The only hope for Vietnam to remain independent is a general uprising large enough to overthrow the power of Hanoi and install in its place a democratic government that will take national interests to heart and establish military alliances with free countries.
By Dang Phuong-Nghi
Ms. Dang Phuong Nghi -- PhD in Vietnamology (Sorbonne, Paris) -- is an archivist palaeographer (National School of Palaeography and Archival Studies, Ecole Nationale des Chartes) and a historian. She was Director General of the National Archives and Libraries of the Republic of Vietnam. She currently lives in France.
Translated from French by François-René Rideau
Ms. Dang Phuong Nghi -- PhD in Vietnamology (Sorbonne, Paris) -- is an archivist palaeographer (National School of Palaeography and Archival Studies, Ecole Nationale des Chartes) and a historian. She was Director General of the National Archives and Libraries of the Republic of Vietnam. She currently lives in France.
Translated from French by François-René Rideau
A machiavellian plan by China for the annexation of Vietnam is being implemented with the complicity of the communist power in Hanoi to the general indifference!
In 1979, China invaded Vietnam in retaliation for Vietnam's intervention in Cambodia. The resulting Sino-Vietnamese border war lasted not only a few months as per the official version, but ten years, until 1989.
It was marked by unheard-of atrocities from a 620,000 strong Chinese army that razed everything in its wake: they destroyed four entire cities and villages, massacred all their inhabitants including children after gang raping the women[1].
Yet, when their ally and sponsor the Soviet Empire fell in 1990, the dictators in Hanoi, rather than lose their power by reconverting themselves as democrats as in Eastern Europe, preferred to pledge allegiance to China and offered their country in exchange for Beijing's support.
The secret treaty signed in Chengdu had its brief content only disclosed in April 2013: documents stolen from the Vietnamese Secret Service of Defense were handed over to Foreign Policy Magazine by General Hà Thanh Châu, after he applied for asylum in the United States[2].
According to this treaty, the dictators in Hanoi commit themselves to the gradual transformation of Vietnam into a Chinese province like Tibet. The evolution will take place in three stages of twenty years each:
2000-2020: Vietnam becomes an autonomous province,2020-2040: Vietnam becomes a dependent province,
2040-2060: Vietnam trades its name for Âu Lạc (named after two ancient ethnic groups living between the two countries) and will be subject to the administration of the governor of Guangzhou.
The 1990 surrender was merely the explicit execution of what Hồ Chí Minh pledged in return for the military aid granted by Mao Zedong during the First Indochina War.
By the "Vietnam-China Cooperation Agreement" signed on 12/6/1953 in Guangxi, Hồ promised to thereafter "merge the Vietnamese workers' party with the Chinese Communist Party" and to make "the Vietnamese democratic republic an element of the People's Republic of China"[3].
Under the pretense of active cooperation with the Big Brother from the North, the process of tibetization of Vietnam took place as follows:
Political Bringing to Heel:
- In 1999, a land border treaty stipulated the transfer to China of 900 km²[4] (equivalent to 60% of the area of the Thái Bình province), including half of the Bản Giốc waterfall and the Nam Quan border crossing, two historical sites dear to the heart of the Vietnamese.
- In 2000 by a treaty on the Gulf of Tonkin[5] the dictators in Hanoi ceded to China nearly half (44% or 16000 km²) of the territorial waters in the gulf as well as the beach of Tục Lãm. The Chinese were also granted the right to exploit economically the riches of the gulf in the Vietnamese zone, under guise of cooperation. These two treatises are actually but the application texts of three treaties signed by Hồ Chí Minh with Beijing in 1957, 1961, 1963[6].
- In 2013 ten resolutions on cooperation allow Beijing to control the entire policy-making of Vietnam. Chinese people from China or formerly from Vietnam (those who left in 1978) were specially trained and placed by the Chinese government in various leadership positions at all levels within all Vietnamese institutions, especially in the police and the army, up to the highest state positions: At present, President of the Republic Trần Đại Quang, Deputy Prime Minister Hoàng Trung Hải considered Beijing's right-hand man, Deputy Speaker Tô Huy Rứa and Minister of Police Tô Lâm are Chinese or from Chinese origin. Thus, executives and dignitaries who are rebellious to sinicization are quickly spotted and neutralized: Some twenty high-ranking officers known for their hostility to China, including General Staff Đào Trung Lịch and the Commander-in-Chief of the 2nd Military Zone Trần Tất Thanh, disappeared in an "aircraft accident due to fog" in May 1998; more recently, in July 2016, just three months after his appointment, General Lê Xuân Duy, another commander-in-chief of the same zone (very important because of its neighborhood with China and Laos), war hero of the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979, experienced a rather "sudden death".
- In 2014, the treaty on a "project for two strategic corridors" grants China the right to economically exploit the six border provinces (that is, actually, the destruction of the country's magnificent primary forests) and the Điện Biên region, as well as the establishment of two strategic corridors, Lào Cai - Hà Nội - Hải Phòng and Móng Cái - Hà Nội.
- In January 2017, Nguyễn Phú Trọng, the current secretary-general of the party, went to Beijing to sign 15 conventions promoting closer cooperation between the two countries, in particular in the fields of the military, the police and culture. This cooperation should be understood as a greater subjection, with the eventual incorporation of the Vietnamese army and police into the Chinese army and police[7], that is, the end of Vietnam.
- As for the occupation of the Paracel and Spratly islands by China, the dictators in Hanoi endorse it in a way for they repress any public demonstration against it, and they do not protest much or with much vigor against the Chinese building and drilling there[8].
All these treaties were followed by economic agreements enabling Beijing to send en masse its nationals to the most strategic places of Vietnam, under cover of being employees and workers:
- Agreement for two joint ventures (actually Chinese ventures since the majority of the capital comes from China) to exploit bauxite. These companies are installed on the "roof" of the Highlands of the Center region, from where one can dominate all Indochina.
- Agreement for the exploitation by the Chinese of the primary forests, which amounts to letting China destroy the most beautiful natural resources of Vietnam while giving it control on the most crucial points of the north of the country.
- Permission for Chinese companies to settle on all the Vietnamese coast, from Móng Cái to Cà Mau.
- Possibility for the Chinese to found Chinese cities throughout the country as in Bình Dương, where the only language used is Chinese and where trade is made in Chinese yuan.
- Permission for Chinese nationals to come to Vietnam without a visa, to move and settle freely in Vietnam where they can marry Vietnamese women whose children will become systematically Chinese. On the other hand, a visa is still required for Vietnamese people going to China, and many Chinese districts in Vietnam are prohibited to Vietnamese people, and even to Vietnamese public authorities.
The tacit recognition of Vietnam's belonging to China shows up in the adoption of a 6-star Chinese flag: a large star surrounded by five instead of the four small official stars. There the Vietnamese people are symbolically represented as one new conquered people, on an equal footing with the peoples of Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and the Uighur country. This Chinese flag appeared for the first time in 2011 in the background behind a speaker of the VTV official television; it aroused such an indignant interrogation that it was quickly withdrawn; yet it was seen again in thousand copies agitated by the Vietnamese schoolchildren for the welcome of the Chinese vice president Xi Jinping in 2012. Faced with the general outcry, the government bald-facedly blamed the fact on a technical mistake by the flag manufacturers (sic!). This did not prevent said flag from appearing in a meeting room of Vietnamese and Chinese high-ranking officers in Lào Cai in 2015 and currently in many police stations.
