STORY OF INDO-CHINA

Evening Star, Issue 23657, 17 August 1940, Page 6

STORY OF INDO-CHINA

COUNTRY OF RICH RESOURCES With France’s submission to her enemy in the West, Oriental eyes are turning to her possessions in the East above all to the richest jewel in her colonial crown, the great fivefold colony-protectorate of Indo-China. Now immensely quickened by France’s misfortunes, the interest of French Indo-China’s neighbours in its future fates is not difficult to understand. :A country of rich natural resources, its mines and plantations furnish important supplies of raw materials for industry. Its lowlands and river deltas, watered and fed by two great rivers which flow down from the wooded highlands in th* north—extension of the vast mountain svstem of Tibet—are among the moat fertile agricultural country in Asia. And it is one' of the rice granenes of th* But there is more to it than natural wealth. Indo-China occupies an important strategic position in the Oriental world. At the tip of the long, narrow peninsula, which springs south from neighbouring Thailand (Siam), is Singapore, the British fortress that guard* the Strait of Malacca, the narrow highway between Malaya and Sumatra, to China and Japan. - '. Along the Chinese coast to the east i* Hongkong. Burma skirts the northwestern frontier of French Indo-China-Not far away across the China Sea are Borneo and/ the Dutch East Indies. A 1 desirable possession in itself, this French possession could be an important has* for a nation with acquisitive dreams ia that world of islands and other possessions round about it. _ • The story of France in Indo-China Is a romantic one. It goes hack to th* eighteenth century ana the rwgn of Louis XVL, the monarch of tragio destiny who was the Revolution’s most spectacular victim. It was a French missionary bishop who first turned! his countrymen’s eyes toward this comer of. the tropic world anth promoted relatione between the King of Annam and his own Bourbon ruler. The old Annamese empire has successfully resisted Chinese attempts to" overrun it, but it was decaying when the French appeared on the scene. All the same, it was not till 1802, after a series of local wars, that any large section of the country became French. In that year Cochin-China, one of the five sections which make up French Indo-China, was ceded to France by the King of Annam. It is the only portion that is a French colony, represented in the French Parliament by a deputy. The others are protectorates. In 1863 a protectorate was established over the kingdom of CamhodiaIn 1884 this rule was extended to the kingdom of Annam and its vice-royalty, Tongking. Laos, the largest of the five sections, became a protectorate in 1893. A sixth section, Kwang-Chan-Wan. waj leased from China in 1898. Altogether these territories make up an area of 285,000 square miles-nme-fifth larger than France itself—with a population of inore than 23 million, of whom only 30,000 are French. FINE COLONISERS. In this decaying land the French; have been a vitalising influence. They are fine colonitrers, as anyone who has seen their admirable world in. North Africa knows. They Lave developed the country while respecting its native customs arid- institutions. : “ The King of Cambodia still rule* f at Pnum-Penh and, the Emperor of . Annam at Hue, in all the pomp and majesty that characterised. their ancestors,” wrote an English visitor some time ago. ’ ‘ Like the yonng Sultan of the Emperor Bao-Dal has had a French education. His wife was brought up in a Parisian convent: When they yisited France last year they were received with all the pomp and circumstance which the French have been careful to preserve around them at home. Again, as in North Africa, tho French have been careful to foster the native area and to preserve the great monuments of the past. French IndoChina—Cambodia, to be precise—possesses one of the greatest monuments of antiquity in the world in the marvellous remains of the once royal and holy city of Angkor. Not Egypt, not India, not Mexico or Java, anything _ really comparable to this astounding aggregation of an architectural golden age of the past. Angkor dates from .the ninth to the twelfth centuries. The great Buddhist temple of Angkor Vat, the supreme monument of ancient Cambodian art, with a facade 500yds wide, dates from the later period,' Tangled in the jungle growth of centuries of neglect when the French arrived, it is a monument to French sagacity and artistic genius as well as to the art of Cambodia. Work is still proceeding at Angkor, where the frontiers, of the jungle have been pushed back to reveal one of the most inspiring achievements of Oriental culture. IMPRESSIVE PAST.' Land of an impressive past, enshrining in its jungle hills one of th* holy places of Buddha, French Indo-, China’s future hangs in the balance to-day. It may be decided to-mor-row—in Munich, or Tokio. The future has been giving th* French anxiety for some time _pastThe passage of arms through Hanoi to China caused vigorous Japanese, protests and threats to bomb th*’ French railway to Nanking some tim*. ago. Franco-Japanese relations hav* been anything hut happy oh this ao-1 count for well over a year. Siamese nationalists some time • ago! loudly called for the cession of - Cam-; bodia to them by France. The Siames* Government has been under the m-‘ fluence of a pro-Fascist group for some years, and the army has been in th* hands of Japanese and German Instructors, charged with its modernisation. ; To meet these threats the land forces, reported to be 30,000, were increased' by a division of 20,000 Annamite riSemen some time ago. To the naval; forces —■ already considerable, apparently, as France massed 16 French warships in the Bay of Kwang-Chow when the Japanese attacked Cantonhave been added a submarine flotilla and several light, fast cruisers. New; air squadrons were also added to th* defence forces, and plans were mad*.' to transform the Bay of Gamranh into a big naval base. s. What will he tho fate of this country, home of an ancient civilisation, meeting ground of Chinese philosophy end of Indian religious thought, wher* the new ideas of the modern world ar* fermenting to-day as elsewhere, whether it be East or West? The answer to that question round the corner. It is not a question to which the answer will easily be found, perhaps. Other than Oriental eyes are fixed to-day on Saigon and its picturesque laud.