Vietnam has a long and confrontational history with its giant northern neighbour. So in 2008, when Aluminum Corporation of China put forward a plan to mine bauxite there, it struck a raw nerve.
A public argument erupted, startling observers of a country where most important policy decisions are brewed behind closed doors then rubber-stamped by the national congress.
Although the debate was couched in terms of potential environmental and social damage, for many it was rooted in Sinophobia forged by a millennium of Chinese rule – though it ended 1,000 years ago – and in a simmering territorial dispute over the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea. Vo Nguyen Giap, the 98-year-old architect of victories against the French and Americans between the 1950s and 1970s, who once accused the Chinese of tearing up infants during the abortive 1979 invasion, lent moral authority to opposition, calling for an environmental survey to be completed first. A final decision on the full project is pending, although a pilot is going ahead.