Myanmar's military leader and President Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Vietnam on Friday for a three-day official visit aimed at restoring diplomatic and economic relations.
Prior to his departure from Naypyitaw international airport on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026, Min Aung Hlaing was photographed shaking hands with Commander-in-Chief Gen. Ye Win Oo. State-run MRTV television reported that his flight landed at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, at noon.
During his three days in Vietnam, Min Aung Hlaing is scheduled to meet with Vietnamese President To Lam and other high-ranking officials. He will also participate in a business forum alongside members of his Cabinet.
This trip is part of a broader effort by Min Aung Hlaing to normalize regional relationships that fractured after he led the February 2021 coup, ousting the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Since being sworn in as president in April—following an election that critics denounced as a sham designed to solidify military rule—he has escalated his diplomatic engagements. The visit to Vietnam, which like Myanmar is part of the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), represents his third trip to an ASEAN member state since the takeover.
Following the 2021 coup, Min Aung Hlaing faced severe international isolation and was excluded from high-level ASEAN summits due to his failure to implement a peace plan agreed upon with the bloc in April 2021. To counter this isolation and seek foreign investment, he has recently traveled to India, China, Laos, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Russia, holding meetings with leaders and participating in business forums.
While Vietnam and Myanmar have maintained strong, long-term military relations—including defense cooperation and the involvement of Vietnam's military-run telecommunications firm Viettel in Myanmar's major operator Mytel—their economic partnership has weakened. According to figures shared by Min Aung Hlaing during a late August meeting in Myanmar with Vietnam's Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung, bilateral trade dropped from $853 million in 2020 to $590 million in 2025, and stood at $335 million for the first half of 2026.
Western nations have widely condemned and sanctioned Min Aung Hlaing and his associates for the coup and subsequent human rights abuses. The military's violent suppression of protests across Myanmar sparked a nationwide armed resistance movement, plunging the country into an ongoing civil war.
