I recently found out that the National Library of Vietnam has digitized some newspapers. They’ve done a very good job, and it is wonderful to be able to read these sources.
In randomly looking at one paper, a newspaper called Cứu Quốc (National Salvation) that was published after the 1945 August Revolution, I quickly noticed a couple items about overseas Chinese (Hoa kiều).
In the September 7, 1945 issue, for instance, there is a letter from an overseas Chinese who calls on other overseas Chinese to support Vietnamese independence.
I then randomly looked at another day – November 12, 1945 – and found a statement there from Hồ Chí Minh on “Sino-Vietnamese friendship.”
I haven’t looked at the issues in between those two dates, so I’m not sure if there is more there about overseas Chinese, but it is interesting to see what Hồ Chí Minh said. Here is a translation of the text:
On the occasion of the commemoration of master [đạo sư] Sun Yat-sen’s revolution, I would like to remind people of the policy of the government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam towards overseas Chinese [anh em Hoa kiều].
China and Vietnam are two sibling nations [hai nước anh em]. Our relations are extremely close. [Whether it be in the realm of] culture, history, politics or economics, our two peoples [dân tộc] have had relations for thousands of years.
There are close to 50,000 overseas Chinese; some who were born and raised in Vietnam, and some who came to make a living. They are no different from the relatives of a single family who all experience joy and suffering together.
In the words and actions of Vietnamese compatriots [đồng bào Việt Nam] towards overseas Chinese siblings [anh em Hoa kiều] and of overseas Chinese siblings towards Vietnamese compatriots, everyone must cherish and help each other, like siblings of the same flesh and bone [anh em cốt nhục].
It is a shame that the treacherous poison of Imperialism in the past has left some scars that have led overseas Chinese and Việt [dân Việt] in some places and at some times to engage in petty quarrels [xích mích]. That is unfortunate. We must do our utmost to resolve this.
Therefore, from this point onward, Vietnamese compatriots must be kind to, and definitely must make an effort to protect the life and property of, overseas Chinese siblings. Anyone who contravenes that order will be severely punished.
At the same time, we urge Overseas Chinese siblings to also demonstrate kindness and a spirit of cooperation with their Vietnamese siblings, and to not do anything illegal.
Overseas Chinese siblings and Vietnamese compatriots must unite closely to bring about SINO-VIETNAMESE FRIENDSHIP [HOA VIỆT THÂN THIỆN]. Only then will we be worthy [to be called] the disciples [tín đồ] of Mr. Sun Yat-sen.
There are many things about this short document that are interesting. First of all, it looks like something was going a bit wrong. In mentioning “petty quarrels” [xích mích], the definite need for Vietnamese to protect the life and property of overseas Chinese, and the need for overseas Chinese to obey the law, it is evident that problems between Vietnamese and overseas Chinese must have been occurring. What exactly were those problems?
Second, the terminology that Hồ Chí Minh used was also very interesting. Vietnamese were “Vietnamese compatriots” and overseas Chinese were “overseas Chinese siblings.” In other words, the overseas Chinese were not being viewed as members of the nation. So what were they?
This short document offers us an interesting glimpse at a fascinating time and place. For people who want to know more about this time and place, a good place to start is with David Marr’s new book – Vietnam: State, War, and Revolution (1945–1946).
I still haven’t read it (but it’s on my list), but in looking through the preview of it on Google Books I see that Marr makes use of sources like Cứu Quốc. Now thanks to the National Library of Vietnam’s digitization of some newspapers, readers can easily follow up what he says by going right to the source. That’s wonderful.
Growing up in the family of Vietnamese father ( high ranking civilian official of SVN ) and Chinese Vietnamese mother ( wealthy business clan ), I often listened to detailed stories of “overseas Chinese siblings” and Vietnamese. My recollected understanding was in line with Ho Chi Minh’s gentler description of ” petty quarrels” [xích mích] and in fact, may have leaned more to the level of attempted control and monopoly of the economy. This problem was bigger than petty ” quarrels “, resulting in his calls for ” Overseas Chinese siblings to also demonstrate kindness and a spirit of cooperation with their Vietnamese siblings, and to not do anything illegal.”.
Your research also helped to directly trace back at how far the continuing complex and conflicting Chinese-Vietnamese relation went and perhaps why after 1975, there was not-so-unofficial but significant pushes to exile these “overseas Chinese siblings”. I, further agree with Ho Chi Minh’s wording of “overseas Chinese siblings” in regarding to split loyalty among Chinese Vietnamese , especially when they live in large concentration such as Cho Lon ( certainly, the appropriate designation ” Hoa Kieu ” is a lot more often used than the direct translation of ” Nguoi Viet Goc Hoa ” and predated Ho Chi Minh ).
Thanks for your comments.
From what I know, the situation in the North went through a few changes. This is the first thing I’ve seen about relations right after WWII. Not long after that, a Nationalist Chinese army occupied the north to disarm the Japanese, so it would be interesting to know if that period had any affect on Hoa Kieu.
