General secretary of Vietnam's Communist Party since August 2024, succeeding Nguyen Phu Trong who died in office. He spent the previous eight years running Vietnam's security services. Before becoming party leader he was Vietnam's top cop, and in that role launched an anti-corruption drive that helped him get rid of many enemies. He is an opera buff.
Mr Lam has staked his tenure on a "revolution" to "liberate all productive forces". He has abolished five ministries, eliminated an entire layer of bureaucracy at district level, and is reducing the number of provinces from 63 to 34—cutting 100,000 civil-service jobs. He has decreed a 30% reduction in red tape and called for higher pay for capable civil servants.
He has sought to reverse the risk-aversion that gripped the bureaucracy after his predecessor's "blazing furnace" anti-corruption campaign, which prosecuted or punished over 330,000 party members. Mr Lam instead promotes an atmosphere of tolerance of mistakes.
He wants the private sector's share of output to rise to 70%, from around 50%. "Do not let Vietnam become an assembly-processing base… while domestic enterprises learn nothing," he urged in January 2025. He has declared an "era of national rise" and set a target of double-digit growth by 2030. Under his leadership the Politburo approved a big tax break for research-and-development spending and special incentives for local firms working with foreign investors. He has announced a quadrupling of the science-and-technology budget and a target to earn $100bn a year from semiconductors by 2050. Legislation issued in May 2025 abolishes a tax on household firms and strengthens legal protections for entrepreneurs.
His biggest reforms include Resolution 68, an attempt to boost the private sector through tax perks and lighter bureaucracy. Regulators have been told to take more risk when approving projects. Resolution 68 also spells out Vietnam's ambition to foster 20 national champions by 2030. The economy grew by 8% in 2025 and Mr Lam has set a target of 10% for 2026. State infrastructure spending rose by 27% in 2025, to $32bn (7% of GDP), with the 2026 budget envisaging another 34% increase—on a par with China's public-investment figures during its development heyday.
Mr Lam was the first Asian leader to reach Donald Trump by phone after the April 2nd 2025 "reciprocal" tariff announcement, offering to eliminate all tariffs on American goods. Days later he hosted Xi Jinping in Hanoi for his second state visit in three years—prompting Mr Trump to accuse the pair of conspiring against America.
He has visited 13 countries since taking charge and is pursuing closer ties with the EU, Russia (for cheap nuclear plants) and South Korea (for affordable weapons). He may also try to invigorate ASEAN, in which Vietnam has been a fairly passive member. During his first 18 months as general secretary he made showy visits to socialist sites of pilgrimage, including Karl Marx's grave in Britain and Ho Chi Minh's safehouse in China, as well as visiting Cuba and North Korea.
A five-yearly party congress began on January 19th 2026. Mr Lam says the question of who will run Vietnam for the next five years is settled, but analysts believe much is undecided. Tension centres on a tussle between factions loyal to the army and those representing the police. The army, which escaped Mr Lam's anti-corruption purges, wants to boost the number of its people in the politburo and central committee. At the head of the military faction is General Phan Van Giang, the defence minister, whom army-controlled social-media accounts have positioned as a potential successor. Ousting Mr Lam from his job is considered unlikely, but Phan Van Giang may seek to become president—a job with less clout than general secretary but enough influence to check at least some of Mr Lam's reforms. Mr Lam, meanwhile, is said to want to hold both titles himself. He has pumped money into a small number of private conglomerates modelled on South Korea's chaebol and tasked them with building billions of dollars of new infrastructure.
Procrastination means never having to say you're sorry.