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Why factories and not other Chinese Targets
Dear all,
I hope some list member can help to clarify one aspect of the anti-Chinese protests. Why the main targets are factories? And why these factories happen to be also Taiwanese or Korean? I understand that more prominent Chinese targets such as the Embassy and consulates are heavily protected and factories are more easily reached. But I am wondering if there more to it. My question is if the industrial workers are using (consciously or not) anti-Chinese demonstrations to express their frustration for the poor working and living conditions. This would explain why so easily factories owned by non-Chinese foreign companies become a target. Any comment on this would be appreciated.
Best regards
PIetro
Prof. Pietro P. Masina
Dept. of Social and Human Sciences
University of Naples "L'Orientale"
Largo S. Giovanni Maggiore 30
80134 Naples - Italy
Tel. +39 0816909436
Fax. +39 0816909442
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the riots sound a lot like the attacks on
foreign property in China in the 1910s and 1920s. (Ironically, China is now
playing the role of the foreign, imperialist power in Vietnam.)
Spontaneous uprisings of this nature are often not as consciously purposive
as analysts and historians might like. (We have our own examples in U.S.
history.) Some of it is just confusion or suspicion—according to one
interviewee, the Chinese-style characters on the Korean and Japanese seem to
make them vulnerable. And, there is a certain amount of opportunistic
looting involved.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, I do think it is an index of widespread
disaffection. When there are enough people in a community who don’t feel
that they have much to lose by breaking the “social contract,†such as it
is, you have the fuel and only need the spark. In my travels, I’ve heard
quite a bit of thieves, loan enforcers, and people of the “black societyâ€
that leads me to believe that there are many who have not found a place in
the current VCP-managed blend of capitalism/socialism.
:: Mike High
葩旗文仕
Khuê văn các
Independent Research Facility
Great Falls, VA
USA
Reports I saw indicate that it was essentially Chinese and Korean businesses (Thai was mentioned). So it seems less an overall disaffection with the circumstances of life as with certain companies. During the wave of strikes we saw frequently that Chinese (incl. Taiwanese) and Korean bosses and foremen are considered particularly unpleasant, going to brutal. It appears to be more a mix of anti-Chinese feelings and unease at a given workplace than an overall disaffection with factory work, for example. I read an article today that said guards protected a factory by pointing to the American and Vietnamese flags flying over the door, showing that this was nota a Chinese property. From what I see now I don't see a wholesale rebellion against the Party, factory work or capitalism, but something more focused, and related to the sentiment that Chinese are bullies in all aspects of life, international politics as well as on the factory floor (and Koreans get
mixed in).
_________________________________
Thomas Jandl, Ph.D.
School of International Service
American University
202-363-6810
Thomas,
I don’t mean to say that the attacks are a kind of uprising against the
Party, factory work or capitalism—as Mao might say, the conditions are not
yet right for that kind of proletarian class struggle. (And, unlike Mao, I
don’t know that they ever will be.)
Perhaps many of the protestors doing the damage are factory workers and
their friends who perceive the Chinese and Korean bosses as bullies, but I
think it’s more than that.
We’ve seen at least one interesting survey that indicates that the
Vietnamese are happier and more optimistic than people in many other
countries, but I still get the sense that they are deeply disaffected when
it comes to government and the workings of the economic system.
It is in the nature of every society to joke about government pretensions
and even agitate against the prevailing system (we have our Tea Party, after
all.) But I think the level of disconnect and distrust, evinced in the lack
of respect for “the authorities†and the tolerance for alternate channels
(bribery, embezzlement, extortion, etc.) is a serious problem in Vietnam.
I know a surprising number of people who have gone into hiding at one point
or another in their business careers (at least one still is) until the
proper amends could be made, and a “roof†could be found under which to
shelter. And then there are the “black society†collectors who range freely,
sometimes threatening mortal harm.
Maybe I’m just hanging out with the wrong people, but I don’t think so. My
friends and contacts in Vietnam are all pretty upstanding people who
generally subscribe to the highest Confucian and Buddhist principles. But
they can’t avoid entanglements with this other world and the government and
the judicial system are of absolutely no help in these matters. Many local
officials seem to have a modus vivendi with people working outside the law,
partly as a source of income and partly to avoid unpleasantries. Sometimes
officials may even be making use of these elements—for instance, there are
claims that the government agents bused in and paid many of the men who
attacked the Bat Nha monastery in Bao Loc in 2009.
One doesn’t need to come up with a conspiracy theory to account for the
eruption of these attacks. As with the urban riots in American after Martin
Luther King’s assassination in 1968, I think that there are underlying
conditions that make such widespread violence possible.
