Thailand and the Vietnamese resistance against the French

Abstract

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 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.