Features | Society | Southeast Asia

Forgotten Faces in the Contested South China Sea

Vietnamese fishers, especially those who have faced physical violence from Chinese forces, suffer in silence. 

Vietnamese fishers in 2010-2011 in Lý Sơn island.

In early 2010, a few months after he received Vietnamese honorary citizenship, André Menras, a French national, decided to set foot on Lý Sơn Island in Quảng Ngãi province – a plan he had long nurtured. His visit was motivated by more than admiration for the island, known for the maritime brigade during the 17th century under the Nguyễn dynasty that protected the stormy territorial waters. He was especially determined to visit fishers in the disputed waters of the Paracel Islands (known in Vietnamese as Hoàng Sa, which literally means yellow sands), where the Vietnamese government asserts indisputable sovereignty – but China asserts operational control. 

In particular, Menras wanted to talk with the families of Vietnamese fishers who had been attacked by Chinese vessels. Menras wished to share daily life with the fishing community, understand the material and psychological impact of the attacks on these secluded families, and, importantly, meet local authorities to obtain a list of affected families and fact-check their situations. He was gathering evidence to make a documentary to draw global attention to the fact that tens of thousands of fishers from central Vietnam are being subjected to what Menras called the “daily terrorism of Beijing’s navy” in the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos.

“As I am now a citizen of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the fishermen became my compatriots, and their problem became mine, directly or politically,” Menras wrote in his 2024 book “Vietnam, le Meilleur et le Pire” (Vietnam, the Best and the Worst).

That first trip – and many other self-funded trips over the past decade – was fraught with challenges: interrogation by the border army, being covertly or overtly followed by plainclothes police, the forced silence of numerous fishers and family members he met, empty promises from local officials who had pledged support, and the emotional weight of hearing about the misery of widows, orphans, and fishers – many of whom had been impoverished, injured, intimidated, and ignored.

Menras, who insisted on using the term “East Sea” in lieu of the “South China Sea,” since the latter was a colonial name left behind by the French, had to resort to a variety of secretive approaches, including joining fishers on their boats to Hoàng Sa. 

“I am also a Việt Cộng nằm vùng,” he quipped, referring to an undercover agent of the Viet Cong during the war against the United States. 

At 82, Menras is still working to highlight these fishers’ vulnerabilities: not only from the Chinese aggressors but also the lack of protection from their own government. Despite Vietnam’s statements criticizing China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, it has been committed to not letting the disputes impact the overall positive development of China-Vietnam relations. 

Vietnam’s government has never walked the talk on protecting these fishers, who face capture, disappearances, attacks, deaths, and property seizures in their traditional domains in the South China Sea. In fact, the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam fears that the public showing solidarity with these fishers might even invite trouble. 

Same Deeds, Asymmetric Power

Out of Vietnam’s four major fishing zones – the Gulf of Tonkin, Central Vietnam, and the Southeast and Southwest regions – only the Gulf of Tonkin has been clearly delimited and witnessed Sino-Vietnamese fishery cooperation; the other three areas remain implicated in territorial disputes.

China claims about 90 percent of the resource-rich South China Sea, asserting “historical rights” that exceed the maritime entitlements outlined in international law. Vietnam and the Philippines are the two countries most affected by Chinese assertiveness.

Since China launched its unilateral fishing ban in the South China Sea in 1999,  Vietnam has strongly condemned this unilateral action, considering it a violation of its sovereignty. At the same time, the Vietnamese government has provided financial and technical support to encourage and assist fishers to continue with their fishing in the South China Sea. China accuses Vietnam of providing loans and subsidies to its fishermen and prodding them to use illegal fishing.

Both countries instrumentalize their fisher folks in the name of exercising rights over their territory and maritime areas. Fishers’ lives and labors testify to the claim to territorial sovereignty.  In Vietnam, a slogan has been circulating by the CPV and the government: “Each fisherman is a soldier, each boat a milestone protecting the islands.” ‘

Likewise, Chinese fishermen receive financial support and protection in waters where historically they had no access, or only limited access. To defend China’s interests in the South China Sea, Chinese authorities have consistently been enlisting fishermen into militia organizations, which include retired naval officers. 

