MANILA – Marking the 35th anniversary of the short but bloody China-Vietnam border war, Vietnamese living in the Philippines linked arms Monday with Filipino activists in reminding Beijing to stop using force to assert its will on its neighbors in pushing its territorial claims.
In a mass action outside the Chinese consulate in Makati City, they unfurled streamers and tarpaulins with two themes. The first, remembering the Vietnamese who died defending their motherland when China, angered by Vietnam’s ouster of the Beijing-backed regime of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, invaded several northern provinces of Vietnam. The war ended with China withdrawing its troops but both camps claiming victory.
The second theme of Monday’s Fil-Vietnamese mass action in the Philippines was a reminder to Beijing to stop bully tactics to assert its claims in the South China Sea.