Behind Vietnam's Anti- a Tinderbox of Wider Grievances, China Riots

HANOI numerous dissident, pro-democracy bloggers received a round of calls that are sudden . The bloggers were planning protests to protest the positioning of an oil rig in China in waters. Typically, Vietnamese officials quash demonstrations that are such. The events that followed supply a cautionary tale for investors who equated Vietnam's authoritarian rule with low hazard and a steady making environment. The initial peaceful protests, organized in four cities by the activists, were rapidly followed by waves of riots in three provinces that targeted the country's crucial producing centers. Five people were killed and numerous factories owned by Chinese and other foreign businesses were looted and torched. The Vietnamese government didn't respond to repeated requests for comment on why they allowed the first demonstrations on May 11 to carry on, or whether it conveyed to demonstrators via the former police official. Although the initial spark for the demonstrations was China's oil rig, a month long Wall Street Journal investigation into the reasons for the following violence, involving interviews with more than 40 activists, workers, foreign factory supervisors and government officials, revealed that anti-Chinese sentiment combined with a host of other grievances in a powerful and volatil Nike Free 3.0 V4.ory supervisors. "The workers have ever been peaceful before, even when they held strikes," said Saigon Daryar Plastics Co. Chief Executive Johnason Chang, who lost $4 million in a factory fire. To champion causes, activist groups used the peaceful demonstrati please click the following article.ns in the cities ranging to complaints about confiscation of property from release of political prisoners by officials. In the states, rioters yelled n .tionalist slogans along with calls to end worker exploitation, according to onlookers and Vietnamese officials. Some in the crowd just looked interested in looting, witnesses said.