Gen Z in Việt Nam: Irreverent, Radical, or a New Political Identity Taking Shape

For years, political apathy has been a persistent label attached to young people in Việt Nam, with concerns about their disengagement appearing in the National Assembly, theoretical writings, and repeatedly in the press. [1] [2] [3] 

Society frequently assumes that these youths are preoccupied with their personal lives, knowing the names of pop singers better than politicians and following online trends more closely than current events.

However, Gen Z—generally defined as people born between about 1997 and 2012—disrupted this narrative by speaking up on social media, the very platform once used as evidence against them.

Whether they are criticizing Vingroup’s Làng Vân project, demanding answers in the Nguyễn Sỹ Cương case, or opposing the proposed abolition of the Supreme People’s Procuracy’s Investigative Agency, these vocal challenges have largely come from the youth. [4] [5] [6]

These waves of discussion, together with the government’s response, raise an unavoidable question: Are young people truly apathetic about politics, or do they simply care about politics in ways that differ from government expectations?

Youth Participation in Politics

Recent events demonstrate that the concerns of young people are diverse, extending from landscape-altering development projects to traffic collisions and highly specialized legislative issues.

For instance, the backlash against the Làng Vân project began with an immediate, visual trigger: photographs of a damaged landscape. [7] What started as mourning for lost natural beauty evolved into a complex debate encompassing ecology, national defense, cultural history, and corporate transparency. 

Similarly, the Nguyễn Sỹ Cương case ignited demands for justice. [8] A traffic crash that might typically remain a routine news item became the subject of millions of online discussions because it raised a simple, basic question: Is the law applied equally to an ordinary citizen and a former public official? In demanding transparency, the youth laid flowers at the “Tree of Justice,” creating a Google Maps location, writing poetry, submitting petitions, and tying white ribbons on their belongings. [9] [10]

Most recently, this demographic turned its focus to the proposed abolition of the Supreme People’s Procuracy’s Investigative Agency. [11] Unlike a destroyed forest or a fatal crash, this issue lacks an immediate emotional hook; it centers on the structure of the judicial system and state power mechanisms. This interest indicates that young people are now invested in Việt Nam’s fundamental, long-term issues.

These discursive waves are altering how the youth enter political life. 

Historically, civic engagement required actively reading newspapers, studying draft legislation, or following National Assembly debates. Today, a photograph of Hải Vân Pass on Threads can spark inquiries into regional planning. A traffic crash points them toward the Penal Code, and a post about the Supreme People’s Procuracy introduces them to the mechanics of how state power is controlled.

Translator and author Nguyễn Tuấn Linh highlighted this shift on his Facebook page, describing Gen Z mobilizations—such as those involving Hải Vân Pass, rapper MCK, and the Nguyễn Sỹ Cương tree—as “political movements, although they are political in ways our old modes of thinking did not anticipate.” [12]

“Politics does not have to involve grand affairs,” he wrote. “A beloved natural landscape being torn apart, a singer we listen to having music removed, someone like us having their life destroyed — in these cases, they are all political.” 

His observation underscores that politics extends beyond the National Assembly, government agencies, or political organizations.

Political science has defined political participation as voluntary activities intended to influence government, policymaking, civil society, or social norms. [13] However, researchers note that individualized participation driven by self-expression and technology is frequently overlooked by those relying on traditional engagement metrics. 

Each generation enters political life through a different medium. While past generations organized advocacy movements, printed leaflets, or took to the streets, the advent of the internet ushered in blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. For a significant portion of Việt Nam’s Gen Z today, that space is Threads.

Political science categorizes this digital-age shift as “connective action.” In their 2012 book The Logic of Connective Action, scholars W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg argued that digital communications foster mobilization without requiring people to join formal organizations, adopt shared identities, or make binding collective commitments. [14] Online connectivity now performs the traditional work of organizations: uniting people, disseminating messages, and inciting action.

Hence, political mobilization does not require a formal leader or a defined organization to begin. It can stem from thousands of strangers posting the same photograph, sharing a document, or relentlessly pushing a question into the public view. 

This may be the most persuasive evidence against the claim that the youth are withdrawing from politics. They may be turning away from some traditional forms of political participation, but they are entering political life through different avenues.

A Double Standard for the Youth

A contradiction exists in how the government discusses young people: They are criticized for their apathy, yet treated with intense suspicion when they become engaged. If they remain silent, they are dismissed as selfish and indifferent; if they speak out on social issues, they are branded as radical, inflammatory, or even the seeds of a “color revolution.” [15] [16] [17 ] [18]

This paradox becomes clearer when examining how the government defines political engagement.

