Vietnam's general secretary and former president Nguyen Phu Trong dies at 80

July 19 (UPI) -- Vietnam Communist Party general secretary and former President Nguyen Phu Trong has died after a long illness, according to an official Friday statement. He was 80 years old.

"General Secretary of Vietnam's Communist Party Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong passed away at 1:38 p.m. Friday at the 108 Military Central Hospital in Hanoi due to old age and severe illness," the statement, carried by Vietnam's state-run news agency said. "Party Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong passed away following a period of illness, despite the care and treatment by the Party, the state, doctors, leading health experts and his family."

Thursday he was awarded the Gold Star, the highest honor of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

"The decision to award the Gold Star Order to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong is the recognition of the Party, State and people for his great and exceptionally outstanding contributions to the revolutionary cause of the Party and the nation," the government said in a statement.

Trong came to power in 2011 and led a crackdown on corruption while also jailing journalists and activists to maintain government control.

The Communist Party arrested Labor Ministry official Nguyen Van Binh, an advocate for free and independent labor unions, in May. The media and civil organizations were also targeted.

Vietnam under Trong was known for "bamboo diplomacy" that shifted and bent as Vietnam navigated complex economic relationships with China and the United States as it also maintained connections with Russia and India.

President Joe Biden met with General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in an historic state visit in September 2023 that strengthened diplomatic and trade ties some five decades after what Biden called the "bitter past" of the Vietnam War.

Biden signed a deal with Vietnam on semiconductors and rare earth minerals and said the relationship had a "50-year arc of progress in the relationship between our nations from conflict to normalization."

According to the U.S. State Department Vietnam "is an authoritarian state ruled by a single party, the Communist Party of Vietnam."

The State Department cited the most significant human rights problems as severe restrictions on citizen's political rights, limited civil liberties and corruption in the judicial system and police.

Under Trong's leadership, Vietnam's GDP per capita more than doubled as Vietnam entered a series of free trade agreements both with the West and Asian nations.

"He always believed in making the party clean and relevant so that the party could live with the country for another 1,000 years -- that's his quote," said Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore Giang Nguyen in a statement to the BBC. "So he saw the fate of the Vietnamese Communist party and the nation as bound together."