Similarly, Vietnam Fisheries Resources Surveillance, which consists of both fully civilian and paramilitary actors, was established in January 2013.

In early April 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a visit to Tanmen, a fishing village in the city of Qionghai in Hainan, on the heels of a 16-day drill and patrol mission in the South China Sea by the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s South Sea Fleet. A few days later, Vietnam’s then-President Trương Tấn Sang visited the fishers of Lý Sơn island.

China seized the Paracel Islands by force on January 19, 1974, and has occupied them ever since. Vietnam has never publicly recognized the archipelago as illegally occupied; however, it does continue to claim sovereignty over the islands. In 1982, Hoàng Sa District was established under Quảng Nam – Đà Nẵng Province. Due to the elimination of the district-level in 2025 and the merger of Đà Nẵng and Quảng Nam in 2025, the district became Hoàng Sa Special Administrative Zone. Yet, despite the different appellations, one fact remains unchanged: this unit has only a leader, without anything to govern.

Vietnam has been slowly but continuously advancing infrastructure construction on the features in the Spratly Islands that it occupies (“illegally,” in China’s view). Following the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in 2021, Hanoi has steadily expanded cooperation with countries like the United States, Russia, India, and Japan on oil and gas development, using outside partners to advance resource exploitation in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The pace and scale of Vietnam’s island and reef reclamation since 2021 have increased markedly; cumulative reclaimed land now exceeds 10 square kilometers.

And yet the Vietnamese people most likely to make use of the maritime territories – the fishers – are all but ignored. 

No Substantive Support 

Rival claims in the South China Sea are more than a diplomatic deadlock; they are a human crisis. Vietnamese fishers disproportionately shoulder the burden of the dispute. Support for these communities, which are disadvantaged on several fronts, is mostly informal, scattered at home and abroad. 

Unlike in the Philippines, where fishermen attacked by Chinese vessels can enlist support from local media and civil society actors to a certain extent, this support is virtually nonexistent in single-party Vietnam.

These men and their families suffer twice: first from the violence itself, and again from the silence of their own government and a public denied access to their stories. They have few options: continue fishing despite the danger, quit, or leave the country in search of better opportunities.

As Elena Bernini’s research indicated, in several cases, Vietnamese fishers have even been kidnapped by Chinese actors, who demanded ransoms even amounting to $10,000. Vietnamese families, mostly informal workers,  were all alone when negotiating with the Chinese kidnappers. Some opted to pay – but without giving up fishing or giving in to the aggressors.

While the Vietnamese government authorities provide support for fishermen, the financial support is slow and sporadic, and also subject to red tape and conditions. 

Nguyễn Long, from Bình Thuận province, had made a fishing trip to both the Spratly and Paracel Islands in 2011 when his boat was destroyed by Chinese vessels. He called the Vietnamese navy for help, but he said they did not respond. His report to the local authorities in La Gi town was ignored.

“Nobody lifted a finger to help,” said Lụa, Long’s wife, in an interview, saying that although fishermen like her husband went far both to make a living and to protect the waters. “We could not complain further, otherwise we might be imprisoned.” 

Lụa said in her village, which is highly dependent on the sea for a living, she has not heard of anyone who borrowed money from the state. 

“Although loans are available, they often come with high interest rates and require the land-use certificate as collateral,” said Lụa. “If a Chinese vessel sinks or damages it [the vessel bought with such a loan], we could face a very large debt.”

Fearing another Chinese attack that might destroy his fishing boat – which would cost him at least $20,000 – Lụa said, her husband Long stopped venturing far from shore, though local authorities urged him to do so. In 2016, he accidentally drifted into Indonesia’s jurisdiction and was arrested. 

Facing discrimination, land confiscation by local authorities, and growing desperation, Lụa and their small children, together with two other families, attempted to migrate to Australia by sea in 2015, but they were deported back to Vietnam. Although the Vietnamese government initially promised the Australian authorities that they would not be prosecuted, all of them were sentenced to prison. 

They made a second attempt two years later; this time Long also joined the trip. But they were stranded in Indonesia. Their story was recounted in the 2023 book “Vietnam’s Modern-Day Boat People: Bridging Borders for Freedom” by Shira Sebban, an Australian refugee advocate who mobilized transnational support for them from the time they were imprisoned until they obtained UNHCR refugee status and reached Canada in 2022. Long died a year later of cancer. 

