The 2011 Awakening Summer Protests, or usually depicted as “The Flaming Summer” (Mùa Hè Đỏ Lửa), is one of the most significant social movements in Vietnam during the past few decades. Both large and small scale anti-China demonstrations, which occurred 11 times nearly every Sunday for close to three months, drew wider attention and participation in both Vietnam and the Vietnamese community overseas. The movement is said to have sparked a consequent string of anti-China protests in 2014 and 2018.

The first demonstration was initiated at the beginning of June when three Chinese sea guardships harassed the operations of Vietnamese seismic survey ships within Vietnam’s exclusive maritime territory. This was followed by a series of mass rallies against China’s hostility in two of Vietnam’s largest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chí Minh City, before spreading to smaller provinces and towns.