:: Mike High
葩旗文仕
Khuê văn các
Independent Research Facility
Great Falls, VA
USA
The problem remains: Why does the current violence mirror the strikes of the last half decade? If the reason is general malaise, then why strike against East Asian factories, not English or Australian or German or American ones?
_________________________________
Thomas Jandl, Ph.D.
School of International Service
American University
202-363-6810
Yes, it gets more and more interesting/puzzling the more I hear about it.
The scuttlebutt from the midlevel management perspective at Binh Duong is
that “facilitators†were organizing and leading the protestors, with rumors
that some workers at a Taiwanese plant were paid 200,000 dong to
participate.
The common explanation, as I get it from a midlevel manager, is that the
workers are poorly educated and easily manipulated, especially those who are
immigrants with “nothing to loseâ€â€”in particular, those from the north, who
bring with them a culture of “greed and disobedience.†It is also said that
half of those arrested had criminal records.
Coming at it from the historical perspective of U.S. labor and civil rights
struggles, I tend to be a little suspicious of explanations that cast blame
on “outside agitators,†gullible workers, and criminal elements. The
official statements have predictably touched on all of these themes.
Nonetheless, independent sources seem to confirm that many of the protestors
were organized and directed by some identified group. (One enterprising
blogger went to the scene and talked to some witnesses, including a security
guard—there’s some investigative reporting!)
So, the big question is who could organize such a large protest and what are
their motives and goals? What is the nature of the appeal to the workers—to
the extent that workers are involved?
The authorities may downplay this as the work of a small group of “bad
elements,†but I’m sure they’re taking it very, very seriously.
:: Mike High
葩旗文仕
Khuê văn các
Independent Research Facility
Great Falls, VA
USA
Obviously, there is more and more information seeping out. I am not yet at the point to have even an inkling of an idea what to believe. Yet the "paid agitators from abroad" sounds just toooo convenient for the government, doesn't it.
And if you consider that strikes happened in exactly the same way -- some local guys fed up with bad food, or being slapped in the face by a Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese overseer/foreman -- and given the bad working conditions in particularly East-Asian-owned factories you get a fire from a small spark easily ... well, given all that, for the moment I think that Occam's Razor suggests that the easiest, and therefore best, assumption is that the nationalist fervor against China paired with bad conditions in Chinese (and other East Asian) owned companies created sparks that turned into fires. (Maybe the longest sentence I have written in my life. But my native language is German.)
But I am open to evidence supporting alternative explanations.
_________________________________
Thomas Jandl, Ph.D.
School of International Service
American University
202-363-6810
That is why "paid agitators from within" sounds more convincing. What
is most clear from recent incidents is that Hoang Sa and Truong Sa are
lost. HD 981 is just the beginning and unless something radical
changes, either in international stance--esp US but also ASEAN and
other middle nations--or China, there will be more such incidents to
come. The helm of the VCP must know this and so the main challenge for
them right now is how to break it to the VNese population.
What has largely been missed in the discussion so far is that the main
threat to regime "stability" right now is neither China nor violent
protestors. Rather, it is exactly those groups speaking out and making
declarations that announced and endorsed the earlier set of protests
in Hanoi and HCMC. If you read their statements, it is abundantly
clear that they are as critical of China as they are of their own
leadership--secretive handling of situation, exclusion of public,
repression of critics. What's more is that these groups (VN
intellectuals and rest) have a growing credibility, following and have
changed political consciousness in recent years. They present a
growing threat to the regime and the passing of time seems only to
give more and more reason to their critiques, as once again they
showed with the demonstrations they organized in HN and HCMC.
When thinking about who were these agitators, where did they come
from, how they organized and communicated among themselves, we also
need to ask where were the police and security forces? Why not come
until one day later? These are the big questions (about both agitators
and security) that the old tropes of nationalism and proletarian
frustration do nothing to answer. 400 people stand accused of
something, but we have heard nothing yet about who they are or what
was their specific role in these incidents. Do we know even if they
were among those initial groups responsible for rallying the riots?
At any rate, these incidents pave the way for harsher control of the
HN and HCMC organized demonstrators. Softly of course, but be sure
these demonstrations will remain small and quiet or the strong arm of
the state will descend.
Or maybe I'm just crazy; that's possible too!
Jason Morris-Jung
ISEAS, Singapore
Well now we know:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/vietnam/2014/05/140518_anti_china_protests_dispersed.shtml.
