Nguyễn Phú Trọng (Vietnamese: [ŋwiən˦ˀ˥ fu˧˦ t͡ɕawŋ͡m˧˨ʔ] new-yen foo chong; 14 April 1944 – 19 July 2024) was a Vietnamese politician and political theorist who served as general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam from 2011 until his death. As the head of the party's Secretariat, Politburo and Central Military Commission, Trọng was Vietnam's paramount leader. From 2018 to 2021, he also served concurrently as the tenth president of Vietnam.
A conservative Marxist–Leninist, Trọng joined the Communist Party of Vietnam in 1967 and rose through the section devoted to political work. He later joined the party's Central Committee in 1994, its Politburo in 1997 and Vietnam's National Assembly in 2002. Between 2000 and 2006, he was the Party Secretary for Hanoi, effectively the city's highest-ranking position. He served as Chairman of the National Assembly from 2006 to 2011.
Trọng rose to the general secretaryship at the party's 11th National Congress in 2011 and was re-elected at the 12th National Congress in 2016. He became state president in 2018 following the death of President Trần Đại Quang, becoming the third person to simultaneously head the party and state after Hồ Chí Minh (in North Vietnam only) and Trường Chinh. At the 13th National Congress in 2021, he was re-elected as general secretary, becoming the third leader of Vietnam to secure a third term (after Hồ Chí Minh and Lê Duẩn), and was succeeded by Nguyễn Xuân Phúc as president.
During his tenure, Trọng pursued a wide anti-corruption campaign, implicating numerous senior officials to a degree unprecedented in Vietnamese political history. His foreign policy, known as bamboo diplomacy, sought to balance Vietnam's relations with both the United States and China. He presided over a period of rapid economic growth. Trọng is considered one of the most influential Vietnamese leaders since Hồ Chí Minh.
Nguyễn Phú Trọng was born in Đông Hội Commune, Đông Anh district of Hanoi, in 1944. His official biography gives his family background only as "average peasant". He studied philology and earned his bachelor's degree in philology at Vietnam National University, Hanoi, from 1963 to 1967. Trọng joined the Communist Party of Vietnam on 19 December 1967.
Trọng worked for the Tạp chí Cộng Sản (Communist Review), the theoretical and political agency of the Communist Party of Vietnam (formerly the Labor Party) in the periods of 1968–1973, 1976–1981 and 1983–1996. From 1973 to 1976, he underwent a political-economic post-graduate course at the High-level Nguyễn Ái Quốc Party School (now the Hồ Chí Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration). From 1991 to 1996, he served as the editor-in-chief of the Tạp chí Cộng Sản. Trọng went to the Soviet Union in 1981 to study at the Academy of Sciences and received a Candidate of Sciences degree in history in 1983. In 1992, Nguyễn Phú Trọng was promoted to Associate Professor and in 2002 was promoted to Professor.
From 1998 to 2001, Trọng was the Vice Chairman of the Central Theoretical Council of the Communist Party of Vietnam, then becoming the chairman of the Theoretical Council until 2006. Trọng was a member of the party's Central Committee from January 1994, the party's Politburo from December 1997 and deputy to the National Assembly from May 2002. From January 2000 to June 2006, Trọng was secretary of the party's executive committee of Hanoi, the de facto head of the city authority. On 26 June 2006, Trọng was elected as the Chairman of the National Assembly. During this period, he was elected secretary of the party organization in the National Assembly and member of the Council for Defence and Security.
Trọng was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam in 2011 at the 11th National Congress, making him the top leader of Vietnam. The 5th plenum of the 11th Central Committee decided to take the Central Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption away from the Prime Minister's control and Trọng was elected its head.
In 2012, he urged the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) to adopt Resolution No. 12, which called for party building and self-criticism amongst party officials, calling them to lead by example and be held accountable for corruption and waste. Afterwards, the Central Steering Committee on Anti-corruption was directly placed under the administration of the Politburo. He further passed the Decision 244 of the CPV, establishing a formalized process of political succession and restricting the ability of CPV delegates to select new Central Committee members by requiring the outgoing Central Committee to approve the candidates. It also prohibited Politburo members from nominating Central Committee candidates without support from the Politburo.
On 11 October 2011, he made his first visit to China as General Secretary. According to the Vietnamese state news media, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Hu Jintao and Trọng both agreed to avoid escalating the situation in the South China Sea and to handle disagreements through peaceful negotiations. In December 2011, then-Vice President of China Xi Jinping visited Vietnam to "concretize" the results of the October discussions between Trọng and Hu. In 2015, Trọng paid a state visit to China, where he met General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping.
On 6 July 2015, General Secretary Trọng arrived in the United States to begin his United States visit to 10 July 2015. This visit coincided with the milestone of twenty years since the United States and Vietnam normalized diplomatic relations. The talks with President Barack Obama were about human rights, security and defense and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trọng was the first Vietnamese party chief to make a state visit to the United States. He also met Vice President Biden and former president Clinton. At a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he spoke frankly about democracy in Vietnam with American scholars.
On 20 November 2013, Trọng paid an official visit to India. This State-level visit to India also aims to contribute to strengthening Vietnam-India relations, bringing the strategic partnership between the two countries to a new level, more substantive and more effective.
During Trọng's first term, Vietnam and Russia upgraded their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2012. Following Russia's annexation of Crimea, Vietnam abstained from voting to declare the annexation through a referendum invalid at the United Nations.
On 27 January 2016, Trọng was re-elected as General Secretary by the 1st Plenary Session of the 12th Central Committee.
In his second term, Trọng launched a large anti-corruption campaign, with the Politburo taking disciplinary actions against 110 senior Party members between 2017 and 2020, including three Politburo members, one former Politburo member, 10 Central Committee members and 17 former Central Committee members. Some of the disciplinary actions included criminal charges.
After being reelected as General Secretary in 2016, Trọng launched a large-scale campaign against corruption. The campaign has resulted in thousands of high-ranking officials being disciplined, imprisoned, and forced to resign from positions in the government, including the president Nguyễn Xuân Phúc, who resigned after several of his subordinates were involved in corruption scandals. He compared this campaign to a burning furnace ("đốt lò"), hence the name Burning Furnace Campaign (Chiến dịch Đốt Lò). The campaign is considered by observers to be an effort by the Party to regain power and prestige as well as strengthen people's trust in the government and the Party's leadership. Especially during his third term, Trọng's government handled many notable corruption cases, such as Việt Á scandal and the 304 trillion dong (12 billion USD) Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group case.
Trọng visited China in January 2017, where Beijing and Hanoi signed 15 cooperation documents in various fields and issued a 10-point joint communiqué to deepen Sino-Vietnamese relations. According to state media, the two leaders pledged to continue the "friendly neighbourliness, comprehensive cooperation, long-term stability, towards the future" between China and Vietnam. In November 2017, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping paid a return visit to Vietnam, where the two sides discussed renewed cooperation on production capacity, energy, cross-border economic cooperation zones, e-commerce, human resources, economy and trade, finance, culture, health, information, social sciences and border defense.