Today, Lụa said her siblings and cousins back home choose not to fish further for fear of the Chinese attacks in the high seas. “They can now only fish near the shore, but there is not much to catch,” Lụa explained. 

Long was luckier than many fishermen who were forcibly disappeared by the Chinese vessels in the sea. Their wives had to embark on a tortuous journey in search of justice, only to be met with either silence or suppression. 

André Menras poses for a photo with Vietnamese fishers during a fishing expedition near Hoàng Sa in 2010-2011. Photo courtesy of André Menras.

Fearing the “Elephant” in the Sea

Journalists like Menras report being prevented from interacting with the fishers. When Menras challenged official leaders on why he was followed, they said it was to protect him, an assertion he disparaged. “To protect myself from the well-meaning people who speak to me? For whom is their speech a danger? … In any case, I experience this protection as a disguised imprisonment and will never be able to accommodate myself to it.”

In addition, even though state-affiliated journalists interviewed Menras about his trip, they omitted his statements on China in the published version of their articles. In domestic media, the terms “strange vessels” (tàu lạ) or “foreign vessels” (tàu nước ngoài) have become a common euphemistic way of referring to China’s presence in the South China Sea in the last few years.

In 2020, at an ASEAN event, then-Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyễn Quốc Dũng stressed the need to promote “dialogue and cooperation between ASEAN and China in ensuring just and humane treatment of fishermen,” especially those who are in danger, as a priority area of cooperation between the two sides. Yet Vietnam has hardly walked its talk on protecting the fishermen in times of violence.

Vietnam was silent on the Coast Guard Law of the People’s Republic of China, which came into effect on February 1, 2021. The law authorizes the China Coast Guard (CCG) to take “necessary measures,” including the use of weapons, to stop foreign vessels from violating Chinese law within maritime jurisdictions it claims, including areas that overlap with those of Vietnam.

Already, several Vietnamese fishers have been killed by Chinese forces. In 2015, Trương Đình Bảy, a fisherman from Quảng Ngãi province, was shot dead in the Spratly Islands during an encounter with a Chinese vessel. His wife’s calls for an investigation into his death faded into oblivion. 

Calls made by several deputies in 2014 and 2015 for the National Assembly to issue a resolution on the South China Sea in the wake of China’s aggression fell on deaf ears. 

In her ethnographic research, Elena Bernini, who conducted a field study in Lý Sơn, recounted the story of a Vietnamese fisherman who had been shot dead by the Chinese military on the open sea in 2016. His family members were asked to bury him in secret at a location far from the fisherman’s home, at night and under the watch of Vietnam’s Coast Guard, so as not to galvanize anti-Chinese sentiment or potentially trigger public protests among the grieving fishermen’s relatives. 

The first notable protests against China’s actions in the South China Sea erupted in late 2007 and early 2008, followed by anti-China demonstrations in 2011 and 2014 addressing the same issue. At times, Vietnamese activists have been detained over their participation in protests against China’s aggression against Vietnam in the South China Sea. Their family members were warned not to talk with independent media, as the arrests were said to pertain to national security. 

This year, the commemorations of the Paracel Islands battle on January 19, 1974, and the Johnson South Reef skirmish within the Spratly Islands (Trường Sa in Vietnamese) on March 14, 1988, were overshadowed by the major “red” events: the Party Congress and the elections, respectively. The domestic media was silent on these anniversaries, which is not surprising.

Nguyễn Tuấn Khanh, a journalist and songwriter, wrote in his blog:  “A fisherman, if he dies, is drowned twice. Once in the deep sea, and once more in the shallow waters of his own people.”

State-centric Security

Statistics in Vietnam on its fishers’ activities in the South China Sea, as well as data on Vietnamese fishers captured by foreign authorities, remain scarce – or at least undisclosed. In addition, it is challenging to validate stories recounted by fishers. According to Menras’ independent research, from 2002 to 2014, about 2,000 fishers from Central Vietnam have been victims of Chinese aggression around the Paracels archipelago. 