Moreover, the red flag with a yellow star in the middle which officially represents communist Vietnam, as imposed by Hồ Chí Minh to Vietnam, is but the emblem of the young Chinese communist pioneers[9] (and not that of the Fujian province as the rumor claims). This adds up with the strong probability that the famous Hồ Chí Minh, identified with the Vietnamese revolutionary Nguyễn Tất Thành alias Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was in fact a Chinese imposter, his look-alike Hu Zizheng (Hồ Tập Chương) alias Hu Guang (Hồ Quang): he had been commissioned by the Communist International to personify the Vietnamese Soviet spy after his death in 1932 in the jails of Hong Kong.
This identification was revealed in 1946 by a Taiwanese author, Wu Zhuoliu (Ngô Trọc Lưu), in a book titled "Hồ Chí Minh" written in Japanese; it was confirmed in 1949 by a local CCP newspaper, Gang Shan (Cương Sơn); and it was clearly reaffirmed in a controversial biography on "Hồ Chí Minh's half-life" published by another Taiwanese scholar, Hu Junxiong (Hô Tuấn Hùng) in 2008. This trait speaks volumes about the annexationist machination of Chinese leaders and the depth and duration of their determination to conquer Vietnam.
There is no surprise after this that the Chinese behave as arrogant masters. Some high dignitaries in Beijing do not deprive themselves of publicly calling Vietnamese leaders "ungrateful bastards" when Hanoi dares shyly protest against one of their abuses.
Vietnam's submission to China means the violent repression of all anti-Chinese demonstrations: demonstrations against the occupation of land on the northern border; against the occupation of the traditionally Vietnamese Paracel and Spratly Islands coveted by most countries in the region for its rich oil reserves amounting to 25% of the world's reserves, that China took from Vietnam in 1974 and 1988; or against the establishment of bauxite plants in an environmentally sensitive region in 2009-2011; etc.
Hundreds of patriotic activists were arrested, beaten and sent to prison where many of them died as a result of ill-treatment. Repression, moreover, is still the norm, as for instance in recent months towards protestors against the Formosa company (Taiwanese by its name, with its seat in Formosa, but Chinese by its capital and therefore its management).
Cultural subjection:
Political expansion is hardly conceivable without cultural influence. For Beijing this influence can only be understood by the sinicization of the conquered people. Since the Vietnamese are destined to merge into the great Chinese melting pot, it is necessary to erase the traces of hereditary antagonism in them and to deprive them at the same time from the pride of their historical past. Thus, Beijing imposed various measures on Hanoi:
- Obliviate the valiant resistance to the Chinese army in the war of 1979-1989: To the helpless indignation of the veterans, Hanoi had to desecrate the graves of Vietnamese soldiers who died on the northern border. Anything about that war and their heroism was erased from their graves. On the other hand, cemeteries and monuments were erected in honor of the Chinese soldiers who fell in Vietnam. Anti-Chinese publications, abundant during the war, went missing entirely; and henceforth the rare mentions of this war in official history textbooks fit in eleven lines, such that the young Vietnamese ignore its very existence[11]. On the annexations of frontier lands as well as of the Paracel and Spratly Islands, a radio silence is strictly observed, and also on the frequent abuses by the Chinese army such as the strafing of fishing boats or the shooting down of Vietnamese aircraft off the territorial waters of Vietnam, half of which was appropriated by China.
- Avoid the glorification of the great heroes of history honored for their victorious struggle against the Chinese invader. There were discussions about removing their statues from public places, but the overly sensitive subject was put aside and the authorities were content to remove those in private houses (a recent case being the statue of General Trần Hưng Đạo, a great victor against the Mongols, erected in the house of a resident of the province of Lâm Đồng[12]).
- No assimilation can take place without language adoption. Unlike English, a language that is very flexible and easy to learn, unfortunately for China's hegemonic ambitions, the Chinese language with its ideographic writing lends itself poorly to spreading internationally and does not appeal to the Vietnamese. If you do not want to learn it voluntarily, you will learn it by force: decrees were therefore issued at the end of 2016 to impose for the following year onwards Chinese as a compulsory first foreign language in secondary school and to introduce Chinese as a second language in primary school. At the moment programs entirely in Chinese are broadcast by the Vietnamese radio and television; and even in the Vietnamese programs, Chinese songs are interspersed among national music.
Destruction of the economy:
Hanoi and Beijing both had to keep secret the contents of the 1990 treaty for fear of the unanimous revolt of the Vietnamese people—who as a result of the lessons of the history are animated by a visceral hostility towards the predatory neighbor.
On the one hand, Beijing wanted to avoid having to face 90 million resistance fighters when they officially proclaim the annexation; on the other hand, they coveted Vietnam mostly for its mineral wealth (especially bauxite and oil) and its favorable strategic situation in South-East Asia; thus, they verily connived an enterprise of genocide against the Vietnamese people, with a view to a repopulation by Chinese people; and this enterprise began immediately after they signed the treaty. Faced with the methodical destruction of the economy and the parallel poisoning of all their sources of life, young able Vietnamese have been and will be driven to emigrate; those who remain will be reduced over the years to the sick and impotent, while coming children are destined to be weak or deformed.
Destruction of agriculture:
Vietnam derives its main resources from its thriving agriculture that still occupies more than half of its population, from its fisheries, its tourism, and also its oil (since 2000). The rice food crop for which Vietnam is still the second largest producer in the world and the third largest exporter, was therefore Beijing's first target:
The vast Mekong Delta, Vietnam's rice granary, depends on the annual alluvial floods that ensure its fertility. But China established a series of 6 dams in Yunnan upstream of the Mekong (4 more are planned, besides the project of two canals that will divert the water of the river in the surroundings), in particular the gigantic dams of Xiaowan (Capacity: 15 billion m³, 2010) and Nuozhadu (capacity: 23 billion m³, 2012); and now the other countries that live on the Mekong are helpless before the decline of their river economy.
They cannot hold accountable the powerful China; and so the Chinese manipulate the flows of the river at their whim, without even warning the residents; they ignore the complaints of the Mekong Regional Commission in which they refuse to belong; and so these countries prefer to participate in the scramble by building their own dams with Beijing's blessing and financial contribution (11 planned in Laos who dream of being a major supplier of electricity to the region, including the enormous Xayaburi on the main river, already being build; 2 projects in Cambodia and 2 more in Thailand[13]).
Vietnam, downstream in the delta, can only take notice of the damage: facing prolonged droughts and devastating floods, soils are depleted due to lack of sediments, compounded by salinization due to the increase in temperature and the rise of seawater; fresh water levels are declining dangerously, leading to shortages and to the fall of fish stocks; with the change of temperature, insects and fungi multiply, spreading diseases (notably the dengue fever) and destroying the crops[14].
To the action of dams, add the destruction of the mangroves, especially in the extreme south, in order to raise shrimps for export, at the instigation of seafood freezing companies, most of which are run by the Chinese.
Without the trees to fix the land, the coasts erode and each year 500 ha (1200 acres) disappear in Cà Mau which will soon no longer have the shape of a point.
As a result, the area of rice fields is decreasing and their yield has dropped by 15% over the last decade; the situation is deteriorating so rapidly that there may be a risk of famine in the years to come. For paradoxically, whereas Vietnam is a large exporter of rice, its residents are often forced to eat imported rice; this is due to the fact that the major part (60%) of the crops is pre-empted by the State which buys it at very low prices from the producers (3000 đ/kg instead of 4500 đ/kg on the market), for export.
