Anti-china protesters torch, trash factories
HANOI — AntiChina mobs torched up to 15 foreign- owned factories and trashed many more in southern Vietnam amid rising anger over China’s recent placement of an oil rig in disputed Southeast Asian waters, officials and state media said yesterday.
The unrest at industrial parks established to attract foreign investors was the most serious outbreak of public disorder in the tightly controlled country in years. It points to the dangers for the government as it manages public anger at China and also protests itself against the Chinese actions in a part of the South China Sea it claims as its own.
The unrest late Tuesday at a Singapore-run industrial park and others nearby followed protests by up to 20,000 workers at the complexes in Binh Duong province. Smaller groups attacked factories they believed were Chinese- run, but some were Taiwanese or South Korean, Vn Express website quoted Tran Van Nam, the deputy head of the province’s people’s committee, as saying.
On Wednesday morning, groups of men on motorbikes remained on the streets and all the factories in the area were closed, said one park manager, who declined to give his name because of sensitivities of the developments. Riot police had been stationed around the area.
Another said many foreign- owned factories were putting banners on the gates of the factories saying, “We love Vietnam” and “Hoang Sa, Truong Sa - Vietnam,” using Vietnamese terms for the Paracels and Spratlys Islands, island chains claimed by both Vietnam and China.