Võ Văn Thưởng

Võ Văn Thưởng (born 13 December 1970) is a Vietnamese politician who served as the President of Vietnam from 2023 to 2024, being the youngest person to serve in this position since the country's reunification. As the country's head of state, Thưởng is the second highest official in Vietnam after Nguyễn Phú Trọng, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. He was also a member of the Politburo and served as the Executive Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) from 2021 until 2023.

Võ Văn Thưởng in 2023

Quotes

Speech at Vietnam's 78th National Day celebration (31 August 2023) (excerpts)

Full speech by President Vo Van Thuong at Vietnam's 78th National Day of Vietnam celebration

• Since the Revolutionary Autumn of 1945, in the spirit of “Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom,” the Vietnamese nation fought valiantly through countless arduous wars, with millions of this land’s outstanding individuals having laid down their lives for national liberation and unification, and for the building and protection of their Fatherland.
• An invaluable asset and significant source of strength for Viet Nam to overcome all challenges and losses have long stemmed from the people’s patriotism, great national unity, unwavering resolve and bravery, relentless pursuit of self-reliance and resilience, and burning aspiration for independence, freedom, peace, and happiness. Such noble values are tempered, preserved, and harnessed over the nation’s national construction and protection efforts spanning thousands of years.
• Throughout this process, the people have always been placed at the heart of Viet Nam’s endeavors. They are the actor, the driver, and the consistent goal of all development policies. Viet Nam always strives to mobilize the strength of the entire nation, and perseveringly pursues the philosophy of national independence aligned with socialism that the Party, President Ho Chi Minh, and the Vietnamese people have chosen.
• Art is a magical language that can bring people closer together, connecting kindred souls via emotions of the heart. The melodies of today’s artistic performances will bring forth a sense of joy stemming from cultural and traditional values of the peace-loving and compassionate Vietnamese nation. Such values have transcended time and space, and entwined with the quintessence of the culture of mankind, thereby bringing Viet Nam to the world, and bringing the world closer to Viet Nam.

Speech at the 2023 APEC Business Summit (16 November 2023) (excerpts)

"Full text of President Vo Van Thuong's speech at the 2023 APEC Business Summit"

• The history of human development is a continuous process of discovery, innovation, adaptation, and tireless striving for peace, progress and prosperity. At each critical moment, the world needs strong, bold decisions to overcome difficulties and open new directions.
• Firstly, we must ensure the mutual relationship between economic growth, social justice and environmental protection. The measure of an economy's success is not only the size and GDP growth rate but must also take into account the welfare people enjoy and the impact on the environment in both the short and long term. Economic growth based on consumption and resource exploitation needs to be replaced with a more sustainable, circular economic model. On a national scale, economic development policies not only aim to facilitate business investment for businesses, but also improve job quality, increase income for workers, and contribute to conservation. ecological environment. At the regional and global level, cooperation between countries is not only aimed at cutting emissions and converting to clean energy, but also needs to create conditions for developing countries to expand the scale of their economies and shrink them. development gap. And finally, at each business, the new business philosophy is to link the business's profits with the common interests of society.
• Maintaining sustainable economic growth coupled with implementing progress, social justice and protecting the ecological environment, ensuring that all people can develop their potential, participate and enjoy equal success. The results of development are a requirement throughout Vietnam's development process. Economic growth coupled with the realization of progress and social justice must be carried out in every step, every policy and throughout the development process; Do not "sacrifice" progress, social justice, and the environment to pursue simple economic growth.
• Vietnam always cares and accompanies the business community both domestically and internationally; Respect and protect the legitimate and legal rights and interests of investors; as well as ensuring harmony of interests between the State, investors and workers. We see the success of businesses as our own success, and the failure of businesses is also the failure of the State in policy management. We welcome and create maximum conditions for you to invest in the above areas.

Speech at the US Council on Foreign Relations (16 November 2023) (excerpts)

"Full text of President Vo Van Thuong's speech at the US Council on Foreign Relations"

• The world seems to be under the strong influence of three major dynamics. Firstly, instability and uncertainty are increasing, opportunities are mixed with challenges, requiring countries to enhance adaptability and promote international cooperation. Second, the world is transitioning to a multi-polar, multi-center situation and is influenced by the strong development of science and technology. Third, Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean are the most dynamic developing regions, leading in innovation, creativity, economic integration and witnessing the rise of new powers, but also areas of strategic competition, sovereignty and territorial disputes, potentially leading to tension and confrontation if not well controlled.

