​The Land Question in Việt Nam: When ‘Public Property’ Clashes with ‘Ownership by the People’ 

Journalist Thúc Kháng argued in a recent article in The Vietnamese Magazine that the root of the conflict between citizens and the government over land issues lies in Vietnamese law’s recognition of land solely as “ownership by the entire people.” [1]

​Expanding upon this argument, the core issue is further complicated by the ambiguity between “public property” and “common property.” Specifically, Article 53 of the 2013 Constitution conflated these two distinct concepts and distorted the establishment of the “ownership by the entire people” regime. 

Consequently, this ambiguity laid the foundation for the “ask-give” mechanism in land management, a system from which many shortcomings and conflicts between the state and the people have directly emerged.

​Misunderstanding “Ownership by the Entire People”

It is necessary to first examine the original text of Article 53 of the 2013 Constitution:

​“Land, water resources, mineral resources, resources in the seas and airspace, other natural resources, and assets invested in and managed by the State are public property under ownership by the entire people, represented and uniformly managed by the State.” [2]

​While this provision may initially seem reasonable, it harbors a fundamental error in legal science. Article 53 mistakenly equates “public property” with “common property,” two entirely distinct categories, which thoroughly obscures the concept of “ownership by the entire people.”

​The classification of property traces back to ancient Rome, a framework preserved in most contemporary civil codes, modern state laws, and international public law. Outside the realm of private ownership, “property” is traditionally divided into three categories: [3]

Tracing back through the history of legal science, the classification of property dates back to ancient Rome. This method of classification has been preserved in most contemporary civil codes around the world, in the laws of modern states, and even in modern international public law. 

Under this framework, outside the realm of private ownership, “property” is divided into the following categories: [3]

1. Common property;
2. Public property;
3. Derelict property.

​“Common property” denotes assets belonging to everyone and immune to private ownership, such as air, flowing water, or the open sea. 

Today, neither the sky nor the high seas belong to the sovereignty of any single nation; under international law, no state may claim them exclusively. [4] By contrast, “public property” is a distinct concept referring specifically to state-owned assets, such as bridges, roads, and other public infrastructure.

​By grouping “land, water resources, mineral resources, resources in the seas and airspace, other natural resources, and assets invested in and managed by the State” strictly under the umbrella of public property, Article 53 is fundamentally flawed in legal theory. 

This misstep has generated widespread difficulties in legislation, legal interpretation, implementation, and scholarship, as it remains ambiguous whether land is truly “public property” or “common property” under global classifications. As a result, Việt Nam’s legal approach forces the phrase “ownership by the entire people” to absorb both concepts, creating deep conceptual confusion.

​Why, then, did the 2013 Constitution have this error?

​Tracing the issue further back, it may originate in the 1977 Constitution of the Soviet Union, once regarded as the “elder brother” of socialist states. That constitution provided:

​“State property is the common property of the Soviet people and is defined in Article 11 as the principal form of socialist property. […] The means of production and material benefits constituting state property form a single treasury disposed of by the whole people. […]

The unified treasury of state property includes first and foremost the most essential and important objects: land, minerals, water, and forests. These objects are transferred to organizations, cooperatives, and citizens only for use but are not their property.” [5]

​This legislative conception exemplifies the fundamental confusion between “common property” and “public property,” departing from the essence of legal science and likely laying the groundwork for Việt Nam’s later mistakes.

​So, what exactly does “ownership by the entire people” mean?

​Because Vietnamese law currently lacks a single provision defining the concept, it is helpful to consult how other nations with similar political systems handle the term. Article 246 of the 2020 Civil Code of China explicitly defines the concept: “Where property is prescribed by law to be owned by the state, such property belongs to the state, that is, it belongs to the whole people.” [6]

​This definition is a direct inheritance from China’s 1986 “General Principles of Civil Law,” where Article 73 stated: “State property is owned by the whole people.” [7] Under this framework, socialist principles dictate that only “public property” belonging to the state is synonymous with “ownership by the entire people,” deliberately excluding “common property” from the equation.

​The Land “Ask-Give” Mechanism

​Vietnamese lawmakers appear not to recognize that stipulating “the state represents the owner” in the Constitution does not grant the state the right to allocate and recover land at will. Fundamentally, a “representative” does not wield the absolute power of an actual owner. 

Consequently, Việt Nam’s approach has inadvertently manufactured a paradox: the “representative” (the State) distributes “land-use rights” to the actual owners (the entire people). This definition is highly illogical in legal relations and gravely flawed in legal theory.

​In contrast, China’s approach is far more coherent from a scientific legal perspective. By clearly stipulating that land is under “state ownership” while simultaneously belonging to the entire people as public property, the Chinese framework eliminates the need for a separate “representative.”

​How, then, does the ambiguity between “public property,” “common property,” and “ownership by the entire people” generate problems within the land “ask-give” mechanism?

​The Land Law established this “ask-give” mechanism for allocating land-use rights due to a lack of thorough analysis regarding the relationship between the landowner (the State) and the land user as a co-owner. 

The “Textbook on Land Law” from Hà Nội Law University appears to be a pioneering text in administrativeizing land relations. It explicitly views the granting of land-use rights to individuals, organizations, and households as “a basic function of the State, consistent with its role as representative of the owner and as manager.” [8]

​Because this approach lacks a complete legal analysis of “public property” and “ownership by the entire people,” it cements the perception that the “ask-give” mechanism is an inherent feature of land management. Alongside “power struggles” in legal drafting and implementation, this ideological gap is a major cause of practical shortcomings.

​If property cannot be definitively classified as either “public” or “common,” then the rights over that property cannot be clearly established. If a property is clearly identified as common property, everyone naturally has the right to access it without permission. 

Conversely, if it is public property—belonging to the state but simultaneously under “ownership by the entire people” through co-ownership—it must be governed by transparent, objective rules like auctions and planning mechanisms to limit arbitrary state discretion. 

This necessity is clearly stipulated in Articles 243 and 244 of China’s 2020 Civil Code concerning state expropriation of land. [9] Notably, even China treats land primarily as a matter of property relations, rather than mere administrative management.

​At present, Việt Nam fails to achieve either of these clear understandings of property.

***

​In summary, future constitutional revisions in Việt Nam must clearly distinguish between “common property” and “public property.” The Constitution should stipulate that only public property belongs to the state while simultaneously constituting co-ownership by the entire people. Only then can subsequent legal documents, such as land laws, avoid conceptual confusion.

​Furthermore, to uphold the principle of equality among economic sectors, it is necessary to separate administrative relations from property relations regarding land.

​By clearly defining “state property” as belonging to the “entire people” under a co-ownership framework, Việt Nam can limit the monopolistic distribution driven by the “ask-give” mechanism. This will ensure the state does not lose sight of the fundamental reality that land relations are, at their core, property relations.

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Đan Thanh wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on May 7, 2026. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.