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Anti-Foreigner Violence Turns Deadly and Spreads in Vietnam
Anti-Chinese Violence Convulses Vietnam, Pitting Laborers Against Laborers
(about 3 hours later)
HA TINH PROVINCE, Vietnam — Violence against foreign-owned factories has spread across Vietnam and taken a deadly turn, with officials saying on Thursday that at least one Chinese worker had been killed and scores more injured when hundreds of protesting Vietnamese rampaged through a steel plant.
HA TINH PROVINCE, Vietnam — One Chinese laborer said angry Vietnamese workers had stomped on his hands, crushing them. Another said his son had been struck in the head with a metal rod by a Vietnamese mob that had sought out Chinese for beatings. At least one Chinese worker died.
The explosion of violence, which started in the industrial suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City, was set off initially by anger at China, which has been pressing territorial claims in the South China Sea. But it has shown signs of broadening into a more general outpouring of frustration. News agencies quoted government officials as saying that the unrest had spread to 22 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces, and carried unconfirmed reports of additional deaths.
While anti-Chinese violence in southern Vietnam earlier in the week targeted foreign factories, the outburst of anger here in the nation’s center took a more vindictive turn late Wednesday, with Vietnamese turning on Chinese laborers. The violence in Ha Tinh appeared to be the worst convulsion against Chinese since a territorial dispute inflamed anger in Vietnam.
In Ha Tinh Province in north central Vietnam, hundreds of protesting workers stormed through the Formosa Plastics Group’s steel plant on Wednesday afternoon, attacking Chinese citizens who were working there, the company said on Thursday. One employee was killed and 90 others were injured in the violence, according to the company.
By Thursday, the province had settled into a wary calm as crowds of Vietnamese workers scrambled onto buses. Some said their employers had closed because of the mayhem, while others cited fear of reprisals for the violence. Some, too, may have been fleeing in fear of arrest.
The protesters smashed and looted equipment at the plant and set it on fire, the company said. Managers on the scene called the local authorities, who sent vehicles to evacuate Chinese workers from the plant. The head of the Ha Tinh provincial government went to the factory around 10 p.m. and met with security officials to try to restore order, Formosa Plastics said, but the rioting continued until early Thursday.
News agencies quoted government officials on Thursday as saying that the unrest this week had swept through 22 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces, but they did not indicate whether the protests beyond Ha Tinh and suburbs near Ho Chi Minh City in the south had been violent or whether peace had been restored. Reports of additional deaths were unconfirmed.
Vietnam has seen an influx of international investment in recent years, much of it in manufacturing industries that depend on low-wage labor. The influx has contributed to more than two decades of uneven, but at times rapid, economic growth in Vietnam, and an influx of Chinese workers that has been the source of tensions.
In Ha Tinh, Chinese workers waiting for treatment at the main provincial hospital had bruised faces and eyes, mangled fingers, and torsos that were black and blue from kicks and punches.
Though the original spark for protests appeared to be China’s deployment of an oil drilling rig and a flotilla of coast guard vessels in disputed waters off the Vietnamese coast, workers and companies from South Korea and Taiwan have also become targets. China Airlines, based in Taiwan, sent two extra aircraft to Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to handle a surge of Taiwanese people trying to leave Vietnam after its two regularly scheduled flights sold out. There were also reports that hundreds of mainland Chinese were fleeing across the Cambodian border to Phnom Penh, about 130 miles from Ho Chi Minh City.
“They just turned up and started attacking,” said Wang Xiangzheng, a carpenter, whose son was hit with the metal rod. He said that the several hundred Chinese workers at the construction site at the time had tried to step aside when the Vietnamese men appeared, but were attacked anyway.
Taiwan’s minister of foreign affairs, David Lin, told legislators on Thursday that Taiwan was taking steps to ensure that all its citizens who wanted to leave Vietnam could do so, and that Taiwan would seek compensation for damage to its business interests in Vietnam. Government officials in China and Hong Kong issued travel warnings for their citizens in Vietnam, Reuters reported.
“They had rocks and steel bars and pipes, and broke through the gate and started hitting us, and then they burned down the housing,” Mr. Wang said.
