chủ tịch

Sino-Vietnamese word from 主席.

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [t͡ɕu˧˩ tïk̟̚˧˨ʔ]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [t͡ɕʊw˧˨ tɨt̚˨˩ʔ]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [cʊw˨˩˦ tɨt̚˨˩˨]

chủ tịch

1. (politics, of a self-proclaimed socialist/communist state) a president

   Chủ tịch Việt Nam

   President of Vietnam

   Chủ tịch Trung Quốc

   President of China

   Chủ tịch Phi-đen Ca-xtơ-rô

   President Fidel Castro

2. (business) a president
3. (politics, of a party or national assembly) a chairperson
4. (business) a chairperson

• Both chủ tịch and tổng thống translate to the English "president", but chủ tịch is used strictly to refer to the leaders of a few self-proclaimed "socialist"/"communist" countries who are not actually elected, but appointed by the ruling political party, and then formally "re-elected" by representatives in the party; while tổng thống refers to elected leaders in democracies. While the use of "president" as a translation of chủ tịch is usually subject for mockery in Western media, the distinction is made abundantly clear in Vietnam, and possibly in China. A socialist/communist chủ tịch is the head of state who represents and addresses their whole nation, in roughly the same way a president, a chancellor, a constitutional monarch or a prime minister of other countries do.