{"id":1256,"date":"2009-10-06T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/queme.org\/all\/all\/ubcv-leader-thich-quang-do-calls-on-vietnamese-at-home-and-abroad-to-boycott-chinese-goods\/"},"modified":"2016-09-09T13:45:35","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T13:45:35","slug":"ubcv-leader-thich-quang-do-calls-on-vietnamese-at-home-and-abroad-to-boycott-chinese-goods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/ubcv-leader-thich-quang-do-calls-on-vietnamese-at-home-and-abroad-to-boycott-chinese-goods\/","title":{"rendered":"UBCV leader Thich Quang Do calls on Vietnamese at home and abroad to boycott Chinese goods"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS, 6 October 2009 (IBIB) – The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do<\/strong>, Patriarch of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) has urged Vietnamese at home and abroad to boycott Chinese goods in a common stand for democracy in Vietnam. The UBCV leader and 2009 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 80, sent the \u201cAppeal for a Boycott of Chinese Goods\u201d<\/strong><\/em> to the International Buddhist Information Bureau from the Thanh Minh Zen Monastery in Saigon, where he is under effective house arrest.<\/p>\n

This call for a boycott is a follow-up to his \u201cAppeal for a month of Civil Disobedience\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/font><\/a> (29.3.2009) for a \u201cmovement of non-violent resistance\u201d<\/em> to protest the security risks and environmental dangers of Bauxite mining in the Central Highlands and China\u2019s encroachment on Vietnamese national sovereignty. \u201cThere is no doubt about it\u201d<\/em>, says Thich Quang Do, \u201cbe it defending Vietnam\u2019s territory or protecting its economic interests, the Communist Party and the government have put our fate into China\u2019s hands\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For the first time in history, he says, after 2,000 years of struggle against foreign aggression, the Vietnamese people are caught between two forces, the \u201cforeign invader\u201d<\/em> (China) and the \u201cinside invader\u201d<\/em> – the Vietnamese Communist Party, China\u2019s 5th column, which is undermining the people\u2019s thinking, politics, culture and economy from within. The boycott is \u201ca weapon\u201d<\/em>, says Thich Quang Do, to help Vietnamese \u201covercome these two invasions from without and within\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Thich Quang Do stresses that he does not seek to stir up ultra-nationalism or anti-Chinese sentiments: \u201cboycotting Chinese goods is not an expression of narrow chauvinism aimed at opposing the people of China or Chinese workers settling in Vietnam. On the contrary, the Chinese people and workers are the victims of Communist Party policies, just like the people, workers and peasants of Vietnam. Boycotting Chinese goods means boycotting the hegemony and expansionist policies of Beijing\u2019s Communist rulers\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Thich Quang Do stresses that the boycott \u201cis not prompted by political reasons alone, but by the grave effects of poor quality and toxic Chinese goods on the health and environment of Vietnamese consumers\u201d<\/em>. The massive influx of cheap Chinese goods on the Vietnamese market in this period of economic crisis is also causing grave labour concerns in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Although the bad quality of Chinese products is well-known, all criticism is forbidden in Vietnam. Concerns expressed by eminent economists and China specialists such as Pham Chi Lan of the Institute of Development Studies (VietnamNet, 16-18.6.2009) had met with angry protests from the Chinese Ambassador in Hanoi, who demanded that Hanoi censor all negative portrayals of China in the State-controlled media. One month later, Vietnam adopted Decree 97, which severely restricts scientific research, and the Institute of Development Studies announced that it was closing down. \u201cCould it be\u201d<\/em>, asked Thich Quang Do, \u201cthat Decision 97, adopted by the Prime Minister on 24.7.2009, which prohibits all scientific and technical organisations from expressing ideas at odds with the Party lines, directives and policies, responds to Beijing\u2019s pressure to forbid Vietnamese people from criticising China?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

China\u2019s creeping influence on Vietnam could also be seen, he adds, by the recent article on the Communist Party\u2019s official online newspaper (4.9.2009) on a military operation in the Paracel islands described as an effort to \u201cdefend the fatherland’s southern sea frontier.\u201d<\/em> The \u201cfatherland\u201d in question was China, not Vietnam…<\/p>\n

Thich Quang Do stressed that the use of a boycott as a means of non-violent action is especially important in Vietnam\u2019s one-Party State, where people have no right to participate in the political process. \u201cThe Vietnamese people have no freedom of expression, freedom of press or assembly. They have no government and no army to directly intervene to defend them against aggression, whether it be military, ideological or economic. Today, in the struggle for freedom, we oppressed peoples have but one weapon \u2013 our political stand. We must take a political stand to resist foreign invasion from inside and outside, and to claim our democratic freedoms\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

(See full text of appeal on our website, http\/\/:www.queme.net)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARIS, 6 October 2009 (IBIB) – The Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, Patriarch of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV) has urged Vietnamese at home and abroad to boycott Chinese goods in a common stand for democracy in Vietnam. The UBCV leader and 2009 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 80, sent the \u201cAppeal for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":375,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-ibib"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/queme.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}