Then after the PRC was established and started to support HCM’s government, ethnic Chinese got favored treatment.
The following article is interesting: Han Xiaorong, “Spoiled Guests or Dedicated Patriots: The Chinese in North Vietnam, 1954-1978.” International Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 6, Number 1 (Spring 2009), pp. 1-36. This guy found that in the 1950s-60s the Chinese in the North were basically “left alone” and not required to assimilate into a national culture because the PRC was a “fraternal Socialist country” and somehow in the logic of the day, Chinese = fraternal Socialist = ok, so leave them alone. The Chinese in the North also had their own Chinese-language newspaper. This guy used it for his research. I’m curious to look at it and see what kinds of things were written about there.
Things then started to go bad in the 1960s. There were hundreds of thousands of “volunteers” from China who assisted the North in the war effort, and when the Cultural Revolution got going, apparently there were some aspects of that that started to spread to North Vietnam. This made the government nervous, and while they didn’t kick out the volunteers, people started to publish about “the history of Vietnamese resistance to Chinese aggression” (whereas in the 1950s the stuff that was written in the North about China was the exact opposite – about being eternal friends).
Then Nixon and Mao shook hands, and that made China worse in people’s eyes, and then with the border war, things got really bad.
I don’t know as much about the South. Someone just told me that early on Diem tried to push ethnic Chinese out of some industries (or something like that). At the same time, Chinese were free to set up their own schools, etc., so my sense is that in a place like Cho Lon people must have been able to live a life in a more or less completely Chinese environment. And at the same time in South Vietnamese media I think I’ve seen criticisms of the North because it was so pro-Chinese.
Then in the late 1970s, the government started to nationalize businesses, shut down Chinese schools, etc.
The same historian as above has another interesting article: “Exiled to the Ancestral Land: The Resettlement, Stratification and Assimilation of the Refugees from Vietnam in China.” International Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 10, Number 1 (Spring 2013). We all know about Vietnamese and Hoa Kieu who went to places like Australia, the US and France, but in the late 70s close to 300,000 went to China, and many of those were ethnic Chinese. And they were mainly sent to state farms. . . welcome back to the homeland!! (hence the title “exiled” to the “ancestral land”)
“I don’t know as much about the South. Someone just told me that early on Diem tried to push ethnic Chinese out of some industries (or something like that). At the same time, Chinese were free to set up their own schools, etc., so my sense is that in a place like Cho Lon people must have been able to live a life in a more or less completely Chinese environment. And at the same time in South Vietnamese media I think I’ve seen criticisms of the North because it was so pro-Chinese.”
South Vietnam was South East Asia so the pro-Chinese criticisms leaned more toward pro PRC. Ho was CCP.
Marriages at that time(Diem) were decorated with flags from “The allies” which inlcuded the Taiwan(Roc) flags.
Hoakieu monopolied the rice business pre Diem, so it was naturally for him to break down that monopoly, or he would meet, and he did, experience some serious troubles which had contributed to his fall.
After Diem, Hoakieu and other businessmen were free to sell rice to the Vietcong! What goes around comes around.
Great article. It feels so special to read the primary source penned by Ho Chi Minh. I want to point out that, “hoa kieu” = 华侨 = “Chinese nationalities overseas”, and that “hoa due” = 华裔 = “foreigners of Chinese origin”. Reference can be found at http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa_ki%E1%BB%81u
According to this differentiation, Ho Chi Minh meant to say “our Chinese nationalities brothers”.
Thanks for the comment. And I agree, it’s fascinating to read documents like this.
Actually, the terminology is a lot more complex than what is said on that Wikipedia page, so complex that scholars struggle to understand it. The definitions on that Wikipedia page are more or less “common sense” ways of understanding those terms now. In the early and mid-20th century, however, they had specific legal meanings as well.
Huaqiao only started to be used in the late nineteenth century, and it had legal connotations. The Qing Dynasty wanted the Chinese in Southeast Asia to help the dynasty, and started to “claim” them as belonging to “China.” That term had that connotation. It wasn’t quite “citizen” but it did mean “they are ours.”
As for Huayi, although it is a very old term, it took on a new meaning in the 20th century as Chinese who had taken up citizenship in another country. (华侨在侨居国所生并取得侨居国国籍的子女。 The children of Huaqiao who take the citizenship of the place where they are born.)
So there were legal/political connotations to those words. Those distinctions are not there now, so the person who wrote that Wikipedia page is making up a “common sense” explanation of what it seems like those terms must mean, but in reality they had more specific meanings in the early and mid-20th century.
Starting around page 141 in this book there is a discussion about these terms and how scholars have tried to define them.
http://books.google.com/books?id=6zmJCq2W9IoC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=huayi+re-migrant&source=bl&ots=PkscXYd-uu&sig=TU–cLWIYKojVdg27XusXl7aSW4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nNNpUsmLBYGriALhloHQCg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=1890s&f=false