Chinese Borders and Indigenous Parallels : France, Vietnam, and the "Korean Model"
Title Chinese Borders and Indigenous Parallels : France, Vietnam, and the "Korean Model" Author(s) Grosser, Pierre Citation Eurasia Border Review, 3(Special Issue), 53-73 Issue Date 2012 Doc URL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/50963 Type bulletin (article) File Information EBR3-S_007.pdf Instructions for use Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers : HUSCAP Chinese Borders and Indigenous Parallels: France, Vietnam, and the “Korean Model” Pierre Grosser (Sciences Po, Paris) The border between China and Vietnam is ancient. France took over from Vietnam at the end of the 19th century, and the demarcation of this border was a long and difficult process that took place over a period of more than ten years. It was completed in 18961. For the French, Indochina, and particularly Tonkin, was a “balcony over China”. But even though France participated in the “westphalization” of the Far East, the country remained haunted by the heritage of the Chinese empire and the “tributary system”. In the years 1945-1947, France believed that it had snatched North Vietnam away from Chinese ambitions, returning to a status quo ante. Yet from 1949/50, the Chinese-Vietnamese border and Tonkin saw a struggle with much at stake. We will see how France “lost” this border, and how for France Tonkin became the border of French identity, since it was established as the border of the “free world”, of the French Union, and of French virility. Thirdly, and finally, we will see how the “Korean model” influenced the handling of the question of Indochina, the war concluding with the creation of the demarcation at the 17th parallel, a new “border”.
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