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State of Vietnam
Đại Việt Nam quốc
大越南國
Timeline: Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum
OTL equivalent: Vietnam
Flag of Vietnam (CPC) Coat of Arms of Vietnam (Myomi Republic)
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: 
Tự do - Nhân văn - Hạnh phúc (Vietnamese)
("Freedom - Humanity - Happiness")
Anthem: 
Tiếng Gọi Công Dân

Location of Vietnam (Myomi Republic)
Location of Vietnam (in green)
CapitalHuế
Other cities Saigon; Hanoi
Official languages Vietnamese
Ethnic groups  Vietnamese; Khmer; Cham; Chinese
Religion Irreligion; Christianity; Buddhism; Folk religions; Islam
Demonym Vietnamese
Government Unitary state; Constitutional monarchy
 -  King Thành Minh
 -  Prime Minister Vũ Đức Đam
Legislature National Assembly of Vietnam
Establishment
 -  Declaration of Independence from France March 13, 1945 
 -  Treaty of Fontainebleau April 11, 1949 
Population
 -   estimate 91,000,000 
Currency Vietnamese đồng (₫)(VND)
Time zone ICT (Indochina Time) (UTC+7)
Internet TLD .vn
Calling code +84

Vietnam (Vietnamese: Việt Nam; Hán tự: 越南), officially known as the State of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Đại Việt Nam quốc; Hán tự: 大越南國) is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. The name Vietnam translates as "South Viet", and was officially adopted in 1941. The country is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea (Vietnamese: Biển Đông, literally "East Sea") to the east. It covers a total area of approximately 331,210 sq km and has a population of almost 91 million. Its capital is Huế, while the largest city is Saigon and has a population of about 7.4 million inhabitants.

Vietnam is a middle power in global affairs and a founding member of ASEAN, and ranks high in the Human Development Index. It has the second-largest economy in Southeast Asia behind Indonesia and the 20nd-largest in the world by PPP. Vietnam is classified as a newly industrialized economy, being one of the fastest growing economies of the 21st century, with agriculture, manufacturing and tourism as leading sectors. It is part of international and intergovernmental institutions including the ASEAN, the APEC, the CPTPP, the Non-Aligned Movement, the French Community, the OIF, and the WTO. It has assumed a seat on the United Nations Security Council twice.

Politics and government[]

History[]

French Indochina (1887–1941)[]

Colonial consolidation (1887–1916)[]

Flag of Colonial Vietnam (Myomi Republic)

Flag of Colonial Vietnam (1885-1949)

Vietnam's independence was gradually eroded by France in a series of military conquests between 1859 and 1885. In 1862, the southern third of the country became the French colony of Cochinchina. By 1887, the entire country formally became part of French Indochina along with Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam itself was divided into three regions: Tonkin in the north, Annam in the middle and Cochinchina in the south.

The French administration was headed by the Governor-General who seated in Saigon. The French bureaucrats held the senior positions within the colonial civil service while the Vietnamese bureaucrats held lower-level positions, including the ones in Phnom Penh and Vientiane. Along with their Cambodian and Lao counterparts, the Emperors of Vietnam were kept by the French to reign, albeit in reality they gave up their political powers to the French protectorate government.

In 1889, the French installed 11-year-old Thành Thái, a son of the disgraced Emperor Dục Đức, as the new Emperor following the death of Đồng Khánh, hoping him would easily to be controlled. However, it was proven later that Thanh Thai was difficult to be controlled. He occasionally rebelled against the palace customs and made several scandals, worrying the French. Thành Thái’s final rebellion was when he tried to escape to China to join anti-French groups in 1905, but was arrested by the French.

Thành Thái was declared mentally handicapped by the French and he was deposed as the emperor in 1907. Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh San, a 6-year-old son of Thành Thái, was installed as the new emperor with regnal name "Duy Tân". As he grew up, young Duy Tân later revealed himself even more anti-French than his father. On May 3, 1916, while France was preoccupied with on-going World War I, Duy Tân fled from Hue and urged people to rebel against the French rule. Like his father, Tân was also captured by the French. He was deposed and sent to an exile in Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean together with his father.

Era of relative peace (1916–30)[]

DHYDuoc

L'École de médecine de Hanoï (now the Hanoi Medical University) was the first modern university built in Indochina.

