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Foreign Factories in Vietnam Weigh Damage in Anti-China Riots Hundreds Arrested in Riots Targeting Foreign Factories in Vietnam
(about 3 hours later)
HANOI, Vietnam — Foreign businesses in Vietnam were assessing damage to their factories on Wednesday after thousands of Vietnamese workers rampaged through an industrial area in the south of the country. HANOI, Vietnam — More than 400 people were arrested after riots in which scores of foreign-owned factories were damaged or destroyed in an industrial area in southern Vietnam, Vietnamese authorities said Wednesday.
The riots, which were the worst in recent Vietnamese history and took place Tuesday night, began as protests against China’s stationing of an oil rig in disputed waters off Vietnam’s coast. But violence spiraled, and the vast majority of factories damaged were owned by companies from Taiwan and South Korea, not from mainland China. The upheaval on Tuesday was the worst public unrest in recent Vietnamese history, involving thousands of workers. It reportedly began as demonstrations against China’s stationing of an oil drilling rig in disputed waters off Vietnam’s coast. But the protests boiled over into widespread violence, as workers rampaged through a dense industrial area in a northern suburb of Ho Chi Minh City, once known as Saigon. The area has rows of cavernous buildings where thousands of mostly young workers stitch together sneakers and clothing for sale around the world.
“There was quite a lot of damage,” said Chen Bor-show, the director general for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Ho Chi Minh City, Taiwan’s de facto consulate in the city. Mr. Chen said about 200 companies were affected. “No one knows what really caused the riots only initially did it seem to be about the Chinese,” Truong Huy San, an author and well-known blogger, said by telephone after touring the industrial zone. “These were totally uncontrolled crowds.”
YTN, a South Korean news channel, reported that about 50 Korean companies were attacked by mobs. Five factory personnel were lightly hurt, and one was hospitalized with a leg injury, the channel reported. The great majority of the affected factories and workshops were owned by Taiwanese or South Korean companies.
About 19,000 workers were involved in the protests Tuesday, said Tran Van Nam, the vice chairman of Binh Duong Province, where the violence occurred. He was quoted in VNExpress, a Vietnamese online news site. “There was quite a lot of damage,” said Chen Bor-show, the director-general for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, which functions as Taiwan’s de facto consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. Mr. Chen said that around 200 Taiwanese companies were affected.
The Chinese Embassy in Hanoi issued a notice on Wednesday that urged Chinese living in Vietnam to “minimize unnecessary outings.” A staff member at the Chutex Garment Factory north of Ho Chi Minh City said 8,000 to 10,000 workers were involved in the rampage at his factory. The South Korean Foreign Ministry said 50 Korean-owned factories were damaged in the riots, and one South Korean citizen was hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening.
“They burned the office,” said the staff member, who agreed to speak on the condition that his name not be used. The rioters “burned everything, all of the materials, computers, machines.” Police units and firefighters arrived at the factory Tuesday and “disbanded” the rioters, he said. On Wednesday morning the police “captured” 15 to 20 men who were attempting to loot the premises, he said. Mr. San, the blogger, who uses the pen name Huy Duc, said that some of the workshops were very severely damaged. “It’s kind of a disaster zone,” he said. “Everyone is scared. There are hundred of factories that will have to close for weeks or months.”
The Chutex factory, located in Song Than Industrial Park 2 in Binh Duong, is described on its website as one of the largest garment exporters in Vietnam. Chutex International, the parent company, was founded by a garment executive from Taiwan. It is unclear why rioters targeted a factory linked to Taiwan. News outlets in Hong Kong said workers might not have been distinguishing between mainland China and Taiwan, a self-governing island which also has claims to territory in the South China Sea. Mr. San said the riots were a signal to Vietnam’s authoritarian government that workers needed avenues to express their grievances. Independent unions are banned in Vietnam.
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry condemned the rioting. In a statement, it called on the demonstrators to “exercise self-control, don’t behave irrationally, damage Taiwanese factory equipment or threaten the safety of Taiwanese businesspeople, which could harm Taiwan’s willingness to invest and harm the longstanding friendly relations between the people of Taiwan and Vietnam.” “I don’t know whether the government recognizes the very important message that was sent from this province,” he said. “The government needs to do something to change their thinking and policy.”
Yue Yuen, a Taiwan-based company that manufactures many of the shoes sold under brands like Nike and Adidas, said that it had given the day off to workers at its factories in Vietnam on Wednesday and was waiting before deciding whether to reopen on Thursday, even though its factories were not damaged and none of its workers were injured. Jerry Shum, the company’s head of investor relations, said that Yue Yuen expected calm to return quickly to industrial districts in Vietnam and believed that it could still meet monthly shoe production targets. Tran Van Nam, the vice chairman of Binh Duong Province, where the violence occurred, was quoted by a Vietnamese online news site, VNExpress, saying that around 19,000 workers were involved in the protests on Tuesday.
The company’s shares, listed on the Hong Kong stock market, plunged 4.95 percent in heavy trading on Wednesday. Yue Yuen made 313 million pairs of shoes last year, a third of them in Vietnam, and it is often described as the world’s largest shoe manufacturer, although there are no official international rankings. Another provincial official, Tran Xuan Nam, said in a telephone interview late Wednesday that the situation there was “stable” and that 447 suspects had been detained. “We will restore order as soon as possible,” he said.
