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The billboard sat in a leafy park east of the old presidential palace in the center of Ho Chi Minh City, near several other posters that, among other things, celebrated the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Army of Vietnam. This one had a white dove flying across a blue background with a long red ribbon in its beak. To the dove’s left was a red flag with the hammer and sickle, the symbol of the Communist Party. To its right was the national flag of Vietnam — a red banner with a yellow star.
The slogan, in Vietnamese, said, “Stay strong. Keep safe the rights of the oceans and islands of Vietnam.”
I noticed this particular piece of political propaganda — which used “bien dao,” the Vietnamese term for “oceans and islands” — on a trip to Vietnam in December and assumed the poster referred to the long-running and turbulent territorial disputes between Vietnam and China in what the Vietnamese call the East Sea, known to Westerners as the South China Sea.
Last May, those disputes reached new heights of tension when a Chinese state-owned oil company moved an oil rig into disputed waters off the Paracel Islands that were also part of the exclusive economic zone, or E.E.Z., off the main coast of Vietnam. The move by China led to violent protests in Vietnam and condemnation by the Vietnamese government. China moved the oil rig elsewhere in July, saying it had completed its exploratory mission off the Paracels.
The slogan, in Vietnamese, said, “Stay strong. Keep safe the rights of the oceans and islands of Vietnam.”
I noticed this particular piece of political propaganda — which used “bien dao,” the Vietnamese term for “oceans and islands” — on a trip to Vietnam in December and assumed the poster referred to the long-running and turbulent territorial disputes between Vietnam and China in what the Vietnamese call the East Sea, known to Westerners as the South China Sea.
Last May, those disputes reached new heights of tension when a Chinese state-owned oil company moved an oil rig into disputed waters off the Paracel Islands that were also part of the exclusive economic zone, or E.E.Z., off the main coast of Vietnam. The move by China led to violent protests in Vietnam and condemnation by the Vietnamese government. China moved the oil rig elsewhere in July, saying it had completed its exploratory mission off the Paracels.
