BEIJING, China – (UPDATED) China has evacuated more than 3,000 of its nationals from Vietnam following a wave of deadly anti-Chinese violence, state media said Sunday, May 18, as Vietnamese authorities imposed heavy security to thwart any further unrest.
Xinhua news agency said the evacuees included 16 Chinese who were “critically injured” last week in violence triggered by Beijing’s deployment of an oil rig in contested South China Sea waters.
The chaos marked the worst anti-China unrest in Vietnam in decades.
Those victims left on a chartered medical flight, and China also was dispatching five ships to Vietnam to pluck more nationals to safety after vocal Vietnamese NGOs issued a call for fresh, but peaceful, protests around the country on Sunday against China’s “aggression.”
That call appeared to have fizzled, at least in Hanoi, where authorities deployed heavy security around the Chinese embassy and other suspected protest sites.