Where to? Mostly (40%) to China (at the price of 6000 đ/kg), which in exchange for good Vietnamese rice sells to the Vietnamese population its own poor quality rice, sometimes mixed with plastic beans called "faux rice", at a price double or triple (up to 30000 đ/kg). Exploited and discouraged by poor working conditions, driven from a land that has become arid, a growing number of peasants abandon the profession, emigrate to the city or to neighboring countries, abandoning land to the Chinese who are eager to acquire it.
Determined to grab as much land as possible for their colonization, the Chinese find a thousand tricks each more diabolical than the others to ruin the reluctant peasants and push them to abandon their homes.
Their subtle cruelty finds an easy prey in the little peasantry, that is poor hence greedy, ignorant and credulous :
- Chinese traders traveling all over the country locate peasants in difficulty and offer to buy the four clogs of their buffalo at the price of the animal; the poor things accept, thinking they can earn double since the animal killed for its hooves can thereafter be sold as meat. Since the buffalo is the working tool for the peasant, once it has disappeared, the peasant will have no choice left but to acquiesce to any suggestion from the Chinese: to fill his rice field to plant subsistence crops or shrubs, using toxic Chinese fertilizers and pesticides (which do not comply with any international standards) sold to him on credit by the merchant, who promises in return to buy him the product of his harvest at a good price. The promise is often held at least the first year; then, under any pretense (e.g. the product in question is no longer required) the merchant or another of his accomplices refuses the purchase of the product at the expected price. The peasant must content himself with selling his perishable goods at a low price. The peasant finally over-indebted is obliged to cede his land to the Chinese or one of his accomplices to emigrate elsewhere.
- Alternatively, in areas where certain crops prosper, the trader offers to buy all the leaves of the tuber (e.g. cassava) or the plant, or also all the roots of the plant, at a much higher price than the harvest itself. As a result, the tuber can not grow, the plant dies and the farmer is deprived of seed or seedling for the next season, while the product becoming rare on the market grows in price for the profit of Chinese importers. Again the trader offers fertilizers and pesticides for the planting of a fruit, a flower, etc., with very good yield, etc. The trick of buying the roots was used for the destruction of pepper crops, one of the riches of Central Vietnam.
- A hundred-year-old cultivation on the border with Cambodia, the sugar palm, is being eradicated "thanks" to the Chinese who come to propose to the peasants to buy at high prices the trunks of this palm tree. Cut in half the palm tree can only die and there is no question of replanting because the tree produces only after twenty years[15].
The Chinese will to destroy has no bounds: They spread news that they are ready to buy tons and tons of leeches (or cockroaches…) for medicine purpose at good price so that poor peasants neglect field work to catch leeches, and even to breed them; one or two years after the Chinese merchants stop the buying, and the peasants, encumbered with huge amount of pointless leeches, set them free in the nature where they damage environment, ravage livestock and harm humans, particularly cultivators in padding fields. For somewhat smarter farmers, Chinese "experts" come to advise an increase in income by the breeding of a variety of whelk (Pomacea), freshwater lobster (Procambarus), or red turtle, the flesh of which is indeed prized.
However, these three species, imported from America, are terribly invasive; they soon invade rice fields, rivers and lakes, canals... killing local flora and fauna, especially young rice plants, to a degree that the FAO is alarmed[16].
Better or worse, strangers were surprised throwing baby crocodiles in the Mekong. Maybe it was only a rumor. However last month, a buddhist monk, who was even "elected" to the house of representatives, -- and who is known for publicly criticizing Lý Thường Kiệt, the Great general who in 1075 won against the Chinese Song dynasty, in a war for the first time offensive and not defensive, for his "insolence" towards the Empire -- certainly a Chinese agent, before a public of hundreds of people, threw into the Red River under cover of a rite of deliverance of souls, ten tons of piranhas, enough to infest the entire river and prohibit any activity there. Can you imagine such an act? Facing the general indignation, the authorities have tried to minimize the fact by declaring that those piranhas belonged to an inoffensive variety[17]!
The coffee plantations, for which Vietnam is the world's second largest producer (and the first for the robusta variety), do not undergo a routine destruction by the Chinese, first because it is rather a product for export (only 5% is used for domestic consumption), not indispensable to the life of the population, and secondly because they want to control it: always on the lookout for the slightest opportunity to purchase at a discount, they already count on the sharp fluctuation in the price of coffee, which is causing ruin to planters who are unable to absorb a sharp fall in prices (for example in 2012).
Destruction of forests, Vietnam's lung:
Thirty years of war with massive bombardment destroyed only 16 per cent (not 60 per cent, as claimed by official propaganda) of Vietnamese forests, based on mutually conflicting figures given in various articles, which show that in 1943 Vietnam was forested at 43% (i.e. 140,000 km² out of a total area of 330,000 km²), and from 1943 to 1973, 22,000 km² of forests were destroyed. But 17 years after the war, in 1990, the official forest coverage was only 92,000 km², which means that in peace time 26,000 km² of forests were destroyed, a greater area and faster than during the war. Deforestation is ongoing, despite a massive effort towards reforestation. In 2013, forests covered 39% of the territory, but 25% of these forests are made out of reforestation using low-shade and low-diversity species such as pine and eucalyptus. What more, with deforestation comes the erosion and degradation of bare soils of which 40% becomes unfit for cultivation[18].
Among the causes of deforestation, the main one is population growth, with its consequent need for space, construction, firewood (for cooking) and for agricultural and industrial development. But the most disastrous factor is organized looting of forests by Chinese operators to whom the Vietnamese government granted the concession to thousands of square kilometers near the northern border and on the highlands of the Center region[19].
This is compounded by the plunder organized by traffickers whose chiefs are usually Chinese, in collusion with local authorities, who derive from this illegal trade[20], accounting for half of the timber trade, a profit of 2.5 billion USD per year.
The deforestation of Vietnam is all the more deplorable since its ravages include beautiful rainforests, especially primary forests that are rare and valuable for their biodiversity (they shelter or used to shelter more than a thousand different species, of which 8.2% are endemic and 3.4% are protected by the United Nations): out of 10% of the area in 1996, there only remained 0.6%, i.e. 80,000 ha in 2012. In a mere 20 years, the communist regime in Hanoi managed to squander the fabulous ancestral inheritance of the golden forests (rừng vàng)[21].
Environmental pollution :
Facing the pollution that poisons their own country, Beijing had the idea of using chemical poisoning to get rid of the Vietnamese. Through political as well as financial pressures, they made Hanoi accept the installation throughout Vietnam of its most polluting industries.
Already in 1990, after the end of the Sino-Vietnamese War, many Chinese people who came to or returned to Vietnam went back to trading and opening small businesses, by taking Vietnamese individuals first as front men, then as a partners in a joint venture. Even after 100% foreign-owned companies were accepted starting in 2005, knowing the Vietnamese distrust of China, many 100% Chinese companies prefer to claim to be a joint venture by allying themselves with corrupt executives, and one can say that today the vast majority of companies in Vietnam have Chinese owners[22].
Taking advantage of the population's ignorance and of the lack of Vietnamese laws, small Chinese production units, like those of the Vietnamese themselves, we must admit, were rejecting their wastes in rivers without restraint, to the dismay of the residents. But for Beijing that was not enough, and the Chinese authorities decided to switch to a higher gear. Whereas China itself closed all its bauxite plants due to environmental damage, after repeated pressures starting in 2001, Beijing eventually obtained in 2007 the signing by Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng of the agreement for a project of 6 bauxite plants on a 1800 km² concession, to be exploited jointly by the two countries on the Highlands of the Central region, where the third richest deposits of bauxite in the world are located[23].
