Preview

impact of french imperialism on indochina

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1032 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
impact of french imperialism on indochina
The impact of French imperialism on Indochina to 1945

Being an imperialist country, France pursed to increase its power, wealth and influence by gaining authority over other parts in the world. South America and Africa were among the countries the French Empire had owned in addition to Indochina who lost its independence after the war against China, which lasted from 1884-1885. Indochina was a main asset to France, especially in the field of economics and social power between other countries such as China and Japan.
Despite the advantage Indochina gave to France, the control of the French was not considered beneficial to the Indochinese nation.

Politically, France reduced the country’s sense of unity by separating Indochina into three administrative sections called Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina. Political control varied, as it was direct control for the colony of Cochinchina, however indirect control for Annam and Tonkin. The difference between these areas was the fact that the Vietnamese who lived in Cochinchina were able to gain French citizenship and were enabled to hold seats in the National Assembly in Paris. This meant that authority held by the Vietnamese Emperor was strongly weakened, as his mandarins who gave him his authority worked for the French governor. Whereas, in Annam and Tonkin citizens weren’t allowed access to French citizenship and their territory were not counted as part of France. Their emperors continued authorities through the exercise of French govern. This essentially divided the united power of Indochina as power comes in the masses.

In terms of social culture, it was French policy to encourage the educated to serve in the army or civil service and to assimilate into French society. Through assimilation of French ideals, the educated Vietnamese people adopted the illusion of French revolutionary concepts of liberty, fraternity and equality. This was contradicting as they were excluded from political, administrative and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    <br>Herring begins his account with a summary of the First Indochina War. He reports that the Vietnamese resisted French imperialism as persistently as they had Chinese. French colonial policies had transformed the Vietnamese economic and social systems, giving rise to an urban middle class, however; the exploitation of the country and its people stimulated more radical revolutionary activity. Herring states that the revolution of 1945 was almost entirely the personal creation of the charismatic leader Ho Chi Minh. Minh is described as a frail and gentle man who radiated warmth and serenity, however; beneath this mild exterior existed a determined revolutionary who was willing to employ the most cold- blooded methods in the cause to which he dedicated his life. With the guidance of Minh, the Vietminh launched as a response to the favorable circumstances of World War II. By the spring of 1945, Minh mobilized a base of great support. When Japan surrendered in 1945, the Vietminh filled the vacuum. France and the Vietminh attempted to negotiate an agreement, but their goals were irreconcilable.…

    • 1881 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Apush Chapter 30

    • 1956 Words
    • 8 Pages

    * -From the late 1800’s until WWII, France ruled most of Indochina, including Vietnam, Laos, & Cambodia.…

    • 1956 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    1) The Vietnamese complaints against the French both in the letters to President Truman and the 1945 Declaration of Independence, were based on the levying of unjust taxes, increasing the poverty of the rural populace, exploitation of mineral and forest resources, massive starvation, and imprisonment of those who would rebel or question their colonial power. In the long list of grievances against the French stated in the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, “They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty”. Ho Chi Minh stated in his letter to Truman, that it was strictly for humanitarian reasons he need to revolt, and that “two million Vietnamese died of starvation during winter of 1944 and spring 1945”, and that it was “because of starvation policy of French who seized and stored until it controlled all available rice”. These seem like these conditions were a common occurrence at the time in Southeast Asia, where native people under the domination of French colonialism were not treated with dignity and not even given sufficient bare human necessities to live their lives. (Zinn Ch. 18 Pg. XXX)…

    • 1126 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eisenhower’s eight year presidency was riddled with United States involvement in Southeast Asia - specifically around the Indochina foreign policy. Eisenhower’s administration was truly the first administrations that was tested by the conflict in Vietnam to aid in solutions and help promote diplomacy. The war torn region of Southeast Asia had been challenged by violence for decades already to this point in history and the United States understood how critical it was to America’s strategic direction; labeling South Vietnam vital to both military position for security, and for natural resources. These are both important to have under a non-communist control, but it was even more important to insure the region of the world was not under the control of the communist regime.…

    • 687 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For over 6 decades the French had colonial control of Indochina . In 1954, the French suffered a critical defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French having no options had to pull out of Vietnam. At the Geneva Conference of 1954, an agreement was met called the Geneva Accords, it stated the French would draw all military forces out of Vietnam and temporarily divide Vietnam along the 17th parallel; which spilt the country into communist North Vietnam which was supported by Russia and China and non-communist South Vietnam supported by the United States. The communist government in North Vietnam was led by Ho Chi Minh; he sought to unite Vietnam under communist rule. The United States feared the spread of communism would prove the "domino theory" which stated that if one country in Southeast Asia fell to communism then surrounding countries would also soon fall.…

