French Activity In Indo- China Was Heightened By The Declaration Of Garnier, Rocher, And Others, That The Songcoi, Or Red River, Furnished The Best Means Of Communicating With Yunnan, And Tapping The Wealth Of The Richest Mineral Province In China.

The apathy of England in her relations with Burmah, which presented, under its arrogant and obstructive rulers, what may

Have seemed an insuperable obstacle to trade intercourse between India and China, afforded additional inducement to the French to act quickly; and, as they felt confident of their ability and power to coerce the court of Hue, the initial difficulties of their undertaking did not seem very formidable. That undertaking was, in the first place, defined to be a protectorate of Annam, and, as the first step in the enterprise, the town of Hanoi, in the delta of the Red River, and the nominal capital of Tonquin, was captured before the end of the year 1882.

Tonquin stood in very much the same relationship to China as Corea; and, although the enforcement of the suzerain tie was lax, there was no doubt that at Pekin the opinion was held very strongly that the action of France was an encroachment on the rights of China. But if such was the secret opinion of the Chinese authorities, they took no immediate steps to arrest the development of French policy in Tonquin by proclaiming it a Chinese dependency, and also their intention to defend it. It is by no means certain that the prompt and vigorous assertion of their rights would have induced the French to withdraw from their enterprise, for its difficulties were not revealed at first; but if China is to make good her hold over such dependencies, she must be prepared to show that she thinks them worth fighting for.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 642 of 704
Words from 174109 to 174407 of 191255