Khải Định, the son of Đồng Khánh, was enthroned to the throne in 1916. His nine-year reign was relatively peaceful since Dinh tried to avoid any controversy in a fear of being deposed. Started from his reign that the colonial officials made all important decisions instead of the imperial court. In 1926, the emperor died and Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy, his 12-year-old son, was selected to replace him. Vĩnh Thụy stayed in France for his education during his first six-year reign and his mother was appointed the Regent.

French colonial rule imposed significant political and cultural changes in Vietnamese society. A Western-style system of modern education was developed and Roman Catholicism was propagated widely. However, the French only interested in developing a plantation economy to promote the export of tobacco, indigo, tea, and coffee; they largely ignored the calls by the Vietnamese for civil rights and modernization. Nevertheless, the French rule gave birth to two main streams of Vietnamese intellectual thoughts emerged around two main figures: Phan Bội Châu and Phan Châu Trinh.

Cuong De

Nguyễn Phúc Cường Để (1882–1951), the King of Vietnam (1946–51)

Phan Bội Châu favored an armed revolt against the French and admired Japanese modernization. In 1903, he was joined by young Prince Cường Để, a direct descendant of Gia Long's eldest son Prince Cảnh. They left to Japan in 1905 to win support from the Japanese, which had defeated Russia that year, for a plan to overthrow the French rule. Chau’s venture was ended when he was arrested in Shanghai by French agents in 1926 and put into house arrest in Hue until his death in 1940. Cường Để remained to stay in Japan until 1945 under the protections of Nagayama Yoshida and Inukai Tsuyoshi.

On another hand, Phan Châu Trinh eagerly embraced French democratic ideals and stressed education as a mean to liberate Vietnam from the colonial yoke. Trinh was viewed as a predecessor to later Vietnamese liberal and social-democratic politicians for his early adoption of Western ideals and modern democracy. In 1923, inspired by Trinh's idea, the Constitutional Party of Indochina (Đông Dương Lập hiến Đảng) was established with Bùi Quang Chiêu and Nguyễn Phan Long as its leaders; it campaigned for the colony's autonomy within the French colonial empire. Trinh died in 1926 and his funeral in Saigon later turned into a large nationalist protest against the French.

Through the newspapers and journals associated with the Constitutional Party, such as La Tribune Indigène, La Cloche Fêlée, and L'Echo Annamite, progressive-minded journalists like Nguyễn Phan Long, Eugène Dejean de la Bâtie and Nguyễn An Ninh found their mediums. Dejean and Ninh later emerged as prominent critics to the French rule throughout the 1920s and the 1930s. With the decline of the Constitutionalists by the mid-1930s, this progressive element of the indigenous press inspired the formation of the post-war socialist movement, led by Phan Tư Nghĩa, Hoàng Minh Giám, and Nguyễn Khánh Toàn.

Growing independence movements (1930–40)[]

In 1927, the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (Việt Nam Quốc dân Đảng, Viet Quoc) was founded in Hanoi by Nguyễn Thái Học. The party was modeled on and supported by the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang). The Viet Quoc was the first modern movement in Vietnam that called for revolutionary action against the French. The Great Depression in 1929 resulted in widespread unemployment; the Viet Quoc exploited this situation by persuading a garrison at Yên Bái to mutiny against the French in 1930. The mutiny was a failure; Học was arrested and executed while other leaders escaped to southern China.

Baodai2

Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy (1913–1997), the Emperor of Annam (1932–41) and Prime Minister of Vietnam (1949–50; 1952; 1969–70)

Although the opposition against the French rule was quieter during this period, the nationalist cause and the call for self-government were strengthened. In 1932, Prince Vĩnh Thụy returned from France and formally assumed his throne with regnal name "Bảo Đại". Initially, the emperor promised for administrative and social reforms; he appointed Ngô Đình Diệm, a reform-minded mandarin, as the Interior Minister. However, both of them later realized the French disapproved their reform plans. Diệm resigned after two months in office, while Bảo soon indulged himself in pleasure activities, such as womanizing, gambling and hunting.

