What were main reasons for losing the national independence and sovereignty of Viet Nam.pptx

What were main reasons for losing the
national independence and sovereignty of
Viet Nam to the hands of French colonialism
in the late 19th
century?

1802 1858 1861 1862 1867 1873 1874 1882-1883 1884
Da
Nang
3
Eastern
3
western
Tonkin 1 Tonkin 2
Treaty 1 Treaty 2 Harman Patenôtre

I/ Historical background:
What is imperialism? Capitalism has two stages: free - competition and
monopoly stages. Imperialism is capitalism in the monopoly stage. The
objective law of the imperialism is to hunt for super interests (high
monopoly interests/ surplus value) on the basis of exploiting cheaper
labors and diversity of natural resources from colonies.

Therefore colonization was one of its absolute objective trends. The
19th
century was domination of the imperialism with its colonialism and
colonization: “colonie du peuplement” (colony for immigration) and
“colonie d’exploitation” (colony for exploitation) all over the world,
especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Some typical cases in Asia avoiding the Western colonization:
+ Why could Thailand (Siam) have avoided colonization?
The foreign policy of Siamese kingdoms was flexible, skillful and
reaffirming how to benefit the advantages of “buffer” geopolitical
location of Thailand ( the buffer area of British- French colonialisms).

+ Why could Japan have avoided colonization?
Meiji emperor had practiced Meiji Restoration very successfully.
Main reasons for avoiding colonization come from the subjective
reasons, especially the success of the Meiji Restoration. Japan
combined successfully internal forces with flexible diplomatic measures
to deal with the Western colonialism.

II/ Reasons for losing the national independence and sovereignty of
Viet Nam in the late 19th
century.
A/ Objective reasons.
From the 16th
century the western states come to Dai Viet with
common objectives of conducting trade, seeking colony, carrying out
mission and diplomacy.

As colonialism, basically some Western states wanted to hunt for super
interests in preparing for the late era of imperialism domination. The
colonization has been one of the most important objective needs for
the development of world capitalism in the transitional period to
imperialism.
From the geo-political or geo-economic viewpoints, Viet Nam was one
of the most noticeable points for colonialism in Southeast Asia.
Therefore, Viet Nam has become the delicious decoys for western
colonialism to invade in Southeast Asia.

Each country had its own way of infiltration for both Cochinchina and
Tonkin or reunified Viet Nam under Nguyen dynasty (Ex, British and
French). The French won this colonial competition when opening fire
against Viet Nam in 1858. The Nguyen dynasty lost the independence
and sovereignty of Viet Nam very easily.

B/ Subjective reasons:
• The responsibility of Nguyen dynasty in losing the national
independence and sovereignty of Viet Nam in the late 19th
century.
Some strategic mistakes in policy for developing and defending the
country

Political:
• Revering absolutely Chinese model. The Nguyen state was the centralized
monarchy filled with dictatorship and bureaucratism, corruption and
Chinese dogmatism.
• After the three-century division of the country, on the basis of the Tay Son
preconditions of reunification, Nguyen Phuc Anh reunited Vietnam and
proclaimed himself as emperor with the era name Gia Long. He prioritized
the national defense and feared the division of the country by the civil wars.
He established the Qing-style centralized monarchy based only Sung
Confucianism, a reactionary political theory of Chinese Confucianism.

System of Nguyen government:
- The emperor: The state was headed by a monarch whose absolute powers were
said to rest on a mandate of heaven. The emperor wielded absolute authority;
he stood at the top of three basic hierachies (civil, military, judicial): commander-
in-chief of Armies, unique direct head of the Grand council, all ministers,
supreme censorate, provincial governors and 2 citadel general viceroys,…
- The following list is the emperors’ era names: Gia Long (1802-1819), Minh Mang
(1820-1840), Thieu Tri (1841-1847), Tu Duc (1847-1883), Duc Duc (1843), Hiep
Hoa (1843), Kien Phuc (1843), Ham Nghi(1884-1885), Dong Khanh (1926-1945),
Thanh Thai (1889-1907), Duy Tan (1907-1916), Khai Dinh (1916-1925), Bao
Dai(1926-1945).