The location of the first two sites chosen, in Dak Nong and Lâm Đồng, once known, raised for the first time in Communist Vietnam a protest by scientists, intellectuals and various personalities (petition with 2,600 signatures), who mentioned considerable dangers for the environment and, consequently, for the men and for the cultivation of tea-trees and coffee-trees in the neighborhoods, not to mention the danger of installing thousands of Chinese alleged workers on the "Roof of Indochina"[24].
The government ignored these concerns and arrested the leaders of the revolt. Construction of the factories therefore started in 2009. And the people are forbidden to circulate into the area as has become the rule for any large Chinese corporation.
What is the result? To install the plants, thousands of acres of primary forest and crop land have been sacrificed, causing impoverishment of the inhabitants (defenseless mountain people); there is now a shortage of fresh water, much of which is captured for the manufacture of alumina; and in the event of heavy rain there are risks of spillage of red sludge out of the two pits where it is stored in the open[25].
An unknown number of Chinese alleged workers are present in the restricted areas, who may or may not actually be factory workers. As for the two factories supposed to bring back a lot of foreign currency to Vietnam, they have not stopped making losses[26] to the point that in 2016 the Ministry of Industry and Commerce had to ask for government assistance to replace obsolete and inefficient Chinese equipments by machines with more advanced technology from other countries.
The ultimate in Chinese duplicity and inhumanity (until now at least) as well as in Vietnamese governmental complicity, was reached with the company Formosa.
In 2008, Beijing pressured Hanoi to grant Formosa Plastics group, a Taiwanese company infamous for lawsuits against it for environmental damages, permission to establish a steel plant in the province of Hà Tĩnh in the Center region of Vietnam.
For this project, the group formed a subsidiary, the Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Company, known simply as Formosa in Vietnam, whose shares were soon bought back by Chinese companies, which in fact made it a Chinese company and no longer a Taiwanese company as many still believe. In 2010, as always through corruption and intimidation, Formosa obtained a 70-year concession for 3300 hectares in Vũng Áng in Kỳ Anh district, just in front of a deep-water port with great military importance, since 500-ton ships and submarines can shelter there.
This was already an enormous privilege, since according to Vietnamese laws in force, land ownership is not recognized, only land use, and no individual or group in Vietnam can be issued a land use license for more than 45 years. Yet in addition, Formosa also benefited from a rebate on its property taxes and on its importation taxes, which did not prevent it from practicing fraud in their payment (discovered in 2016) for nearly $ 300 million. It also was granted the right to develop infrastructure at its leisure!
Despite the protests of the expropriated inhabitants, the factory was put under construction in 2012, and in 2015 a huge complex was created on its site, which can be seen on Google maps.
On April 6th 2016, right after the factory was completed, the inhabitants of Vũng Áng found a frightening number of dead fish on their beaches.
The following days, till the 18th of April, the phenomenon spread on the coasts of the Center region, affording the spectacle of miles of dead fish estimated to number several millions. The death of the sea, which will prove to be the greatest ecological catastrophe ever seen so far, did not at first provoke any reaction from the authorities. Looking for the cause of the disaster, fishermen-divers detected pipes from Formosa that were spitting out continual jets of a strange red liquid. Then began protests throughout the country against the Chinese company.
The Vietnamese authorities did not wake up until 6 weeks after the massacre to speak of a catastrophe and to induce Formosa to accept its responsibility. But instead of immediately shutting down the factory and ordering an investigation into the effects of the pollution, the government was content with a $500 million payment.
This was a paltry sum with regards to the damages caused, and none of the victims saw any of it, which leads to wondering whether it was actually paid and if so who pocketed it. Yet, according to the few scientists who came to take stock of the damage, it will take decades or even centuries for the sea to heal from millions of m³ of liquid filled with heavy metals and toxic chemicals (lead, mercury, cadmium, manganese, phenol, cyanide, etc., according to a laboratory independent from the Vietnamese authorities) that Formosa rejected and keeps rejecting in its waters[27].
Today it is no longer the two provinces neighboring Formosa but all four central provinces (Hà Tĩnh, Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị, Thừa Thiên - Huế) that are affected and the body of red waters continues to expand and begins to reach the southern coasts. In order to survive, fishermen try to get fish from the open sea where they risk being slaughtered by armed Chinese fishermen and the Chinese navy, who have seized the eastern sea.
As if Formosa were not enough, in the same region, taking advantage of the rainy season, about twenty Chinese-owned hydroelectric plants discharge the water from their basin without warning into the surrounding countryside, destroying crops and killing several hundreds of people. This kind of flooding caused knowingly and often without notice by the hydroelectric factories has finally aroused in the population a feeling of detestation towards the 7000 dams that produce 40% of the national electricity[28], that Hanoi is spreading throughout the country, in imitation of the Chinese in China.
More importantly, in the midst of the Formosa scandal, the Chinese, in contempt of the entire world, and using the Vietnamese company Hoa Sen as a front, were granted the license for the installation of another steelworks plant of equal size in Cà Ná, Province of Ninh Thuận, in the south of the country[29]. If this plant comes into existence and starts to dump its waste into the sea like that of the Center region, there is no doubt that all the coastal provinces of Vietnam will become uninhabitable for its natives and that the maritime economy will collapse completely.
Meanwhile, to devastate better Vietnamese environment, Beijing urged Hanoi to choose thermal power stations, particularly very polluting coal-based ones that China just banished from its own territory, instead of windmills, much cleaner and more suitable for a country with a coast of 3260 km, to develop its energy production.
While at it, Beijing got Hanoi to accept the setting up of chinese thermal power plants on the most important sites of Vietnam, especially all along the littoral, for example the Vĩnh Tân 1 plant, at the moment the biggest thermal power plant in Vietnam, worthing 1,75 billion USD, located on 58 ha nearby a maritime protection zone in Bình Thuận province. All these units using Chinese outdated technology have bad impact on environment : thus the Duyên Hải 1 plant, hardly in activity on 1/2016 already causes respiratory problems to neighbouring inhabitants and threatens their salt production.
To perfect the destruction of the South, in 2008 the Chinese, through the company Lee & Man, were granted the construction of a gigantic paper mill to produce 420,000 tons of paper per year on the Sông Hậu, the great river feeding the delta, in the face of unanimous protests[30].
This plant, which is supposed to be in operation this year, will certainly kill the river with its enormous quantities of toxic waste including hydroxide, and will ruin rice crops as well as aquaculture in the West.
Unlike other foreign companies, that are not harmful, Chinese companies located all over Vietnam are all very polluting by the nature of their products and blithely dump their waste into the atmosphere, the soil and the waters. Vietnamese lakes and rivers are already blackish or reddish depending on the substances that are spilled there.
The soil is impregnated with fertilizers and pesticides that contaminate crops. China is even suspected of exporting its own toxic waste to Vietnam, with or without a license from Hanoi, and of burying it in various parts of the country, based on the testimony of a few repentant accomplices. Besides, where does Formosa get so much toxic waste from, when, according to their own declaration, their stoves will not quite be ready until some time in 2017?
Consequences of pollution:
The Vietnamese population is extremely scared now for its health. Besides the air that they breathe, the water they use for their ablutions and their washing, all their food is now likely to poison them. Fruits and vegetables are not only stuffed with highly harmful Chinese pesticides but also dangerous Chinese chemicals that either magnify them or prolong their apparent freshness.