In 1939, Cường Để founded the League for the Restoration of Vietnam (Việt Nam Phục quốc Đồng minh Hội, Phuc Quoc Hoi) in Shanghai from the remnant of former Phan Bội Châu’s Vietnamese Restoration Association (Việt Nam Quang phục Hội). Unlike its republican predecessor, the Phuc Quoc Hoi was a royalist movement to support the prince's claim for the Nguyen throne. It was financially supported by Japan, specifically by the Japanese Tamiikusa Army. Within French Indochina, the Phuc Quoc Hoi found its strongest support in Cochinchina, especially among the Cao Dai believers. Ngô Đình Diệm had joined the movement by 1940 and emerged as its leading member in Annam.

The 1930s also saw the rise of the Communist Party of Indochina (Đông Dương Cộng sản Đảng, ICP) under the leadership of Tạ Thu Thâu. The ICP was influenced by the Trotskyist tendency which then opposed the Kirovian pragmatism of the Soviet government and the Communist International leadership. When the ICP was suppressed in 1932, Thâu, Phan Văn Chánh, and other communists continued their activities through the publication of the legal newspaper La Lutte (The Struggle); these underground communists were known as the Struggle Group (Nhóm Tranh đấu) or the lutteurs. In 1939, Thâu, Trần Văn Thạch, and Phan Văn Hùm were elected to the Cochinchina Colonial Council.

When the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact was signed in 1939, the colonial government became more oppressive both to the communists like Tạ Thu Thâu and socialists such as Nguyễn An Ninh. They were arrested in mass and the leading leftists were jailed at notorious Poulo-Condore. When the Chinese Army entered French Indochina in 1941, the left-wing prisoners were not paroled; they continued their terms until the end of the war in 1945. Ninh died in prison in 1943, while Thâu survived and later went to lead the post-war organization of the Communist Party of Indochina.

World War II (1940–45)[]

Flag of the Vietnamese Nationalist Party (1929–1945)

Flag of the Republic of Vietnam (1941–45) and, later, of the State of Vietnam (1945–46)

After the Fall of France, China launched an invasion of French Indochina on November 1, 1940. Two weeks later, Thailand launched the separate offensive, resulted in the French-Thai War. Joint invasion by the Chinese from the north and by the Thais from the south driven the French out of Southeast Asia on February 4, 1941. Hundreds of the Viet Quoc members from their exile in China tagged along the invading Yunnan Army, led by General Zhang Fakui.

Following the takeover of Indochina, many Vietnamese served in the Chinese Army were appointed to high-ranked positions, such as Vũ Hồng Khanh and Trương Bội Công. Several members of the Viet Quoc were appointed as the civilian advisors to the military administration, including Nguyễn Hải Thần, Nhượng Tống, Phan Khôi, and Trương Tử Anh. Zhang Fakui was personally supportive of the independence movement and he attempted several times to convince Chiang Kai-shek to give Vietnam at least a nominal independence. Chiang kept his silence for a while before finally gave up to the nationalist aspirations of the Vietnamese.

On August 12, 1941, the representatives from Annam, Tonkin, and Cochinchina attended the unification conference sponsored by the Chinese. The Republic of Vietnam (Việt Nam Dân Quốc, RVN) was declared in Hanoi as the result of this conference; Vũ Hồng Khanh became its first and only president. Upon the founding of the RVN, Bảo Đại was notified that he was deposed by the Chinese on August 17, 1941; the Nguyen monarchy was formally abolished between 1941 and 1945. Bảo, Empress Nam Phương and other members of the Imperial family were interned in Dalat throughout the war.

LeTuongNiem1946 NguyenThaiHoc

The memorial service for Nguyễn Thái Học held by the Viet Quoc in Hanoi, 1942.

During World War II, Vietnam, although nominally an independent state, was no more than a puppet state of China. The RVN also established a military alliance with Thailand, created the so-called "Nanking-Hanoi-Bangkok Axis". The Vietnamese Revolutionary Army (Việt Nam Cách mệnh Quân), the armed forces of RVN, participated during the invasions of northern Malaya in 1941 and of Burma in 1942. In 1944, the combination of economic mismanagement of the government and natural disasters resulted in a famine in northern Vietnam, in which more than one million people died of starvation.

Meanwhile, the domestic nationalists led by Ngô Đình Diệm secretly created an underground network of resistance movements and established contacts with the Tamikusa in Taiwan. Diệm himself served as the Interior Minister in the RVN government and was one of the high-ranking RVN politicians who led the resistance movement to the Chinese and the Viet Quoc. As the RVN's Interior Minister, he supervised the RVN's bureaucracy and this position put Diệm at advantage by the end of the war in 1945.