“After 2014, I stopped keeping count of the attacks on the high seas,” he said. “But I know they continue. That is certain.”

Countless incidents of harassment and violent attacks happened between 2017 and 2023, yet these cases received scant coverage from domestic media. When then-U.S. President Joe Biden was about to pay a visit that resulted in the upgrade of U.S.-Vietnam relations, China was flexing its muscles in the South China Sea. Beijing used a high-pressure water cannon against a Vietnamese fishing boat near the Paracel Islands, injuring two fishermen. 

In 2024, a year after Xi’s visit to Vietnam, where 36 cooperation agreements were concluded, an altercation between Vietnamese fishers and Chinese security forces escalated to physical violence, resulting in severe injuries to four Vietnamese fishermen, including broken bones. The boat’s captain lost consciousness during the fight. 

In that case, Vietnam condemned the brutal actions of Chinese law enforcement against the Vietnamese fishermen and their vessel. Lin Jian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded: “China  urges the Vietnamese side to effectively strengthen the education and management of its fishermen, and to prevent them from engaging in illegal activities in waters under Chinese jurisdiction.”

Meanwhile, domestic media still shied away from naming and shaming China directly, again describing the attackers as “tàu lạ” or “ tàu nước ngoài.” 

In an interview with Vnexpress in 2019, Nguyễn Đình Thắng, chairman of Vietnam Fisheries Association, said that whenever an incident occurs in which a Vietnamese fishing boat is rammed, sunk, or sabotaged, the association sends an official letter to the Chinese Embassy and, through the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requests that the authorities in China provide compensation for the sunken fishing boats. Yet, all the requests went unanswered.

The documentary “Hoàng Sa — Vietnam: The Pain of Loss,” Menras’ first film, was completed in 2010 without a professional camera, cinematic guidance, external funding, or even enthusiasm from local leaders. The film and its 2017 sequel, “The Knights of the Yellow Sand,” depict heroic Vietnamese fishermen who make their living at sea while safeguarding the nation’s waters. They are both fishers and defenders. The films also portray the women in fishing communities, who make even greater sacrifices as their husbands, sons, and brothers struggle amid crashing waves and harsh offshore conditions. 

Menras’ new film project about the Spratly Islands, threatened by maritime and aerial incursions from Beijing, is still in progress.

Menras maintains that China should be obliged to pay for the violence and damage caused to the unsuspecting fishers. 

​In April 2014, the Shanghai Maritime Court ordered the confiscation of a Japanese cargo ship to compensate for a war debt dating from 1936: $30 million for two lost ships. The Japanese eventually paid. 

“How many tens of billions of dollars does China owe Vietnam for the forced borrowing of the Paracels for 40 years, for the lost economic income, for the families of Vietnamese servicemen killed during the annexation of the archipelago, for the thousands of fishermen mistreated and forbidden to fish during those many years, for the dozens of fishermen killed, the dozens of trawlers sunk and confiscated, the hundreds of ransoms collected?” wrote Menras. 

“If the damages from this monumental holdup and its consequences were measured only in terms of money, such compensation would boost Vietnam’s economy for years and lift thousands of families still victims of these crimes out of poverty.”

In a 2015 commencement address, renowned historian Bùi Trân Phượng, then-president of Hoa Sen University, said to her students: 

One year earlier, China had brought a giant drilling rig into waters that belong to Vietnam. China has even now deployed military equipment on structures built on the coral reefs… I earnestly hope that you, as Vietnamese citizens, will reflect, form your own personal views about this situation, follow subsequent developments, and take appropriate action. Whatever job or career you choose later, you will always think of your fellow countrymen and the fate of the nation, and sincerely do something for your homeland.

One year earlier, China had brought a giant drilling rig into waters that belong to Vietnam. China has even now deployed military equipment on structures built on the coral reefs… I earnestly hope that you, as Vietnamese citizens, will reflect, form your own personal views about this situation, follow subsequent developments, and take appropriate action. Whatever job or career you choose later, you will always think of your fellow countrymen and the fate of the nation, and sincerely do something for your homeland.

Her words still ring true today.

