SERVIN TWO WORDS

Doanh Chau has built a successful life and career in the United States but says it’s time to give back to his native Vietnam.

Doanh Chau has a big plan for Vietnam, the country where he began his life, even though he has not lived there for decades.

Born in Saigon, Mr Chau has resided in the United States for 44 years. Together with his Vietnamese wife and his only son Brendan, he lives in San Jose, California, where he has pursued various business and community activities.

But in 2014 he founded a company called Vietnam Gas Group with a goal of introducing liquefied natural gas (LNG) as an alternative for future energy supply in fast-growing Vietnam.

“My biggest regret in life is that I might die without doing anything significant,” Mr Chau tells Asia Focus during a recent visit to Bangkok. “Legacy might be a big word but I need to pay back something.”

He elaborates by recalling a conversation he had with his son: “We don’t live this life just to take and not give back. Look at this apple you’re eating. You get the money I give you to buy it but it’s not me giving it to you. It’s society — many people make this apple for you, the farmers who grow it, the people who clean it and package it for you. Then it’s you who has the responsibility to give back.

“My goal is to do something for Vietnam and doing something to Vietnam is doing something for the world. If I can help Vietnam to procure a good source of energy to keep up the country’s economic development, it’s good, for the region and for the world.”

LNG, he says, is a brand-new industry in Vietnam and the players are mainly American companies. Coal and hydropower have dominated electricity generation there for decades, but it now has some gas-fired power plants with gas supplied from local offshore blocks.

“That source is depleting very fast. We need to find a new source of gas and that is LNG,” explains Mr Chau. “Vietnam desperately needs power for developing the country as the economy is expanding very fast. We are near the point of crisis right now.”

The country of 95 million is expected to face a gas shortage that could begin as early as next year, with other reports forecasting a shortage by 2022. The World Bank estimates that electricity demand in the country will expand by around 8% per year over the next decade, and it needs to invest US$150 billion by 2030 to develop its energy sector.

“The most rewarding part of my business is being the first to bring LNG to Vietnam, I guess. I always tell my son, it’s not who you are, it’s what you have done,” says Mr Chau.

Since Mr Chau returned to Vietnam in 2016, he has worked closely with the government on building a terminal for imported LNG, and a gas-fired power plant on the southern coast with a project value in the “billions of dollars”.

The company expects to import 3 million tonnes of LNG per year for 10 to 15 years under long-term agreements with foreign suppliers.

Besides Vietnam Gas, some local Vietnamese companies are also in the process of developing LNG plants and are waiting for the government to make a decision. It has taken some effort to spread the word about the new energy source, Mr Chau acknowledges.

“I think LNG is safe and clean but we have to convince the government first that there is no risk,” he says. “Now they are listening but before we didn’t have that. Now I have enough people who back me up.”

Under Vietnam’s natural gas industry development plan, the country plans to have at least six LNG import terminals in operation by 2025 at a total cost of more than $6 billion. Some projections are for as many as 10 LNG facilities that could be operational within the next decade.

“Our plan is (to be operational) in 2023. But if a crisis happens and they need electricity, we can expedite it,” Mr Chau points out.

As well, comprehensive national and regional strategies are needed, in his view. “It’s not only about LNG in Vietnam but we also have to have regional strategies. Different countries have different needs,” he says.

“Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia should share the resources to make LNG affordable to everyone. … We should work together and not against each other. Instead of doing everything by ourselves, we can learn from Thailand and other countries and form some kinds of alliances so we can work out a better LNG strategy for everyone.

“That’s what I call local and regional strategy. That way we can lower the cost of energy, reduce waste and share the resource. That’s my goal.”

AMERICAN CHARACTER

Born to a Vietnamese senator, Mr Chau says his father was “the No.1 anti-communist person in Vietnam at the time” of the war with the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. After finishing high school in Vietnam just as the war was winding down, he went to France for higher education at age 18.

“During that period, I was more familiar with the French language than English. I spoke French back then,” he recalls. “Our education in Vietnam in my generation was mostly in French. As a matter of fact, I learned how to speak and write in French before I learned Vietnamese. So I continued my education in France.”

He chose to study political science in France and planned to pursue the same career as his father. “For every family in my generation, we followed in the father’s footsteps. I was very young at the time but I was involved with my father. I campaigned for him. And France had lots of interests in Vietnam.”

By the time he completed his French education in 1977, Mr Chau’s family had left Vietnam for California, so he joined them there. He became very active in the local Vietnamese community, which was growing rapidly amid an influx of “boat people” fleeing the new Communist regime.

That activism eventually led to a position as a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan. “My boss was the president’s adviser for his campaign but later became an assistant to the president for domestic policy. I worked for them for about seven months and then worked in different capacities in Mr Reagan’s administration for few years.”

By the early 1990s, relations between the United States and Vietnam were improving, and Mr Chau returned to his homeland in 1995 to work in the private sector. He opened an office for Bechtel, the American engineering and construction company, which was seeking opportunities in the power plant business in the northern part of the country.

But the office was closed just two years later, with Mr Chau saying that Vietnam at the time was not really as open for American business as many people had hoped, and the government was not ready for Bechtel’s approach to the power business.