In June 1942, Japan officially supported the Phuc Quoc Hoi, which had moved to Taihoku, as the representative of the Vietnamese people thanks to the lobby of Pan-Asianist General Matsui Iwane. Japan did not wish to see the return of French rule on the region by the end of the war. Cường Để, in return, looked upon Japan as the liberator for Vietnam. In 1943, Prince Cường then formulated the concept of the popular monarchy (quốc dân quân chủ chế) which combined Japanese social nationalism with French Napoleonic idea based on three principles: the supremacy of the popularly elected councils, the monarchy as an organ of state and social egalitarianism.

Duy Tan gia

Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh San (1900–78), the Emperor of Annam (1907–16), the Prime Minister (1945–47) and King of Vietnam (1951–71).

Prince Vĩnh San also found his way to return during the war. Vĩnh San joined the Free French forces in 1942 and was kept promoted to the rank of major by the end of the war in 1945. Despite his long exile, Vĩnh San remained popular among the Vietnamese. France wished to create a friendly regime in Vietnam with Vĩnh San at its helm and, in return, Vĩnh San personally wanted to use this opportunity instead to escape from his exile and return to his fatherland. By 1920s, Vĩnh San had modified his view in regard of the French and readily collaborated with the Gaullist government in Paris for post-war reorganization of the colonial arrangement in Indochina.

Liberation of Indochina (1945–46)[]

The surrender of Thailand in 1944 prompted the resistance movement led by Ngô Đình Diệm to consider a coup against the RVN government. The RVN itself had prepared for the landings of the Allied forces at Indochina by the first half of 1945. Prime Minister of the RVN, Nguyễn Hải Thần, offered his resignation to President Khanh on December 1, 1944, and was replaced by a non-Viet Quoc technocrat, Trần Trọng Kim. Kim's government cooperated with the Chinese Army that still occupied Vietnam, while at the same time maintained contacts with the Allies, especially Japan, and the resistance movement.

With the Allies’ movement approaching Indochina, Diem noticed Kim about the upcoming coup at the night of March 12. Unsurprisingly, Kim allowed Diem to go ahead. At the dawn of March 13, 1945, Diem announced on radio the formation of an interim government which would enter a negotiation with the Allied forces. Pro-Diem Cao Dai militias marched in Hanoi, Dalat and Hue and arrested Khanh who surrender without resisting. On other hand, the Hoa Hao militias seized Saigon and the areas around Mekong Delta. On September 13, 1945, the French-British forces landed in Saigon, while the Japanese-Korean forces landed in Hanoi exactly a week later.

Cường Để was flown in late September 1945 to Hanoi aboard a Japanese military airplane. He was immediately received by Diem and elected as provisional head of state (quốc trưởng lâm thời). Vĩnh San landed in Saigon aboard a French military aircraft on January 3, 1946, after 30 years away in exile. By his arrival, Vĩnh San was appointed Supreme Advisor (cố vấn tối cao) by the provisional government. With the arrivals of two royals, the royal house was split into three leadership. Paris supported Vĩnh San to be restored to his throne because of his Gaullist view, Tokyo wanted to install their ally Cường Để because of his Pan-Asianism, while the colonial government tended to retain more cooperative Vĩnh Thụy.

Vua Duy Tan

Prince Vĩnh San addressed a meeting of left-wing parties in Hanoi, 1946.

The first Royal Conference (Hội nghị Vương gia) was convened in Hue on January 14, 1946 in which the three royals (ba vua) met with each other for the first time. It was agreed the Nguyen monarchs will be referred formally as "king" (vua nước) rather than "emperor" (hoàng đế), Cường Để assumed the throne with regnal name "Gia Thanh" and Vĩnh San became the prime minister. A new government led by Vĩnh San was announced on January 17, 1946, consisted of French-educated Vietnamese, including royalists such as Prince Vĩnh Thụy and Prince Bửu Hội and socialists such as Phan Anh and Hồ Đắc Điềm.

