Phan Văn Khải

Phan Van Khai (2008)

Phan Văn Khải (born December 25, 1933 in Củ Chi near Ho Chi Minh City [then Saigon] ; † March 17, 2018 in Củ Chi) was a Vietnamese politician .

Life and activity

Phan Văn Khải was born on December 25, 1933 near Saigon in French Indochina . Already in his youth he was active in revolutionary organizations. After the end of the Indochina War and the subsequent division of the country, Phan Văn Khải emigrated to the communist north .

During the Vietnam War , he studied economics in Moscow for five years . After his return from the Soviet Union, he first worked on the state planning committee, after which he moved to an authority that prepared the economic reunification with the south . After the end of the war and reunification, he was transferred back to his home region, where he was promoted to first deputy party secretary and later chairman of the city government of Ho Chi Minh City.

In 1989 he was transferred back to Hanoi to take up various posts in the Vietnamese government. After serving as Vice Prime Minister for a period, he was appointed Prime Minister on September 24, 1997, after the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam . In the political spectrum he was classified as a moderate man who supported the economic opening of the country and whose power base lay more in the government and less in the party apparatus. Phan Văn Khải went back to the introduction of a company law that curtailed local governments' say in business start-ups. He took numerous other measures to promote the development of private companies and was the originator of the trade agreement with the USA from 2001. In 2005 he was the first Vietnamese head of government to visit the USA.

He and President Trần Đức Lương announced his resignation on June 24, 2006 , one year before the end of his intended term of office.

Publications

• "Built from bomb craters". Vietnam's Prime Minister Phan Van Khai on his war experiences with the USA and the dominance of the superpower, the difficulties of the economic development of his country and the risk of a political opening. (in: Der Spiegel , 47/2002)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Former Vietnam Prime Minister Phan Van Khai Dies at 84. In: The New York Times. March 17, 2018, accessed March 17, 2018 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Bruce Lockhart, William J. Duiker: Historical Dictionary of Vietnam , 3rd Edition, Oxford, 2006, pp. 311-312
3. ↑ ^{a b} Hoang Thuy and Huu Nguyen: Former Vietnamese PM Phan Van Khai dies aged 85. VN Express, March 17, 2018, accessed on May 16, 2019 . 

Note: The family name of this Vietnamese name is Phan , in Western texts the spelling is often simplified Phan . According to Vietnamese custom, the person should be referred to by their nickname Khai - even in formal situations .