Decades after the end of the war, the vocabulary used in a national high school examination has reignited a fierce, polarized debate over how Việt Nam officially remembers the defeated southern regime.
The Latest: In the History exam of the national high school graduation examination on the morning of June 12, the Ministry of Education and Training utilized the terms “Saigon government” and “Saigon army.”
This choice of words immediately sparked a fierce wave of controversy across social media, drawing sharp criticism from veterans and military officials who accuse the ministry of “rewriting history.”
Opposing views: After the exam was published online, many veterans and military generals spoke out against the wording.
- Veteran Phan Trung Can, who has an audience of more than 22,000 followers on Facebook, voiced immediate opposition at noon on June 12, writing: “First Literature, now History. They are testing the patience of an entire nation.”
- Later that afternoon, he published a subsequent post emphasizing that the terms “puppet army” and “puppet government” must not be abandoned.
- He argued that the pre-1975 Saigon “lackey” government should not be recognized, stating that doing so represents a “viewpoint detached from reality and historical truth.”
- He continued with multiple analyses asserting that the Republic of Vietnam was an “illegitimate regime” and that national reconciliation did not require “recognizing the legitimacy of the Saigon puppet government.”
- Lt. Gen. Nguyễn Thanh Tuấn, former director of the Department of Propaganda and Training under the General Political Department of the Việt Nam People’s Army, echoed this oppostion.
- He stated that “the government must listen and decisively correct this issue; the nation’s education sector cannot be allowed to fall into systematic errors.”
- Across various comment sections, many individuals identifying themselves as veterans or military personnel called for resistance against “historical revisionism” and the “distortion of history.”
Supporting views: Conversely, a substantial faction supported the wording used in the exam.
- Historian Professor Phạm Hồng Tung argued on his personal Facebook page that referring to the ruling regime in South Việt Nam from 1954 to 1975 as the “Saigon government” and “Saigon army” was not an act of “rewriting history.”
- He noted that numerous books produced under the direction of the Ministry of National Defense were at the forefront of adopting these terms while dropping the expressions “puppet army” and “puppet government.”
- To support this, he cited a 2019 article by former National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyễn Thị Kim Ngân, wherein she used the phrase “Saigon government.”
- Nguyễn Quốc Thệ, vice principal of Saigon Technical and Tourism College, cited an article from Nhân Dân newspaper and a Ministry of National Defense publication as evidence demonstrating a preference for “Saigon government/Republic of Vietnam ” over “puppet army” and “puppet government.”
- This aligns with earlier statements from 2017, when Associate Professor Nguyễn Đức Nhuệ, former vice director of the Institute of History under the Việt Nam Academy of Social Sciences, argued that the traditional derogatory terms were inaccurate and that the correct designation should be the “Republic of Vietnam government.”
The Background: Việt Nam functions as a one-party state and enforces strict censorship policies regarding history, particularly concerning events related to the 1954–1975 war and its aftermath. As a result, state publications have not adopted a consistent terminology for the political regime that governed South Việt Nam during that era.
Many state-run newspapers continue to use the terms “puppet army” and “puppet government” and actively oppose proposals to change the terminology. However, some newspapers and history books issued by state-owned publishers have gradually shifted toward using the term “Republic of Vietnam government.”
Furthermore, many of the individuals criticizing the recent History exam were also prominent participants in previous campaigns accusing others of “rewriting history.” These past campaigns included controversies surrounding the novel “The Sorrow of War” by Bảo Ninh, “Chuyện của Thanh” by Nguyễn Thành Nam, and a dedicated symposium on Trương Vĩnh Ký.
Lê Sáng wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on June 15, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine has the copyrights to the English translation.