Protests in Binh Duong, etc., have been used to clamp down on peaceful
protests in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Blogger Nguyen Huu Vinh says he's
never seen so many security forces before.
And if we still ask ourselves "why did they allow them in the first place,"
the point is that they did not "allow" them. Cracking down on a
demonstration is about much more than simply deploying xx number of
security forces to yy location. It has to be done within a credible frame
of legitimacy; it has to be hegemonic, not just the brutal deployment of
force. The intellectuals, etc., had now so successfully--as a result of
their ongoing activism over the last five years--cornered the authorities
into a position where they could NOT crackdown on the peaceful protests in
Hanoi and HCMC (not without casting major doubts on their legitimacy), but
were faced with the very real risk that these demonstrations and criticisms
being raised against them would only grow and become increasingly damaging.
What exactly happened next we just don't know. Whether the riots in Binh
Duong, etc., were inevitable, convenient, or otherwise, we can only
speculate on right now. But what we should be expecting is clear and
credible information coming out on who were those persons rallying those
riots, where did they come from, what were their motivations, how did they
communicate between and organize themselves... Until then, we can only
speculate on what is really going on with these protests and the
government's stance against them.
jason morris-jung, ISEAS
Hey guys,
I just wanted to update you on a few things I have heard on the ground concerning yesterday's reports.
- The day before yesterday the prime minister sent multiple texts to Vietnamese citizens to keep the peace, etc.
- Yesterday, there was rumored to be demonstrations in the morning.
- Indeed in New York and San Francisco, there were from students, apparently.
- In Vietnam, the Chinese embassies and consulates, were heavily guarded. Apparently, some protesters were in HCMC, no more than a hundred. Some of them were waving the three striped flag. Most were arrested.
- That morning, Facebook was also blocked. Many who couldn't, logged in complained about both the texts and Facebook blocking.
- This morning it seems that Facebook is back to normal.
Cheers,
Minh
Of all the conspiratorial theories so far, there is only one that I find interesting -- namely that China wants to kill Vietnam's TPP membership.
China would be a huge loser from TPP. A large number of Vietnam's exports are only assembled in Vietnam, while a great lot of the inputs are imported (hence the trade deficit that Vietnam generally runs, although now right now). And China is the top supplier.
If Vietnam joins the TPP, its exports to other TPP countries have to be sourced from TPP partners if they want to enjoy the TPP tariff rates. So Vietnamese apparel or footwear exports would have to be made from inputs from TPP countries. All the stuff made from Chinese inputs would not qualify. Insofar China indeed has an interest in keeping Vietnam from joining. TPP is mostly an investment agreement, and if Vietnam stays outside, much of its exports would still make it to the US market relatively unharmed. And China could continue to supply the inputs.
Having said this, this conspiratorial theory -- like all the others I have read -- suffers from major deficiencies, timing being the biggest. Why would China pick exactly a time when TPP is in doubt anyway on the US side? And what will China gain if VIetnam's economy collapses? Then inputs aren't worth much any more. And given China's own political culture, the elites in Beijing simply have to understand that Vietnam will not give up land or sea territory to CHINA of all places. That's the end of the Mandate from Heaven and the Party's legitimacy.
So I tend toward Bill Hayton's explanation: The Party in Beijing is simply acting outlandishly stupidly on this one. The probably put themselves in a tough place when they (mistakenly, I suppose, since they first recanted) the East Sea a "vital interest" in a public meeting, were put in place by Hillary Clinton of all people, and then dug themselves into an ever deeper hole while trying to do damage control.
And this is the problem: The Party (the one in Beijing as much as the one in Ha Noi) cannot lose face. And that means continuing on a self-defeating course of confrontation that helps nobody.
_________________________________
Thomas Jandl, Ph.D.
School of International Service
American University
202-363-6810
Some great material here for this discussion:
It quotes 'an internal Vietnamese official survey' from Binh Duong province stating that of 351 plants damaged there, just 14 were mainland Chinese-owned and 27 were Vietnamese-owned!
Bill Hayton
The more I think about it the more I think the TPP explanation makes sense.
I only saw Thomas's message now so this is also in responding to some
questions he raised. It seems that the common consensus in Vietnam is that
the TPP itself won't have much of an immediate economic impact but it will
be of great importance as a political prop at a time when Vietnam finds
itself without (m)any trusted friends. The TPP is viewed by many Vietnamese
outside but also inside the government as a way of getting closer to the
US/Japan and away from China. The fact that China is NOT a partner has a
thought provoking symbolic significance to the Vietnamese people I like
hanging out with. And I think China also sees that if Vietnam succeeds in
joining TPP it will side more with the US/Japan than with China. So
naturally it would fight the TPP if it does not want to lose its influence
over Vietnam.
