HANOI — Vietnamese authorities allowed around 100 protesters to march in Hanoi on Sunday against Chinese territorial ambitions in the South China Sea -- the 10th such demonstration since early June.
China and Vietnam have a long-running dispute over the sovereignty of the potentially oil-rich Paracel and Spratly island groups, which straddle vital commercial shipping lanes in the waters.
Overtly political rallies are rare in Vietnam, but tensions with Beijing have risen since May when Hanoi said Chinese vessels cut the exploration cables of an oil survey ship inside the country's exclusive economic zone.
Police have since broken up two anti-China rallies in communist Vietnam, after talks with Beijing in June, but the other street action has been allowed to go ahead.
During Sunday's peaceful demonstration around Hoan Kiem lake, participants -- including students and intellectuals bearing banners -- shouted slogans in memory of Vietnamese soldiers killed during past incidents with China.
Vietnamese bitterly recall 1,000 years of Chinese occupation and, more recently, a 1979 border war. More than 70 Vietnamese sailors were killed in 1988 when the two sides battled off the Spratlys.
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