Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung yesterday hosted the country's highest level online chat, giving straight-talk answers about everything from corruption to his personal life -- a clear break from old-style communism that illustrates a country moving forward.
For two-and-a-half hours, Dung answered questions preselected from more than 20,000 queries from across Vietnam and abroad. He also fielded a few live questions, and he didn't shy away from thorny issues including the lack of press freedom and government seizure of farmers' land for development.
"Why did you sign a decree strictly banning privatization of the press in any form?" asked someone with the screen name Pham Duong Quoc Tuan.
"Doesn't it go against the goal of freedom and democracy that you are striving for?" he asked.
Dung defended a recent decision to keep all of the country's 600 media outlets under state control, prohibiting a free press.
"The decree was in line with Vietnamese law and in accordance with the aspirations of most of the people," he answered.
Dung, 57, is the country's youngest prime minister and known as a reformer. Appointed last June, he had long been groomed for the job and has a record of fostering economic growth.
At age 12, Dung was a messenger for the Viet Cong guerillas fighting US-backed South Vietnam. He later battled US troops during the war, which ended in 1975 when the communist north reunified the country.
"You used to fight against the US and had vindictive hatred for the US. What did you think when you sent your son to study in the US?" asked someone with the screen name Jeremy Taylor.
Dung said many wounds remain but it's time to move on.
"Like many other Vietnamese citizens at that time, I had a strong hatred for the US government. But we do not hate American people," he wrote.
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