With regard to Jandl's question about TPP, I am not sure how closely you
follow it but my impression is it is getting very close to a conclusion
pending a few things between the US and Japan. It seems to me that China's
escalation in both actions and words correlate closely with the TPP
progress. China and perhaps Russia also may see the TPP as just another US
scheme to build a political pact with the aim of destabilizing China and
Russia. I am fearful to see that once again Vietnam may have been chosen by
history to be the frontline of a potential conflict between Russia and
China on one side and the US and some others on the other side.
I agree and do laugh at myself for even writing this conspiracy down but I
have a feeling that it does have some merit. If one day it turns out that I
am even just partially right I ask that Bill Hayton and Thomas Jandl buy me
a beer in DC.
Anh in Maryland
PS: I was at a dinner with President Obama last night and heard some
encouraging things about US attitude toward China. I said to him: President
Obama, please do your best to help Vietnam in its current conflict with
China and he said "We are trying very hard right now."
see TPP being concluded but not ratified by one side. Last week I suggested this during an event with the Malaysian Ambassador: "A TPP that can pass the US Congress will not be acceptable to Malaysia (and others); a TPP that is acceptable to the Parliament in KL will not pass Congress." Everyone just smiled.
This being said, I am not sure the Chinese are convinced about its failure -- plus the failure I foresee is possibly going to be temporary. Plus, would the US drop Vietnam because of this? I actually think not.
But as I said, it's the only conspiracy theory I find somewhat plausible given the data we have now. And Bill Hayton's article suggesting China is also building a military airstrip in the East Sea would add fuel to the fire.
_________________________________
Thomas Jandl, Ph.D.
School of International Service
American University
Thomas, you are right about the ratification part. Perhaps China, like me
growing up in a communist country, did not think much about the
congressional ratification requirement of treaties that is a real thing in
some countries but neither in China nor Vietnam. But then again I do not
see the TPP not coming to life despite the foreseeable resistance it will
encounter in parliaments of various countries. If I were China I would
think of it as a more than likely long-term threat rather than just a fun
exercise that for the past couple of years has sent the region's
technocrats on many vacations at nice hotels in the Pacific region.
Just for argument's sake - I really don't care much about my position but
wanted to get it out there.
Anh
Jason, everything you say seems right, but taken together doesn't stick, in my opinion.
Yes, there is a rising political consciousness in Vietnam, among intellectuals and the emerging middle class. But are they paying workers to torch factories? Or who else are these "paid agitators?" Viet Tan? If they had that power, they would have used it before, during the strike wave, for example. And the workers themselves, they are probably not among the most politically conscious. If they were, the Party would already have much more trouble than it does.
The islands are lost? Probably not. If the government gives them up, then there will be hell to pay domestically. And China must understand that, given that the narrative of "not an inch of our soil" (or water) is equally potent in China. My guess is that they will find some "Taiwan solution" in which both sides claim sort of victory. (A week ago people said Eastern Ukraine is lost, now it looks a little different already.)
As for growing credibility, if the famed stability goes out the window and the economy goes bust, the Party is in trouble, but any group associated with that will equally lose all credibility. Material well-being comes first, as the democratic transition literature has made pretty clear.
Unless I see evidence to the contrary, I take the simplest approach: Vietnamese of all walks of life are upset about yet another Chinese aggression (after 1000 years of such aggression and a lifetime of being reminded about it by the Vietnamese government), and as a result one spark created a fire. It has happened elsewhere -- someone mentioned the one slap an official gave a fruit vendor in Tunisia which set off the Arab Spring. So far, nobody has found the greater conspiracy, although everything you write about Vietnam could in one form or the other also be applied to Tunisia, Libya and what not.
_________________________________
Thomas Jandl, Ph.D.
School of International Service
American University
I was quoted inaccurately in an article on the topic and wanted to correct that here, since I am sure many of the discussants here read these news stories.
I was quoted as saying that Chinese workers marry Vietnamese women, and that is the source of the problem. In reality I wrote I my email that there are lots of stories about Chinese workers and one anecdote, from a tour guide I used to take my students to Ha Long Bay, was that Chinese mine workers -- horror of horrors -- marry Vietnamese women. I added that this probably exists, but probably get exaggerated over time.
_________________________________
Thomas Jandl, Ph.D.
School of International Service
American University
202-363-6810
Yes, you've been somewhat grievously misquoted! In these instances one never knows whether to blame the reporter or the sub-editor in the newsroom who rewrote the story to make it 'punchier' - or some such reasoning.