Vietnam at the time was looking to develop a power plant in Quang Ninh province, which is home to the world-famous tourist attraction Ha Long Bay. “We did a study and came to the conclusion that if they do that they were going to pollute the area, but the Vietnamese government and the provincial government insisted that was the way they wanted to build back then,” recalls Mr Chau.

“As an American company [Bechtel] couldn’t do that because we were going to pollute Ha Long Bay. We would have liability for that. We proposed that instead of building in Quang Ninh, they should do it in Hai Phong. It’s a bigger city and they need more energy. Hai Phong has more business while Quang Ninh had no business but they wanted to do it. Then we decided that it was not a good option for Vietnam.

“That’s why I say Vietnam was not ready for that kind of thing. … They are ready for Chinese business. The Chinese can do anything but for Americans, we don’t do it if we cannot do it right. … So Bechtel pulled out of Vietnam but my interest in Vietnam continued and I kept up good relations with the government in Vietnam.”

But having spent two-thirds of his life in the United States, Mr Chau has come to accept that he thinks more like an American, though he feels a sense of obligation to two countries. “Two thirds of my life was spent in America. My obligation is still in the US but I was born and raised in Vietnam. And if there is anything I can do to help Vietnam, I will do my best. But America is still my country,” he says.

“My son once asked me, Dad, who am I? Am I American or Vietnamese? I said look, you were born in San Jose. It’s San Jose, it’s California, it’s the USA who raised you, who fed you, who educated you. You are American.

“The only link you have with Vietnam is me but you have no obligation, anything with Vietnam. Make no mistake: you owe this country not that country. You owe America. You benefit from this country. You need to pay back here.

“I have to do that because I was born and raised in Vietnam but you don’t.”

The discussion he recounts is similar to those that have taken place in many households in the United States, which is home to the world’s biggest Vietnamese community outside Vietnam, with about 4 million people.

“If you have to make a choice — do you want to be Vietnamese or American? — I won’t make a choice. I will do the right thing. I won’t do the wrong thing just because it’s America or Vietnam. If the Vietnamese ask me to do the wrong thing, I will not do it. If the Americans ask me to do the wrong thing to Vietnam, I will refuse to do it. That is the American character,” he stresses.

CRUISING JOY

When he wants to take a break from business, Mr Chau and his family enjoy taking cruises, as many as three times a year. “We’ve always done that in the last 15 years. We take cruise ships to everywhere, the Caribbean or Panama. We travel a lot — Ha Long Bay is beautiful.”

When we spoke, he was making plans to visit Alaska in June, followed by a cruise in Scandinavia in September, though the onset of the coronavirus may force a change in plans.

“I like cruising very much,” he says. “First, people on the cruise are very nice to each other. You make a lot of new friends there. On a cruise ship, we have fun, we have shows, we make good friends. We smoke cigars, we drink and we talk about everything, family and business. That’s good.”

Cruise ships are also cheaper than other kinds of travel. “If you fly, you pay for a hotel, food and taxis. It costs a lot of money. But on a cruise ship, everything is paid for.”

Asked about his favourite destination in Vietnam, Mr Chau says that besides Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) where he was born and raised, he loves to visit Hanoi where his mother was originally from.

“The second place I want to travel to in Vietnam is Hanoi. It’s a beautiful city with a lot of history. If you want to learn more about the history of Vietnam, Hanoi is a good place to learn. But for Vietnam, future is in Saigon to me,” he says.

But it is not Vietnam where Mr Chau wants to retire. “When I was sitting in Silom yesterday, I told my friend. ‘Look, if I want to retire, I will probably retire here. I love Bangkok, I love Thais. I have a lot of history here.’”

Mr Chau lived in Bangkok for five years. “After working in Washington DC, I decided to work on a refugee programme in Bangkok with the US government. I spent time here on and off from 1987 to 1993 under the George Bush administration.”

But that wasn’t the only experience that made him love Thailand. “Even though someone has lived somewhere for a long time, if they have bad memories, they don’t want to come back, right?” Thailand has never disappointed him.

“And not because it is close to Vietnam. I just like Thailand because of the people. I’ve got good relationships, good friends and I like Bangkok. I like Thai people and the very open society. They don’t discriminate against people from other countries.”

Mr Chau’s son, meanwhile, also studied political science and now works at Google. His interest is purely in technology and he seems to have nothing to do with the business of Vietnam Gas. “He doesn’t have to be like me. We live in Silicon Valley, California. He was born in San Jose. All his friends are there. We can’t change that.”

And when does he think he should retire? Mr Chau replies probably when he is done with LNG business. “Actually I can retire any time right now. But I have to finish [the project] in Vietnam but not necessarily at a certain age. When you are young, you have to work for a living. For me, I don’t want to work for a living. I’ve got all the options but it’s more like I work so I can feel alive,” he says.

“When you retire, you mean you’re finished? Imagine one day you wake up and nobody wants you. That would be scary, wouldn’t it?”

My goal is to do something for Vietnam and doing something to Vietnam is doing something for the world

Instead of doing everything by ourselves, we can learn from Thailand and other countries and form some kinds of alliances so we can work out a better LNG strategy for everyone