Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung called on the police and local authorities to restore order and ensure the safety of the people and property in affected areas.
Nervous Chinese expatriates were fleeing by land and air. Cambodian immigration police said 600 Chinese crossed into Cambodia on Wednesday, using the land border in southern Vietnam, and that others were arriving yesterday.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Beijing was shocked and concerned. “We urge the Vietnamese government to earnestly assume responsibility, get to the bottom of the incident, punish the perpetrators harshly and pay compensation,” she said. She also suggested Hanoi had turned a blind eye to the protesters. “The looting and stealing that have taken place at Chinese businesses ... have a direct relationship with Vietnam’s ... indulging lawbreakers there.”
It was the first deadly incident in a wave of protests triggered by Beijing’s deployment of an oil rig in the long-disputed South China Sea on May 1. Vietnam has demanded that China remove the rig and has sent ships to confront it.
The riot took place in Ha Tinh province in central Vietnam. Hundreds of Vietnamese workers entered the Formosa Plastics Group steel plant on Wednesday, attacking Chinese nationals contracted to work there, the Taiwan-based company said yesterday.
A doctor at a hospital in central Ha Tinh province said five Vietnamese workers and 16 other people described as Chinese were killed on Wednesday. The local media have said only one person was killed, while China’s state news agency Xinhua reported that at least two Chinese nationals have died and more than 100 were hospitalised.
Ha Tinh’s deputy police chief Bui Dinh Quang said the situation was stable yesterday and that none of the wounded, which he put at 141, had life-threatening injuries.
Vietnam’s Planning and Investment Minister Bui Quang Vinh blamed the clashes on extremists. He said 400 factories had been damaged since the unrest began this week and that the protests had broken out in 22 provinces. The authorities said they had detained more than 400 people. (AGENCIES)
[todayonline.com]
16/5/14
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Dozens killed in Vietnam anti-China protests
China-Vietnam tensions: Beijing vows to continue drilling...
- China blames Vietnam, says will not cede inch of disputed territory....
(Reuters) - A top Chinese general on Thursday defended the deployment of an oil rig that has inflamed tensions in the disputed South China Sea and triggered deadly protests in Vietnam, blaming Hanoi and saying China cannot afford to "lose an inch" of territory.
General Fang Fenghui also pointed blame at U.S. President Barack Obama's strategic "pivot" to Asia as Vietnam and China grapple with one of the worst breakdowns in relations since the neighbors fought a brief border war in 1979.
Anti-China riots in Vietnam erupted after China's towing of an oil rig into waters claimed by both countries. Up to 21 people have been killed and a huge foreign steel project has been set ablaze.
Fang said some Asian nations had seized on Obama's vows to rebalance military and diplomatic assets to Asia as an opportunity to create trouble in the South and East China Seas.
Fang, chief of the general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, said in Washington that the oil-drilling rig was operating in China's territorial waters, activity he vowed to protect.
- A U.S. official said Vice President Joe Biden told the visiting Chinese army chief that Beijing's actions in the maritime disputes were "dangerous and provocative.
- Standing at the Pentagon alongside the top U.S. military officer, General Martin Dempsey, Fang said Vietnam was at fault for stirring up trouble by dispatching ships in an attempt to "disrupt" Chinese drilling activity.
"I think it's quite clear ... who is conducting normal activity and who is disrupting it," Fang said, speaking through an interpreter...................http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/15/us-vietnam-china-usa-idUSBREA4E0TR20140515?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
16/5/15
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U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has told a top Chinese military official that Beijing's actions the South China Sea are dangerous and provocative....
ReplyDeleteBiden met in Washington Thursday with the Chinese military's chief of staff, General Fang Fenghui.
Biden told Fang that China cannot undermine security and peace.
China deployed an oil rig last month in a part of the South China Sea that Vietnam claims is within its exclusive economic zone.
The dispute has led to anti-Chinese protests in Vietnam, including a riot at Taiwanese steel plant that killed a Chinese worker and injured 149 other people.
Chinese and Vietnamese ships have attacked each other with water cannons, raising fears of an all-out military clash.
http://www.voanews.com/content/biden-tells-chinese-general-to-stop-dangerous-actions-in-disputed-territory/1915735.html
16/5/14