A report Tuesday on the website of the state-controlled Tuoi Tre newspaper said hundreds of workers from several firms staged a protest Monday evening against China’s decision this month to place an oil rig in a disputed area of the South China Sea. The report said the workers had marched toward the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park 1, also in Binh Duong Province. That report, which did not mention violence, remained online Wednesday. Mr. Nam said that 20 factories had been “seriously destroyed.” He attributed the riots to “extremism,” but did not elaborate.
A statement by the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park on Wednesday said that protests against China began on Monday and that on Tuesday protesters “targeted” companies that were owned or managed by “Chinese as well as Chinese expatriates working for other companies.” The Chinese Embassy in Hanoi issued a warning on Wednesday to Chinese citizens in Vietnam, urging them to “minimize unnecessary outings.” The Hong Kong government posted a travel alert, warning residents to “avoid protests and large gatherings of people.”
Protesters set fire to three factories, but there were “no casualties,” the statement said. “The local police are on site and have taken over security of both industrial parks,” the statement said. The business effects of the riots were not immediately clear.
An article in Phoenix News, which is based in Hong Kong, quoted a businesswoman described only as Yan who said the industrial zone where she worked resembled a “battlefield.” Taiwanese in the area had fled to hotels, she said. Yue Yuen, a Taiwan-based company that manufactures shoes for Nike, Adidas and other brands, said that it had given its workers in Vietnam the day off on Wednesday, and had not yet decided whether to reopen on Thursday, even though its factories were not damaged and none of its workers were injured. Jerry Shum, the company’s head of investor relations, said that Yue Yuen expected calm to return quickly to industrial districts in the country, and believed that it could still meet its monthly production targets.
A report Tuesday on the website of the Vietnamese state-controlled Thanh Nien newspaper put the number of workers protesting at the park at 6,000. But by Wednesday morning, the report appeared to have been removed. Even so, the company’s shares, listed on the Hong Kong stock market, fell 4.95 percent in heavy trading on Wednesday.
Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called in Vietnam’s ambassador on Wednesday and had its embassy in Hanoi and consulate in Ho Chi Minh City contact the Vietnamese authorities, asking that the government of Vietnam “restore order urgently.” The ministry said that protests had occurred at two industrial parks in which Singapore-based entities had invested and that “a number of foreign companies have been broken into and set on fire.” As a measure of the scale of production in Vietnam and its importance to global trade, Yue Yuen made 313 million pairs of shoes last year, a third of them in Vietnam.
Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park says on its website that it has five locations in Vietnam, two of them in Binh Duong. It says the parks have collectively created more than 140,000 local jobs and attracted nearly 500 “customers” with $6.4 billion worth of investments and $8 billion in export value. The company was established in 1996 as a cooperative venture of the Vietnamese and Singaporean governments. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the rioting and called on the demonstrators to “exercise self-control, don’t behave irrationally, damage Taiwanese factory equipment or threaten the safety of Taiwanese business people.” Further damage, the statement said, “could harm Taiwan’s willingness to invest, and harm the longstanding friendly relations between the people of Taiwan and Vietnam.”
Demonstrations occur sporadically in Vietnam, typically over alleged land grabs by firms with deep ties to the authoritarian, one-party government. There have also been periodic strikes against working conditions in foreign-owned industrial parks. But demonstrations of thousands of people are rare. Protests against China began on Monday along roads in the industrial suburb, according to a statement by the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Park, one of the affected areas. It said that the protesters then singled out companies that were owned or managed by Chinese companies or Chinese expatriates.
It was unclear on Wednesday whether the activity in Binh Duong had been sanctioned by the state or whether the local police had kept the protesting workers fully under control. A Vietnamese official said that some of the rioters had circulated through the industrial area on motorcycles.
China’s massive oil rig is 140 miles off the coast of Vietnam and about 17 miles from a small island claimed by both countries. The maritime dispute between China and Vietnam, the ostensible spark for the protests, began in early May when China towed a huge drilling rig to a spot in the South China Sea 140 miles off the coast of Vietnam and about 17 miles from a small coral atoll that is claimed by both countries. Each side sent ships and boats to the area, and there were several confrontations and collisions last week, with each side blaming the other.
Vietnamese and Chinese vessels have collided a number of times near the rig. The war of words over the drilling rig continued on Wednesday. The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, criticized Vietnam for “dispatching a large number of ships to forcibly intervene and brutally ram” Chinese ships, and insisted that the drilling project was nothing new. “This operation was started 10 years ago,” Mr. Wang was quoted as saying in a statement posted online by the foreign ministry.
Earlier this week, John Kerry, the American secretary of state, told his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, that the “introduction of an oil rig and numerous government vessels in waters disputed with Vietnam was provocative,” according to an American State Department representative.
At a news briefing on Tuesday, the representative called the placement of the oil rig “unilateral action that appears to be part of a broader pattern of Chinese behavior to advance its claims over disputed areas in a matter that, in our view, undermines peace and stability in the region.”
But China’s state-run news agency, Xinhua, disputed the State Department’s account of Mr. Kerry’s conversation Tuesday.
“In fact, U.S. Secretary of State Kerry made no such comments during the phone conversation,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, was quoted as saying. She said Mr. Kerry did not use the word “provocative.”
Mr. Kerry’s message, the news agency said, was that the United States was not taking sides in the dispute.