Tung Ngo

1 month ago | thestar.com.my | Damien Cave |Tung Ngo

ON April 30, 1975, Vu Dang Toan commanded the first tank to smash through the gate of Saigon’s Independence Palace. After years of war, he was there for its bitter end – the full surrender. As helicopters carried away the last Americans, South Vietnam’s soldiers scattered, leaving behind their uniforms and boots. “I’m proud,” Toan later reflected, “that as a soldier, I completed the mission.”Fifty years on, Toan is far from the battlefields of Saigon.

1 month ago | thestate.com | Alexandra Stevenson |Tung Ngo

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam -- China’s giant logistics machine was humming inside rows of metal warehouses near Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam this month. Hundreds of workers packed cosmetics, clothes and shoes for Shein, the Chinese fast-fashion retailer. Recruiters needing to fill hundreds more jobs were interviewing candidates outside. At another industrial park, owned by the supply chain arm of Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, trucks drove in and out at a steady clip.

1 month ago | straitstimes.com | Alexandra Stevenson |Tung Ngo

HO CHI MINH CITY – For Vietnam’s legion of factory workers, the mathematics of making a living was complicated enough before US President Donald Trump announced a whopping tariff on the goods they make. Ms Nguyen Thi Tuyet Hanh worked two factory jobs, six days a week, for nearly a year after her husband lost his job in 2023. She had no other choice to help feed their four children and keep them in school. “It was brutal,” Ms Hanh, 40, said.

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Damien Cave |Tung Ngo

On April 30, 1975, Vu Dang Toan commanded the first tank to smash through the main gate of Saigon's Independence Palace. After seeing so many die - after grinding away his youth battling the Americans and the forces of South Vietnam - he was there, alive and surprised, for the war's weary end. It was a full surrender. At the United States Embassy nearby, helicopters had already carried away the last Americans as the South's fighters disappeared, ditching their uniforms and boots in the streets.

2 months ago | nytimes.com | Tiffany May |Damien Cave |Tung Ngo

China's leader is on a charm offensive in the region, but some of Beijing's neighbors are wary of being caught in the crossfire of a superpower rivalry. As China faces off with the United States over a punishing trade war, it is under pressure to shore up its friendships around the world, starting with its neighbors in Southeast Asia. But its relations there are complicated.