Between Vassalité and Protectorat: The Sino-French Controversy on the Tonkin affair, 1880-1883

The results of the Treaty of Tientsin, concluded in June of 1885, which put an end to the Sino-French War were the "loss" of the vassal state of Vietnam by China and a giant step toward achievement of its colonization by the French. Given this outcome, the changes that occurred in the course of what is known as the "Tonkin Affair" might be termed a matter of course. Nevertheless, in regard to many of the facts that led to warfare between France and China, much remains unclear such as what brought about their confrontation, how they reached a compromise, the specific interests that concerned them, and the diplomatic negotiations between them. This article explores clues to explain such questions by examining the course of the negotiations from the proposal of the Li-Bouree convention concluded in late 1882 until its later abandonment. The confrontation between France and China over the Tonkin Affair became conspicuous when the Chinese minister to France, the Marquis Tseng 曾紀澤, protested to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the end of 1880. In the negotiations between the French minister to China, Frederic-Albert Bouree, and the Tsungli-Yamen at Peking in 1882, parting spheres of influence in Tonkin was proposed, and at the end of the same year, was put in writing during the negotiations with the imperial commissioner for the Northern Ports, Li Hung-chang 李鴻章, at Tientsin. However, the term hsiin-ch'a pao-hu 巡查保護, meaning to surveil and protect, which appears in the Chinese version of the Li-Bouree convention, was recorded only as surveillance in the French, resulting in a discrepancy. This expresses the interests of the two parties and latent contradictions regarding them. In opposition to the Chinese use of the term pao-hu "protect, " which furthered the advocacy of the vassalite of Vietnam to China, the French denied the suzerainete of China by not referring to protection and thereby aimed to win recognition of Vietnam as a de facto protectorat of France. In this fashion, not only were the fundamental interests of the parties at odds, but this became increasingly apparent, so that the rejection of the Li-Bouree convention was inevitable. There was no easy way that the confrontation might be ameliorated in the following negotiations between Arthur Tricou and Li, and France and China proceeded step by step toward rupture and warfare