Vietnam has continued to arouse global curiosity about its communist ideologies and related differences. This chapter focuses on three aspects of the capital punishment debate in Vietnam after implementation of the Renovation Period (Đổi Mới in Vietnamese) in the 1980s. First, it briefly analyses the legal changes with reduced death penalty trends over the past four decades. It argues that the changes in Vietnam’s legal system only reflect Vietnam’s reforms and reductions but do not yet classify it as abolitionist. Second, the chapter clarifies three basic principles (the rule of law, proportionality, and fairness) when applying the death penalty in Vietnam. It contributes to clarifying the communist state provisions in the reduction and abolition roadmap. The next section examines the death penalty over the course of 25 years by analysing the execution rate in Vietnam between 1993 and 2017. This section also explains why Vietnam maintains this punishment (drug-related offences in this chapter) while abolishing or suspending others. Finally, the chapter also calls for further research on this issue given Vietnam’s implementation of the National Strategy to Build and Improve the Socialist Rule of Law State to 2030 with an orientation to 2045.