Anti-Vietnamese sentiment

Anti-Vietnamese sentiment involves hostility or hatred that is directed towards Vietnamese people, or the state of Vietnam.

Cambodia

Anti-Vietnamese sentiment dates back in Cambodia since the Khmer Empire.

When Lon Nol assumed power in 1970, the Khmer Republic government was very Anti-Vietnamese and launched a propaganda campaign to stereotype and portray the ethnic Vietnamese as agents of the Vietcong. About 30,000 Vietnamese were arrested and killed in prison, while an additional 200,000 were repatriated to Vietnam. Five years later in 1975, some 200,000 to 250,000 Vietnamese remained in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge seized power. About three quarters of them were expelled to Vietnam, and the remaining 20,000 who remained are those who are of mixed-Vietnamese and Khmer descent. Those who remained were either killed or massacred by the regime. By the time Vietnamese troops entered Cambodia in 1979, virtually all of Cambodia's Vietnamese population were either displaced or killed.

In modern times, Anti-Vietnamese sentiment started flaring in Cambodia in 2014 resulted in an ethnic Vietnamese man named Tran Van Chien getting beaten to death by a crowd of Cambodians resulting in fear among Vietnamese companies and investors in Cambodia. Vietnamese businesses were ransacked and pillaged by Cambodians. A mob of Cambodians killed another Vietnamese man named Nguyen Van Chyen. Vietnamese workers were forced to flee as the businesses were looted. Cambodians have killed ethnic Vietnamese before during riots in the 1990s. Tran's wife said that Tran Van Chien was murdered "like an animal" by the mob. Both the Lon Nol (anti-communist) and Khmer Rouge (communist) governments despised the Vietnamese. A Vietnamese man named Nguyen Yaing Ngoc was killed by a Cambodian mob.

The Cambodian word "Yuon" (yuôn) យួន /yuən/ is an ethnic slur for Vietnamese, derived from the Indian word for Greek, "Yavana". It can also be spelled as "Youn".

China

During Ancient China, the Chinese have regarded the ethnic Vietnamese Kinh as uncivilized barbarians, and called them Nanman, meaning southern barbarian in Chinese. Recent tensions flared up between China and Vietnam due to the disputes in the South China Sea have caused negative views or hatred of the Vietnamese among the Chinese population. During 2013, one incident where a Chinese shop owner put up the sign saying 'No Dogs, But Also No Japanese, Filipinos, Or Vietnamese allowed' occurred. Also another incident during 2015, chinese cartoonists depicted vietnamese as non-human monkeys in a children's cartoon.

United States

Tension and hatred between Vietnamese and white fishermen rose up in Galveston Bay, Texas, and was intensified by the Ku Klux Klan entering the struggle against the Vietnamese, which resulted in attacks on Vietnamese boats.

Poisonous American mushrooms which looked like edible Vietnamese mushrooms have deceived Vietnamese immigrants in America and resulted in their deaths. Other Vietnamese were forced to go to the hospital. An American joke about mushroom poisoning went - "To get rid of the Vietnamese, I think, Americans could have just imported all of the amanites instead of Agent Orange."

Russia

Amid hostility towards migrant workers, around 600 Vietnamese were rounded up in Moscow and placed in squalid conditions in tents while waiting to be deported from Russia in August 2013.

On January 9, 2009, a crowd of people in Moscow stabbed a 21-year-old Vietnamese student named Tang Quoc Binh. The wounds were fatal, resulting in his death on January 10.

On October 2004, Russian skinheads stabbed and beat a Vietnamese student named Vu Anh Tuan, killing him. Tuan was 20 years old when he was killed in St. Petersburg. In October 2006 the 17 skinheads who were on trial for his murder were acquitted by a court.

In Moscow on Festivalnaya Street in 2008, a group of young men stabbed a Vietnamese woman who was 35 years old and she died of her wounds.

In 2005, in Moscow three Russians stabbed a 45-year-old Vietnamese man named Quan to death

A protest was held by 100 Vietnamese against the murder of Vu Anh Tuan and a protester said "We came to study in this country, which we thought was a friend of Vietnam. We do not have drunken fights, we do not steal, we do not sell drugs and we have the right to protection from bandits".

In Moscow on December 25, 2004, a crowd of people used clubs and knives to attack 2 Vietnamese students at the Moscow Energy Institute, Nguyen Tuan Anh and Nguyen Hoang Anh and they suffered severe injuries and were hospitalized.

Derogatory terms

• Gook – A derogatory slur for Vietnamese and Asians. It was originally used by the US military during war time, especially during the Vietnam War.
• Annamite or mites (French, English)
• Yuon (Cambodian)
• uzkoglázy (узкоглазый) – anti-Asian Russian slur.

See also

• Racism in Vietnam