On a separate point, Khoa Nguyen, suggested earlier that the BBC Vietnamese Service's reposting of a link to a Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper article suggested that the BBC thought that it was true. I should say that this is emphatically not the case. During the riots the Vietnamese service has been running a 'live' page to cope with the flood of information coming in. They will have posted links to many articles - and somewhere there will be a little caveat that the BBC does not endorse the content of what's being linked to. Perhaps they should make it more obvious...
Bill Hayton
I am thinking that the timing of China's oil rig deployment is not random.
It coincides with the TPP negotiations coming close to conclusion. Joining
the TPP means Vietnam will be obliged to adopt some very fundamental
changes, most notably in labor relations issues including a progression
toward easing restrictions on independent labor unions. If Vietnam is to
join the TPP and if it is to adhere strictly to all the key stipulations of
the TPP agreement it will likely veer off its current path of mimicking
Chinese style socialism. Looking at the oil rig standoff and the Binh
Duong/Ha Tinh riots as related events, I feel that someone somewhere is
trying to keep Vietnam from accepting the TPP to keep it under Chinese
influence. The purpose of the riots is to serve as an example to the
Vietnamese leadership of the extent of damages that those US style criminal
independent labor unions can do to the FDI - Vietnam's most valuable
sector. If my thoughts are correct, I expect to see some hesitance now on
the part of the Vietnamese leadership in concluding the TPP. The oil rig
serves a similar purpose and I have my theory too but at this point it
sounds too much like a conspiracy theory so I am not going to share it here.
I worked in Beijing for the ILO in labor relations in China's special
economic zones so I understand the grave importance of the TPP clauses on
labor relations to countries like China and Vietnam. I have no idea how
Vietnam is going to jump through that hoop.
Anh Pham
The Vietnamese Sage of Potomac, MD
Hi,
I think it’s easy to imagine increasingly complex (conspiratorial?) explanations that prove the Chinese leadership is being very clever in its plotting to undermine Vietnam. But it might be worth considering the opposite – that at times Beijing’s foreign policy-making is particularly stupid. I may have an article on Asia Sentinel shortly that tries to argue the point.
Bill Hayton
Humble journalist
When presenting the TPP-related scenario I did not make any assessment
about the stupidity of the Chinese leadership in staging that scenario but
based it on the strong premise that China does not want Vietnam to fall out
of its favor and to get cozy with the US and Japan and other nations in a
trade and investment pack that can be politicized easily. Say if I were
China and I want to sabotage Vietnam's TPP accession I would choose to
point my acupuncture needles where it stings the worst. Targeting the FDI
sector through the thorny labor relations backdoor would almost be my best
option. Later with hindsight perhaps I will know with certainty how
realistic that scenario is but at this point I feel so certain of a TPP
connection that I would be willing to place a thousand dollar bet on the
possibility that Vietnam's TPP effort may have been so undermined by the
Binh Duong/Ha Tinh riots to the point of its being paralyzed by the latter.
Anh Pham
The less sure Sage of Maryland
find this remarkable:
According to the BBC the Chinese government has evacuated more than 3,000 of its nationals from Vietnam
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27458866
sascha
I’m getting more and more frustrated by the way my organisation is reporting this, but I’ll try to explain. This is the wire copy the story is based on…
Beijing sends evacuation ships to Vietnam
BEIJING (AP) _ China on Sunday dispatched five ships to Vietnam to speed up the evacuation of its citizens following deadly anti-Chinese riots over Beijing's deployment of an oil rig in waters claimed by both countries. The first ship departed Sunday morning from the southern island of Hainan, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. It also said that 16 critically injured Chinese were airlifted from Vietnam early Sunday aboard a chartered medical flight. More than 3,000 Chinese have already been pulled out from Vietnam following the riots this past week that left two Chinese dead and injured about 100 others, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
So we have a statement from the MoFA in Beijing saying they have evacuated 3,000 Chinese. But there’s no information about how these people were ‘evacuated’. My guess is that the vast majority took an ordinary plane or a bus. However, the MoFA wants to look like it’s doing something, and also crank up the pressure on VN by making them look like they’re failing to protect innocent Chinese. However this is just speculation on my part – so it won’t get into the news. Whereas the MoFA statement is a ‘fact’ (regardless of whether it’s accurate) – and so it gets into the news.
