LION AND DRAGON LION AND DRAGON Four centuries of Dutch-Vietnamese relations Editors: John Kleinen Bert van der Zwan Hans Moors Ton van Zeeland Boom – Amsterdam Published under licence of Boom Publishers, Amsterdam, initiating publishers and publishers of the Dutch edition. © 2008 the authors Behoudens de in of krachtens de Auteurswet van 1912 gestelde uitzonderingen mag niets uit deze uitgave worden verveelvoudigd, opgeslagen in een geautomatiseerd gegevensbestand, of openbaar gemaakt, in enige vorm of op enige wijze, hetzij elektronisch, mechanisch door fotokopieën, opnamen of enig andere manier, zonder voorafgaande schriftelijke toestemming van de uitgever. No part of this book may be reproduced in any way whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher. Design: Wim Zaat, Moerkapelle Typesetting: Van Marle drukkerij bv, Moerkapelle Print: A-D druk, Zeist isbn 978 90 8506 585 2 nur 680 www.uitgeverijboom.nl Contents Foreword 7 Introduction 9 John Kleinen and Bert van der Zwan 1. About former friends and feigned foes Dutch relations with ‘Quinam’ in the 17th century 17 John Kleinen 2. The Dutch East India Company in Tonkin (1637-1700) 37 Hoang Anh Tuan 3. Finding Domea, the border port of the Tonkin estuary 63 Nguyen Quang Ngoc 4. The position of Pho Hien and Domea in the Tonkin trade system in the 16th and 17th century 75 Nguyen Van Kim 5. A glimpse of the Netherlands East Indies through the memoirs of Phan Huy Chu (1832-1833) 87 Phan Huy Le 6. The Dutch consuls in Saigon (1867-1946) 105 Jody Leewes 7. The Dutch diplomatic post in Saigon Dutch-Vietnamese relations (1945-1975) 127 John Kleinen LION AND DRAGON 5 8. Farewell to Saigon The Dutch embassy South Vietnam in 1975 157 Ton van Zeeland 9. Brandpunt Vietnam. War reporting by kro Television (1966-1969) 171 Niek Pas 10. The right to be right The Vietnam movement in the Netherlands (1965-1973) 191 Rimko van der Maar 11. Changing perspectives The Netherlands and Vietnam since 1976 211 Duco Hellema Notes 233 Chronology 251 Bibliography of cited books 255 About the authors 259 Illustrations credits 261 Index of persons 263 6 LION AND DRAGON Foreword Working on the realization of this book was a great pleasure. In the first place because the editors, John Kleinen, Bert van der Zwan and Hans Moors brought a great deal of knowledge and a great sense of humour to the project. The energy of editorial assistants Margriet Kruse and Janneke Dufourquet was crucial. With great skill and understanding they managed to keep the sometimes turbulent and seemingly endless stream of e-mail exchanges from running out of control. Surely, without them this book would not exist. Many thanks! Many people have contributed to this book in their own way, either through their scientific knowledge or through their network. Professor Phan Huy Le was impor- tant in both respects. During the editors’ visit to Vietnam he was more than helpful, and I often think back to the pleasant conversations we had in Hanoi at the time. Many people have contributed eye-witness accounts of the events described in the book, thus greatly inspiring our work. Unfortunately I cannot list them all here, but it is with great pleasure that I make an exception for the energetic Mrs. Henny Schoute Bussolati. Perhaps she does not realize to what extent her memories and nuances were a source of inspiration. The staff at the Consulate-general in Ho Chi Minh City were always there for me with help and advice. And so were the people at Boom publishing house, especially Geert van der Meulen and Marlies Enklaar. Our greatest praise, however, goes out to the authors. They have made this collec- tion of articles into the present book: an overview of Dutch-Vietnamese relations from the 17th century until today. The result is a work of great interest, with much to offer to the scientist, the lay person and the traveller alike. Once again, I thank all who have collaborated on this book. It has been a pleasure to work and write together! Ton van Zeeland, Consul-General of The Netherlands Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam May 2007 LION AND DRAGON 7 Introduction A book about the history of the relations between the Netherlands and Vietnam is like a book about a couple who maintain separate residences. The two countries have been in contact for more than four centuries, but at first sight it would be dif- ficult to point out anything they have in common as a result of this history. Could this white spot have been caused by a lack of clarity that we have about the countries that we are actually talking about? Because that is precisely what seems to make it complicated. In the past the Netherlands maintained diplomatic and commercial contacts with a country that by turns was called Tonqueen, Tonkin, Quinam, Cochinchina and Annam. After the Second