Minh Mang - Isolationist Foreign Policy

Isolationist Foreign Policy

Minh Mạng continued and intensified his father's isolationist and conservative Confucian policies. His father had rebuffed a British delegation in 1804 proposing that Vietnam be opened to trade. The delegation's gifts were not accepted and turned away. At the time, Vietnam was under no threat of colonisation, since most of Europe was engaged in the Napoleonic Wars. Nevertheless, Napoleon had seen Vietnam as a strategically important objective in the colonial power struggle in Asia, as he felt that it would make an ideal base from which to contest the British East India Company's control of the Indian subcontinent. With the restoration of the monarchy and the final departure of Napoleon in 1815, the military scene in Europe quieted and French interest in Vietnam was revived. Jean-Baptiste Chaigneau, one of the volunteers of Pigneau de Behaine who had helped Gia Long in his quest for power, had become a mandarin and continued to serve Minh Mạng, upon whose ascension, Chaigneau and his colleagues were treated more distantly. He eventually left in November 1824. In 1825, he was appointed as French consul to Vietnam after returning to his homeland to visit his family after more than a quarter of a century in Asia. Upon his return, Minh Mạng received him coldly. The policy of isolationism soon saw Vietnam fall further behind and become more vulnerable as political stability returned to continental Europe, allowing her colonial powers a free hand to once again direct their attention towards further conquests. With his Confucian orthodoxy, Minh Mạng shunned all western influence and ideas as hostile and avoided all contact.

In 1820, Captain John White of the United States Navy was the first American to make contact with Vietnam, arriving in Saigon. Minh Mạng was willing to sign a contract, but only to purchase artillery, firearms, uniforms and books. White was of the opinion that the deal was not sufficiently advantageous and nothing was implemented. In 1821, a trade agreement from Louis XVIII was turned away, with Minh Mạng indicating that no special deal would be offered to any country. That same year, British East India Company agent John Crawfurd made another English attempt at contact, but was only allowed to disembark in the northern ports of Tonkin; he gained no agreements, but concluded relations with France posed no threat to Company trade. In 1822, the French frigate La Cleopatre visited Tourane (present day Đà Nẵng). Her captain was to pay his respects to Minh Mạng, but was greeted with a symbolic dispatch of troops as though an invasion had been expected. In 1824 Minh rejected the offer of an alliance from Burma against Siam, a common enemy of both countries. In 1824 Henri Baron de Bougainville was sent by Louis XVIII to Vietnam with the stated mission "of peace and protection of commerce. Upon arriving in Tourane in 1825, it was not allowed ashore. The royal message was turned away on the pretext that there was nobody able to translate it. It was assumed that the snub was related to an attempt by Bougainville to smuggle ashore a Roman Catholic missionary. Jean-Baptiste Chaigneau's nephew, Eugene Chaigneau, was sent to Vietnam in 1826 as the intended consul but was forced to leave the country without taking up his position. Further fruitless attempts to start a commercial deal were led by de Kergariou in 1827 and Admiral Laplace in 1831. Another effort by Chaigneau in 1829 also failed. In 1831 another French envoy was turned away. Vietnam under Minh Mạng was the first East Asian country with whom the United States sought foreign relations. President Andrew Jackson tried twice to contact Minh Mạng, sending diplomatist Edmund Roberts in 1832, and Consul Joseph Balestier in 1836, to no avail. In 1837 and 1838, La bonite and L'Artemise were ordered to land in Tourane to attempt to gauge the situation in Vietnam with respect to missionary work. Both were met with hostility and communication was prevented.Later, in 1833 and 1834, a war with Siam was fought over control of Cambodia which for the preceding century had been reduced to impotence and fell under control of its two neighbours. After Vietnam under Gia Long gained control over Cambodia in the early 19th century, a Vietnamese-approved monarch was installed. Minh Mạng was forced to put down a Siamese attempt to regain control of the vassal as well as an invasion of southern Vietnam which coincided with rebellion by Lê Văn Khôi. The Siamese planned the invasion to coincide with the rebellion, putting enormous strain on the Nguyen armies. Eventually, Minh Mạng's forces were able to quell the invasion as well as the revolt in Saigon, and he reacted to western aggression by blaming Christianity and showing hostility, giving the European powers to assert that intervention was needed to protect their missionaries. This resulted in missed opportunities to avert future colonisation through having friendly relations, since strong opposition was occurring in France against an invasion, wary of the costs of such a venture. After China was attacked by Britain in the Opium War, Minh Mạng attempted to build an alliance with European powers by sending a delegation of two lower rank mandarins and two interpreters in 1840. They were received in Paris by Prime Minister Marshal Soult and the Commerce Minister, but they were shunned by King Louis-Philippe. This came after the Society of Foreign Missions and the Holy See had urged a rebuke for an "enemy of the religion". The delegation went on to London, with no success.