Hoàng Văn Hoan

Hoàng Văn Hoan (1905 – 18 May 1991)

In 1963, when Foreign Minister Ung Văn Khiêm was replaced by the more pro-Chinese Xuân Thủy, Hoan headed the International Liaison Department of the VWP CC. In 1965–1966, however, Soviet-DRV relations started to improve, accompanied by increasing tension between Hanoi and Beijing. In the new atmosphere, the leadership found it advisable to replace both Xuan Thuy and Hoan with cadres who had been less conspicuously associated with Le Duan's previous pro-Chinese policies.

Still, Hoan remained a prominent actor in Sino-Vietnamese relations for a time. In May 1973, he conducted secret talks in Beijing about the

Hoang charged that Vietnam's abuse of its ethnic Chinese minority was "even worse than Hitler's treatment of the Jews" and that Hanoi had become "subservient to a foreign power," referring to the Soviet Union. Hoang disclosed that in 1982, the Vietnamese Communist Party's Central Committee decided that opium production should be used to raise badly needed foreign currency like U.S. dollars.^[4]

Hoang authored his reminiscences as A Drop in the Ocean. He died in Beijing in 1991.^[5]

Works

• Hoang Van Hoan (1988). A Drop in the Ocean: Hoang Van Hoan's Revolutionary Reminiscences. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.
  ISBN 9780835122559
  .
• — (1989). Selected Works of Hoang Van Hoan. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.
  ISBN 9787119006048
  .