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In early 2010, a few months after he received Vietnamese honorary citizenship, André Menras, a French national, decided to set foot on Lý Sơn Island in Quảng Ngãi province – a plan he had long nurtured. His visit was motivated by more than admiration for the island, known for the maritime brigade during the 17th century under the Nguyễn dynasty that protected the stormy territorial waters. He was especially determined to visit fishers in the disputed waters of the Paracel Islands (known in Vietnamese as Hoàng Sa, which literally means yellow sands), where the Vietnamese government asserts indisputable sovereignty – but China asserts operational control. 

In particular, Menras wanted to talk with the families of Vietnamese fishers who had been attacked by Chinese vessels. Menras wished to share daily life with the fishing community, understand the material and psychological impact of the attacks on these secluded families, and, importantly, meet local authorities to obtain a list of affected families and fact-check their situations. He was gathering evidence to make a documentary to draw global attention to the fact that tens of thousands of fishers from central Vietnam are being subjected to what Menras called the “daily terrorism of Beijing’s navy” in the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos.

“As I am now a citizen of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the fishermen became my compatriots, and their problem became mine, directly or politically,” Menras wrote in his 2024 book “Vietnam, le Meilleur et le Pire” (Vietnam, the Best and the Worst).

That first trip – and many other self-funded trips over the past decade – was fraught with challenges: interrogation by the border army, being covertly or overtly followed by plainclothes police, the forced silence of numerous fishers and family members he met, empty promises from local officials who had pledged support, and the emotional weight of hearing about the misery of widows, orphans, and fishers – many of whom had been impoverished, injured, intimidated, and ignored.

Menras, who insisted on using the term “East Sea” in lieu of the “South China Sea,” since the latter was a colonial name left behind by the French, had to resort to a variety of secretive approaches, including joining fishers on their boats to Hoàng Sa. 

“I am also a Việt Cộng nằm vùng,” he quipped, referring to an undercover agent of the Viet Cong during the war against the United States. 

At 82, Menras is still working to highlight these fishers’ vulnerabilities: not only from the Chinese aggressors but also the lack of protection from their own government. Despite Vietnam’s statements criticizing China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea, it has been committed to not letting the disputes impact the overall positive development of China-Vietnam relations. 

Vietnam’s government has never walked the talk on protecting these fishers, who face capture, disappearances, attacks, deaths, and property seizures in their traditional domains in the South China Sea. In fact, the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam fears that the public showing solidarity with these fishers might even invite trouble. 

Same Deeds, Asymmetric Power

Out of Vietnam’s four major fishing zones – the Gulf of Tonkin, Central Vietnam, and the Southeast and Southwest regions – only the Gulf of Tonkin has been clearly delimited and witnessed Sino-Vietnamese fishery cooperation; the other three areas remain implicated in territorial disputes.

China claims about 90 percent of the resource-rich South China Sea, asserting “historical rights” that exceed the maritime entitlements outlined in international law. Vietnam and the Philippines are the two countries most affected by Chinese assertiveness.

Since China launched its unilateral fishing ban in the South China Sea in 1999,  Vietnam has strongly condemned this unilateral action, considering it a violation of its sovereignty. At the same time, the Vietnamese government has provided financial and technical support to encourage and assist fishers to continue with their fishing in the South China Sea. China accuses Vietnam of providing loans and subsidies to its fishermen and prodding them to use illegal fishing.

Both countries instrumentalize their fisher folks in the name of exercising rights over their territory and maritime areas. Fishers’ lives and labors testify to the claim to territorial sovereignty.  In Vietnam, a slogan has been circulating by the CPV and the government: “Each fisherman is a soldier, each boat a milestone protecting the islands.” ‘

Likewise, Chinese fishermen receive financial support and protection in waters where historically they had no access, or only limited access. To defend China’s interests in the South China Sea, Chinese authorities have consistently been enlisting fishermen into militia organizations, which include retired naval officers. 

Similarly, Vietnam Fisheries Resources Surveillance, which consists of both fully civilian and paramilitary actors, was established in January 2013.

In early April 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a visit to Tanmen, a fishing village in the city of Qionghai in Hainan, on the heels of a 16-day drill and patrol mission in the South China Sea by the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s South Sea Fleet. A few days later, Vietnam’s then-President Trương Tấn Sang visited the fishers of Lý Sơn island.