Moreover, since the Sino-Vietnamese treaties, food products imported from China invade the Vietnamese markets and they are even worse: there is no week without the newspapers reporting cases of intoxication caused by one of these products, or without revealing cases of fake rice, fake eggs, fake noodles, fake meats, fake coffee, and so on, all faked with industrial chemicals.
How can you protect yourself since you must eat to live? How to know if the fruit or vegetable you eat is not contaminated, if the meat you are enjoying is not tampered with, if the fish you buy is not packed with toxic metals, if the nước mắm you are consuming is not made from these intoxicated fish and if the salt that is used does not come from a polluted coastline?
Vietnam has become a country with a high rate of cancer patients; the death toll from cancer, estimated by WHO in 2015 based on reports from Vietnamese hospitals, is 350 per day; there are 130,000 new cases every year, and these figures are expected to increase sharply after the Formosa disaster.
However, the government, complicit of the polluters, refuses to take sanitary measures. It rejects any request for analysis of the water. After the Formosa scandal, it even forbids doctors to examine the blood of the inhabitants of the Central provinces, for fear of exploitation by "enemy forces" (a term that refers to groups of opponents of the regime). The "genociders" of Beijing can rub their hands. The Southwest Vietnam and Central Vietnam are gradually being emptied of their population, driven by the misery to emigrate abroad on the incentive of the government. And most of these uneducated emigrants have no other resource than to join the lumpenproletariat of the host country which receives them badly and despises them. Ironically, following the example of Donald Trump, the Cambodian prime minister recently spelled out plans to build a wall on the Vietnamese border to prevent the paperless Vietnamese from entering Cambodia! Meanwhile, thousands if not millions of Chinese people have been settled in Vietnam, where the authorities have reserved the best places for them, wherein the Vietnamese who have been living there for generations have been expropriated for an insignificant indemnity, thus creating groups of "dân oan" (victims of injustice) that can be seen gathered around the capital or prefectures to claim a reparation that will never be made.
Military threats:
Unlike free countries that host foreign companies only with a view to procuring work for their citizens, the Vietnamese government suffers without objection that Chinese companies import all their personnel to the tens of thousands or even more, and refuse any control on the part of its administration. Also part of this behavior of servility/arrogance is a concern to conceal a much more worrying reality.
The immense areas conceded to China for their factories that do not require as much, moreover located in the most strategic locations of the country, protected by barbed wire and prohibited to all Vietnamese, even to representatives of public authority, may house only military complexes whose staff consists of alleged factory employees.
Arms of all sizes passed through the open border can be easily camouflaged, especially if tunnels are dug. Moreover, if we are to believe the rumor, the Chinese are in the process of (or have finished) constructing in secret two tunnels large enough for the use of tanks and lorries, to connect the region of the Highlands and The Mekong Delta.
At present, in the event of an armed invasion, China can move regiments at any time through North Vietnam, whose border region and Tonkin Bay are already under its control; in the Center region it has bases on the Highlands as well as on the coast with the port of Vũng Áng where its submarines and large ships can enter.
Farther away, the south will be reached by troops descended from the Center region, and also by aircraft from the recently built airports on the Paracel and Spratly Islands stolen from Vietnam. If current intrigues succeed, China will soon become the owner of several regional airports on the brink of bankrupcy, that it can transform into military airfields.
In order to complete the encirclement of Vietnam and to control all its supply lines by either land or sea, China has established a solid alliance with Laos and Cambodia; the latter has even leased a naval base for 90 years in the port of Sihanoukville from where China can monitor the South China Sea. In case of necessity, for example of American intervention, it deployed a row of ground-to-air missiles on the Paracel Islands. Where are these missiles pointed at, if not towards Vietnam, barely thirty kilometers away.All these military preparations merely materialize China's warlike ambition. This is an ambition China never concealed: on the website of the Chinese army sina.com, the authors of articles published on 5/9/2008 and then on 20/12/2014 explain how China can quickly conquer Vietnam! But, as good followers of Sun Tzu and lovers of the game of go, especially after the failed invasion of 1979, the Chinese prefer to use force only as a last resort after stifling the opponent.
Thus, for decades China has patiently applied to its little neighbor the "strategy of the silkworm", a small animal that is able to overcome a large pile of mulberry leaves by nibbling it bit by bit.
The Vietnamese population, caught between the Chinese hammer and the government anvil, prefers for the most part to live in denial or in fatalism. But the deniers of the Chinese threat can not dispute the omnipresence of the Chinese in the country; and since the leaks on the 1990 treaty, especially since the development of the "livestream" technique on Facebook that allows the direct exchange of information, they become aware of the imminent danger that the communist power wants to hide from them.
For their part, the traitors of the State apparatus, who have been in the know for a long time, seek only to build up a substantial personal fortune through racketeering and corruption, and then to transfer this fortune abroad by means licit or illicit. Vietnam is in danger of bankruptcy with a current debt of USD 117 billion equivalent to 64% of GDP, that it cannot pay (on the deadline of July 2017, servicing the debt will amount to 24% of the national budget), at a time that country's coffers are empty (in many places, civil servants and employees of government companies haven't been paid for months).
Meanwhile, it is estimated that more than USD 600 billion of money stolen from the Vietnamese people by the apparatchiks was deposited in the United States, and more than 200 billion USD in Swiss banks. All these Communist felons continue to assuage the people with lies, to praise the sweetness of living in a Vietnam moving towards modernity; but they themselves take the precaution of sending their wives and children in advance to capitalist countries, preferably in the most "detested", the United States.
The "spoilsports" who oppose this travesty of justice, those who assist victims, the "democrats", the citizens who are openly hostile to the Party or to China, are tolerated for a certain time in order to convince international opinion that they live in a free country. Then on a beautiful day or rather on a beautiful night (as is the custom in dictatorships) they are arrested, beaten, imprisoned, sometimes killed.
A few days ago, the political police thus kidnapped the most notorious democrats, and detained them in places unknown, so as to discourage those who are tempted to participate in the general demonstration of 5/3/2017. In Saigon, those who had the courage to demonstrate were harshly repressed, and on this occasion they discovered that the most brutal police officers who beat them cruelly are in fact Chinese.
Apart from the minority of the watchdogs of the regime, the Vietnamese people refuse the idea of any Anschluss with China. But, betrayed by their own leaders who have become the "domestic enemy," how can they oppose the powerful "foreign enemy" when the fateful hour comes?
The only hope for Vietnam to remain independent is a general uprising large enough to overthrow the power of Hanoi and install in its place a democratic government that will take national interests to heart and establish military alliances with free countries.
And that before a Chinese military deployment.
Yet, one of the most cruel political regimes in existence has submitted the South of Vietnam for half a century and the North of Vietnam for a century. And the Vietnamese have lost their energy and confidence in themselves. To revolt, they must overcome the paralyzing fear of the ire of the regime, a fear that is inculcated in them from childhood.
Meanwhile, time is short and we cannot watch without reacting the slow death of a once proud and courageous people. To you all men and women of good will, who love justice and freedom, I beseech you to look into the drama of Vietnam! Alert international public opinion to counter Beijing's annexationist machinations! Especially those among you, who by your vociferations against the Vietnam War in the 1960s, helped push America to abandon the republic of South Vietnam to bring it into the hands of the sinister clique of assassins from Hanoi, take your responsibilities and redeem yourself by denouncing the Chinese political crimes as strongly you former denounced the US! Show the Vietnamese that they are actively supported, and by the warmth of your sympathy communicate to them the flame they lack to overcome their fear! Help them to take back their right to live free in a free country!