On February 2, 1946, Anh's Socialist Union, Huỳnh Phú Sổ's Democratic Socialist Party, Dương Đức Hiền's Democratic Party and Prince Vĩnh San's Democratic Rally, were merged into the People's Democratic Rally (Tập hợp Dân chủ Nhân dân; Rassemblement démocratique populaire, Dan Nhan). Vĩnh San became the party leader, while Anh was the general secretary. On other hand, the Phuc Quoc Hoi transformed as a right-wing political party, supported by nationalists, Cao Dai followers, royalists and Vietnamese Catholics. Ngô Đình Diệm, with the blessing of Gia Thanh, became the leader of the Phuc Quoc Hoi.

General Pham Van Dong

Phạm Văn Đổng (1919–2008), the father of Vietnamese Army

On January 24, 1946, the French announced the plan for federalization of French Indochina with Vietnam both as a member of colonial union and an associated state of French Community. As the Japanese had determined not to let the French rule restored, it transferred the power in the north to the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese Revolutionary Army was renamed by the government as the Vietnamese National Army (Quân đội Quốc gia Việt Nam, QDQGVN) on May 22, 1946. Phạm Văn Đổng, a former officer in French colonial army, was appointed first Chief of Staff of the VNA. On June 25, the Japanese Army retreated from Indochina.

In May 1946, a meeting between Vĩnh San and Georges Thierry d'Argenlieu, the High Commissioner of French Indochina, resulted to the Dalat Agreement, in which the French recognized de facto authority of the Vietnamese government in the north of 16th parallel line. The French however, went ahead by its own without consulting the governments of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. By June 1946, the Autonomy of Cochinchina (Nam Kỳ Tự trị) was established by the French in southern Vietnam; Nguyễn Văn Thinh became its President. Prince Vĩnh San denounced the unilateral creation of Autonomous Cochinchina and accused the French had disregarded Vietnam's territorial integrity within the union framework.

Union of Indochina (1946–49)[]

In February 1947, Anh and the radical wing of Dan Nhan withdrew their support to Vĩnh San after disagreement with the Union plan. With the collapse of Vĩnh San's Ministry, Anh was appointed by Gia Thanh to the premiership on February 16, 1947. Anh's Ministry consisted of socialists and nationalists, but excluded several key royalists, such as Prince Vĩnh Thụy. Under Anh, the Communists had infiltrated the Ministry of Defense since the previous cabinet and maintained autonomous left-wing forces in the south. Anh's Ministry was the highest point of communist influences on the Vietnamese government.

The Communist domination on the army resulted to a rift in the VNA between the left-wing officers supported by Anh and pro-Vĩnh San, French-educated officers. Võ Nguyên Giáp, represented the former, envisioned the VNA as a "people's army" modeled after the Soviet Army, while Phạm Văn Đổng, represented the latter, wanted the VNA reorganization into smaller but professional army. Between 1945 and 1947, the former prevailed as the Soviet occupation of southwestern China provided direct supply line of weapons from Moscow. When these line disrupted with the Soviet retreat from China in 1947, the need for smaller army emerged.

Ngo Dinh Diem

Ngô Đình Diệm (1901–70), the Prime Minister of Vietnam (1948–49; 1955–58; 1967–68)

Disagreement regarding the reorganization led Phuc Quoc Hoi ministers, such as Nguyễn Tôn Hoàn and Phan Huy Quát, resigned on November 11, 1947, resulting to the collapse of Anh's Ministry. Ngô Đình Diệm was asked by Gia Thanh to form a government. Vĩnh San and Vĩnh Thụy joined the new government that comprised of nationalists, royalists and pro-Vĩnh San socialists, but not of Anh's supporters. Vĩnh San was appointed to the Defense portfolio, signalling the start of reorganization. Anh and his supporters then rebelled and joined the Indochinese Communist Party led by Trường Chinh.

Several autonomous militias were demanded either to accept the central command or be suppressed. Disappointed, some joined the Communists in the northern jungle areas, while others, such as the Cao Dai and the Bình Xuyên, revolted by their own. Diệm violently put the rebellions down and consolidated the control of the centre over regions previously held by the militias. Diệm was also able to convince the French to stop supporting a separate Cochinchinese state and guaranteed the Cochinchinese leaders of regional autonomy. On March 1, 1948, the Autonomy of Cochinchina officially became a part of Vietnam.

Independent Vietnam (1949–present)[]

References[]

Further readings[]

This article is part of Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum

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