I always find it interesting to talk to students, no matter when and where. The young generation is the master of the future. Whether coming from the… - Nguyễn Tấn Dũng

I spent 13 years in the southern Vietnam battlefields fighting against the American aggressors. We, fighters, and other citizens hated the US’s arrogant administration and its armies very much back then. I was injured four times and suffered more than 30 wounds over the course of my fighting career. My father and my two uncles died during the American War. But we, and all other Vietnamese, did not hate all American people or the US as a country. We thanked Americans who protested the war in Vietnam. We sympathized with American mothers who lost their sons and husbands. I am sure you still remember we were so moved when a young American lit himself on fire to oppose the war.

Vietnam is a nation of 4000-year history. That nation was dominated by foreign forces for as long as most of the first millennium AD, yet lived on without having been assimilated. After regaining independence for the first time in 939, the nation had to fight 16 other wars of resistance against foreign invaders. In the 20th century, she was forced to take up arms to fight against foreign invasions for her independence, freedom, national unification, survival and development. We hope that those were the last wars in our history to safeguard our national independence, unity and territorial integrity.

ASEAN has experienced four decades of building and growth, and has evolved into an important political and economic entity, a comprehensive regional cooperation organization and a common house of the Southeast Asian peoples.