In 2017, Communist Party General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng warned against the youth becoming “detached from the Party, disengaged from the Youth Union and removed from politics.” [19] This phrase quickly saturated the state press, becoming the standard descriptor for youth apathy. [20] 

Under this interpretation, being “removed from politics” is measured by a decline in trust toward official youth organizations, a lack of interest in joining the party, an insufficient understanding of the party’s leadership, and limited participation in state-organized activities. Essentially, the youth’s political engagement is measured primarily by obedience and attachment to existing institutions.

However, if political life is defined more broadly to encompass power, law, public interest, and the impact of government decisions, then Gen Z’s digital mobilization is undeniably political. They may not join official civic organizations, but they are actively debating fundamental political questions.

Reflecting on the accusations that young people are indifferent, journalist Đào Tuấn offered a distinction: “Perhaps flippancy is simply how they talk.” He noted that how the youth live, whom they care about, and what they care about are entirely different questions. [21] Taking this perspective, imposing the traditional practices of an older generation onto a new one is what creates the false image of youth apathy.

The political engagement the government desires is organized and tightly directed. Conversely, Gen Z’s social media participation is spontaneous, typically igniting over specific issues tied to fairness, rights, or personal values. Naturally, not every online discussion is flawless; young people are still susceptible to crowd psychology, misinformation, and baseless conclusions.

However, the risk of manipulation does not invalidate the right of citizens to discuss certain issues and ask critical questions. The government cannot equate the potential for incitement with proof that the political interest itself was manufactured.

Failing to recognize this distinction creates a double standard for youth: Stay silent and be labeled apathetic, or speak out of turn and be deemed a “hostile force.”

How Should the Government and Society Respond?

Consider the government’s response to Gen Z’s voices in recent months: It remained silent for extended periods, blocked related posts, removed flowers from the “Justice Tree,” and claimed that online discussions had been “incited and instigated” by hostile forces and had “affected security and public order.” [22] [23] [24] [25]

For Nguyễn Quang A of the Civil Society Forum, the recent Gen Z phenomenon was “neither unexpected nor surprising, but quite understandable and something that should be nurtured and encouraged.” [26]

“Those in power need to understand the theory and adjust their policies to a changing world,” he said. “If they instead continue attributing these movements to incitement by hostile and reactionary forces, as they did on VTV, they will face serious trouble. No force could have created this. It was the results of the Đổi Mới reforms and international integration through globalization that changed these values and led Gen Z to act this way.”

Speaking in an interview with Luật Khoa, Nguyễn Quang A noted that descriptions of young people as politically apathetic were “superficial assessments that are fundamentally wrong about the younger generation.” 

He characterized the government’s reaction as “violent and propagandistic conduct — including verbal violence through labeling and threats — intended to create fear,” though he acknowledged that this approach was “not without results.”

In light of this repression, Nguyễn Quang A advised young people to adapt: “Pay attention: Speak moderately, live in truth, tell the truth, and act in ways that the government cannot, or will find difficult to, challenge legally—in other words, use creative approaches like those seen recently.”

Warning the youth “not to expect the government to change,” he noted that the state would, at most, only change its methods of response. He advised them to act “in the spirit of truth, but tactfully and creatively, to deal with new methods of control and repression.”

The government appears to be treating dissent from the younger generation as a threat to be controlled. Consequently, young people in such a society must learn how to speak safely.

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A generation’s growing concern about the environment, equality before the law, accountability, and checks on power is a valuable form of social capital.

When young people ask questions regarding Làng Vân, the Nguyễn Sỹ Cương case, or the Supreme People’s Procuracy’s Investigative Agency, they may sometimes reason inaccurately, lack complete information, or become swept up in crowd psychology. However, the solution to these limitations must be more information, greater accountability, and open debate—not an effort to narrow the space for free expression.

Young people in Việt Nam may not engage with politics in the manner the state expects or through the traditional forms older generations recognize. Instead of formal political discourse, their civic interest might spark from a photograph of Hải Vân Pass, a viral video, a bouquet laid beneath Tree No. 55, or a pressing question posted on Threads.

At its core, politics does not begin within distant, monolithic institutions; it begins with matters intimately connected to human life. A young person truly begins to care about politics the moment they realize that a destroyed forest, an injustice suffered by a complete stranger, or unchecked state power is not someone else’s problem. It is their problem, too.

Viewed from this perspective, the youth are not apathetic at all.

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Trường An wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on August 26, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine translated it into English.