China seized the Paracel Islands by force on January 19, 1974, and has occupied them ever since. Vietnam has never publicly recognized the archipelago as illegally occupied; however, it does continue to claim sovereignty over the islands. In 1982, Hoàng Sa District was established under Quảng Nam – Đà Nẵng Province. Due to the elimination of the district-level in 2025 and the merger of Đà Nẵng and Quảng Nam in 2025, the district became Hoàng Sa Special Administrative Zone. Yet, despite the different appellations, one fact remains unchanged: this unit has only a leader, without anything to govern.

Vietnam has been slowly but continuously advancing infrastructure construction on the features in the Spratly Islands that it occupies (“illegally,” in China’s view). Following the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in 2021, Hanoi has steadily expanded cooperation with countries like the United States, Russia, India, and Japan on oil and gas development, using outside partners to advance resource exploitation in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The pace and scale of Vietnam’s island and reef reclamation since 2021 have increased markedly; cumulative reclaimed land now exceeds 10 square kilometers.

And yet the Vietnamese people most likely to make use of the maritime territories – the fishers – are all but ignored. 

No Substantive Support 

Rival claims in the South China Sea are more than a diplomatic deadlock; they are a human crisis. Vietnamese fishers disproportionately shoulder the burden of the dispute. Support for these communities, which are disadvantaged on several fronts, is mostly informal, scattered at home and abroad. 

Unlike in the Philippines, where fishermen attacked by Chinese vessels can enlist support from local media and civil society actors to a certain extent, this support is virtually nonexistent in single-party Vietnam.

These men and their families suffer twice: first from the violence itself, and again from the silence of their own government and a public denied access to their stories. They have few options: continue fishing despite the danger, quit, or leave the country in search of better opportunities.

As Elena Bernini’s research indicated, in several cases, Vietnamese fishers have even been kidnapped by Chinese actors, who demanded ransoms even amounting to $10,000. Vietnamese families, mostly informal workers,  were all alone when negotiating with the Chinese kidnappers. Some opted to pay – but without giving up fishing or giving in to the aggressors.

While the Vietnamese government authorities provide support for fishermen, the financial support is slow and sporadic, and also subject to red tape and conditions. 

Nguyễn Long, from Bình Thuận province, had made a fishing trip to both the Spratly and Paracel Islands in 2011 when his boat was destroyed by Chinese vessels. He called the Vietnamese navy for help, but he said they did not respond. His report to the local authorities in La Gi town was ignored.

“Nobody lifted a finger to help,” said Lụa, Long’s wife, in an interview, saying that although fishermen like her husband went far both to make a living and to protect the waters. “We could not complain further, otherwise we might be imprisoned.” 

Lụa said in her village, which is highly dependent on the sea for a living, she has not heard of anyone who borrowed money from the state. 

“Although loans are available, they often come with high interest rates and require the land-use certificate as collateral,” said Lụa. “If a Chinese vessel sinks or damages it [the vessel bought with such a loan], we could face a very large debt.”

Fearing another Chinese attack that might destroy his fishing boat – which would cost him at least $20,000 – Lụa said, her husband Long stopped venturing far from shore, though local authorities urged him to do so. In 2016, he accidentally drifted into Indonesia’s jurisdiction and was arrested. 

Facing discrimination, land confiscation by local authorities, and growing desperation, Lụa and their small children, together with two other families, attempted to migrate to Australia by sea in 2015, but they were deported back to Vietnam. Although the Vietnamese government initially promised the Australian authorities that they would not be prosecuted, all of them were sentenced to prison. 

They made a second attempt two years later; this time Long also joined the trip. But they were stranded in Indonesia. Their story was recounted in the 2023 book “Vietnam’s Modern-Day Boat People: Bridging Borders for Freedom” by Shira Sebban, an Australian refugee advocate who mobilized transnational support for them from the time they were imprisoned until they obtained UNHCR refugee status and reached Canada in 2022. Long died a year later of cancer. 

Today, Lụa said her siblings and cousins back home choose not to fish further for fear of the Chinese attacks in the high seas. “They can now only fish near the shore, but there is not much to catch,” Lụa explained. 

