About The Anti-China Protests in Vietnam

Hey Laowinners!  A fellow Patron requested me to write about this topic, and I felt like it was right up my alley.  

See article first - http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2150653/anti-china-protests-vietnam-set-aggravate-tensions  

The current protests in Vietnam against the Chinese are about the special economic zones being set up. The Vietnamese think that this situation only benefits the Chinese. The protests are getting quite rowdy, but what if I told you that this is nothing new?  Many believe communist Vietnam to be right in line with the likes of communist China. They both come from the same soviet inspired roots, after all.   

But believe it or not, China actually fought the soviet backed Vietnamese in the late 70s, and actually lost the war. It is not told this way in China, however, as the government claimed that they had accomplished their mission, and opened the gate to Hanoi. Of course, on the Vietnamese side, the victory is overblown as well, with locals saying that the handed China's ass to them with little to no casualties on the 'nam side.  These disputes were carried out for years, and many of them were not reported. That leads me to a very funny story that I nearly forgot about. I will be brief, as I would love to make a video about this at some point.  

My buddies and I, Prozzie and Beard, woke up from a late night of riding, followed by an even later night at the bar, and for some reason, despite our hangover, decided to take a road trip. We got in my car, and just started driving towards Beard's home city of Zhaoqing, about 3 hours west of Huizhou.   For some reason, we passed his city, and just decided to keep driving. It was chaff burning season, so we couldn't see much of Guandong, and then Guangxi province out of the window. We drove and drove, and we didn't stop until we realized that the signs had gone from Chinese, to Chinese and Vietnamese. After checking the map, we realized we were only 10 km. from the border of Vietnam.   

Vietnam it was then!  Unfortunately, our hearts nearly stopped when we saw a massive military outpost, with a full checkpoint and armed soldiers.  They were just as surprised to see us. They told us that this was a very sensitive region, and that we should turn back, but it was very nice to meet foreigners for the first time. For some reason, I decided to tell them that we just had heard that the border town (the one we saw on the map) was pretty fun, and we would only go for a quick visit and come back. They laughed, got their boss, who I proceeded to wish a happy new year to, and he let us through, but told us we could only stay a few days. 

So here we were, driving through a military checkpoint with armored vehicles, soldiers, automatic weapons, and surveillance cameras pointing in every possible direction, and headed towards a tiny town on a creek cut border with Vietnam.

Later on we found out why there was a checkpoint... and it was pretty damn shocking.  Continued Tomorrow.