By Bridget O'Flaherty
Anti-China sentiment has in recent months been more focused and far more public in Vietnam than it has been years. And, although tensions may have been eased by an agreement between the two countries last week to hold discussions twice a year to resolve differences over the South China Sea – and to set up a hotline between the two countries – some of the recent incendiary rhetoric indicates just how deep mistrust runs.
Certainly, the recent flare-up is far from the first time in recent years that nationalist rhetoric has threatened to boil over. In 2008, there was a minor diplomatic spat between the two countries when a faked plan for a Chinese invasion of Vietnam circulated the internet, a plan purportedly aimed at ‘reclaiming’ what was traditionally a Chinese vassal state. The whole thing proved to be nonsense – 300,000 troops invading via the northern borders and South China Sea – but it raised hackles in Vietnam and the country lodged a protest with China.
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