French Colonial Strategies in Indochina

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The French helped the Nguyen Dynasty rise to power in Vietnam with aim of centralizing power in the nation.
Although the Nguyen Emperors seemed The French implemented a ‘divide and rule’ strategy in order to minimize local resistance. Vietnam was separated into three separate pays (provinces): Tonkin in the north, Annam along the central coast and Cochinchina in the south. Each of these provinces was administered separately.
- Laos:
King Sisavang Vong of Luang Phrabang was appointed be in charge of the head of nation but was taken under control of French. During their rule, the French introduced the policy, called “corvee”, or unpaid labor, a system that forced every male Lao to contribute 10 days of manual labor per year to the colonial government.
In Vietnam, male of adult age to spend 30 days of unpaid work on government buildings, roads, dams and other infrastructure.
- Cambodia:
In opposition to two neighboring countries, …show more content…

Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot-the leader of the Khmer Rouge followed Maoist communism, which they thought they could create an agrarian utopia. Agrarian means that the society was based on agriculture. They wanted all members of society to be rural agricultural workers and killed intellectuals, who had been depraved by western capitalist ideas. A utopia means a perfect society. This idea went to extremes when The Khmer Rouge resumed that only pure people were qualified to build the revolution. They killed Cambodians without reasons by uncivilized actions such as: cutting heads, burying alive… There were about 1.7 million people killed by the Khmer Rouge.
In conclusion, French imperialism had a great influence on politics of Indochina. With a system of direct colonial management, all of the important positions in government were taken by French.
2. Economic

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