• System of Nguyen government:
• - The emperor: The state was headed by a monarch whose absolute
powers were said to rest on a mandate of heaven. The emperor wielded
absolute authority; he stood at the top of three basic hierachies (civil,
military, judicial): commander-in-chief of Armies, unique direct head of the
Grand council, all ministers, supreme censorate, provincial governors and 2
citadel general viceroys,…
• - The following list is the emperors’ era names: Gia Long (1802-1819),
Minh Mang (1820-1840), Thieu Tri (1841-1847), Tu Duc (1847-1883),
Duc Duc (1843), Hiep Hoa (1843), Kien Phuc (1843), Ham Nghi(1884-1885),
Dong Khanh (1926-1945), Thanh Thai (1889-1907), Duy Tan (1907-
1916), Khai Dinh (1916-1925), Bao Dai(1926-1945).

- Differing from the Ly-Tran centralized monarchy as a pro-democracy
centralized monarchy, the Nguyen emperors did not develop
advantages of the centralized monarchy and therefore it changed into
system of bureaucratism and dictatatorship. The Nguyen dynasty used
great regular army to suppress very cruelly the peasant movements
and population. After victory, they revenged very cruelly on Tay Son
peasant movement and other enemies as well as their relatives.

The main reasons for that come from the dogmatic imitation of the
Qing (Tsing) centralized monarchy. The Nguyen dynasty copied
completely the Chinese model of administration: Grand council,
Ministries, Armies, Citadels, imitation of Qing code, recruiting the
mandarin bureaucracy through competitive examination, Sung
Confucianism as official doctrine for building up political body,…

Ex, the Gia Long Code (“Hoang Viet Luat Le”)
was the dogmatic application of Qing
criminal law in Viet Nam, differing completely
from Hong Duc law under the Later Le
dynasty.

- Under the Nguyen political system, there were the terrible explosions
of corruption. Paying attention to internal relations between Chinese
dogmatism and Vietnamese bureaucratism, dictatorship, as well as
corruptions,…
Basically, the politics of Nguyen dynasty was very reactionary and
negative in history.

Military:
It is very necessary to clarify the Nguyen army in some important
issues: strategy for national defense, military strategy, tactics, how to
organize the army; the mode and methodology of training, capacity of
fighting. Therefore, the Nguyen dynasty had crowded forces but not
strong. Until the mid-19th
century, the great regular armies had over
200,000 on-ground troops and over 20,000 on-water troops,…

The Hue court did not also study and develop traditional military arts.
(Ex, ideology of people’s war from the Ly –Tran era, attacking strategy,
guerrilla war, good relationship between army and population,…).
Therefore later Nguyen army was very easy to be defeated by French
small military units during the period of 1858-1884.

Some typical military campaigns to conquer Viet Nam :
Da Nang battle, Gia Dinh citadel battle, as well as three eastern
provinces, three western provinces, first Tonkin and second Tonkin
campaigns by French army. Try to point out some evidences for the
weakness of Nguyen army.

Why did Gia Long remove the capital of reunified Viet Nam to Hue?
According to the Confucian theory of legitimacy (Chinh Danh), he
worried so much about the resistance of the restoring Le forces from
Thang Long, the old capital of the Later Le dynasty. Gia Long made a
strategic mistake in choosing Hue as capital of Viet Nam. He missed the
most important role of Thang Long and Gia Dinh cities as cultural
socio-economic political centers of the reunited Viet Nam, especially
from strategic perspectives of national defense. Later the French
colonialism would benefit this disadvantage to perform their military
strategy.

From the geo-political, geo-strategic, geo-economic perspectives, Hue
city has a lot of disadvantages to develop comprehensively the country:
Hue city had no the posture of “the Dragon operates, the Tiger sit
down” as Thang Long. Hue is a small city and as a center for only a
small region. During wartime it is easy to be surrounded by enemy or
fallen to the posture of isolation from the two most important regions:
Southern and Northern, two large deltas of the country filled with lots
of people and food resources. Evidences for that we could recognize
easily through invading process and methods of French colonialism
from 1858 to 1884 in Viet Nam.

Economically,
+ Obsolete agriculture with low capacity of production:
• Landlord’s land > communal land > small peasant’s land > state-
owned land.
• The feudal landlord’s ownership + small peasant’s = 4 times of public
land. It was the domination of private ownership of land, especially
the landlord’s land.
• From the 15th
century although communal land became negative
factor for development but it still existed for long time. Until the early
19th
century, it covered about 25-30% of agricultural land area.