As the violence spread to other parts of Vietnam, factory managers in Binh Duong Province, an industrial area north of Ho Chi Minh City where the riots began, surveyed the damage on Thursday and complained that the police response had been listless or nonexistent.
None of the Vietnamese workers interviewed in the industrial area where the attacks took place admitted to joining in, and many of them condemned the attacks. But some also suggested that the ultimate blame lay with China and its decision to send an oil drilling rig to waters that Vietnamese consider theirs. Ships from both nations sent to those waters in the South China Sea have reported being rammed, and photos have shown Chinese water cannons soaking Vietnamese ships.
“I called the police, called and called,” said Pang Chi Wa, who works as a manager at HWA Jong Group, a garment maker based in Taiwan with a factory in Binh Duong. Mr. Pang said that the crowds of protesters had circled the factory in the surrounding streets several times before mounting their attack, and that during that time, his pleas for police help went unanswered.
“We’ve watched on television every day, and we’ve seen the tension,” said a worker who was planning to leave the area temporarily.
“Maybe it was deliberate, maybe it was too much for them to deal with, but now they seem to regret it,” he said of the police.
In another manufacturing zone, near Ho Chi Minh City, it remained unclear why the angry crowds had taken out their frustration, in some cases, on companies from countries other than China. Some said the workers had probably attacked Taiwanese plants because they saw Chinese writing.
Mr. Pang said that he and other employees first tried to reason with the protesters, and then hid from them as the crowd pushed in to the factory and began looting. In the aftermath on Thursday, the front office of his factory was a mess of shattered glass, toppled potted plants and files strewn on the floor.
“The people protesting can’t tell the difference between Taiwan and China,” said Liu Yi-xin, secretary general of the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam. “Most Vietnamese people can’t tell us apart and think Taiwanese are Chinese. It’s like Americans and English.”
He and other people who witnessed the mayhem said that the crowds had often shouted patriotic slogans and denounced China, but that the political message gave way to looting and indiscriminate attacks on factories.
That did not explain why South Korean plants had also been damaged or destroyed, but workers trying to explain the seemingly indiscriminate nature of some of the violence said those protests had simply descended into a frenzy of looting.
“I don’t even know where this came from,” said Mr. Pang, who said he had been working in Vietnam for a decade. “We’ve never seen this here before. It seemed to start as something against China, but then that became an excuse.”
Some of the worst violence was reported at a Taiwanese steel plant here in Ha Tinh. Hundreds of protesting workers stormed through the Formosa Plastics Group plant on Wednesday afternoon, attacking employees from China, the company said on Thursday. One of its workers died and 90 others were injured, it reported.
Though Vietnam is heavily dependent on China for trade and investment, officials have been willing to whip up anti-Chinese feeling through the state-controlled media when it serves the government’s purpose.
While managers at some other plants said the police had done little to help, the managers of the steel plant said the local authorities had sent vehicles to evacuate the Chinese workers after the managers called. The head of the Ha Tinh provincial government visited the factory at around 10 p.m. and met with security officials, officials at Formosa Plastics said, but the rioting continued until early Thursday.
Peng Zhi-ming, a manager at another Taiwan-owned factory in the Binh Duong industrial suburbs, said he had thought he recognized several former employees in the crowd that invaded his factory, which employs about 70 workers. The crowd grew as people appeared to sense they could act with impunity, Mr. Peng said.
Taiwan’s foreign affairs minister, David Lin, told legislators on Thursday that Taiwan was taking steps to ensure that any of its citizens who wanted to leave Vietnam could do so, and that officials would seek compensation for damage to Taiwan’s business interests in Vietnam. China Airlines, based in Taiwan, sent two extra aircraft to Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to handle a surge of Taiwanese trying to leave Vietnam after its two regularly scheduled flights sold out.
“They came around again and again,” he said. “We called the police, but nobody came. I don’t know why they didn’t come, but the fact is they didn’t.” He said the looting of his offices ended only when the crowd moved on to fresh targets.
In some cases, factory owners said, the attackers were their own employees, but in other cases they were groups of workers traveling from plant to plant.
A Taiwanese factory owner who requested anonymity because he was afraid of reprisals said he and other investors had little choice but to repair and rebuild their damaged factories.
