Ghosts of the Past: Việt Nam Land Disputes from Đồng Tâm and the Red River to the Trump Golf Course

In the relentless march toward economic modernization, Việt Nam’s ruling authorities have made one thing abundantly clear: progress waits for no one. And it certainly does not wait for the pesky inconveniences of ancestral graves or the livelihoods of local farmers.

Today, two massive development ventures are testing the limits of public patience: the $1.5 billion Trump International Vietnam golf course  in Hưng Yên Province and the $28 billion Red River Landscape Project in Hà Nội. While these projects are framed as shining beacons of luxury and urban renewal on paper, they are—in reality—state-enforced land acquisitions threatening to uproot hundreds of thousands of citizens from their homes and generational farmlands.

These impending forced evictions carry the grim shades of the 2020 Đồng Tâm incident, a bloody tragedy born from identical systemic grievances. 

As bulldozers prepare to idle outside the farms of Hưng Yên and Hà Nội, the dark history of Đồng Tâm remains a cautionary tale of what occurs when the state pushes its citizens too far.

The Fast-Track to Progress

Consider the diplomatic wonders of the Trump International project. Designed to be “the envy of all of Asia,” this 990-hectare development is slated to bring ultra-luxury villas and two championship golf courses to the fertile fruit farms of Hưng Yên.

The unusually rapid approval of this massive project—licensed by a subsidiary of local developer Kinhbac City (KBC) and bypassing standard environmental reviews—was largely a diplomatic maneuver. Export-reliant Việt Nam generously fast-tracked the process to appease the Trump administration amidst the looming threat of heavy trade tariffs.

However, this diplomatic maneuver demands a steep price from locals. Farmers are being told to surrender their multi-generational plots for insulting, below-market compensation rates of roughly $12 to $30 per square meter, with some offered meager provisions of rice for a few months to sweeten the deal. 

Adding cultural insult to financial injury, residents are being forced to literally dig up their ancestors’ graves to clear land for the fairways. One resident even questioned why he should have to move the remains of his great-grandparents, resting there since 1967, simply to accommodate a luxury golf club.

A similarly chaotic situation is also unfolding in Hà Nội with the Red River Megaproject. This $28 billion urban redesign aims to clear 11,418 hectares, displacing a staggering 200,000 residents across 16 communes and wards. The investor consortium even proposed a rapid 2.5-month site clearance timeline. Furious residents have described the schedule as a “race against the deadline.”

Despite affected citizens desperately submitting open letters, hanging banners, and pleading for adequate compensation and the preservation of historic villages, the 17 National Assembly delegates elected to represent these people have responded with silence. 

The similarities between the two projects are impossible to ignore: rushed approvals for elite agendas, woefully inadequate compensation, cultural disruptions, and deafening state indifference.

Yet, they also serve as a grim warning; when citizens are consistently ignored by the state machinery and pushed to the brink by forced land grabs, history demonstrates that the situation can take a very dark turn.

The Bleeding Ground of  Đồng Tâm

The village of Đồng Tâm stands as a grim testament to the lethal extremes the state will resort to when its mandated land acquisitions are actively resisted.

In 2020, the village—located in the outskirts of Hà Nội—became the site of a violent clash over land ownership—a tragedy that should have shocked the nation into permanently reforming its policies. 

Like the displaced farmers in Hưng Yên and the riverside dwellers in Hà Nội, the residents of Đồng Tâm were engaged in a bitter dispute over land they believed was rightfully theirs, facing a state determined to seize it for commercial and military interests.

The response from the Vietnamese government to the villagers’ desperate resistance was a brutal, heavily armed police raid. This violent confrontation resulted in the tragic deaths of three police officers and an 84-year-old village leader, Lê Đình Kình, who was shot dead in his own home. 

To justify this horrific use of force and protect its political legitimacy, state-controlled media branded the protesting farmers as “terrorists.” This reveals a fascinating application of state power: poor farmers fighting to keep generational land are deemed public security hazards, while a government using armed police to secure land for enterprise is simply maintaining the peace.

The violence displayed at Đồng Tâm is a symptom of the exact same underlying disease currently infecting the Trump and Red River projects. It serves as a reminder that when the government forces evictions, suppresses opposition, and prioritizes corporate profit over human survival, the resulting friction can easily ignite. 

The De Facto Landlord and the Illusion of Public Property

The concept of private land ownership does not technically exist in Việt Nam. According to the 2003 Land Law and the 2013 Constitution, land is a “public property, owned by all the people, represented and uniformly managed by the state.” 

While this notion serves as a wonderfully poetic, socialist ideal, the state functions in practice as a de facto landlord. It wields the ultimate legal power to revoke the land use rights of common citizens, transferring that very same land to private investors and corporate consortiums.

This legal framework forms the root of Việt Nam’s systemic land conflicts that bridge the bloodshed at Đồng Tâm, the ancestral grave exhumations for the Trump golf course, and the blanket clearances of the Red River project. 

Although the government claims to work for the empowerment of the working class, it consistently utilizes its legal monopoly on land to enrich domestic elites and foreign billionaires. Such a scenario inevitably pits the commercial interests of the state directly against the survival of its citizens.

With authorities currently strong-arming farmers in Hưng Yên into accepting pennies and rice for their livelihoods, while entirely ignoring the frantic petitions of 200,000 soon-to-be displaced residents in Hà Nội, the ingredients for another disaster are all present. 

What happened in Đồng Tâm is a very real, looming threat that might occur again if the state continues its aggressive acquisition tactics.

The Tragic Refrain of History

As developers prepare to break ground for the Trump International, Vietnam golf course and the Red River megaproject, the Vietnamese government stands at a dangerous crossroads. The relentless pursuit of economic growth, diplomatic favor, and luxury development has seemingly blinded the authorities to the devastating human costs of their actions.

History has a terrible habit of repeating itself when people willfully ignore its lessons. The Đồng Tâm incident proved that there is a definitive breaking point for citizens who are unilaterally stripped of their land, heritage, and means of survival. 

If the state continues to silence its people, fast-track forced clearances, and insult displaced families with inadequate compensation, the violence of Đồng Tâm will inevitably recur.

For the sake of the hundreds of thousands of citizens currently in the crosshairs of “progress,” one can only hope that the authorities learn from history before they are forced to experience it all over again.