14.9: Indochina

To ensure their presence in Southeast Asia, the French used the pretext of anti-Catholic persecution in Vietnam to take advantage of the internal weaknesses of Cambodia and Laos, establishing a colony with the predominant goal of economic exploitation. In 1857, the Vietnamese emperor Tu Duc executed two Spanish Catholic missionaries. This event coincided with the Second Opium War, when France and Britain had dispatched a joint military expedition to the Far East. In 1858, a joint French and Spanish expedition landed at Tourane (Da Nang) and captured the town. What began as a limited campaign (known as Cochincina Campaign) ended as a French war of conquest. By 1884, the entire country gradually came under French rule. Cochichina, Annam, and Tonkin were formally integrated into the union of French Indochina in 1887.

On paper, Cochinchina was the only region of French Indochina with direct rule. But in reality, political interference was equally intrusive across the entire area. The French adopted a policy of assimilation rather than accommodation. However, their settlement in Indochina did not occur at a grand scale as French Indochina was seen as a colonie d’exploitation économique (economic colony) rather than a colonie de peuplement (settlement colony).

Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group's values, behaviors, and beliefs whether fully or partially.  When a culture fully assimilates, they risk losing their cultural identity because they are adopting the dominant culture and losing the parent culture.

Cultural accommodation is the integration of a culture into the dominant society without forcing that culture to fully assimilate and adopt all of the dominant culture's mores, beliefs, and values. 

Vietnam was to become a source of raw materials and a market for tariff-protected goods produced by French industries. Funding for the colonial government came from taxes on local populations, and the French government established a near-monopoly on the trade of opium, salt, and rice alcohol. The exploitation of natural resources for direct export was the chief purpose of all French investments, with rice, coal, rare minerals, and later rubber as the main products.

At the turn of the 20th century, the emerging automobile industry resulted in the growth of the rubber industry in French Indochina. Plantations were built throughout the colony, especially in Annam and Cochinchina. Soon, France became a leading producer of rubber and Indochinese rubber was prized in the industrialized world. However, because all investments aimed to attain immediate high returns for investors, only a small fraction of profit was reinvested.

Economically, the French did not develop Laos and Cambodia to the scale that they did Vietnam. The colonial government’s budget originally relied largely on tax collections in Cambodia as its main source of revenue, and Cambodians paid the highest taxes per capita in French Indochina. As French rule strengthened, development slowly began in Cambodia, where rice and pepper crops allowed the economy to grow.

Economic progress benefited the French and the small class of the local wealthy created by the colonial regime. The masses were deprived of economic and social benefits. The French imposed high taxes to finance their ambitious program of public works and recruited forced labor from local populations without protection against exploitation in the mines and rubber plantations.

Resistance to French Imperialism

Nationalist sentiments emerged in French Indochina shortly after the colonial rule was established. In 1885, Phan Dinh Phung led a rebellion against the colonizing power. The Can Vuong movement, which sought to expel the French and install the boy Emperor Ham Nghi at the head of an independent Vietnam, initiated the revolt. The insurrection in Annam spread and flourished in 1886, and gradually faded out by 1889. In this movement, all levels of Vietnamese society, royalty, scholar-gentry, and peasantry, worked together against the French.

At the beginning of the 20th century, two parallel movements emerged. The Dong Du (“Go East”) Movement led by Phan Boi Chau planned to send Vietnamese students to Japan to learn modern skills so in the future they could lead a successful armed revolt against the French. Duy Tan (“Modernization”) led by Phan Chau Trinh favored a non-violent struggle to gain independence, stressing education for the masses and modernization. The French suppressed both movements and Vietnamese revolutionaries began to radicalize.

Cambodia--In 1885, Si Votha, half brother of king Norodom and contender for the throne, led a rebellion to dispose of the French-backed Norodom after returning from exile in Siam. Gathering support from opponents of Norodom and the French, Si Votha led a rebellion that was primarily concentrated in the jungles of Cambodia and the city of Kampot. French forces later aided Norodom to defeat Si Votha. Unlike in Vietnam, Cambodian nationalism remained relatively quiet during much of French rule, although Khmer nationalism began to emerge outside of Cambodia.

Laos--In 1901, a revolt broke out in the south of Laos among groups of Lao Theung led by Ong Kaeo. The revolt challenged French control over Laos and was not fully suppressed until 1910. Between 1899 and 1910, political unrest in the northern Phongsali Province occurred as local hill tribe chiefs challenged French rule and assimilation policies being carried out in the highlands. Although the revolt initially started as a resistance against French influence, it focused on stopping French suppression of the opium trade.

Chapter 14 Conclusion

It is easy to focus on the technologies behind the new imperialism, to marvel at its speed, and to consider the vast breadth of European empires while overlooking what lay behind it all: violence. Until 1914, Europeans exported that violence hundreds or thousands of miles away as they occupied whole continents. In 1914, however, it came home to roost in the First World War.