Long was luckier than many fishermen who were forcibly disappeared by the Chinese vessels in the sea. Their wives had to embark on a tortuous journey in search of justice, only to be met with either silence or suppression. 

André Menras poses for a photo with Vietnamese fishers during a fishing expedition near Hoàng Sa in 2010-2011. Photo courtesy of André Menras.

Fearing the “Elephant” in the Sea

Journalists like Menras report being prevented from interacting with the fishers. When Menras challenged official leaders on why he was followed, they said it was to protect him, an assertion he disparaged. “To protect myself from the well-meaning people who speak to me? For whom is their speech a danger? … In any case, I experience this protection as a disguised imprisonment and will never be able to accommodate myself to it.”

In addition, even though state-affiliated journalists interviewed Menras about his trip, they omitted his statements on China in the published version of their articles. In domestic media, the terms “strange vessels” (tàu lạ) or “foreign vessels” (tàu nước ngoài) have become a common euphemistic way of referring to China’s presence in the South China Sea in the last few years.

In 2020, at an ASEAN event, then-Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyễn Quốc Dũng stressed the need to promote “dialogue and cooperation between ASEAN and China in ensuring just and humane treatment of fishermen,” especially those who are in danger, as a priority area of cooperation between the two sides. Yet Vietnam has hardly walked its talk on protecting the fishermen in times of violence.

Vietnam was silent on the Coast Guard Law of the People’s Republic of China, which came into effect on February 1, 2021. The law authorizes the China Coast Guard (CCG) to take “necessary measures,” including the use of weapons, to stop foreign vessels from violating Chinese law within maritime jurisdictions it claims, including areas that overlap with those of Vietnam.

Already, several Vietnamese fishers have been killed by Chinese forces. In 2015, Trương Đình Bảy, a fisherman from Quảng Ngãi province, was shot dead in the Spratly Islands during an encounter with a Chinese vessel. His wife’s calls for an investigation into his death faded into oblivion. 

Calls made by several deputies in 2014 and 2015 for the National Assembly to issue a resolution on the South China Sea in the wake of China’s aggression fell on deaf ears. 

In her ethnographic research, Elena Bernini, who conducted a field study in Lý Sơn, recounted the story of a Vietnamese fisherman who had been shot dead by the Chinese military on the open sea in 2016. His family members were asked to bury him in secret at a location far from the fisherman’s home, at night and under the watch of Vietnam’s Coast Guard, so as not to galvanize anti-Chinese sentiment or potentially trigger public protests among the grieving fishermen’s relatives. 

The first notable protests against China’s actions in the South China Sea erupted in late 2007 and early 2008, followed by anti-China demonstrations in 2011 and 2014 addressing the same issue. At times, Vietnamese activists have been detained over their participation in protests against China’s aggression against Vietnam in the South China Sea. Their family members were warned not to talk with independent media, as the arrests were said to pertain to national security. 

This year, the commemorations of the Paracel Islands battle on January 19, 1974, and the Johnson South Reef skirmish within the Spratly Islands (Trường Sa in Vietnamese) on March 14, 1988, were overshadowed by the major “red” events: the Party Congress and the elections, respectively. The domestic media was silent on these anniversaries, which is not surprising.

Nguyễn Tuấn Khanh, a journalist and songwriter, wrote in his blog:  “A fisherman, if he dies, is drowned twice. Once in the deep sea, and once more in the shallow waters of his own people.”

State-centric Security

Statistics in Vietnam on its fishers’ activities in the South China Sea, as well as data on Vietnamese fishers captured by foreign authorities, remain scarce – or at least undisclosed. In addition, it is challenging to validate stories recounted by fishers. According to Menras’ independent research, from 2002 to 2014, about 2,000 fishers from Central Vietnam have been victims of Chinese aggression around the Paracels archipelago. 

“After 2014, I stopped keeping count of the attacks on the high seas,” he said. “But I know they continue. That is certain.”

Countless incidents of harassment and violent attacks happened between 2017 and 2023, yet these cases received scant coverage from domestic media. When then-U.S. President Joe Biden was about to pay a visit that resulted in the upgrade of U.S.-Vietnam relations, China was flexing its muscles in the South China Sea. Beijing used a high-pressure water cannon against a Vietnamese fishing boat near the Paracel Islands, injuring two fishermen. 

