In the South China Sea, China continues to build on several disputed islands and reefs. The Obama administration's "pivot toward Asia" is prompted, in part, by the idea of trying to contain China's expansionism, which has its Southeast Asian neighbors and Japan worried. But the bank wouldn't give it to her, apparently fearing a run. She even went to the bank to withdraw a large sum of money, just in case. I was very worried that there would be war," says Pham Thi Ky, the woman at the cemetery.īack in 1979, she says she was forced to flee with nothing but the clothes on her back, so this time she wanted to be prepared. They feared a repeat of what happened in 1979.
As tension grew, and Chinese and Vietnamese boats played a dangerous game of chicken near the rig, some in the border town of Lang Son grew worried. When China parked an oil rig in contested waters last year, Vietnam upped its official anti-China rhetoric.Īnd anti-China rioting left at least a dozen dead, including four Taiwanese mistaken for Chinese. That's especially true now, with the two countries at odds over what Vietnam views as Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea. If he catches his wife trying to watch a Chinese movie, he turns it off.īack At Base Flight Attendant On Saigon Evacuation: You Wanted 'To Help Every Child' After nearly a month, the Chinese withdrew, though border clashes continued for the next decade. Only he and two others managed to escape. There were 800 people, including soldiers, women and children, who fled the fighting in his bunker, Nguyen says. The Chinese, he says, pumped gas into the ventilation system. There were so many Chinese attacking, Nguyen Duy Thuc remembers, that the soldiers in his bunker "fired our AK-47s until the muzzles turned red and they couldn't fire anymore."īut the Chinese kept coming eventually his bunker was overrun.
China was aiming to punish Vietnam for its invasion of Cambodia the month before to oust the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge. Vietnamese forces travel toward the country's northern border during a brief, bloody war with China in 1979.Īt least 200,000 Chinese troops poured into northern Vietnam all along the border. China is also Vietnam's largest trading partner. The teachings on the walls are written in Chinese characters. It was built by the Vietnamese King Ly Thánh Tông in 1070 to honor the Chinese philosopher Confucius. The Temple of Literature in Hanoi is a good example. There have been countless conflicts as well as shared culture. Vietnam's 2,000 year history with its northern neighbor is complex. Has the conflict with China ever really ended, I ask Pham Thi Ky as she lights another candle.
No country weighs on Vietnam like China, and it has been that way for centuries. But relative to China, those were brief battles. They fought and died against the French occupiers, then the Americans. That 1979 war left more than 50,000 dead. In one of the many war cemeteries in Lang Son, a city in northern Vietnam, Pham Thi Ky and her family light incense and offer prayers for her brother-in-law, who died 36 years ago in Vietnam's brief but bloody border war with China. Vietnam and China have been adversaries for centuries and the friction continues to this day. Every year, the family goes to the cemetery on the anniversary of his death. Pham Thi Ky (right) and her family pray at the grave of her brother-in-law, who was killed 36 years ago in the 1979 border war with China.
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