Welcome to my world…
Bill
Dear list,
I was at first reluctant to see "agent provacateurs" behind the recent
incidents in Vietnam, but reading some of the editorials in the Global
Times, makes me feel like the Ugly American of the 1950s has now been
reincarnated in Beijing.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/opinion/editorial/
If I was the Ugly Chinese, I would do the following:
1) Move the oil rig into place after Obama has left the region and right
before ASEAN meets because I know that ASEAN has no resolve to oppose China,
2) Start a couple "anti-China riots" in Vietnam to show that the Vietnamese
government doesn't have control of its country, and
3) Make sure that those "anti-China riots" consisted of Taiwanese and
Korean factories getting torched because A) it will protect actual Chinese
investments in Vietnam, B) it will show how "out-of-control" Vietnam is
(they don't even know the difference between a Chinese and a Taiwanese
company???), and C) ah, who cares if the Taiwanese take a bit of a beating,
because after all it serves them right for wanting to be independent. . .
(after all, isn't it significant that Formosa Plastics, the biggest
conglomerate in Taiwan, got hit?).
4) And then I would write an editorial like this one:
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/860580.shtml
Feeling conspiracy,
Liam Kelley
University of Hawaii
Two problems:
(1) Predictions shouldn't be ex post
(2) Chinese investment in Vietnam tends to be strongly integrated into the global supply chain. When/if Korean and Taiwanese investment in Vietnam suffers, China suffers.
_________________________________
Thomas Jandl, Ph.D.
School of International Service
American University
202-363-6810
Dear Thomas,
I certainly do not think that intellectuals or middle classes paid
agitators to protest. My post was responding to discussion here on
ways the violent demonstrations might have been organized and let's
just say, with the info still coming out, a wide array of
interpretations are still plausible.
As for the islands, China has done much to clarify its intentions, but
I suppose only time will tell. But thanks to good folk at VSG, we all
have our best guesses stored here to look back on twenty years from
now.
jason
Hi Jason,
Whether Hoang Sa-Truong Sa is a lost cause is an issue between VCP and 90
million Vietnamese.
In the past 20 years, VCP stressed 16/4 as the driving force in dealing
with the island disputes, but things are no longer the same nowadays, in
the IT Age, especially with the latest incident.
Therefore, if I were you, I'd not bet my life savings on that call! :-)
Cheers,
Calvin Thai
Vietnam occupies 22 features in the Truong Sa. China (PRC) occupies 8 (if I remember correctly). None of the Chinese features are naturally above water at high tide. ‘Lost’ is a gross exaggeration.
Bill
(There’ll be a book on all this available from September)
I look forward to reading your book on the Hoà ng Sa-TrÆ°á»ng Sa disputes,
Bill.
To be fair to Jason's comment, a well-known scholar in the West once
suggested Vietnam to give up on Hoà ng Sa and to focus on TrÆ°á»ng Sa instead!
As far as I know, that is not how Vietnam has dealt with bullies in its
four-thousand-year history.
On the topic of China's move bringing people(s) and countries closer
together:
"NgÆ°á»i Philippines và Việt Nam biểu tình phản đối Trung Quốc"
http://tuoitre.vn/The-gioi/607635/nguoi-philippines-va-viet-nam-bieu-tinh-phan-doi-trung-quoc.html
Calvin Thai
On the paid agitators, two versions from "báo lỠphải" and "báo lỠtrái"
seem to agree on one point (which is rather rare):
*"Trong dòng ngÆ°á»i à o à o kéo nhau diá»…u hà nh qua khắp các tuyến Ä‘Æ°á»ng, có
rất nhiá»u kẻ xăm trổ đầy mình, la hét kÃch Ä‘á»™ng xung quanh. Nhiá»u công nhân
cho biết, những ngÆ°á»i nà y cầm theo cả hung khÃ, nên há» rất sợ, phải lùi
xa."*
*"... công nhân nhà máy Ä‘ang là m việc bình thÆ°á»ng, bất ngá» má»™t nhóm khoảng
10 ngÆ°á»i, mình xăm, có thái Ä‘á»™ hung dữ, tay cầm hung khà (dao, những thanh
sắt lá»›n) xông và o nhà máy và lôi kéo há» Ä‘i biểu tình chống Trung Quốc, há»
cho biết vì kêu gá»i biểu tình chống Trung Quốc nên há» tham gia. Từ nhà máy
Thông Dụng, bá»n chúng dẫn dắt công nhân đến các nhà máy xung quanh tại khu
công nghiệp, xâm nháºp và o các nhà máy phÃa trÆ°á»›c có để bảng tiếng Hoa, và o
Ä‘áºp phá và lôi kéo những công nhân của nhà máy đó cùng nháºp và o biểu tình."*
http://boxitvn.blogspot.com/2014/05/ai-la-ke-ot-pha-mot-so-nha-may-nuoc.html
Huỳnh Kim Báu, the author of the second article, is the former Secretary
General of the Patriotic Intellectuals' Association-HCM
One potential source:
http://caunhattan.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/am-muu-tham-doc-cua-trung-quoc-tai-ha-noi-36-nam-truoc/
In short, Viet-Tan or any other groups from the West are on the bottom of
my list!
