For thousands of years, the Vietnamese have had to fight for their freedom from Chinese and French domination. China and France were very similar, yet very different in their plans and approaches to dominate Vietnam. China and France were very similar with the fact that both nations tried to extinguish the individuality of Vietnam’s culture. China felt itself superior to Vietnam and had the same exploitation intentions in mind as the Western imperialists, but did not disrupt Vietnam’s social organization, like France whom tried to colonize or westernize Vietnam; taking their land, r

The focus of French colonialism was taxation of the rural areas and forced labor in French colonial government projects. The French administration destroyed the Vietnamese peasant civilization by taking away their land and forcing them to work as agricultural laborers, and industrial and commercial workers’. Agricultural workers were paid wages, had to give the landlords half their gross income, and had to pay for all the expenses of cultivation. Industrial, agricultural, and commercial workers’ were limited to horrible pay and working conditions in the mines, plantations, and industrial and commercial enterprises, which led to a high unemployment rate, and hunger. Besides unemployment there was “chiseling,” when a supervisor or foreman takes your wages. A number of Vietnamese studies have shown that 37 to 50 percent of some workers’ earnings were taken (Gettleman 11).

Not only were the French starving the Vietnamese, and permitting them to harsh labor conditions for pennies, they also disrupted the village system, instituting regular registration of births and deaths to allow more accurate tax polls and more efficient tax collection. The right to vote was based on education in new system only to Western-educated individuals, who had neither a traditional following nor influence among the peasants (SarDesai 44). During the 100 years of colonial rule, the French developed a sense of cultural and racial superiority over everything Vietnamese.

By the early 1920s, nationalist parties began to demand reform and independence. Among these nationalist parties were the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang (Vietnamese Nationalist Party, or VNQDD) and the Indochina Communist Party (ICP), which were formed by Ho Chi Minh, and led two uprisings against the French which led to the fate of each group. The two uprisings had a tremendous impact on the Vietnamese masses, whose resentment against French rule was multiplied manifold when 10,000 of Vietnamese compatriots were executed, tortured to death, or killed with bombs, grenades, or guns during the two violent uprisings; including the unconscionable bombing of unarmed marchers at Vinh, and several hundred guillotinings without trial. The two uprisings also affected public opinion in France, leading some liberal colonialists to advocate reforms in Indochina (SarDesai 52).

After the revolts and uprisings of the Vietnamese, China’s rule was punctuated by several violent expressions of hostility towards the Vietnamese. The Chinese occupied the land previously owned by elite Vietnamese officials, executed hundreds of

Some topics in this essay:
Cochin China, Elite Vietnamese, South China, Chi Minh, French March, China France, China Vietnam, Hue Hanoi, Indochina SarDesai, Christianity French, chinese culture, percent land, declared establishment independent, taking land, nineteenth century, vietnam china, france similar, china france, industrial commercial, french colonialism, french administration, china france similar,