Tô Lâm’s Dilemma: Escaping Việt Nam’s ‘Puppet Regime’ Legacy

Since taking power, Tô Lâm has consistently chosen a different way of speaking about the Republic of Vietnam, actively avoiding familiar terms such as “puppet army” and “puppet regime.” 

This shift extends beyond his personal statements and appears to reflect a broader trend within the central government in recent years. The 2026 national high school graduation examination in History provides a notable example of this change.

However, the government’s desire to alter its rhetoric does not mean that society is always ready to follow, which is precisely Tô Lâm’s dilemma. Lâm needs a softer, more pragmatic language to serve economic development, foreign relations, remittances, and ties with overseas Vietnamese communities, while simultaneously confronting the ideological legacy that this very system has cultivated for decades.

Small Changes, Major Reactions

For decades, the terms “puppet army” and “puppet regime” have been commonplace in official discourse whenever the Vietnamese government refers to the Republic of Vietnam. 

These expressions were never merely historical descriptions of a pre-1975 southern state. They carried a distinct political judgment: one side was righteous and represented revolution, while the other was illegitimate and served as a proxy. [1]

Because of this deeply ingrained narrative, the strong public backlash was entirely predictable when the Ministry of Education and Training recently used the term “Saigon administration” instead of “puppet regime.” [2] Many viewed the move as a dangerous concession, labeling it “rewriting history” or “historical revisionism.”

Despite the outrage, the exam did not go so far as to refer to the government directly as the Republic of Vietnam. “Saigon administration” remains an evasive compromise. It is milder than “puppet regime,” yet it falls short of implying official recognition by the Vietnamese state.

For this reason, the authorities are not necessarily changing their historical position; they appear to be merely adjusting their language to be less condemnatory without crossing established boundaries. 

It is precisely this halfway approach that exposes a larger problem.

The Language of Pragmatism

Under Tô Lâm, the Vietnamese government has increasingly used softer language when discussing the war and the Republic of Vietnam. While it is difficult to argue that the state has fundamentally changed its view of the conflict or is prepared to acknowledge the legal legitimacy of the Republic, the current government is clearly applying a more pragmatic approach to history. This pragmatism mirrors Tô Lâm’s broader leadership style.

Widely viewed as a leader focused on economic development, Tô Lâm was recently described by The Economist as having ambitions to reshape the country’s economy and make Việt Nam more prosperous. [3] 

To achieve these goals, contemporary Việt Nam requires foreign investment, stronger relations with Western nations, and the image of a stable, modern country no longer preoccupied with wartime grievances. It also requires stronger connections with overseas Vietnamese communities—many of whom are linked to pre-1975 South Việt Nam—especially since the nation continues to rely heavily on their substantial remittance flows. [4]

In this context, continuing to use terms like “puppet army” and “puppet regime” is highly inconvenient. Such language serves domestic propaganda purposes for groups attached to the memory of victory. 

However, it hinders a government trying to promote national reconciliation and attract overseas resources. As a result, Tô Lâm’s administration may not be attempting to “rewrite history” but rather adjusting its tone.

This pragmatic trend is not entirely new. Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, another leader known for his pragmatism, pointed in a similar direction years earlier. While Tô Lâm currently limits himself to calling Sài Gòn the “Pearl of the Far East” or acknowledging specific healthcare achievements in the South during the Vietnam War, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng went further in 2011. 

Dũng directly referred to the Republic of Vietnam by name, praising the efforts of South Việt Nam to defend the country’s maritime territory during the 1974 Battle of the Paracel Islands. [5] During Dũng’s tenure, domestic media even enjoyed a relatively open period in which they could discuss the Republic of Vietnam as an internationally recognized political entity.

This suggests that leaders who prioritize economic development require a flexible, pragmatic political language—one capable of facilitating negotiations, attracting investment, and engaging communities alienated by the confrontational narratives of the past.

The Legacy of Nguyễn Phú Trọng

Tô Lâm’s difficulty is that his desire for change does not begin with a blank slate. 

For many years, particularly under the leadership of Nguyễn Phú Trọng, official political discourse maintained a highly rigid tone regarding history and revolutionary legitimacy. Trọng repeatedly used expressions such as “puppet administration” and frequently cited Hồ Chí Minh’s famous wartime slogan, “Fight until the Americans leave, fight until the puppets fall,” in speeches and writings concerning the war and the Republic of Vietnam. [6] 

This rhetoric was entirely consistent with Trọng’s broader political image as a staunch defender of revolutionary morality, the party’s ideological foundations, and the historical legitimacy of the regime. [7]

Cultivated within that environment, a segment of the public came to believe that terms such as “puppet army” and “puppet regime” were not merely propaganda but incontrovertible historical truth. Consequently, they view any removal of the word “puppet” as weakness, historical revisionism, or a direct denial of the sacrifices made by the victors.

This creates a trap for the current government. If the state continues to use the old language, it will struggle to speak convincingly about national reconciliation. However, if it adopts a new, pragmatic language, it risks provoking fierce opposition from the very citizens whom the system trained to defend the old rhetoric.

The Cost of Politicizing History

This controversy shows how extraordinarily difficult it is to adjust history after it has become a political instrument. 

For years, the state taught history as a sequence of absolute moral judgments, conditioning the public to view the past in stark, black-and-white terms. Any voice that differed from official narratives was immediately suspected of “revisionism.” As a result, when the state itself attempts to adopt a softer tone, the public interprets that very moderation as revisionist.

This is why the controversy surrounding the History examination should not be dismissed as a minor issue. It reveals the core predicament facing Tô Lâm’s government. While the administration seeks a pragmatic language suited to economic and diplomatic needs, a decades-old ideological legacy severely constrains it.

Tô Lâm inherited the system’s power, along with its rigid language, historical memories, and cultivated ideological reflexes. When he attempts to change the rhetoric, he encounters fierce resistance from the very citizens the system convinced that the old language was the absolute historical truth.

In this way, the system has effectively set itself on a path to its demise.

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Thúc Kháng wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on June 19, 2026. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.