Vietnam’s State-owned media has remained silent about the mass protests across China in protest against the Chinese government’s draconian zero-COVID policy. Hundreds of people, on rare occasions, have taken to the streets of China in recent weeks to protest the government-imposed lockdowns and travel restrictions. Many were heard calling for President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party to step down. According to observers, Hanoi is censoring the news because it wants to avoid upsetting Beijing. Vietnam is China’s fellow Communist comrade, and it is also one of Beijing’s key trading partners. Reporting about the protests have either been restricted or scrubbed off State-owned newspapers and television channels. But according to RFA sources, news, videos and images about the anti-lockdown demonstrations in China have been widely circulated on Vietnam’s social media. Vietnamese authorities are also worried that similar mass demonstrations could break out in the country.. In recent weeks, bank depositors have staged protests across the country, although on a smaller scale compared to China, to demand payments from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) and securities firms after the arrests of real estate tycoons for alleged financial fraud. Vietnamese police also started to oppress bank demonstrators. A video published on November 30 showed plainclothes agents and security forces brutally forcing peaceful protestors rallying in front of an SCB branch in Danang City onto a bus. It’s unclear where these demonstrators were taken to. A similar rally occurred in front of another SCB branch in Ho Chi Minh City on November 1 and was also met with police suppression.