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Portable helicopter landing mats designed for Vietnam have been reused to build large sections of the US–Mexico border wall. The Army Corps of Engineers provided institutional links between these two geographically distant imperial projects. After documenting the historical connections between war and wall, I shift the analytic lens to show how mid-century modernism and imperial foreign policy were entangled aesthetically. General Westmoreland, Agnes Martin, Sol LeWitt, and Richard Serra all draw from the same social imaginary. Substantive political disagreements notwtihstanding, geometric grids animated aesthetic affinities that have made it more difficult to perceive, let alone critique or dislodge, the long tentacles of American…

    • 104 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Dbq on New Imperialism

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Imperialism caused certain countries to dominate with power. With this power they were able to take over less developed areas. The French took over the majority of Africa (document 9). This gave France more ports for shipping exports and receiving imports of goods which helped out the economy (OI). The French dominated these areas with their huge army (document 8). Countries had no chance against them so all they could do is take the deal the French gave the. This could include protection, education or medical care (OI).…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Abc Clio

    • 271 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Although America continued to show its disapproval of France's colonial domination of Indochina through World War II, by 1945, growing fear of Russian activity worldwide prompted the United States to reverse its position and support French colonialism in Southeast Asia. When the nationalist movement, led by the devoted communist figure Ho Chi Minh, threatened to topple the French government right after World War II and usher in a communist regime, President Harry Truman committed limited U.S. resources to assist the French in reestablishing their presence in Vietnam. Abc Clio data…

    • 271 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Vietnam Research Paper

    • 2816 Words
    • 12 Pages

    As a result of growing French imperialism, it initiated the First Indochina War, and led to the U.S. involvement with Vietnam in a long and bloody war. In 1858 as European powers were scrambling for territories to add to their imperial wealth and power, France invaded Vietnam in established colonial rule. The France’s grip of Vietnam would later fall in World War II but it would thus allow for Japanese occupation of Vietnam from 1940-1945. As the war raged on, Japanese shifted their focus away from Vietnam as they suffered major casualties from the atomic bomb. Upon the Japanese’s formal surrender to end World War II, Vietnam declared their independence and named their country Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV).…

    • 2816 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Week One Assignment

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Studying the prior history of Vietnam is important because we learn that Vietnam was completely under French rule by 1893 (Week One Lecture, 2013). Why was Vietnam such a prized possession to have? Vietnam’s location was significant within itself; Vietnam had “a strategic location astride major shipping lanes linking India, China, Japan, and the islands of Southeast Asia” and served as a source of foodstuffs and raw materials (Moss, 2010, p.2). We must put ourselves in the shoes of the Vietnamese people during this time and view these events from their point-of-view also. There were territorial wars including France, Japan, and eventually the United States which all treated Vietnam and the Vietnamese people as nothing more than property that they wanted to gain and maintain control of. No respect or value of their culture was held by any of these countries, which served as another reason that Vietnam sought national identity and independence. Studying the context of the prior history of Vietnam and what the participants of this history valued helps understand the elements that led to the independence of Vietnam. All of the information needed to understand the decisions made and the actions taken by the Vietnamese people to fight for their independence is gained through studying the context of their prior history.…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My Uncle Vinny

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The following movies that I decide on were Straight Outta Compton “NWA” Directed by F. Gary Gray and My Cousin Vinny Directed by Jonathan Lynn. Both films have their differences as NWA faces police harassment in 1987, and later caught the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to put a stop to discriminating local police officer. But in NWA reasons were to inform the people about police brutality and racial profiling, and in its lyrics quickly said consider the use of violence against police. While My Uncle Vinny film displays a good case of the relationship between language and context in verbal communication.…

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Firstly, there were political gains seen in Imperialism. Some nations saw that they could demonstrate their power by taking over weaker lands. France captured Vietnam quite easily in 1867, and made sure they were seen as the stronger ones. A Vietnamese governor at the time recounts, “We are weak against them… The French have immense warships, filled with soldiers and armed with large cannons. No one can resist them. They go…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unlike with other wars preceding it whom often brought together the citizens of the United States, the Vietnam War took on a role of destabilizing American society. Internal problems like racism and rising poverty that were once put on the backburner would appear as main topics of discussion that helped to further increase the already growing division in the nation. U.S. involvement and occasional interference in Indochina began with the French’s instance and desire to keep control of the region. The failing European superpower wanting to reconsolidate its power in South East Asia and the world after the end of the Second World War fought to take back what they believed was rightfully theirs after the Japanese had made their exit. As with a majority of colonies, the mistreatment and sometimes inhuman conditions that citizens of Indochina endured especially those in Vietnam led to protests and uprising against the few French men who controlled everything in their country and French…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    • French Indochina – the name given to the colonies in Southeast Asia that were under French control. Significant of European imperialism in Asia and the pressure that was placed on it by Western and European powers.…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Conflict In Indochina

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The conflict in Indochina had both short term and long term social, cultural, environmental, economic and human impacts on the citizens of both Vietnam and Cambodia. Civilians in both countries were affected by political oppression due to American intervention which had, and continues to have, a detrimental effect of all aspects of society in Vietnam and Cambodia.…

    • 573 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays