{"id":742,"date":"2014-05-23T17:31:25","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T17:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=742"},"modified":"2014-05-23T17:31:53","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T17:31:53","slug":"why-hasnt-beijing-lifted-the-nationalism-switch-against-vietnam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/why-hasnt-beijing-lifted-the-nationalism-switch-against-vietnam","title":{"rendered":"Why hasn\u2019t Beijing lifted the nationalism switch against Vietnam?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alia | May 15th, 2014 – 5:53 pm<\/span><\/p>\n

Up to 21 people, include 16 Chinese, were killed in riots at a Taiwanese steel mill in Vietnam on Thursday after anti-China protests spread to the center of the country from south where several other Chinese-looking factories have been set to fire or looted. These riots, which came after China moved a billion\u2013dollar oil rig into disputed waters in the South China Sea, hit headlines around the world\u2026.except in China.<\/p>\n

\"3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Protesters in Vietnam
\nChina\u2019s state media have been surprisingly quiet about what happened to Chinese businesses and nationals in Vietnam \u2013 one has to scroll down at least twice before spotting the first mention of Vietnam on the websites of Xinhua, CCTV or People.com.<\/p>\n

More interestingly, existing reports on anti-China riots in Vietnam significantly played down what\u2019s happening. During the past 24 hours, the only Vietnam-related news post on the official Weibo account of People\u2019s Daily was about 1 Chinese being killed and over 1000 Vietnam protesters being arrested.<\/p>\n

Even Global Times, the pro-government newspaper known for jumping on any opportune to promote nationalism, stayed in check this time. There were only two Vietnam-related commentaries posted on its Weibo page in the past 2 days: One was a warning to mainland Chinese to not to go to Vietnam in any time soon; the other was a report on how riots in Vietnam may harm the investment environment of Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

China Digital Times even reported an alleged order from Beijing to ban reports of \u201cChinese-funded enterprises in Vietnam being attacked by Vietnamese.\u201d As if to confirm the ban, many real-time updates from Chinese currently in Vietnam have been censored on Weibo, China\u2019s leading social media platform.<\/p>\n

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\nNothing about Vietnam on People\u2019s Daily frontpage today
\nMany Chinese netizens couldn\u2019t help but ask, angrily: Why the silence? No one has an answer. What they do know, however, is that they are extremely unhappy about how Beijing has handled the situation.<\/p>\n

One Netizen \u9f9f\u901f\u8239\u957fTurboS, who is a Chinese currently on the run in Vietnam, asked bitterly: \u201cOur residential community has been looted\u2026.Hundreds of people retreated to another Chinese community. We all want to go home, but where are you, my country??!!\u201d<\/p>\n

Many Chinese netizens accused Beijing of \u201cbeing chicken\u201d or \u201ctoo soft.\u201d \u201cOur countrymen are suffering on foreign land, and the only support they ever received from our \u2018rising-power\u2019 government was a warning to take care of themselves. Growing influence and military power? What a joke!\u201d One netizen \u53f6\u606d\u9ed8 commented.<\/p>\n

Some even questioned whether the silence was because Beijing was caught off balance and hasn\u2019t come up with a plan yet. One netizen \u9648\u6751 pointed out: \u201cPeople are being killed. A few diplomatic words of complaint won\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The irony, however, is how strikingly similar Vietnam and China are. Or, how both governments have successfully \u201cfanned\u201d nationalism sentiments. For some Chinese netizens, the anti-China riots in Vietnam are like a replay of the anti-Japan riots in China not long ago. The burning Chinese and Taiwanese factories are mirror images of burning Japanese cars and businesses in China. In both cases, innocent people shoulder the consequences of government actions.<\/p>\n

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Burning factories<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From\u00a0http:\/\/offbeatchina.com\/why-hasnt-beijing-lifted-the-nationalism-switch-against-vietnam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alia | May 15th, 2014 – 5:53 pm Up … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[211,210],"views":865,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=742"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions\/748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}