NOTES
[1] Read the rare written mentions of these war crimes by the Chinese army in WT news, "New York Times viết gì về sự tàn bạo của Trung Quốc trong chiến tranh biên giới 1989" (http://www.vtc.vn/quoc-te/new-york-times-viet-ve-su-bao-tan-cua-trung-quoc-trong-chien-tranh-bien) and Hùng Dũng, "Trung Quốc ra lệnh hễ gặp người VN nào là giết hết, in Người Việt Ukraina", 2016-02-18 (http://nguoivietukraina.com/chien-tranh-bien-gioi-1979-tq-ra-lenh-gap-nguoi-vn-la-giet-het.nvu).
[2] There exists a mystery about the article by Kerby Anderson Nguyên who gives these informations with excerpts from the documents because the blog "hoilatraloi" that first published them in June 2013 cannot be found anymore; but the article was immediately spread, and it can be read on several vietnamese sites that republished it in its entirety. One must be reminded that the Internet has become the platform for all kinds of manipulation and disinformation, and that an effort is required from the reader to analyze and sort the information to avoid being deceived. Having myself fallen for some hoax claiming to be Wikileaks revelations, that I cited in the first version of this text, I had, to appease my conscience, to consult every document available on the Internet regarding this infamous treaty. Taking into consideration the fact that any claim about a "secret" document are by definition unverifiable and therefore subject to caution, one may at the very least hypothesize that it is a cleverly disguised leak by some disgruntled high-level party official, because the tone and the style of the excerpts seem authentic. In any case, in 2014 the rumor about the annexation of Vietnam in 2020 grew to great proportions -- especially after two corroborating excerpts were circulated in two chinese newspapers, New China press and Global Times, that only repeat a statement published after the 1990 conference in the Sichuan Daily (cf. part 1 of the series of articles by Huỳnh Tâm on the conference, published in his blog, where he cites the Chinese original: http://huynh-tam.blogspot.fr/201410/ly-bang-tiet-lo-hoi-nghi-thanh-o-1990.html : Hội nghị vừa kết thúc, nhật báo Tứ Xuyên loan tải một thông điệp của phái đoàn Việt Nam: "Việt Nam bày tỏ mong muốn sẵn sàng chấp nhận làm một khu vực tự trị thuộc chính quyền trung ương tại Bắc Kinh như Trung Quốc đã dành cho Nội Mông, Tây Tạng, Quảng Tây… Phía Trung Quốc đồng ý và đồng ý chấp nhận đề nghị nói trên và cho Việt Nam thời gian 30 năm để Đảng Cộng sản Việt Nam giải quyết các bước tiến hành cần thiết cho việc gia nhập đại gia đình các dân tộc Trung Quốc!" (越南表示愿意接受作为中央政府在北京的一个自治区为中国的内蒙古，西藏，广西...中国方面同意接受并同意上述建议和越南为期30年的越南共产党解决必要加入中国民族的大家庭中的步骤!). The scandal was such that many voices arose to demand the publication of the treaty; but instead of the requested transparency, the Establishment merely let the party's central Bureau of propaganda deny the treasonous act in a long explanation of the treaty that fails to convince anyone. Since then, many confirmations by high-level officials have leaked via Youtube, including for instance one certified by the daughter of a general (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpZai9CVl4I).[3] Cf. the article by Đặng Chí Hùng, "Bằng chứng bán nước toàn diện của đảng cộng sản VN", in the blog Sinicization of Indochina, that gives a copy of this agreement (http://namviet.net/blog-hanhoa/?p=657#.WNaot7g8acM): Giao ước có tên “Ghi nhớ hợp tác Việt Trung” - số hiệu (VT/GU- 0212) ký ngày 12/6/1953 tại Quảng Tây giữa Hồ và Mao như sau: “Trước tình hình quân đội thực dân Pháp đang củng cố xâm lược Việt Nam. Đảng cộng sản nước cộng hòa nhân dân Trung Hoa và đảng Lao động Việt Nam dân chủ cộng hòa nhận thấy cần có sự tương trợ và giúp đỡ lẫn nhau để giữ tình đoàn kết hai đảng, chính phủ và nhân dân hai nước như sau:
Điều 1: Chính phủ Trung Quốc sẽ đồng ý viện trợ vũ khí theo yêu cầu chi viện của quân đội nhân dân Việt Nam. Ngoài ra sẽ gửi các cố vấn, chuyên gia quân sự để giúp đỡ quân đội nhân dân Việt Nam.
Điều 2: Đảng Lao động do đồng chí Hồ Chí Minh lãnh đạo đồng ý sáp nhập đảng Lao Động Việt Nam là một bộ phận của đảng cộng sản Trung Quốc.
Điều 3: Hai bên thống nhất Việt Nam dân chủ cộng hòa là một bộ phận của cộng hòa nhân dân Trung Hoa với quy chế của một liên ban theo mô hình các quốc gia nằm trong Liên Bang Xô Viết (Phụ lục đính kèm).
Điều 4: Trước đảng và chính phủ hai nước cần tập trung đánh đuổi thực dân Pháp và giành lại chủ quyền lãnh thổ cho Việt Nam. Các bước tiếp theo của việc sáp nhập sẽ được chính thực thực thi kể từ ngày hôm nay 12/06/1953.
Điều 5: Chính phủ cộng hòa nhân dân Trung Hoa đồng ý cung cấp viện trợ kinh tế cho chính phủ Việt Nam dân chủ cộng hòa theo thỏa thuận đã bàn giữa chủ tịch Mao Trạch Đông và chủ tịch Hồ Chí Minh (Phụ lục đính kèm).
…Ký tên: Hồ Chí Minh và Mao Trạch Đông”
[4] Until there are on-site verifications backed by maps, the lost area can only be estimated with more or less reliability. Yet, from a simple subtraction of the official data on the total area of Vietnam published before and after 2000, a valid number can be extracted. Therefore, it is recognized by the geographers and scientists of the current Establishment that in 1943, forests used to cover 43% of the area of the country for a total of 14.3 million hectares, which corresponds to a total area of 33.26 million hectares or 332,600 km²; no official number is given for the current total surface area, but the study by Will de Jong, Dô Dinh San and Tran Van Hung, "Forest rehabilitation in Vietnam", made in Hanoi in 2006, mentions the number of 331.210 km2 for the total surface area of the country, which implies a loss of 1,500 km²!
[5] To get an idea on the issue with borders, read the article of 2013-11-06 by Trương Nhân Tuấn, "Việt Nam có mất đất mất biển qua hai hiệp định phân định biên giới", in the blog "Những vấn đề Việt Nam" (http://nhantuantruong.blogspot.fr/2013/11/viet-nam-co-mat-at-mat-bien-qua-hai.html).
[6] See part 4 of the series of articles by Huỳnh Tâm cited above.
[7] As a sign of this incorporation, in December 2009, the vietnamese government modified the uniforms of the Vietnamese army. And they were found to be almost identical copies of those of the Chinese army, the only difference being a stripe on the hat of the Vietnamese uniform. If a Chinese invasion takes place, how will the people be able to distinguish friends and foes (assuming that the "Vietnamese People's Army" remains a friend!). See the article by Nguyễn Văn Tuấn, "Liệu quân phục VN có made in China?" of 2011-07-18 in Vietinfo: http://m.vietinfo.eu/tu-lieu/lieu-quan-phuc-viet-nam-co-made-in-china.html.
