Dramatic images of Vietnamese workers vandalising Chinese-owned factories appear to be yet more proof that an angry nationalism is taking hold in East and South East Asia.
The reality is a little more complex. Although passions are certainly rising over the fate of a few specks of rock in the South China Sea, this is not simply jingoism at work.
The first clue is that those most of the "Chinese" factories that are being smashed up aren't, in fact, Chinese.
Journalists have no access to the industrial parks where the protests have been concentrated so we can only make informed guesses about what is going on and why.
However, going on the information reaching my colleagues in the BBC's Vietnamese Service, the riots tell us more about the conditions inside those factories than about geopolitics.
This is not to deny that many Vietnamese are livid about China's attempt to drill for oil in waters claimed by Vietnam. There were angry protests about the issue outside the Chinese embassy in Hanoi and its consulate in Ho Chi Minh City over the weekend. Full story...
Related posts:
The reality is a little more complex. Although passions are certainly rising over the fate of a few specks of rock in the South China Sea, this is not simply jingoism at work.
The first clue is that those most of the "Chinese" factories that are being smashed up aren't, in fact, Chinese.
Journalists have no access to the industrial parks where the protests have been concentrated so we can only make informed guesses about what is going on and why.
However, going on the information reaching my colleagues in the BBC's Vietnamese Service, the riots tell us more about the conditions inside those factories than about geopolitics.
This is not to deny that many Vietnamese are livid about China's attempt to drill for oil in waters claimed by Vietnam. There were angry protests about the issue outside the Chinese embassy in Hanoi and its consulate in Ho Chi Minh City over the weekend. Full story...
Related posts:
No comments:
Post a Comment