FRENCH INDO-CHINA

A more Machiavellian counsellor, though to largely the same effect,
was Hoang-Cao-Khai, former viceroy of Tonkin.1 He advised his com-
patriots to learn all they could from the French. A premature attempt
to break away was foredoomed to failure: Japan might be a more perma-
nent and harsher master than France. Learn of the West and lie low for
a hundred years, then Annam will be ready for autonomy. Like Phan
Chau Trinh he blamed the fatuous stagnancy of old Annam for the
conquest, nor had the upper classes learned anything by this failure.
In 1876 the most brilliant reply to the question asked at the Hue
examinations: "Was Japan right in turning to Western methods?" was
in the negative, on the grounds that it meant an eventual return to
barbarism.

It was China, Armani's perennial teacher, who gave the Annamites
confidence in the West. Though Japan had been victor, the reforms
which China instituted in 1900 influenced much more the Annamite
intelligentsia. The writings of the Chinese reformers, Kang and Liang,
stirred the Indo-Chinese to read European books, chiefly the eighteenth-
century philosophers. They even took on Chinese names: Rousseau
became Lu, and Montesquieu Manh. Revolutionary ideas buzzed in
every Annamite head. France was reproached with having denied her
heritage by keeping her proteges in ignorance. This was the first time
that the Annamite intelligentsia admitted that the West had any grounds
for superiority.

Japan, after her 1905 victory, became the champion of the Yellow
Races and drew Aimamites to study there as well as in China. It was
appropriate that Prince Coung De should have directed his conspiracy
from Nippon. A change in the Annamite viewpoint was evidenced at
the opening of the new Hanoi University. Beau realized that if they had
no facilities in the colony Annamite students would go abroad where
foreign influences might be subversive. The closing of the University,
as part of the reaction to the 1908 uprisings, disillusioned the native
elite who were just beginning to have confidence in Western culture.
Their disappointment was shown in the resolutions formulated by the
Permanent Annamite Mission at Paris in 1908: more and better educa-
tion was asked even before improvements in the colony's economy.
It was unfortunate that at the very time the Annamites were eager to
learn of the West France was beginning to retract and regret the gen-
erosity of the earlier period. The Annamites were still preoccupied
with the maMse which contact with the West inspired in them. They
1 Hoang-Cao-Kim, Revue Incfa-Cktimse (February 1910).

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