[8] Historically and traditionally the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos are part of Vietnam. These unoccupied and wind-struck islands were ignored by all countries except the vietnamese royal powers, that even created a special sea patrol to watch them in the 18th century. At the start of the 20th century, the acknowledgement of their strategic position in controlling the sea traffic as well as their abundance of guano started to inspire covetousness from neighboring countries, in particular China; and this covetousness only grew with the discovery of large underwater deposits of oil and natural gas. In 1974, taking advantage of the USA retreating from the vietnamese conflict, China seized by force the Paracel islands, then in 1988 it profited from its war with Vietnam to occupy, also by force, the Spratly. Chinese audacity was encouraged by a kind of concession from the powers in Hanoi as attested in a letter to Zhou Enlai by prime minister Phạm Văn Đồng dated from 1958, in which Vietnam recognizes the sovereignty of China within a limit of territorial waters that includes the two archipelagos. This document, long hidden by Hanoi, was divulged by Beijing in 1980 in an anti-vietnamese propaganda pamphlet during the border war; but fearing the reaction of the people that is very attached to these islands, the vietnamese communist powers feigned ignoring their existence then tried to minimize their significance! This explains why in May 2014, when the arrival of a chinese drilling platform on the waters around these islands gave raise to large anti-chinese demonstrations in Vietnam (see article: "Des tensions qui poussent le Vietnam à s’allier avec un vieil ennemi", in Openmind, news, 2016-07-12. https://www.opnminded.com/2014/11/07/nouveaux-lieux-paris-eko-monseigneur-club-phantom.html), a Vietnamese language broadcast by the Beijing television "Peuple's Voice" dated 2014-05-18 responded with this statement: "… we admit that Paracel and Spratly and the coasts (?) belong to Vietnam, but the Vietnamese communists (represented) by prime minister Phạm Văn Đồng signed a diplomatic note on 1958-06-07. China possesses all the indisputable documents about the maritime region and China has the right to exploit vietnamese oil and natural gas. The vietnamese communists cannot do anything about it. You all, leaders in the political bureau of the vietnamese communist party, we do not understand for what reason you do not proclaim to all your people that you have signed and recognized that the Paracel, Spratly and vietnamese coasts (?) are under Chinese sovereignty and why you let the foreign affairs ministry and the navy be mistaken and continue their aggression… We have enough forces ready to crush all the vietnamese warships; with the might of China we will vanquish all of Vietnam in merely one hour. We will seize the vietnamese coasts and we will take everything that Vietnam owes to pay the lesson, as in 1979. You, leaders of the political bureau of the vietnamese communist party, you are the "gruel eaters who piss in the bowl", you owe to China a debt of over 870 billions (of yuans or of dollars?) for the war of Điện Biên Phủ and the war against the United States. And now that you have handed over the islands and the sea to the People's Republic of China, nothing justifies that you should not make it publicly known to the entire population and that you should keep opposing China; that is an impudent action by Vietnam, we denounce it categorically and we will teach Vietnam a lesson." This is a precious document for it is the first time that we see China publicly declaring that the Paracels and Spratly belong (or at least used to belong) to Vietnam, whereas it always claimed based on dubious evidence that its sovereignty over these islands date back to ancient times. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCLlsvpRNhg)
[9] Cf. Wikipedia (the french and not the english version) in the article: Flag of People's Republic of China. Young pioneers of China (Large detachment). On the other hand, the Fujian flag (yellow star on red and blue background) was chosen as emblem of the ephemeral “Liberation of South Vietnam movement” with a little difference in the intensity of the blue color.
[10] The publication of the translation of the book by Hồ Tuấn Hùng gave rise to many articles and critical commentaries. The most solid line of argument in my eyes is that of Trần Việt Bắc, "Hồ Chí Minh: Đồng chí Nguyễn Ái Quốc và tôi" (http://www.geocities.ws/xoathantuong/tvb_hcmdongchi.htm).
[11] Cf. Interview of Vũ Minh Giang, vice-president of the association of historical sciences, in "Ghi nhận sự hy sinh của các liệt sĩ trong chiến tranh biên giới 1979", in Báo mới, 2017-02-16 (http://www.baomoi.com/ghi-nhan-su-hy-sinh-cua-cac-liet-si-trong-chien-tranh-bien-gioi-1979/c/21554895.epi).
[12] Cf. article in RFA of 2017-01-12, "Cưỡng chế tượng Trần Hưng Đạo tại tư gia là trái luật": http://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/in_depth/will-statue-inside-private-property-be-evicted-illegally-ha-01122017080011.html/ .
[13] About the Chinese dams, cf. among others: Jean-Paul Yacine, "Controverses autour des barrages chinois sur le Mékong", in Question Chine 2011-11-27 (http://www.questionchine.net/controverses-autour-des-barrages-chinois-sur-le-mekong); Samuel Bollendorf, "Le rapt du Mékong", on his website http://www.samuel-bollendorff.com/fr/le-rapt-du-mekong/ ; for a more scientific view, the study by Michel Ho Ta Khanh, "Le Vietnam et les aménagements hydrauliques dans le bassin versant du Mékong" http://www.recherches-internationales.fr/RI98/RI98HoTaKhanh.pdf .
[14] About the consequences of the dams, read: Arnaud Vaulerin, "Delta du Mékong, le triangle des inquiétudes", in (newspaper) Libération, 2016-02-07 (http://www.liberation.fr/planete/.../delta-du-mekong-le-triangle-des inquietudes_1431029); Arnaudet Lucie, Arnoux Marie, Derrien Allan, Schneider Maunoury Laure, "Conséquences environnementales, sociales et politiques des barrages, Etude du cas du Mékong", ENS, Ceres-Erti, 2013 (http://www.environnement.ens.fr/IMG/Mekong.pdf).
[15] The tactics by Chinese businessmen are so cruel and so twisted that many people attribute them to malicious rumors. Unhappily they are all too true. One may read the recurring articles in vietnamese newspapers, for instance the very official "An ninh thủ đô" (Security of the capital city) of 2015-06-18 (http://anninhthudo.vn/chinh-tri-xa-hoi/muon-van-thu-doan-ban-cua-thuong-lai-trung-quoc-nhieu-loan-thi-truong-viet-nam/616728.antd) and to look at video clips on the topic, for instance like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlsf6BrniVg .
[16] About the deliberate introduction of these destructive stocks, see the article by Lê Thọ in the newpaper Thừa Thiên of 2016-07-06 (http://baodatviet.vn/kinh-te/thi-truong/dan-bo-lua-trong-sen-bai-hoc-oc-buou-vang-lap-lai-3328574/), and that by Ngọc Tài and Thành Nhân, "Bất thường một dự án trồng sen", in Tuổi trẻ, 2017-02-04 (http://baodatviet.vn/kinh-te/thi-truong/dan-bo-lua-trong-sen-bai-hoc-oc-buou-vang-lap-lai-3328574/).
[17] Cf. one of the many articles on that topic in VT news of 2017-02-10: (http://www.vtc.vn/xa-hoi/phong-sinh-ca-chim-trang-xuong-song-hong-nhieu-co-quan-chuc-nang-vao-cuoc-d302781.htm).
