Anti-Vietnamese sentiment

Anti-Vietnamese sentiment, known on the lesser version as Vietnamophobia and Anti-Vietnamism, has a strong and deep historical root for more than thousand years since the establishment of Đại Việt. There are several features behind this anti-Vietnamese hatred below:

• Organized persecution of the Vietnamese as a nation or as an ethnic group, often based on the belief that Vietnamese interests are a threat to one's own national aspirations;
• Racist anti-Vietnamese sentiment, a variety of xenophobia;
• Cultural anti-Vietnamese sentiment: a prejudice against the Vietnamese and Vietnamese-speaking persons – their customs, language and education; and
• Stereotypes about Vietnam and Vietnamese people in the media and popular culture. Examples include:
  • Impersonations or playing up the "Vietnamese accent"
  • Stereotyping Vietnamese as "Nguyen"
  • Being seen as poor boat people, refugees, or illegal migrants doing illegal activity abroad.

Anti-Vietnamese acts had been long organized by various countries and ethnicities opposing the existence of Vietnam as a country and the fear over Vietnamese people's takeover, both direct and indirect forms. Chinese dynasties used to extend its level of anti-Vietnamese persecutions from imprisoning, hanging to even massacres in large scales, notably under the Ming dynasty which the Chinese organized massacring methods from burning to beheading with no mercy;[1] or the famine of 1945 in which the Empire of Japan was believed to attempt on a brutal extermination of possible Vietnamese resistance against Japanese rule.[2] Smaller states like Cambodia also organized massacres on Vietnamese, in which notably under Lon Nol and Khmer Rouge, justifying that Vietnam wanted to takeover Cambodia and making it a province.[3][4] Historic actions inspired by anti-Vietnamism ranged from felonious acts motivated by hatred, to the physical extermination of the Vietnamese nation, the goal of which was to eradicate the Vietnamese state.

The Siamese, and later, the Thais, following the Vietnamese expansions and occupation in the 15th century, became extremely frightened and hostile towards Vietnam.[5] The Siamese had waged a number of wars against Vietnam since the 18th century, but they had not won another war after the successful first ransack in 1712. This facilitated Vietnamophobia among the Siamese. Similar to the Cambodians, Thais also referred to the Vietnamese as "Youn", a derogatory term similar in meaning to "barbarian", which is a corruption of "Yona", a Pali and Sanskrit term for "Greek"(Due to the invasion and subsequent establishment of the "foreign" Indo-Greek Kingdom).

Despite that, the real meanings of yuon, youn and yona/yavana had been altered or misunderstood by early French and colonial era orientalists. Michael Vickery wrote: "There was once a consensus among historians of Southeast Asia that yuon in the sense of Vietnamese derived from Sanskrit yavana, defined in the most authoritative Sanskrit-English dictionary (Monier Monier-Williams, p 848), as "Ionian, Greek [barbarians?], later also Mohammedan, European, and any foreigner or barbarian". This, remember, was usage in India from ancient times, and in itself has no significance for yavana or yuon in Southeast Asia." He continues, "As for the Buddhist Institute Dictionary, popularly called the dictionary of the Venerable Chuon Nath, it defines yuon simply as inhabitants of Vietnam, says nothing about yavana, but includes yona, or yonaka, in the classical Indian sense, as a name for "Western Laos", which is what the French called northern Thailand, and also notes that the original yonaka country was Greece. No connection is made in that context between yonaka and yuon as a name for Vietnamese, nor is "barbarian" given as the meaning of any of these terms. This dictionary also correctly distinguishes the kamboja of ancient India from kambuja." In conclusion, Vickery argues that the term yuon had been intendedly misinterpreted by some colonial era orientalists, and some later agencies willfully weaponized that misinterpretation, such as the Khmer Rouge, to legalize xenophobia and ethnic hatred.[6][7] However, Thai "Yuon" actually derived from Jiāozhǐ (交趾, Old Chinese: kraw), an ancient Chinese toponym for Northern Vietnam, which ultimately would have emerged from the Austroasiatic *k(ə)ra:w "human being". In Lao, the Vietnamese are referred by colloquial name of keo, derived from Kæw.[8][9]

With the subsequent French military occupation of Vietnam as a consequence of Vietnam's persecution of the Catholic population by the Nguyễn dynasty after Gia Long, French colonial rulers considered the Vietnamese an inferior race, calling them "Annamites", even towards Vietnamese elites. Originally referring to northern Vietnamese, it became a symbol of widespread discrimination and anti-Vietnamism.[10] Mass uprisings against French colonial overlords increased, and the French tightened their grip on the Vietnamese with more brutal and infamous punishments, including deportations to New Caledonia.[11] French colonial rule would be soon disrupted by the Japanese, but the attitude remained the same, even after World War II, until the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ.

