News Summary: Vietnamese wary of Chinese fruit

TAINTED FRUIT: Recent rumors of tainted Chinese fruit led many Vietnamese shoppers to shun not only imports from that country but imported fruit altogether.

WARY NEIGHBORS: In Vietnam, fears about food safety are easily tangled up with anti-Chinese sentiment. More than 1,000 years of occupation, a bloody border war in 1979 and renewed assertiveness by China in pushing territorial claims in the South China Sea mean that tales of Chinese perfidy find fertile soil.

HERE TO STAY: But China remains Vietnam's largest trading partner, and that will not change anytime soon, regardless of the bad press its fruits get.