Vietnam has become very dangerous for Chinese People - the Reasons behind

At least 21 dead and nearly 100 injured in Vietnam after riots. Crowds set fire to industrial parks they believed to belong to Chinese people and hunted down workers. Read more on theguardian.com. Thursday morning a mob of thousand people stormed a giant Taiwanese steel mill in Ha Tinh province, central Vietnam.

This came two days after other mobs burned and looted foreign-owned factories in south Vietnam, believing they were Chinese-run, though many were actually Taiwanese or South Korean.

Chinese nationals have fled out of Vietnam. Cambodian Interior Ministry Spokesman Khieu Sopheak told the Anadolu Agency on Thursday that nearly 600 Chinese citizens had left Vietnam through the Bavet border crossing on Wednesday.

Anti-Chinese sentiment in Vietnam goes back to the time, when it was a Chinese colony - more than thousand years ago.

But there are more reasons for the Vietnamese people to be angry at Chinese people, as chinhdangvu.blogspot.com points out. Vietnamese are livid about China's attempt to drill for oil in waters claimed by Vietnam. But this is not the only reason. "Over the past few years there have been dozens of strikes at foreign-owned plants in Vietnam. Complaints about low pay, bad workplace conditions (poor canteen food, limits on using the toilet and so on) and bullying management have triggered disputes", writes Bill Hayton on bbc.com. These complaints have focused on plants owned by Taiwanese, Korean, Thai and Singaporean. And some factories, particularly Taiwanese-owned plants, "have been employing Chinese workers in favour of local Vietnamese".

The riots have consequences: Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that manufacturers iPhones and iPads for Apple, has shut operations in Vietnam for three days according to Financial Times. Meanwhile Samsung, which is a large investor in Vietnam, and Canon, the Japanese camera maker, said they had no plans to halt operations in the country. But Vietnam's Council of Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce has issued a warning to Chinese businesses that may be targeted in the next few days. It urged these firms to raise the Vietnamese flag over their offices and to remove or cover Chinese characters on their buildings or gates, reports South China Morning Post.

Police has detained about 1,300 people in anti-Chinese protests that have recently swept across southern and central Vietnam, a source in Vietnamese police told ITAR-TASS on Friday.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung sent a text message to Vietnamese cellular subscribers yesterday. He wrote Patriotic Vietnamese shouldn’t allow “bad elements” to “harm the interests and images of the country”.

Vietnam has a lot to loose if its anti-Chinese riots continue, writes Quartz. Vietnam relies heavily on foreign investment and tourism. Industrial output from foreign-owned industries has been rising, and made up 46% of the country’s overall industrial output in 2012.


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