Calvin Thai
Hello Thomas,
My gmail has been blocking posts from you for some weird anti-virus reasons
so I just noticed them now through other replies. If anyone knows how to
unblock it please let me know.
I would like to raise your one Occam to a Sherlock Holmes. Let’s
deconstruct the protest into 3 separate phenomenon:
*1. 1.**The organization of the workers:*
At any point, the protest were said to consist of anything from 800 to 4000
people, most are identified as blue collar workers from the factories. In
any cases, that is a surprisingly large number of people to “spontaneouslyâ€
show up with banners and all. You are right that the protest bear some
resemblance to protests by workers in the past, but the number is way off
in this case. And “population†is vital to this analysis, because how are
that many people from all walks of life, with various ideologies and
beliefs, just “shows up†to protest. So right off the bat, it is impossible
that this is a spontaneous protest; and it is organized, and more probable
than not it is organized in advance.
Now, the condition specifically of the workers is bad, but the factories
themselves, from the photos of the aftermath, are quite sturdy and I’d say
not easily susceptible to fire. In any cases, those are definitely not the
Bangladeshi factories. So if one put themselves into the shoes of the
protesters, to torch those factories, they would need a whole lot of
lighters and gasoline. So if the protest was organized to do it peacefully,
why are those zippers and gasoline so available? How does looting and
smashing stuff cause enough literal sparks to torch a whole
factory/building? Accidents could happen in one or two places, but most
reports said the factories were torched deliberately, and a whole lot of
them were on fire.
*2. 2. **The violence:*
On the violence, I agree with you on the “whyâ€, Vietnamese workers are
treated badly in these industrial zones, not all employers are bad but
there have been a lot of reports on mistreatment, wage withholding and
abuses. So in the heat of the moment, they turned violent and gradually it
got out of hand. That is understandable.
However, I disagree with the “howâ€
3. *3. **The catalyst:*
>From the assumption that the protest was organized, let’s assume one more
thing that it was organized with good intention, and then how did it get
out of hands? Many posts on here seems to suggest that these workers have
no interest in geopolitics and are not intellectuals and so concepts such
as “ideologiesâ€, “philosophiesâ€, “politics†meant nothing to them. I
disagree. Of course, their knowledge on these subjects are significantly
less than the intellectuals and the middle class, but they are still
capable of possessing “philosophiesâ€, not the systemic philosophies that
the intellectuals discuss but what Antonio Gramsci described as “common
sense†philosophies. If one goes to the same pavement café they go to, and
listen in on their discussion, one can see that they are more often than
not care a great deal about politics, reading the news both from the “leftâ€
and “right†and “middle†and discuss things they might not fully
understand. With that said, I think a great idea for a research is to
investigate both Gramsci’s culture hegemony and Freire’s critical pedagogy
concept among the working class in Vietnam.
As a result of (1) and this, I believe that the protest was originally
organized as a peaceful protest against China on the issue of geopolitic.
Now this is where the catalyst, or “how†it turned into indiscriminate
violence against not just Chinese and Taiwanese factories, but Singaporean,
Korean and even Vietnamese factories. I also think that this “how†is the
original subject we are discussing:
As Mr. Calvin Thai pointed out, in a rare unity both “le trai†and “le
phai†agreed on the fact that there was a small group of “agitatorsâ€, paid
or not. Mike High also pointed out that not just news sources confirmed
this, but also independent sources. I also concluded my conclusion
previously upon contacting some independent sources. So to recap, there are
evidences confirmed thrice by leftists, rightists and independents. The
theory of “agitators†fits more because the protest was organized, meant to
be peaceful and had an geopolitical aim.
To follow suit, I’d say that this "agitators" theory has eliminate the
impossible (organized vs not organized, geopolitical aim vs working
conditions, agitators or no agitators) and thus the final theory, however
improbable, would/could/might possibly be the truth.
Now the question is, would the Chinese government want to risk a great deal
(if figure out, Vietnam would have many more support just for its
victimhood and righteousness) by staging this? Would the Vietnamese
government want to risk a great deal by staging this? Who would profit the
most from these riots and bad images?
