By Ho Binh Minh and Manuel Mogato
HANOI/MANILA (Reuters) - Thousands of Vietnamese set fire to foreign factories and rampaged in industrial zones in the south of the country in an angry reaction to Chinese oil drilling in a part of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam, officials said on Wednesday.
The brunt of Tuesday's anti-China violence appears to have been borne by Taiwanese companies in the zones in Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces, as rioters mistook the firms to be Chinese-owned. There were no reports of casualties and the rioting appeared to have subsided by Wednesday.
The row over the South China Sea and anti-China violence in tightly-controlled Vietnam have brought relations between Hanoi and Beijing to one of their lowest points since the Communist neighbors fought a brief border war in 1979.
"I fear a dark chapter in Sino-Vietnamese relations is now being written," said Ian Storey, a South China Sea expert at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
"And because China wants to keep that oil rig in place into August, these protests could just be the first pages."
Tran Van Nam, vice chairman of the Binh Duong People's Committee, said workers initially held peaceful protests on Tuesday. But disorder broke out when the numbers swelled to about 20,000.
Gates were smashed and rioters set 15 factories on fire, he said.
"This caused billions of dong (hundreds of thousands of dollars) in damages and thousands of workers will have lost their jobs," Nam said by telephone.
"We urge everyone to stay calm, exercise restraint and have faith in the leadership of the Party and State."
