hoa Cemetery, where 12,000 RVN soldiers were buried, and allowed the public, including U.S. diplomatic officials, to pay homage and restore the graves.
Vietnam’s reconciliation policy logic extended to its foreign partners as well. Vietnam was willing to reconcile with China in 1991 after Beijing agreed to cease all hostile military activities against Hanoi. Vietnam normalized relations with the United States in 1995, and positive developments in U.S.-Vietnam ties have been linked to the U.S. respect for Vietnam’s communist system. Hanoi also strengthened ties with its former colonizer, France, when France was helping it overcome its post-Cold War international isolation.
Vietnam’s reconciliation policy logic has been consistent: as long as Vietnam’s former enemies respect Vietnam’s territorial integrity and political system, Vietnam is willing to put aside past differences and make amends with them. General Secretary To Lam elaborated this point once again in a speech on April 30, when he said, “National reconciliation does not mean forgetting history or erasing differences, but rather accepting diverse perspectives with a spirit of tolerance and respect, in order to move towards a greater goal: building a peaceful, unified, strong, civilized, and prosperous Vietnam.”
It takes two to reconcile, and this explains why Hanoi has not been able to reconcile with RVN sympathizers as it was able to do so with France, China, and the United States. It is not because of Hanoi’s discriminatory treatment but because these sympathizers keep calling for the overthrow of the communist government, which violates one of the two tenets of Hanoi’s reconciliation policy. Hanoi has shown that it has the goodwill to put aside the past, even with the worst of its foreign and domestic enemies, in the interest of the common good. RVN sympathizers need not conform to Hanoi’s policy, but they need to express respect for Vietnam’s communist system of government if national reconciliation is really to begin.
By Khang Vu – The Diplomat – May 14, 2025