Thousands of Chinese citizens are being evacuated from Vietnam in the wake of riots there targeting Chinese-owned factories for firebombing. CNN reports:

China has evacuated more than 3,000 of its citizens from Vietnam and is sending ships to retrieve more of them after deadly anti-Chinese violence erupted last week over a territorial dispute between the two countries.

Five Chinese ships will travel to Vietnam to help with the evacuation, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Sunday, citing the Ministry of Transport. One of the ships has already set off from the southern island province of Hainan, the ministry said.

Sixteen critically injured Chinese citizens were flown out of Vietnam on Sunday morning on a chartered medical plane organized by Chinese authorities, Xinhua said.

Two Chinese citizens were killed and more than 100 others were injured in the violence that hit parts of Vietnam last week, according to the news agency. Some of the worst violence appeared to have taken place in the central coastal province of Ha Tinh.

Foreign factories, particularly those run by companies from China and Taiwan, were burned and looted by rioters outraged over Beijing's decision to send an oil rig into waters of the South Chin

China is discovering that there is a price to be paid for its territorial claims in the South China Sea, pushing aside the claims of Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan. Of partkcular note is this, from the New York Times:

Early Thursday, Nguyen Van Thong, a worker at an electronics plant he said was American-owned, said his fellow workers had been “angry over China’s invasion” when they began driving motorbikes through the streets, lobbing gasoline-soaked rags into buildings. His electronics factory was spared, he said, only when guards trying to fend off an angry crowd pointed to the Vietnamese and American flags flying overhead.

China’s leadership is set on a course of what they used to denounce as imperialism, pushing around its neighboring countries. The Chinese are not at all skilled at this sort of thing, and are succeeding in uniting their neighbors against them.

Hat tip: Instapundit