WEAI Assists Nicolas Berggruen with Entrée into Vietnam

In high-level meetings, the philanthropist and investor laid the groundwork for potential future collaboration with the Socialist Republic.

January 21, 2025

The Weatherhead East Asian Institute contributed to Vietnam’s ongoing opening to the world earlier this month when it helped broker meetings between President and CEO of the Berggruen Institute Nicolas Berggruen and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Tô Lâm and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in Hanoi on January 7. 

Extensively covered in Vietnamese media, the meetings are being taken as the latest sign of the government’s commitment to creating a welcoming environment for educational exchange and Western investment.

WEAI Director Lien-Hang T. Nguyen and Senior Advisor for Vietnam Thomas Vallely played a role in arranging the meetings between Berggruen and top Vietnamese officials. Nguyen and Weatherhead East Asian Institute Artist in Residence Tony Bui were also onlookers at the gathering in Hanoi on January 7.

In follow-up remarks, Party Secretary Lâm cited the success of the 2023 U.S.-Vietnam Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) in furthering bilateral relations between his country and the United States. He suggested that individuals like Berggruen and Nguyen could help build on the progress that Vietnam and America have already made across multiple fronts.

Philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen, WEAI Director Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, and WEAI Artist in Residence Tony Bui inside the Imperial City in Hue in January 2025

Berggruen is known for his longstanding interest in Asian societies and cultures. He has written and spoken publicly on the need for new paradigms for steering the U.S.-China relationship, among other topics, and in a 2022 New York Times Magazine profile he went on record with his belief that the twenty-first century is “the Pacific Century.” His Berggruen Institute is a Los Angeles-based think tank that seeks to catalyze innovative thinking in areas such as governance, artificial intelligence, and ecology.

Berggruen is the first Western philanthropist to have met with Vietnam's general secretary and prime minister on the same day. In a conversation that touched on Vietnam's development goals, he introduced the concept of universal basic capital, citing Australia's superannuation system and Singapore's sovereign wealth fund as possible models for Vietnam to consider. 

Berggruen's meetings with the two officials concluded with informal agreements for his investment firm, Berggruen Holdings, and the Berggruen Institute to explore possibilities for collaboration with Vietnam.

WEAI Artist in Residence Tony Bui, WEAI Director Lien-Hang Nguyen, and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in Hanoi on January 7, 2025


Read more English-language coverage from Vietnam:
The World & Vietnam Report
Vietnam Insider
Voice of Vietnam