From Oct. 28–30, 2025, Communist Party General Secretary Tô Lâm travelled to the UK to ink the UK-Việt Nam Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. It was a deal meant to position his country as a rising, attractive business partner for the rest of the world to see. But the ‘real’ nation is far from the one Tô Lâm wants everyone to believe in.

Việt Nam has two faces. There’s the one it shows the world, and then there’s the one it shamefully hides, hoping no one gets a glimpse. Underneath the prim and proper facade, the country has a far uglier visage, one drowning in paranoia so deep that it has turned the country into a bureaucratic prison for a BBC journalist.