In 2024, a year after Xi’s visit to Vietnam, where 36 cooperation agreements were concluded, an altercation between Vietnamese fishers and Chinese security forces escalated to physical violence, resulting in severe injuries to four Vietnamese fishermen, including broken bones. The boat’s captain lost consciousness during the fight. 

In that case, Vietnam condemned the brutal actions of Chinese law enforcement against the Vietnamese fishermen and their vessel. Lin Jian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded: “China  urges the Vietnamese side to effectively strengthen the education and management of its fishermen, and to prevent them from engaging in illegal activities in waters under Chinese jurisdiction.”

Meanwhile, domestic media still shied away from naming and shaming China directly, again describing the attackers as “tàu lạ” or “ tàu nước ngoài.” 

In an interview with Vnexpress in 2019, Nguyễn Đình Thắng, chairman of Vietnam Fisheries Association, said that whenever an incident occurs in which a Vietnamese fishing boat is rammed, sunk, or sabotaged, the association sends an official letter to the Chinese Embassy and, through the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requests that the authorities in China provide compensation for the sunken fishing boats. Yet, all the requests went unanswered.

The documentary “Hoàng Sa — Vietnam: The Pain of Loss,” Menras’ first film, was completed in 2010 without a professional camera, cinematic guidance, external funding, or even enthusiasm from local leaders. The film and its 2017 sequel, “The Knights of the Yellow Sand,” depict heroic Vietnamese fishermen who make their living at sea while safeguarding the nation’s waters. They are both fishers and defenders. The films also portray the women in fishing communities, who make even greater sacrifices as their husbands, sons, and brothers struggle amid crashing waves and harsh offshore conditions. 

Menras’ new film project about the Spratly Islands, threatened by maritime and aerial incursions from Beijing, is still in progress.

Menras maintains that China should be obliged to pay for the violence and damage caused to the unsuspecting fishers. 

​In April 2014, the Shanghai Maritime Court ordered the confiscation of a Japanese cargo ship to compensate for a war debt dating from 1936: $30 million for two lost ships. The Japanese eventually paid. 

“How many tens of billions of dollars does China owe Vietnam for the forced borrowing of the Paracels for 40 years, for the lost economic income, for the families of Vietnamese servicemen killed during the annexation of the archipelago, for the thousands of fishermen mistreated and forbidden to fish during those many years, for the dozens of fishermen killed, the dozens of trawlers sunk and confiscated, the hundreds of ransoms collected?” wrote Menras. 

“If the damages from this monumental holdup and its consequences were measured only in terms of money, such compensation would boost Vietnam’s economy for years and lift thousands of families still victims of these crimes out of poverty.”

In a 2015 commencement address, renowned historian Bùi Trân Phượng, then-president of Hoa Sen University, said to her students: 

One year earlier, China had brought a giant drilling rig into waters that belong to Vietnam. China has even now deployed military equipment on structures built on the coral reefs… I earnestly hope that you, as Vietnamese citizens, will reflect, form your own personal views about this situation, follow subsequent developments, and take appropriate action. Whatever job or career you choose later, you will always think of your fellow countrymen and the fate of the nation, and sincerely do something for your homeland.

One year earlier, China had brought a giant drilling rig into waters that belong to Vietnam. China has even now deployed military equipment on structures built on the coral reefs… I earnestly hope that you, as Vietnamese citizens, will reflect, form your own personal views about this situation, follow subsequent developments, and take appropriate action. Whatever job or career you choose later, you will always think of your fellow countrymen and the fate of the nation, and sincerely do something for your homeland.

Her words still ring true today.

Christelle Nguyen is a development researcher based in Southeast Asia. Her interests include East Asian politics and tech diplomacy.

China South China Sea assertiveness

China-Vietnam maritime disputes

China-Vietnam relations

Paracel Islands dispute

South China Sea fisheries

South China Sea fishing

Vietnam and the Paracels

Vietnam fishing industry

Vietnam South China Sea disputes

Vietnam Spratly Islands claims

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