Khoa Nguyen
BA in Business Administration/International Affair at Northeastern
University
Future JD/MA in International Law/Political Theory at Boston College
Professional Consultant at IHRDC, Boston
It is premature, given the lack of clear evidence, to know whether or not
there were "agitators" or not who set fire to these factories.
I also think that it is a misreading to say that "Many posts on here seems
to suggest that these workers have no interest in geopolitics and are not
intellectuals and so concepts such as “ideologiesâ€, “philosophiesâ€,
“politics†meant nothing to them." I don't think anyone is arguing this.
There is an extensive literature on "contentious politics" that examines
such events as pogroms, riots, and mass killing. In Asia, the violence of
Indian partition, the Hindu-Muslim riots, the killings of Chinese in
Indonesia in 1998, the everyday politics of Vietnamese peasants under
collectivization, and so on, all have cried out for explanation. Paul
Brass, looking at Hindu-Muslim violence in India, has suggested a
three-stage sequence of preparation/​rehearsal, activation/​enactment, and
explanation/​interpretation. (Others have referred to this first phase as
"priming.") Tilly and Tarrow have suggested an even more complex approach,
looking at the particular mixture of mechanisms and processes that lead to
contentious politics.
One could go on and on in terms of the scholarship -- I am no expert on it,
as I am a historian, not a political scientist. But if we provisionally
adopt Paul Brass's typology of three stages, we are now at stage three:
explanation/ interpretation. Brass argues -- and correctly, I think -- that
this is the stage when different sides try to impose, retrospectively,
their narrative on the events in order to justify their actions. That is
what is happening here.
In my mind, "agitators" may well have existed. They well might not have
existed. There are multiple times in history when crowds have gathered and
then, some spark has pushed an emotional crowd and tipped it to riot or
even kill. But I would argue that right now, borrowing Brass's framework,
with the current stage of knowledge, I am sure people can say reasonable
things about the first stage before the riot --what set the stage for the
violence? We can say reasonable things about the third stage: how people
and groups are trying to spin the meaning of the riot. I just don't think
we know well what happened in stage two -- the riot itself.
Shawn McHale
Hi Pietro,
I agree with Mike that there is no doubt this riot has its root from the
blue collar workers' frustration with their own working condition, and thus
they are unconsciously using this opportunity to express their anger to the
extreme. As a result, they attacked factories indiscriminately (even
Vietnamese factories owned by Vietnamese were affected). So the fact that
they are attacking factories indiscriminately might not have any analytic
value.
With that said, as I far as my knowledge of "psychology of the crowd", most
riots of this kind has a catalyst of some sort (doesn't have to be
deliberate), and I think the catalyst is worthy of analysis. At the moment,
there are 3 theories on the catalyst, but all agreed on one aspect that
some witnesses have reported seeing a small group of 20-30 people that are
not local, brandishing the Vietnamese flag and leading the protest. All
theories point to the fact that it is this group of people that was the
catalyst, the difference is who this group of people are.
1. Most leftist sites, blogs, news sources such as VOA, RFA-VN, danluan
etc. all accused the Vietnamese government and specifically Internal
Security department of hiring those people to whip up the crowd, some
moderate leftists said the purpose was only to stage the protest to
pressure China, but it got out of hand. Other more extreme leftists
theorized that the Vietnamese government want to exact revenge, goading
China into firing the first shot, go to war and consolidate their power.
2. Many "normal" Vietnamese and some moderate sites, blogs, etc. accused
the Chinese government of hiring these people to whip up the crowd past the
point of peaceful protest into a violent one, so that the Chinese can have
a legitimate reason to fire the first shot while saving face somewhat with
the international community. These people are inspired by the Crimean
conflict, saying that Putin did the same thing with Ukraine, Russia is now
closer to China, so China learned from Putin.
3. Many moderates and socialists sites, blogs, news sources (including
mouthpieces of the Party) are accusing Viet Tan or some of the extreme
leftists personalities of hiring these people to whip up/hijack the
protest, thus taking this opportunity to create chaos, and weaken the
government.
>From my rational analysis, and yes, scenario 1&2 for me are just too
conspiracy-theory i.e irrational, scenario 3 has a higher probability than
most. With that said, I am not entirely convinced that some nefarious
forces are behind this until the police finishes interrogating the 400 plus
people they arrested. It could also be that a criminal gang took advantage
of this opportunity to loot and steal and rob those factories.
Khoa Nguyen
BA in Business Administration/International Affair at Northeastern
University
Future JD/MA in International Law/Political Theory at Boston College
Professional Consultant at IHRDC, Boston
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