A Private Post, A Public Shaming: The Case of Chu Ngọc Quang Vinh

In September 2024, a social media storm erupted around 16-year-old Chu Ngọc Quang Vinh, a 12th-grade English major at Nguyễn Tất Thành High School for the Gifted in Yên Bái province.

The incident began with a post Vinh shared privately with just 16 friends at 10:00 p.m. However, one of those friends took a screenshot and reposted it publicly with the intent to expose him. By 5:00 a.m. the next morning, Vinh had posted an apology, but mounting public backlash forced him to deactivate his Facebook account by 11:00 a.m.

The public response quickly fractured into two dominant camps. One group reacted with vitriol, branding Vinh as an “ungrateful cancerous cell” that needed to be “eradicated” and demanding harsh punishment. The other camp, largely composed of journalists and commentators, offered sharp public criticism of the student. Most notable among them was Trần Thị Sánh, a literature graduate from Hanoi National University who identifies as a reporter for Đất Việt newspaper.

“This case reflects a segment of today's youth that is misguided and ungrateful to their country,” Sánh wrote on her personal Facebook page, pointing to his academic achievements—attending a prestigious school and winning a spot on the "Road to Mount Olympia" competition—as evidence of his supposed ingratitude.

However, both groups made a crucial error: they equated criticism of the ruling Party (Đảng) with an attack on the Fatherland (Tổ quốc). In reality, Vinh’s original post had drawn a clear distinction between the two, explicitly expressing his love for Việt Nam. This inability—or unwillingness—to distinguish between the nation and the ruling party lies at the heart of many online battles in Việt Nam, where the confusion is often used as a rhetorical weapon to shame dissenters. Worryingly, even those considered “educated,” like journalists and intellectuals, are prone to this logical fallacy.

The official response only escalated the situation. “The Yên Bái police have summoned the student for questioning,” Sánh noted in a later post, pointing out that his academic awards and future plans could be jeopardized.

But summoning a student over a comment shared in a private group is a serious overreach of state power. Correcting a young person's thoughts or speech is not a function of the police; that role belongs to educators, families, and civil society. A heavy-handed police response only risks reinforcing a student’s sense of alienation, potentially validating the very disillusionment that may have sparked the comment in the first place.

The Myth of the “Grateful” Student

On her Facebook page, Trần Thị Sánh acknowledged the student's age, writing, “This student isn’t even 20. He’s not fully developed, so his immature and reckless remarks are understandable.” However, she quickly pivoted to a broader condemnation, comparing him to “many adults who were educated at public universities at no cost [but] constantly insult and deny the achievements of the revolution and the people.”

She then framed the issue through her personal history: “I came from a poor family with many children. I attended university for free, started from nothing, and I owe it all to the system. That’s why we must be grateful to our forebears and the regime…”

These statements rest on a fundamentally flawed notion: that the state acts as a benevolent parent, “raising” and “educating” its citizens out of generosity. In truth, no government funds education with its own money; it operates on public funds generated by taxpayers—including the labor of Quang Vinh’s own parents. The state is a governing mechanism, not a personal benefactor.

Quang Vinh’s academic success, including his victory in the Road to Mount Olympia competition, stems from his own talent and effort. Why is he expected to thank the state for his own achievements? While Vinh’s original statement may have been simplistic—labeling the ruling party as deceitful without offering evidence—it was a private, emotional outburst among friends, not a formal political essay intended for public debate.

A Moment for Reflection, Not Repression

The real measure of a society is not the existence of a dissenting comment, but how it responds. In a healthy system, a case like this would be met with curiosity and compassion, not condemnation. The questions should be: Why does this student feel this way? What experiences shaped his thinking?

Instead, in Việt Nam, the answer is a police summons. Imagine how terrifying that must be for a teenager. This heavy-handed repression does not foster loyalty; it hardens disillusionment. The hypocrisy is even more glaring when commentators shame Vinh for his desire to study abroad—a path frequently taken by the children of the elite.

Rather than vilifying a student, perhaps they should focus on fixing the "brain drain" that sees so many of Việt Nam's brightest, like many Road to Mount Olympia champions, never return home after studying overseas. This is a far greater national loss than one teenager’s angry Facebook rant.

Shaming a kid is easy; building a country they want to come back to is hard.

Too often, political discourse in Việt Nam is shut down by a simple refrain: “Thanks to the Party’s leadership, we have today.” It is a statement intended to end all debate, as if doubt, criticism, or discomfort must be silenced.

But what does this actually mean? It is worth asking whether Việt Nam, without decades of one-party rule and its associated corruption, might today be as prosperous as Singapore or South Korea, with stronger universal human values.

A healthy society should not demand blind belief or the suppression of honest dissatisfaction. A government that censors dissent does not demonstrate strength; it undermines its own resilience. Criticism, especially from the youth, serves as a vital pressure gauge for society. If the gauge is tampered simply to make it look prettier, the ability to prevent future explosions is lost—a lesson demonstrated by many social upheavals around the world.

The core issue is often the inability of authorities to accurately measure the people's true sentiments. When "social managers" react superficially to dissent, without a comprehensive vision or a sound methodology, they only serve to prove that comments like Chu Ngọc Quang Vinh's are correct.

Developing a country requires wisdom, patience, and proper methods—not imposition, accusations, or demands for "gratitude," "trust," or "love." If Việt Nam’s leaders continue to dismiss youthful discontent as mere immaturity, or worse, as criminality, they will only validate the very frustration and disillusionment that fuels such comments in the first place.

Tuấn Kiệt wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luat Khoa Magazine on Sept. 11, 2024. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.