Until the early 19th
century, although for the reclamation of land in the
Dong Nai and Mekong delta , the feudal landlord’s ownership of land
still played the comparative positive role, but basically it became
negative for development.
The small peasant’s ownership of land was the most important positive
factor that was able to develop the commodity economy in agriculture.
The Nguyen dynasty representing the reactionary landlord class and
feudal aristocracy could not support this small peasant’s ownership of
land. Therefore agriculture could not develop strongly into commodity
economy.

• The Nguyen dynasty continued to support the obsolete communal land ( land
possessiveness of the Asiatic mode of production) and to change some new
private lands in Southern into communal land. Simultaneously it has
performed some policies of heavy taxes, fees, rents as well as using the “quan
dien” regime to redistribute communal lands based on feudal titles,
rankings,.. on the beneficial basis to feudal nobles and landlord class. The
most remarkable achievement of the Nguyen dynasty was to continue to
practice the reclamations of land in the Mekong delta.
• The management of dykes, canals, dam, sluices, pumps … in the red river
delta that was not performed well led to the terrible natural calamities such
as seasonal droughts and floods. Lots of people had to die of starvation
yearly……

+ The country’s economy was static, remaining exclusively obsolete
agriculture with low capacity of production. Some villages of artisans
and fishermen existed, and there were also some people employed in
mining, but apart from them, the mandarins, the Buddhist monks, the
great mass of the people were peasants, engaged almost exclusively in
the cultivation of rice.
+ Both national and international trade remained insignificant, since
most villages and the country as a whole were economically self-
sufficient. The Nguyen dynasty performed the economic policy of close-
door with foreign traders and of limiting domestic commodity exchanges.

In brief, economically, basically Nguyen dynasty supported the negative
factors for economic development; simultaneously it continued to limit
the positive factors: limitation for small peasant’s land, handicrafts,
commerce, especially international trade. The seeds of capitalism that
had appeared before could not continue to develop.

+Socially,
Under the Nguyen dynasty for the first half of the 19th
century, the
economic contradiction led to the deep social contradiction between
ruling and ruled classes ( feudal nobles, landlord class and peasant
class): Taxes and rents increased heavier than before; terrible
starvations, increase of labor duty, heavy corruptions, influences from
tornadoes, other natural disasters,…

The peasant movements and wars developed very strongly.
• Under the Gia Long era ( 18 years): 73 peasant uprisings
• Underthe Minh Mang era( 21 years): 234 peasant uprisings
• Under the Thieu Tri era ( 6 years): 58 peasant uprisings
• Under the Tu Duc era (36 years): 103 peasant uprisings
The Nguyen has suppressed bloodily all of peasant uprisings, wars such
as Phan Ba Vanh(1821-1827), Nong Van Van (1833-1835), Le Van Khoi
(1833-1835), Cao Ba Quat (1854-1856),…

+ Culturally,
• the Nguyen dynasty supported negative factors : conservatism,
Chinese dogmatism, especially revering absolutely for the reactionary
ritualistic Sung Confucianism of China.
• Sung Confucianism has become dominating ideology of society:
expressing in politics, education and examinations, literature, poetry,
art, … Losing balance of three religions in Dai Viet traditional
Harmonization of three Teachings.

Losing basically the Vietnamese cultural identity such as the flexibility,
open-mindedness, tolerance, no segregation of religion, race, gender, …
The Nguyen policy of suppressing Catholic believers was very typical
for the segregation of religion. They did not distinguish differences of
colonialism and Catholic missionary process. In 1840: 3 bishops, 24
foreign priests, 144 Vietnamese priests and 420,000 believers.

Some positive cultural achievements: development of Nom scripts,
literature and poetry (Nguyen Du, Huyen Thanh Quan, Ho Xuan Huong
poets,…), historical studies, Cultural studies ( Lih trieu hien chuong loai
chí: Categoried Records of the Institution of Successive Dynasties by
Phan Huy Chu, Gia dinh Thanh Thong chi: Gia Dinh Citadel Records by
Trinh Hoai Duc and some other Golden or Gold - plated silver Books:
Dai Nam thuc luc, Dai Nam Liet truyen, Kham Dinh Dai Nam Hoi Dien
Su Le,…), popular literature, arts, architecture ( typical constructions of
Hue Royal Citadel and mausoleum), …

Foreign policy,
+Basically the Nguyen court has made many mistakes because it
conducted the close-door policy with foreigners, especially in economic
relations. It focused only on keeping good relations of owing allegiance
to China.
Soon after proclaiming himself as emperors of the country, Gia Long had
to send a delegation to China for being consecrated as the official King of
the country. Gia Long wanted to rename the national name as Nam Viet,
but the Qing emperor did not accept it because of the same name of
Nam Viet under the Chao To ( Trieu Da) and changed to the new name,
Viet Nam. The Hue court has always tried to perform good relaions with
the Qing dynasty of China.

