IIT’S JUST a training match, but the footballers still wear their full equipment. As the shadows spread across the field in downtown Hanoi, the words in their bright yellow shirts attract attention. “No-U FC“Is not so much a name as heart cry. U refers to the Uin the form of a “nine-dash line”, a curve on a map delimiting China’s vast claims on the South China Sea. This is in particular a vast area which international law recognizes as belonging to Vietnam. Depending on who you ask, FC either represents what you expect or “Fuck China”. It’s not your average soccer club.
Although all players agree that the game is beautiful, it is China, not beauty, that has brought them together every Sunday for nine years. No-U FC was formed in 2011 to protest Chinese incursions into what Vietnam calls the East Sea. China has occupied islands and atolls claimed by Vietnam and incorporated them into a new administrative district. Chinese vessels attacked and killed Vietnamese fishermen plying the disputed waters.
The belief that China is encroaching on Vietnam’s maritime space has inspired a number of protests by emerging civil society groups. In 2018, thousands of people demonstrated against a special economic zones law that was considered “like selling the country to the Chinese,” said Tuong Vu of the University of Oregon. Most of the protests were quickly shut down by nervous authorities. But a group of activists found a way to make their point known without being arrested. “The Vietnamese people really like to play football,” recalls team member Anh Chí in 2011.U FC was born.
The police were not deceived for long. The officers interrupted the matches, ordered the field managers to prevent the group from playing, and beat and imprisoned members. After being called an “enemy of the people,” Mr. Anh says he was kicked out of his job by his boss, at the request of the police. Undaunted, the team continues to play every Sunday.
The authorities’ harsh treatment of No-U FC is surprising, given that it was founded to express pro-Vietnamese feelings. But there are two reasons for this reaction. First, the club may be too patriotic for the taste of the regime. Although the government disputes China’s claims and actions in the South China Sea, in practice, its response has often been mild. Tuong, the academic, argues that a conservative faction in the ruling Communist Party does not want to offend its Chinese counterpart.
Second, a bond develops between the club and democratic activism. Due to the government’s caution in disputed waters, many activists believe the party is weak to defend Vietnam’s sovereignty. Some have “concluded that, to save the Vietnamese nation, the political system must be replaced by a robust democracy,” writes Ben Kerkvliet in “Speaking Out in Vietnam,” a study of political activism. When he is not playing football, Mr. Anh, who has become an activist for democracy, produces a vlog in which he tells his supporters that the people are the arbiter of the government – and not vice versa.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the title “Red Card”
