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“Viet Nam” and the Question of Chinese Aggression
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 August 2009
Extract
The American involvement in Viet Nam has not unnaturally led to the assumption that Chinese expansionism has had a long history of activity in that region, and not a few American writers, notably of journalistic fiber, have come out openly to say that it is really the Chinese that the American forces are fighting against, citing at the same time, hundreds of, even a thousand, years in which Viet Nam was under the control of the Chinese, and innumerable occasions on which it was invaded by the Chinese, that Chinese aggression, on the basis of encroachments into Viet Nam, is a proven fact, and unarguable. On the other hand, there have been a few, notably scholars, who have contended otherwise, that, although imperialism may have infected certain Chinese dynasties, the dominant characteristic, indeed, in the territorial expansion of the Chinese has been their willingness to accept any “barbarian” outsider who would but learn Chinese and accept Chinese customs, as Chinese; also, that China itself is composed of people who are descended from “barbarians” absorbed into the Chinese state by the acculturation process; that the Chinese, while indeed invading their peripheral states on frequent occasions, have done so almost without exception on provocations, such as coups, or attempted coups of the existing friendly-to-China dynasties, and so forth.
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- Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1966
References
* Following passages translated by author from the Chinese.
1. Edgar Snow's interpretation is from his The Other Side of the River, published in 1962. Bernard Fall's is from his “The Two Viet Nams” published in 1963; Moore's is from the Oct. 1950 issue of the magazine. The Time Magazine article appeared in the issue of July 16, 1965, featuring North Viet Nam's President Ho Chi Minh. Earlier indication of the growth of this interpretation are: Andre Laguerre's article on French Indo-China in one of the earlier issues of Life Magazine in the author's possession; “Yueh South” by Reischauer, Edwin in East Asia—The Great TraditionGoogle Scholar, published in 1956 first and in 1960; ect.
One of the chief reasons for writing this paper has been to find the correct interpretation of the name, as differentiated from the mere word. I was struck by the fact that after billions of dollars expended in the military effort in Viet Nam, Americans who ought to know still do not seem to know the meaning of the name of the nation of Viet Nam.
2. Khoi, Le Thanh: Le Viet Nam, Histoire et Civilization, Paris, 1955Google Scholar. Buttinger, Joseph: The Smaller Dragon, A Political History of Viet Nam, New York, 1955.Google Scholar
3. This is the French name for the Dai Nam Thuc Luc. See note 10 below.
* Translated from the French by author.
4. The Ta Ch'ing li-ch'ao shih-lu is the primary source book of the Ch'ing Dynasty. Before its publication in 1938 by the Manchurian Gov't, the Tung Hua-lu of Wang Hsien Ch'ien was generally considered as the indispensable source on the Ch'ing. Insofar as the particular recording noted in this paper is concerned, the notations of the Shih-lu and the Tung Hua-lu are the same, except for a few minor differences in characters, the most notable being the usage of the character for “I see”, in lieu of the “at the present time”, on the second paragraph of page 9 of the translation.
5. This chronological data was derived from various sources, chief among them being the above mentioned Chin-kuo Chin-tai Shih by Huang Ta-Shou, published in Taipeh in 1954, and the Chung-Fa Chan Cheng (Sino-French War) compiled by the Chinese (Communist China's) Historical Association and published by the Shanghai Peoples Publishing House in 1955.
6. The Trinh family became predominant in the North at about the same time, i.e. the end of the 16th c, leading later to the famous feud between these two families for the supremacy of the entire nation, which, in turn reached an anticlimax in 1773 with the advent of the Tayson Rebellion.
As to the ancient name Viet-thoung, it is mentioned in the Chu Shu Chi Nien (Bamboo Book Records), as being the person who arrived in China from the South in 1106 BC to pay tribute to the Chou King Cheng, and indirectly to the Duke of Chou, but this is now thought to be an embellishment of the later Confucianist scholars to extoll the virtues of the Duke. On the basis of much later records of the T'ang Dynasty, the area in question is believed to have been located south of the present day Thanh-hoa and Vinh, that is to say, in the vicinity immediately adjacent to the 17th parallel.
7. This name as with the other predecessor titles such as Dai Viet, Dai Co Viet, etc., was never officially recognized in the Chinese annals.
* Please see footnote on page 13.
8. The word Ying used here for “receive” also has the connotation of “bearing up” or “sustaining” and is used in the sense of the “receive” of the sentence “The Emperor receives the mandate of heaven”. There is an indication here of the Chinese forcing the name upon the Vietnamese, although other passages speak of the Vietnamese being “Deeply thankful”.
9. This country's name appears frequently in the Ch'ing records antedating these and is the carry-over name from the time of Nguyan's rise in the South of the country, in the Saigon area. On such occasion of listings, the adversary Quang Trung and Quang Toan are listed as the Annamese heads.
* Translated from the Chinese by author.
10. There was no Vietnamese source written in Chinese relative to this period available to the author. The Historiographies is a partial translation of the Dai Nam Thuc Luc (Actual Records of the Great Nam). The Thuc Luc (Shih-lu in Chinese pronunciation, but not to be confused with the Ch'ing's one with the same name) is the chief source on this Nguyen Dynasty. The relevent portion quoted from Maybon's book, however, appears on page 13.
* This term, however, as used here in the Shih-lu doesn't necessarily refer specifically to Frenchmen or Westerners. Indeed, the recording do not indicate the Throne was aware of French aid to Nguyen Anh at this time.
11. For instance, see Sun Yu T'ing's biography listed in the Ch'ing shih lieh-ch'uan (Biographies — Ch'ing History), published in 1962 in Taipeh. This statement appears in the text. It also strongly indicates that Sun had a lot to say about the proposal of the name Viet Nam.
12. S'su Ma Ch'ien's famous account of Nam Viet (Nam Yueh) appears in Volume 113 of his Shih Chi (Historical Records) under the Biography of Nam Viet, from which this account was extracted (Annotated by Kamataro Takikawa).
13. Vo Nguyen Giap, the present Defense Minister of North Viet Nam, and the victor of Dien Bien Phu, has claimed this to be one of the four most important battlefield victories in Vietnamese history, in his recent book Dien Bien Phu.
14. The Japanese scholars Matsuinoto Nobuhiro, Sugimoto Naojiro and Sakai Yoshiki (the first named is a recognized authority on the language of Southeast Asia) have all noted this in the Sekai Rekishi Jiten and the Asia Rekishi Jiten (World History Dictionary and Asiatic History Dictionary, respectively) published by Heibonsha, Tokyo, 1960. (In separate articles under “Viet Nam” and “Nguyen Phuc Anh”).
15. Chinese actions subsequent to 1805 when the name Viet Nam first appeared in their records indicate the extent of the fear of encroachment by foreign forces. When France took over control of Viet Nam, the Chinese official record even reverted back to the usage of Annam, a name ironically retained by the French, too, for their middle province (a protectorate). It wasn't until the French were forced out that Viet Nam again came into official usage.