Goscha, Christopher E
Description
This thesis traces the growth of Vietnamese resistance activities in Thailand from the
beginning of the direct French colonisation of Vietnam in 1885 to the victory of the
Chinese Communists in 1949. Although Thailand's relative importance to the
Vietnamese resistance movement did not increase at a constant rate during this period, but
rather fluctuated in response to several factors, there was nevertheless an overall increase
in Thailand's significance to the Vietnamese struggle against...[Show more] the French. This was most
prominent during the immediate postwar period.
Arranged chronologically, the present work is divided into six chapters that draw upon
a large body of Vietnamese and Thai vernacular sources to detail the development of
Vietnamese resistance work in Thailand during the period under study. The first chapter
is divided into two time frames. The first part considers Thailand's importance to
Vietnamese anticolonialists during the period between 1885 and 1925. Particular
attention is paid to the extensive base building undertaken by scholar-patriots in Thailand
in the early 1920s. The second section examines Vietnamese resistance programmes in
Thailand in terms of their importance to the development of Vietnamese communism
during the period between 1925 and 1940. Three major topics discussed in this section
include: the role the Vietnamese played in the formation and leadership of the Siamese
Communist Party, the part played by Vietnamese communists in promoting a Thai
revolution via this Party, and the negative effects this had on Vietnamese resistance
activities in Thailand.
The second chapter discusses two trends in Thai politics that worked in the
Vietnamese favour during WWII. The first stemmed from international events and
internal Thai political changes that saw Phibun Songkhram adopt sympathetic policies
toward the Vietnamese in a bid to gain their support during the brief 1940-41 Franco-Thai
border war. The second, and most important development, resulted from the direct
cooperation which emerged between Viet Minh and Seri Thai resistance leaders at the end
of the Pacific War. These wartime Seri Thai contacts proved to be invaluable to the Viet
Minh in the postwar period, one of the major factors explaining the ability of the
Vietnamese to administer a wide-range of programmes in Thailand after the war.
The last four chapters consider Thailand's unprecedented strategic importance to the
Vietnamese in the immediate postwar period, with the discussion equally divided between the period prior to the outbreak of full-scale war in Indochina in December 1946 and the
interval running from that point to 1949. Beginning at the end of WWII, chapter three
side-tracks momentarily to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the complex
strategic situation facing the Vietnamese, as the French moved to retake Indochina after
WWII. Having done this, chapter four then shows how the Vietnamese responded to
French actions in terms of expanding their military and diplomatic activities in Thailand
during the same period. Chapter five focuses on the role played by Vietnamese
representatives in Bangkok in the creation of the Southeast Asia League. This discussion
serves as a vehicle to understanding better how Thailand became a key diplomatic outlet
for the Ho Chi Minh-led government following the outbreak of war in Indochina. The
last chapter examines Thailand's military significance to the Vietnamese between 1947
and 1949. The first part of this chapter deals with the period prior to the November 1947
military coup in Bangkok, when the conditions for Vietnamese resistance operations were
most favourable. The second section shows that while Phibun's return to power in 1948
changed the rules guiding the operation of Thai-based Vietnamese programmes, Thailand
nonetheless remained a key link to the Vietnamese until 1949. In this year, Thailand's
importance effectively came to an end as Phibun began to crack-down stringently on
Vietnamese activities in Thailand and the victory of the Chinese Communists opened
more important northern bases and provided the Vietnamese with key access to Chinese
diplomatic and military support.
Items in Open Research are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.