[18] About deforestation in Vietnam a serious but slightly old study: Yann Roche and Rodolphe de Koninck, "Les enjeux de la déforestation au Vietnam", in Vertigo, vol.3, n°1, 4/2002 (https://vertigo.revues.org/4113).
[19] The concession of forests to chinese timber companies was officially acknowledged in 2014, but started since at least 2010. Cf. public protestations in 2010 by two old generals, Đồng Sĩ Nguyên and Nguyễn Trọng Vĩnh against the decision of 10 provinces "allowing 10 foreign companies to rent over a long duration the land of primary forests so as to grow raw material forests on a total surface area of 305,533 ha of which 264,000 ha are attributed to Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, 87% of these forests being in the important border provinces… The provinces that sell their forests are suicidal and harm the rest of the country, as for the countries that buy our forests that destroy our country on purpose and sow heartlessly and ruthlessly a catastrophe for our people." (http://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/vietnam/2010/02/100222_forestation_projects.shtml)
[20] Cf. Daniel Drollette Jr, "A plague of deforestation sweeps across SEA", Yale environment 360, 2013-05-20 (http://e360.yale.edu/features/a_plague_of_deforestation_sweeps_across_southeast_asia); "Deforestation in Vietnam is condoned by authorities: official", in Thanh niên news, 2015-04-11 (http://www.thanhniennews.com/society/deforestation-in-vietnam-is-condoned-by-).
[21] The vietnamese expression for the precious ancestral heritage is "rừng vàng biển bạc" = forest of gold and sea of silver. The forests has almost disappeared; as for the sea, it is half dead since the Formosa catastrophe.
[22] Officially however, China is only the second investor in Vietnam. Cf. "Le courrier du Vietnam", 2017-03-16 (http://lecourrier.vn/flux-dinvestissement-direct-chinois-au-vietnam/393651).
[23] Cf. Jean-Claude Pomonti, "Le Vietnam, la Chine et la bauxite", in le Monde Diplomatique, 2009-07-03 (http://blog.mondediplo.net/2009-07-03-Le-Vietnam-la-Chine-et-la-bauxite).
[24] The protests against these bauxite factories were the topic of a PhD thesis: Jason Morris, "The vietnamese bauxite mining controversy: the emergency of a new oppositional politics", University of California, Berkeley, 2013 (http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/etd/ucb/text/Morris_berkeley_0028E_14018.pdf).
[25] Already the pollution caused by these factories affects the health of the neighborhood inhabitants. Cf. the article by Tuệ Lâm, "Vỡ đường ống nhà máy bauxite…" republished by the site of Viet An group: http://www.vietan-enviro.com/vo-duong-ong-nha-may-bauxite-nguy-co-tham-hoa-moi-truong-giong-formosa-o-tay-nguyen/.
[26] Cf. "After many years Vietnam authority, investor, still struggle to justify bauxite plants", in Thanh niên news, 2015-04-07 (http://www.thanhniennews.com/business/after-many-years-vietnam-authority-investor-still-struggle-to-justify-bauxite-plants-40660.html).
[27] Cf. Brian Hioe, "Continued protests in Vietnam against Formosa steel", 2016-10-14, in New Bloom, 0ctobre 2016 (http://newbloommag.net/2016/10/14/formosa-steel-vientam-october/) .
[28] Cf. Prashanth Parameswaran, "Vietnam may crack down on dam investors", in The Diplomat, 2015-01-03 (http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/vietnam-may-crack-down-on-dam-investors/). The number of 7000 dams given by the author, that must also includes small dams by individuals, non officially registered, is far beyond what one obtains by adding the projects of hydroelectric units recognized by the national electricity company EVN: 888 units in 2016, 1586 in 2030 – Cf. Phạm Thu Hương, "Hố Hô và nghịch lý thủy điện nhỏ ở Viêt Nam", in CVD, 2016-11-03 (https://cvdvn.net/2016/11/03/ho-ho-va-nghich-ly-thuy-dien-nho-o-viet-nam/).
[29] Cf. "Revival plan for massive steel plant tests Vietnam after Formosa disaster" in VNExpress, 2016-09-14 (http://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/revival-plan-for-massive-steel-plant-tests-vietnam-after-formosa).
[30] Cf. video clip on the pollution of the Hậu river, that will completely die after the paper factory starts production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRqrGDnWkc8 .
[31] On the wilful poisoning of Vietnam by thermal power plants, see the article by Lê Anh Hùng, "Trung tâm nhiệt điện Vĩnh Tân và hiểm họa mất nước", published on the Facebook page of Chân trời mới media (https://www.facebook.com/chantroimoimedia/posts/901893309854222).
[32] Cf. ZS, "10 aliments en provenance de Chine remplis de plastique et cancérigènes", in Alnas, 2015-11-02 (http://www.alnas.fr/actualite/alimentation-sante/article/sante-10-aliments-en-provenance-de); Alain Sousa, "Aliments chinois, faut-il en avoir peur ?", 2008-12-05, in Doctissimo nutrition (http://www.alnas.fr/actualite/alimentation-sante/article/sante-10-aliments-en-provenance-de).
[33] Cf. article in Saigoneer of 2016-04-07: "Vietnam could have most cancer cases worldwide by 2020…" (http://saigoneer.com/saigon-health/6714-vietnam-could-have-most-cancer-cases-worldw).
[34] Cf. a video clip by Jenny Trân: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk7W2hihZg8 .
[35] The official numbers are quite minimized. According to Vũ Quang Việt, a former head of statistics at UN, the actual public debt of Vietnam is as high as 431 billion USD, a number that includes both debt due by the State and by State-held companies (324 billion USD), which amounts to 210% of GNP; however, the State bank itself admits that the country's foreign currency reserves only amount to 40 billion USD, and every year the national budget has a deficit of 5 to 6% of GNP. Cf. article by Lê Dung "STBN, Không phải 62% GDP mà nợ công VN đang là 210% GDP", in Việt Nam thời báo, 2017-02-20 (http://www.ijavn.org/2017/02/vntb-khong-phai-62-gdp-ma-no-cong-viet.html).
[36] Cf. article by Bích Diệp, "World Bank sẽ chấm dứt…", in Dân trí, 2016-03-22 (http://dantri.com.vn/kinh-doanh/world-bank-se-cham-dut-oda-uu-dai-voi-viet-nam-vao-nam-2017-20160322141524964.htm).
[37] For instance as of 2017-03-19, the 3700 employees of the irrigation service of Hanoi still haven't been paid since November 2016 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xULH0b5ZfPg).
[38] These numbers are likely considering the every time increasing sums of millions of USD each seized among mid-level corrupt officials that the authorities decide to prosecute, and most importantly they are in agreement with the revelations by Poliburos.net in 2000 and by the officer of a swiss bank in 2005 about the astronomical amounts deposited in foreign banks. (https://hon-viet.co.uk/NT_VietNamCoKhoang700DangVienCoTaiSanTu100Den300TrieuDoLa.htm). This evasion of money stolen from the people explains the drying up of the State's currency reserves and the exhaustion of its resources.
[39] The call for a general demonstration was launched by Fr. Nguyễn Văn Lý, spokesman of a "Gathering of Citizens of the Nation" (Tập hợp quốc dân Việt) the other members of which want to remain anonymous. It is a call for a demonstration not momentaneous but continuous, every Sunday and every Holiday, until the number of demonstrators grows large enough to put pressure on the Establishment and change the deal. Up until now, this call is followed mostly in the Center region and the South, whereas the North isn't very active.
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