Phan Boi Chau - Activism in Vietnam

Activism in Vietnam

Phan spent the first five years of the 20th century living in Huế and traveling the country. Phan drew up a three-step plan to get the French out of Vietnam. First, he would need to organize remnants of the Cần Vương movement and other sympathizers of the cause. Second, he would need to attain support from the Vietnamese imperial family and the bureaucracy, many of whom had already come to grips with French colonial rule. Finally, he would need to obtain foreign aid, from Chinese or Japanese revolutionaries, to finance the revolution.

It was only later that Phan realized that obtaining independence for Vietnam would be much more difficult than expected. He became familiar with the works of famed European thinkers, such as Voltaire, Rousseau and Darwin. Phan was also influenced by the writings of such Chinese Confucianists as Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei. The European and Chinese works, which had only entered Vietnamese circles a few years later, opened Phan's mind to more expansive thought regarding the struggle for freedom of his people. Liang's Hsin-min ts'ung-pao (“The Renovation of the People”) had an impact on Phan's revolutionary ideas and beliefs, as it criticized the Chinese government and proclaimed that the Chinese people's consciousness needed to be awakened to further the country into the modern era.

Kang took the idea of Social Darwinism and discussed the survival of the fittest concept as it applied to nations and ethnic groups. He described the dire outcomes that would face China if the country did not embark on a series of reforms, similar to those faced by the Ottoman Empire and colonial India. He believed that reforms made by Peter the Great and Emperor Meiji were excellent examples of the political restructuring that needed to take place to save China. From Kang's work, Phan realized why Emperor Tự Đức's decision to ignore Nguyễn Trường Tộ's proposed modernization reforms had led to the downfall of Vietnam and had allowed for French rule in Vietnam.

Phan continued to seek support from the scholar-gentry and the bureaucracy serving the French, before shifting his focus to obtaining support from members of the imperial family. Phan had moved to Huế, claiming that he was preparing for the metropolitan imperial examinations, but in actuality, he planned on drumming up support among the various factions of royal family. Phan traveled to Quảng Nam to meet with Nguyễn Thành, a contemporary anti-colonial revolutionary activist who was involved in the Cần Vương movement. Thành suggested that a royal associate of his, Tôn Thất Toại, could help lead the revolution. Phan rejected the offer, but took Thành's advice to seek support from direct descendants of Emperor Gia Long, the founder of the Nguyễn Dynasty. These direct descendants were still highly respected by wealthy Mekong Delta landowners who Phan hoped would raise the bulk of the money needed to finance the revolution.

By the spring of 1903, Phan had found a perfect candidate to lead the revolution: Prince Cường Để, a direct descendant of Gia Long's eldest son, Canh. Để's descendants had long been dissociated from the emperor and his family since the early 19th century. Để's father was personally sought by Phan Đình Phùng to take Hàm Nghi's place and lead a popular revolt against the French in the 1880s, but he declined. By 1894, he suggested that his son, then 12 years old, could be the new face of the revolution. This plan was never executed as Phung died in January 1896. Cường Để changed the course of his life and began studying history, economics and geography and thought admiringly of the heroic achievements of Trần Hưng Đạo, Zhuge Liang, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Saigō Takamori, Cavour, Otto von Bismarck, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln.

After getting Cường Để to support the revolutionary cause, Phan wrote his first significant work, Luu Cau Huyet Le Tan Thu (Letter from the Ryukyus Written in Tears of Blood). He argued that independence in Vietnam could only be achieved "through a transformation and revitalization of national character". The book was moderately successful amongst the Vietnamese populaces and received attention from other nationalists like Phan Chu Trinh. However, many mandarins were reluctant to publicly support Phan's ideas, and as a result, he came to realize that he couldn't rely on the bureaucratic elite to support his cause.

Phan created the Việt Nam Duy Tân Hội (Vietnam Modernization Association) in 1904; Cường Để led the association as its president, while Phan served as general secretary. Despite its growing member base, Duy Tân Hội struggled financially. Phan had hoped to obtain financial assistance from China, but the country was forced to abandon its suzerain relationship with Vietnam after the 1884–85 Sino-French War. Phan and Cường Để decided to seek aid from Japan, which had recently won a war against Russia, had successfully imposed reforms and seemed more inclined to help out revolutionaries in a nearby Asian country. Phan was selected to visit Japan to secure the funds needed to sustain Duy Tân Hội. Phan did not speak Japanese and had no contacts in Japan, so he sought help from Liang Qichao, who was living in Japan since being exiled years earlier.

Liang introduced Phan to many prominent politicians, including Ōkuma Shigenobu, a well-liked statesman who had previously served as Prime Minister of Japan for a few months in 1898. Phan asked Okuma for financial assistance to fund the activities of Vietnamese revolutionaries. In his letter to Okuma, Phan stated that Japan should be obligated to help Vietnam since both countries were of the "same race, same culture, and same continent". Japan could also promote its interests in Vietnam and prevent French and Russian expansion into China. However, Phan was unsuccessful in procuring aid from the Japanese. The Japanese government did not want to damage its own relationship with France, while opposition party members promised financial aid to Vietnamese students wishing to study in Japan, but also advised Phan not to start a revolutionary movement until Japan was more willing to help the cause.

In Guangxi and Guangdong, the Vietnamese revolutionaries arranged alliances with the Kuomintang by marrying Vietnamese women to Chinese officers. Their children were at an advantage since they could speak both languages and they worked as agents for the revolutionaries and spread revolutionary ideologies across borders. This intermarriage between Chinese and Vietnamese was viewed with alarm by the French. Phan's revolutionary network practiced this extensively; additionally, Chinese merchants also married Vietnamese women, and provided funds and help.