World War there were a South and a North Vietnam, and only since 1976 has there been a sovereign, undivided Vietnamese Republic. Vietnam, in turn, was first confronted with a private Dutch trading company, the Dutch East India Company (voc), and later, as part of the French colonial empire, mainly with the colonial government in the Dutch Indies. It was not until decolo- nization and the Vietnamese wars that direct contact with the Dutch state presented itself via diplomatic channels. Or could the lack of information about each other have been a consequence of the fact that the Netherlands and Vietnam were usually outside each other’s sphere of interest? In spite of some violent confrontations in the earliest period, in the end neither side had a real incentive to consolidate the contacts. Moreover, as a French colony Vietnam was relegated to the far periphery of the Dutch colonial interests in Asia, the Dutch Indies absorbing all the attention. When decolonisation got under way after the Second World War, the Dutch were interested in Vietnam mainly in the context of the loss of their own colonial possessions. Moreover, the conflict of the ‘new Vietnamese states’ on the ruins of the failed French decolonisation process was looked upon mainly from a Cold War perspective. The Vietnamese, on the other hand, saw the trouble the Dutch had in defining their attitude towards the protest against the Vietnam war mainly as a Western luxury problem. Vietnam wanted political and material support in order to survive and was not interested in the LION AND DRAGON 9 opinions of several different allies that were competing with each other in the Netherlands. Things have changed considerably over the last few years. There are twenty thousand Vietnamese citizens living in the Netherlands now. Increasing numbers of Dutch people are visiting Vietnam, for business as well as for pleasure. As a result, Dutch and Vietnamese are learning more about each other’s countries. Whereas twenty or thirty years ago the Dutch picture of Vietnam was still determined by the war and related internal political preoccupations, in the last few years this associa- tion has gradually disappeared. Political relations between the countries have been normalised. The close relationship in the field of development cooperation that has existed for two decades now, already stands in need of revision. All this because of the spectacular economic development that Vietnam is going through at the moment. Over time this will certainly bring more changes to the nature of the rela- tions between the two countries – but that is not what the present book is about. In this collection of articles a number of Vietnamese and Dutch historians take different aspects from four centuries of Dutch-Vietnamese relations and give them a close examination. It is a first step in mapping the contours of a common past and in making this past accessible to a broad public. Early contacts The first time that Dutch people came into contact with the inhabitants of the coastal area of what is now Vietnam was shortly after 1600, still before the founda- tion of the voc in 1602. However, what happened then is no cause for celebration. While looking for fresh water in a bay, the crew of two Dutch ships were attacked and 23 sailors were murdered. In spite of this loss the ships continued to the inter- national port of Hoi An, or Faifo as the town is called in Western texts. At first it seemed the Dutch were going to be successful in concluding trade agreements with the local rulers of the Nguyen dynasty, but rumours about an impending attack by the local authorities led the Dutch to beat a hasty retreat; they attacked and burnt a village on their way back to the sea. The first trading contacts between the voc and the kingdom of Quinam would not come about until 1633. The early trading contacts between the Netherlands and Vietnam in the 17th and early 18th centuries provide the subject matter for four chapters in this col- lection. The voc ruled supreme in Asia in the 17th century, developing into an important link in the internal trading network between Japan, China and other coastal states, such as Siam, Cambodia and the two Vietnamese kingdoms on the Southeast Asian mainland. A variety of goods were exchanged to satisfy the hunger for profit in early capitalist Europe as much as possible. Unlike in the Indonesian archipelago, most other kingdoms turned out to be stable, cen- 10 LION AND DRAGON tralised states whose rulers attached only limited importance to foreign trade. This did not make it easier for the voc. The key to success lay in Japan. In order to be able, first, to maintain themselves there, and then to keep trade contacts in the rest of Asia at a healthy level, the voc was forced to exchange Chinese silk for silver in Japan.