How Vietnam Turns a Celebrity’s Misstep into a Cautionary Tale of Patriotism

In the lead-up to Vietnam’s 80th National Day on 2 September, state-led campaigns rolled out AI avatars, hashtags, and flag-saturated feeds urging citizens — entertainers in particular — to join in the chorus. Tran Thanh, whose career straddles television hosting, film, and music, took to his Facebook account, with 18 million followers, to mourn the passing of Pham Duc Thanh, an overseas dan bau (Vietnamese monochord) musician associated with Paris by Night, a popular diaspora music show in the US. His tribute praised the late artist as an icon and lamented whether anyone would carry on those mournful melodies.

The post struck many as out of tune amid the chorus of patriotic fervour. The episode illustrated the fact that even in a campaign designed to rally the public behind the flag, coherence and consistency continue to elude Vietnam’s propaganda system, which is fractured between conservative hardliners and reformist pragmatists. Conservative actors have learnt to weaponise and even bend facts into loyalty tests that police the boundaries of acceptable patriotism.

These factional divides play out most visibly in narratives around Vietnam’s ties with the US and, more recently, in the tensions surrounding Party chief To Lam’s leadership, marked by his rapid rise and break from the conservatism of his late predecessor Nguyen Phu Trong. That said, reformists tend to pick their battles. With their focus on moderation, economic liberalisation, and international diplomacy—especially with Western partners like the US and the EU, they have left conservatives to set the ideological tone. In the Tran Thanh saga, where conservatives sought to define the patriotic script, reformists likely ceded the ground.

Within hours of Tran Tranh’s post, online outrage surged, quickly hardening into accusations of disloyalty. Ultra-nationalist Facebook pages began circulating a line that ricocheted across Vietnamese cyberspace: “You can’t expect someone of Chinese origin, with a Korean wife, to love Vietnam!” Tran Thanh’s father is of Chinese descent, and his wife is a Vietnamese–Korean singer and actress. He is a Vietnamese national.

Those accounts also doubled down by claiming that even mentioning Paris By Night and Pham Duc Thanh aligned Tran Thanh with “reactionary” culture. This view dovetails with Vietnamese hardliners’ entrenched hostility toward the show’s mix of diasporic nostalgia and perceived anti-communist themes. In reality, Pham Duc Thanh, far from being “reactionary”, had earned recognition for promoting Vietnamese heritage overseas. He had performed on major stages in Vietnam and drew praise from officials, including the late Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, for his cultural contributions.

Intriguingly, the most notable pushback against the nationalist narrative came from Tifosi, Vietnam’s loudest conservative-leaning Facebook group, which had even publicly rebuked To Lam earlier this year for his revisionist remarks, which had praised the economic achievements of pre-1975 Saigon. The group’s only post on the episode stressed that Pham Duc Thanh, the deceased artist, was indeed revered at home and abroad as a guardian of Vietnam’s musical heritage. This stance was consistent with what appears to be Tifosi’s recent shift toward To Lam. Most recently, it rejected nepotism allegations against Lam after the northern province of Dien Bien named a street in August for Ngo Manh Lan — Lam’s father-in-law and a decorated revolutionary artist — alongside other national figures. Tifosi dismissed the charges as distortions and disrespect for history.

Despite Tifosi’s intervention and some genuine pushback, these voices were quickly drowned out by the orchestrated nationalist campaign. Under mounting pressure, Tran Thanh, quietly deleted his post, and on National Day reappeared with photos of the parade and declarations of patriotic pride. The attempt at self-rehabilitation, however, did little to appease his critics.

By privileging patriotic fervor over coherence and consistency, the party-state risks not just baffling the public but undermining its narrative and its authority.

On 3 September, Cong An Nhan Dan, the Ministry of Public Security’s official newspaper, published a scathing editorial casting his earlier tribute to the late musician as a “discordant note” on a day of joy. Praising tens of thousands of condemnations as proof of patriotic vigilance, the column faulted Tran Thanh for “crying for the world, but not for his country.” It framed the episode as a lesson: in Vietnam, celebrities are expected to place collective pride above private sentiment. The verdict continued to ripple outward: Conservative-aligned actors recirculated the editorial widely, and state-run outlets echoed the same line.

The timing helps explain why. Vietnam has been ramping up nationalism as the core of regime legitimacy, roping key influencers in circulating state-sanctioned messages. In that context, the immediate objective was to make an example of Tran Thanh’s influence, and just as importantly, to set the norm for how other influencers should toe the official line.

The defining feature of the Tran Thanh saga was its scale: a coordinated online barrage reinforced by an equally relentless push through state-controlled media. The strength of the pushback was so strong that even some of Tran Thanh’s naysayers and fence-sitters in this case might have found the narrative excessive, even bordering on absurd. But such excess was precisely the point.

Heavy-handed state messaging aims less to persuade than to demonstrate strength and resolve. It also serves to signal what the regime considers its core priorities and red lines. The volume and severity of the vitriol against Tran Thanh telegraphed a stern message: Love for the regime must be performative and “pure.”

But the very same heavy-handedness, when overused to pump up nationalism, can backfire. Mob outrage is fickle; once people grow accustomed to online witch-hunts, they may unleash them for reasons beyond official control.  By privileging patriotic fervour over coherence and consistency, the party-state risks not just baffling the public but undermining its narrative and its authority.

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