Later that day, independent blogs and news sources recognized an oppurtunity and called for expanded protests. These disaffected liberals wasted no time framing the current crisis in similar terms. Indeed, human rights activists have long paired demands for intellectual freedom with conspiratorial propaganda portraying the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) as traitors who have “sold out the nation” ( bán nước) to the Chinese. This was in no small part because of its relatable, humorous prose and trenchant criticism of the party’s corruption and supposed collaboration with Chinese expansionist plots. A former police officer and son of the late ambassador to the Soviet Union, Nguyễn Hữu Vinh, wrote a blog that was among the most popular in the country. State acquiescence was immediately preceded by the May5th arrest of the country’s most famous dissident blogger Nguyễn Hữu Vinh (Anh Ba Sàm). However, perceived parallels with other party-mobilized nationalist spectacles break down under scrutiny. Perhaps in an effort to provide an ostentatious display of national unity against perceived foreign aggression, uncommon public protests were allowed to take place in the largest cities across the country. In Vietnam, widespread popular anger met with rare, but short-lived, acquiescence on the part of the party-state.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the violation of its sovereign exclusive economic zone. From Ma圓rd to the 5th, twenty-nine Vietnamese Coast Guard ships were sent to intercept and disrupt the rig, but were blocked by an air-supported eighty-ship Chinese escort, resulting in six injuries and significant damage to Vietnamese vessels. On May 2nd 2014, National China Offshore Oil Corporation dispatched the Hai Yang Shi You 981 oil platform to disputed waters off the southern edge of the Paracel Island chain, 120 nautical miles east of Vietnam.

Bên Thắng Cuộc - Quyền Bính by Huy Đức