Severely malnourished children in Hải Hậu Village, Nam Định Province, August 1945. Extremely impoverished villagers suffered the most from the famine, with various sources estimating the number of people starving to death at approximately one to two million.

The Japanese occupation of Vietnam in 1940 placed it under the control of two empires.[12] Japanese and French mismanagement caused the famine of 1945, which Japanese soldiers refused to give rice to the Vietnamese peasantry to help their war effort, that killed between 1 and 2 million Vietnamese, an act that contributed to the distrust of Japanese administration in Vietnamese.[13]

Following the French Indochina War was the Vietnam War and American involvement therein. Although the American intervention on behalf of their South Vietnamese ally received a mixed reception. American soldiers committed massacres during the war, with the most infamous being the Mỹ Lai Massacre, and also controversially used Agent Orange. Unlike China, France, Japan, Thailand, Laos or Cambodia, however, anti-Vietnamese sentiment in the U.S. and among American troops was scarce, being limited to some factions of the military and government; some American groups even sympathized with Vietnamese people.[14]

The end of the Vietnam War, as an unwanted consequence, made Vietnamophobia grow rapidly among both Asian communists and non-communists alike, such as in China, Thailand, Singapore, North Korea, Malaysia and Cambodia, as the fear of a Vietnamese Intermarium, based on the idea of Poland's Józef Piłsudski, that sought to turn Southeast Asia into a communist/anti-Chinese base increased. The previous Lon Nol government and even the Khmer Rouge encouraged anti-Vietnamese massacres, blaming them for trying to colonize Cambodia, such as the Ba Chúc massacre.[15] In Thailand, the possibility of Vietnamese invasions prompted hostility against anything Vietnamese in Thailand, leading to wide range support for the Khmer Rouge.[16] Singapore and Malaysia also called for sanctions against Vietnam with the accusation of Vietnamese imperialism in Cambodia.[17] North Korea, meanwhile, accused Vietnam for the same reason and supported the anti-Vietnamese movement, hosting Norodom Sihanouk and broadcast anti-Vietnamese propaganda in North Korea.[18] Pirates also attacked and raided Vietnamese boat people fleeing from Vietnam, although whether this was inspired by anti-Vietnamese sentiment is not known to be true.[19]

This trend of anti-Vietnamese sentiment only started to slow down after Đổi mới, when Vietnam started economic liberalization and reforms, opening Vietnam to the world which gave them a rising profile of political and economic successes with the normalization of the U.S. and China's relations;[20] however due to historical traumas, attitude towards Vietnam and Vietnamese remain questionable in a number of countries due to its previous past, particularly in Cambodia, Laos and China and amongst older generations.

Although in general, the view of Vietnam and the Vietnamese among the majority in the world is positive since the Vietnamese economic reforms post-1986; the media regarding the Vietnam War can be a negative for Vietnam's image. The most notable is the use of the term Việt Cộng, which has different interpretations depending on the context. The term may be used to invoke memories of North Vietnamese war crimes against other Vietnamese people.[21] It may be used to insult Vietnamese people in Vietnam, mostly from former South Vietnamese refugees, and Vietnamese in Western Europe and the U.S.[22] On the other hand, the use of term "Việt Cộng" can also provoke anger among Vietnamese people as it can evoke memories of American war crimes during the war.[23] Additionally, decades of Vietnam War movies or fictional narratives of the events of the Vietnam War often dehumanise the Vietnamese and centre the story around the Americans or around Western perspectives.[24]

• Annamite or mites (French) – Originally generalised as a colonialist synonym for all Vietnamese.[63][64][65]
• Gook – A derogatory slur for Vietnamese and East Asians. It was originally used by the United States Armed Forces during wartime, especially during the Vietnam War.[66][67][68]
• Gaew แกว – A Thai and Lao slang word for people who is of Vietnamese descent in Thailand.[69]
• Uzkoglázy (узкоглазый) – East Asian Russian slur meaning "small eyes" or in Russian referring to the prevalence of epicanthic folds in Asian ethnic groups.[70]
• Yuon (យួន) - Khmer slang for "thief" is commonly used in Cambodia to refer to Vietnamese people. It's used in local media and by politicians
• Niakoué - French derogatory term for Vietnamese people, derived from the Vietnamese word "nhà quê", itself a derogatory term for people of rural origin.
• 猴 Hóu - derogatory slur from Chinese towards Vietnamese people meaning "monkey", due to historical sentiments regarding Vietnamese people as barbaric, uncivilized and animal-like. (See Baiyue).

• Racism
• Racism in Vietnam