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.