On Thursday, factory managers in Binh Duong Province, an industrial area north of Ho Chi Minh City where the riots appeared to have begun, surveyed the damage and complained that the police response had been listless or nonexistent.
“Investors will have to think more about Vietnam, but we’re here already, and can’t back out,” he said. “We don’t want anything to do with politics, so why did they pick on us?” He said that in many cases looters had ransacked offices but left production equipment relatively unscathed.
Peng Zhi-ming, a manager at a Taiwanese business, said he had thought he recognized several former employees in the crowd that invaded his factory, which employs about 70 people.
A Chinese woman who works in the timber industry and uses the name M___zi on the Weibo social media site posted photos of her smashed office on Thursday morning.
“They came around again and again,” he said. “We called the police, but nobody came. I don’t know why they didn’t come, but the fact is they didn’t.”
“All the computers in the office were taken,” the woman wrote. “The ground is filled with files and fragments, the doors and windows of the dormitories were all smashed. Some parts of the plant that were set on fire have been pretty much burned.” She called the mob “frenzied demons.”
A Chinese woman who said she worked in the timber industry and who uses the name M___zi on the Weibo social media site posted photos of her smashed office on Thursday morning.
Chinese workers who were recovering from injuries at the main provincial hospital in Ha Tinh said on Thursday that the violence there broke out Wednesday afternoon when crowds of Vietnamese men — numbering in the hundreds and sometimes the thousands — descended on construction sites and factories and attacked the workers there with steel bars and pipes, rocks, and sometimes knives.
“All the computers in the office were taken,” she wrote. “The ground is filled with files and fragments, the doors and windows of the dormitories were all smashed.” She called the mob “frenzied demons.”
Neither the recovering workers nor the medical staff at the hospital knew the overall toll of dead and injured from the violence. Wang Xiangzheng, a worker from Yunnan province in southwestern China, said he had counted about 160 injured Chinese workers at the hospital. He was largely uninjured himself, he said, but he saw the violence erupt at the building site where he and his son were working, and his son was badly injured, with two blows to the head from a metal rod. Other Chinese workers waiting for treatment had bruised faces and blackened eyes, mangled fingers and torsos that were blue from kicks and punches.
Chinese workers at the hospital in Ha Tinh said on Thursday that the violence in the province had broken out Wednesday afternoon when crowds of Vietnamese men — numbering in the hundreds and sometimes thousands — descended on construction sites and factories and attacked the workers there with steel bars and pipes, rocks and, in some cases, knives. Neither the recovering workers nor the medical staff at the hospital knew the total number of deaths and injuries.
“They just turned up and started attacking,” Mr. Wang said as he waited in the lobby while his son had medical tests. He said that that the several hundred Chinese workers who were on the building site tried to step aside when the Vietnamese men appeared, but were attacked anyway.
The Chinese worker with the mangled hands, Rui Falan, 46, was in such pain he could speak only haltingly while he waited for X-rays. He said the Chinese company he worked for had sent him to Vietnam in November.
“They didn’t say anything I could understand,” he said of the rioters. “They had rocks and steel bars and pipes, and broke through the gate and started hitting us, and then they burned down the housing.”
Another Chinese worker, Rui Falan, 46, could speak only haltingly while he waited for X-rays of his crushed hands, which he said a group of Vietnamese men had stomped on when he was knocked to the ground. He said he was sent to work in Vietnam in November by the Chinese company that employs him.
“It wasn’t my choice,” he said. “I hope they’ll send me back home now. This was too scary.”
“It wasn’t my choice,” he said. “I hope they’ll send me back home now. This was too scary.”
Growing numbers of Chinese workers have come to Vietnam to find work, even though wages in the country are generally lower than in China. Some, like Mr. Wang, 40, said they had come in on tourist visas and then sought jobs with Chinese employers, often construction companies.
Growing numbers of Chinese workers have come to Vietnam to find work. Some, like Mr. Wang, the carpenter, said they had come in on tourist visas and then sought jobs with Chinese employers, often construction companies.
“If there’s work, we stay; if there’s none, we move on,” Mr. Wang said. “But now it’s not safe here. I might go back.”
“If there’s work, we stay; if there’s none, we move on,” Mr. Wang said. “But now it’s not safe here. I might go back.”