+ There were some diplomatic relations and
competitions with Siam kingdom, especially
around problems of the protectorate in the Laos
and Chenla. Basically Laos and Chenla had to
conduct the policy of submitting equally both of
Dai Nam and Siam.

+ The Western countries as France, Great Britain, Portugal, Spain,…
could not have good economic or diplomatic relations with the Hue
court, especially under the Minh Mang emperor.
The Hue court was always watchful of relations with the Western
countries. The Hue court made great mistake in defending the country
when they think that the close-door policy was the best way to protect
independence and sovereignty of Dai Nam in the 19th
century.

(2) Mistakes on defending the country:
+ The Nguyen dynasty made some basic mistakes on ways and methods
to defend independence of the country when the French started to
invade Viet Nam. They did not want to mobilize forces of entire people
to fight against enemy. The emperors and court implemented a policy
of “hoa nghi” ( peace and negotiation).
In reality this policy would lead to strange process of defending the
country: concession and concession; surrendering partly and finally,
surrendering completely .

• The French tactics of invading was very clever. They forced the Hue
court to make concessions in the form of treaty. After that they had
enough time to suppress popular resistances and to prepare for further
annexations. They violated the treaty and continued their conquest.
New concessions were made by the Hue court and a new treaty signed.
New violations and further conquest followed. The scenario was
repeated again and again until the total annexation of the country.
• The Hue court paid attention to barter national independence and
sovereignty only for preservation of a few privileges granted by
invaders.

Why? As a new enemy of peasant movement, the Hue court did not
want to mobilize all the nation’s forces, peasants as most of them, to
oppose aggression. The Hue court did not believe the patriotism of
peasant class as well as its loyalty to Nguyen emperors. The political
skepticism dominated the Nguyen politics!

+ The Nguyen Army also made a lot of mistakes on military strategy and
tactics, losing lots of favorable moment to counterattack the French
army. They focused mainly on the passive defensive strategy and
tactics:
Ex, Gia Dinh citadel battles, the battles in 3 Eastern and 3 Western
provinces, the French campaigns of attacking Hanoi citadel of 1873 or
1882-83, …

The siege of Gia Dinh began on the morning of February 17, 1859. By
the end of that day, the Royal troops had left the city, while 5800-
volunteer reinforcement had arrived from neighboring provinces. The
Gia Dinh forces , thus reinforced, encircled the French troops and
putting them in a difficult position. But the Hue court did not order a
counterattack because it was seeking a compromise through
negotiation. The French took advantage of this indecision to “buy
time”…

+ In the mid-19th
century, the Hue court, on behalf of feudal class, had
still the historical role of national leadership, but it did not support the
people’s resistant wars, uprisings. While the Hue court took the policy
of unreasonable “peace and negotiation”, the patriots in the South
organized themselves the resistances against the French army, typically
as Truong Dinh (1862-1864), Nguyen Trung Truc (1861-1868), Nguyen
Huu Huan (1859-1862) “spontaneous” uprisings… In reality, the policy
of “Hoa Nghi” has become a barrier to limit the uprisings by patriots.

+ In the late 19th
century the feudal class did not still have the historical
leading role, the national movements (“ Loyalty-t- emperor” Can
Vuong) resisting against French colonialism under the feudal flags could
not win . After the failure of the Can Vuong , the Vietnamese national
movements started to fall down the crisis of ways for national salvation.
There were not any stratas or classes having enough standard to
become the leading class for new national movements.

3/ Significances:
Losing national independence and sovereignty was not
historical indispensability, it was only a historical
accident. Mainly it was the responsibility of the Nguyen
dynasty in developing and defending the country.

What were main reasons for losing the national independence and sovereignty of Viet Nam.pptx

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