[null, {"document_url": "https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/world/asia/anti-chinese-violence-turns-deadly-and-spreads-in-vietnam.html?_r=0", "unformatted_src": "https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/02/25/world/asia/claims-south-china-sea-1393364642393/claims-south-china-sea-1393364642393-articleLarge.png", "src": "https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/02/25/world/asia/claims-south-china-sea-1393364642393/claims-south-china-sea-1393364642393-articleLarge.png", "formatted_filename": "claims south china sea articleLarge"}, null]
Asia Pacific|Anti-Chinese Violence Convulses Vietnam, Pitting Laborers Against Laborers

HA TINH PROVINCE, Vietnam â One Chinese laborer said angry Vietnamese workers had stomped on his hands, crushing them. Another said his son had been struck in the head with a metal rod by a Vietnamese mob that had sought out Chinese for beatings. At least one Chinese worker died.

While anti-Chinese violence in southern Vietnam earlier in the week targeted foreign factories, the outburst of anger here in the nationâs center took a more vindictive turn late Wednesday, with Vietnamese turning on Chinese laborers. The violence in Ha Tinh appeared to be the worst against Chinese since a territorial dispute inflamed anger in Vietnam.

China responded to the bloody attacks on its citizens with harsh words, underlining the passions churned up by a dispute over an oil drilling rig. Foreign Minister Wang Yi called his Vietnamese counterpart, Pham Binh Minh, on Thursday to demand âresolute and effective measures to stop all violence,â the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. A spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying, told reporters that Vietnam bore âan inescapable responsibilityâ for the assaults on the laborers.

By Thursday, Ha Tinh Province had settled into a wary calm as crowds of Vietnamese workers scrambled onto buses. Some said their employers had closed because of the mayhem, while others cited fear of reprisals for the violence. Some, too, may have been fleeing in fear of arrest.

News agencies quoted government officials on Thursday as saying that the unrest this week had swept through 22 of Vietnamâs 63 provinces, but they did not indicate whether the protests beyond Ha Tinh and suburbs near Ho Chi Minh City in the south had been violent or whether peace had been restored. Reports of additional deaths were unconfirmed.

In Ha Tinh, Chinese workers waiting for treatment at the main provincial hospital had bruised faces and eyes, mangled fingers, and torsos that were black and blue from kicks and punches.

âThey just turned up and started attacking,â said Wang Xiangzheng, a carpenter, whose son was hit with the metal rod. He said the several hundred Chinese workers at the construction site had tried to step aside when the Vietnamese men appeared, but were attacked anyway.

âThey had rocks and steel bars and pipes, and broke through the gate and started hitting us, and then they burned down the housing,â Mr. Wang said.

None of the Vietnamese workers interviewed in the industrial area where the attacks took place admitted to joining in, and many condemned the attacks. But some suggested the blame lay with China and its decision to send an oil rig to part of the South China Sea that Vietnamese consider theirs. Ships from both nations have reported being rammed, and photos have shown Chinese water cannons soaking Vietnamâs ships.

âWeâve watched on television every day, and weâve seen the tension,â said a worker who was planning to leave the area temporarily.

In a manufacturing zone near Ho Chi Minh City, it remained unclear why the crowds had taken out their frustration, in some cases, on companies from countries other than China. Some said the workers had probably attacked Taiwanese plants because they saw Chinese writing.

âThe people protesting canât tell the difference between Taiwan and China,â said Liu Yi-xin, secretary general of the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam. âMost Vietnamese people canât tell us apart and think Taiwanese are Chinese. Itâs like Americans and English.â 

That did not explain why South Korean plants had also been attacked. Workers trying to explain the seemingly indiscriminate nature of some of the violence said those protests had simply descended into a frenzy of looting.

Some of the worst violence was reported at a Taiwanese steel plant in Ha Tinh. Hundreds of protesting workers stormed through the Formosa Plastics Group plant on Wednesday afternoon, attacking Chinese employees, the company said on Thursday. One of its workers died and 90 were injured, it reported.

While managers at some other plants said the police had done little, the managers of the steel plant said the local authorities had sent vehicles to evacuate the Chinese workers after the managers called. The head of the Ha Tinh government visited the factory at around 10 p.m. and met with security officials, Formosa Plastics said, but the rioting continued until early Thursday.

Taiwanâs foreign affairs minister, David Lin, told legislators on Thursday that Taiwan was taking steps to ensure that any of its citizens who wanted to leave Vietnam could do so, and that officials would seek compensation for damage to Taiwanâs business interests in Vietnam. China Airlines, based in Taiwan, sent two extra aircraft to Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday to handle a surge of Taiwanese trying to leave Vietnam after its two regularly scheduled flights sold out.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung of Vietnam ordered the Public Security Ministry and other agencies to prevent further attacks on foreign companies and their workers. Lawbreakers, he said, must be sternly punished.

In some cases, factory owners said, the attackers were their own employees, but in other cases they were groups of workers traveling from plant to plant.

On Thursday, factory managers in Binh Duong Province, an industrial area north of Ho Chi Minh City where the riots appeared to have begun, surveyed the damage and complained that the police response had been listless or nonexistent.

Peng Zhi-ming, a manager at a Taiwanese business, said he had thought he recognized several former employees in the crowd that invaded his factory, which employs about 70 people.

âThey came around again and again,â he said. âWe called the police, but nobody came. I donât know why they didnât come, but the fact is they didnât.â

Chinese workers at the hospital in Ha Tinh said the violence in the province had begun Wednesday afternoon when crowds of Vietnamese men â numbering in the hundreds and sometimes thousands â descended on construction sites and factories and attacked workers with steel bars and pipes, rocks and, in some cases, knives. Neither the recovering workers nor the medical staff at the hospital knew the total number of deaths and injuries.

The Chinese worker with the mangled hands, Rui Falan, 46, was in such pain he could speak only haltingly while he waited for X-rays. He said the Chinese company he worked for had sent him to Vietnam in November.

âIt wasnât my choice,â he said. âI hope theyâll send me back home now. This was too scary.â

Growing numbers of Chinese have come to Vietnam to find work, often with Chinese employers. In Ha Tinh, many are middle-aged. Some said their companies had sent them; others found wages here similar to those in China. Some, like Mr. Wang, the carpenter, said they had come on tourist visas and then sought out Chinese employers, often construction companies.

âIf thereâs work, we stay; if thereâs none, we move on,â Mr. Wang said. âBut now itâs not safe here. I might go back.â

Thomas Fuller contributed reporting from Bangkok.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: Anti-Chinese Violence Convulses Vietnam, Pitting Laborers Against Laborers. Order Reprints | Todayâs Paper | Subscribe

Philippines Challenges China Over Disputed Atoll


Taiwan Concerned Over Mistaken Identity in Vietnam Protests


Anger Grows in Vietnam Over Dispute With China
