Vietnamese marched mildly to condemn China's violation of Vietnamese maritime sovereignty

On June 5 2011, hundreds of Vietnamese, mainly youngsters, marched on the Chinese embassy in Hanoi and Chinese consulate in Ho Chi Minh City in a temperate manner to condemn China's violation of Vietnamese maritime sovereignty.

The demonstrators sang patriotic songs, chanted slogans and raised national flags, banners, pictures, in which there was a big picture of their hero - General Vo Nguyen Giap. The marches concluded in peace without violences.

Prior to the marches, many Vietnamese Facebook pages and forums tried to calm down youngster's anger towards Chinese violation of Vietnamese maritime sovereignty. The pages called for not joining the marches on Sunday as there might be some people who would take advantage of the marches to incite the crowds, making the situations more complicated and affecting social stability. In stead, the pages called Facebook users for changing their avatars to demonstrate solidarity and to exhibit patriotism.

Due to warnings in advance, the majority of demonstrators was aware of the necessity of marching in a temperate manner, thus advising each other not to be incited. Cities' public security forces also walked with the crowds in order to protect the demonstrators and to prevent possible incited actions from pertubative people. The demonstrators finally dispersed after having voiced up opinions and attitude against China's actions, and with authorities' warnings not to disorder and to affect local traffic.

Along with the marches inland, there were some other protests by overseas Vietnamese. One of the protests beyond border was organized by students in Melbourne (Australia). The protest was also in a temperate manner and supported by local public security service.

It concluded with a demonstrator's statement, which showed the Vietnamese respect towards Chinese people and their nation, but called for Chinese government's responsible explanation and their goodwill of maintaining friendship between two nations.

This post consists information from BBC and Reuters

Check out the video. It is joined from materials, which were shot in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Melbourne.

The video is added into 3 play-lists VIC1 - Vietnam Insight, VIC7 - V-Youth and Vietnam News.



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