• The world's major trends are still peace, cooperation, and development, but there are more obstacles and difficulties, more rapid developments, more complicated, and more difficult to predict; Competition between major countries is increasingly fierce; outbreak of conflicts and wars in regions; increasing arms race, especially the risk of nuclear arms race and nuclear war.

• In the process of innovation, the people are always placed at the center, the source of strength, both the subject and the target of development.

• To realize Vietnam's aspiration to become a developed, high-income country by the middle of this century, we focus on rapid and sustainable development, based on the application of science - technology and innovation, simultaneously with cultural and social development and environmental protection; Build and perfect the rule of law state of the people, by the people, for the people, strong, streamlined, effective and efficient; Actively integrate comprehensively and deeply internationally. In that process, people with all their human and civil rights are at the center of future policies and planning. We are also deeply aware that there are still many difficulties and limitations that need to be overcome and made more efforts.

• Building and developing the country along with protecting the country is a universal task of all countries. For thousands of years, Vietnam's history has been the history of building and defending the country. My country had to go through long years of war to defend the Fatherland. Whenever there is a foreign invasion of the country, the entire nation, millions of people as one, unites and fights tenaciously, wipes out the enemies from the land, preserves the integrity of the mountains and rivers, and wins the right to life, freedom and rights. Pursue happiness for the nation. The strength for our nation to overcome all difficulties is the spirit of great righteousness and kindness of a nation that always loves peace and is filial, friendly, and respectful of other nations.

• From the traditions and philosophies of our nation, selectively absorbing the world's elite, Vietnam determines and consistently implements the foreign policy: Independence, self-reliance, peace, friendship, cooperation and develop, diversify and multilateralize foreign relations; proactively and actively integrate comprehensively and deeply; a friend, a trusted partner and an active, responsible member of the international community.

• It can be affirmed that the relationship between Vietnam and the US has never developed as well as it does today; from former enemies to comprehensive strategic partners. This is truly a model in the history of international relations in terms of healing and building post-war relations. This result is due to the joint efforts to overcome challenges, historical ups and downs of many generations of leaders and people of the two countries.

• Vietnam always wants peace, cooperation and development in a world where countries build visions together, cooperate together, share responsibilities, for the benefit of the people and the community. international.

Speech at the Japanese National Assembly (29 November 2023) (excerpts)

"Full text of President Vo Van Thuong's speech at the Japanese National Assembly"

• Since I was young, I had the opportunity to visit the country in an exchange program to meet Vietnamese and Japanese youth. Those visits, meeting Japanese young people, and living with Japanese families left me with good memories and impressions of the hospitable and friendly Japanese people; The country of Japan is as beautiful as cherry blossoms, the Japanese soul is peaceful and profound like Haiku poems, the Japanese spirit is resilient and noble like Samurai warriors, the Japanese will is steadfast and steadfast.
• Vietnam and Japan have the same wet rice civilization and have had to overcome harsh challenges of nature and devastating war. From there, we have trained people with the qualities of resilience, indomitableness, diligence, dynamism, creativity, appreciating the values ​​of community and family harmony, loyalty, gratitude, and respect. ancestors, being filial to parents, always aiming for the values ​​of truth - goodness - beauty to perfect personality.
• Our country had to go through long years of war to defend the Fatherland to preserve the integrity of the country, to gain the right to life, the right to freedom and the right to pursue happiness. The strength for the Vietnamese people to overcome all difficulties to build and defend the country is the spirit of great righteousness and kindness of a nation that always loves peace, filial piety, friendship and respect for other nations. .
• In a world of many changes, from the traditions and philosophies of our nation, from international experience, Vietnam determines and consistently implements its foreign policy: Independence, self-reliance, peace, friendship. consultation, cooperation and development, diversification and multilateralization of foreign relations; proactively and actively integrate comprehensively and deeply; a friend, a trusted partner and an active, responsible member of the international community. During that process, we determined that relations with neighboring countries are a top priority, relations with major countries and comprehensive strategic partners have strategic significance, relations with strategic partners are of strategic significance. strategic partners, comprehensive partners, a number of other partners that are very important and value relationships with traditional partners.