Published papers

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 This paper aims to illustrate how forests, which play an important role in the economy, the environment, the military, and culture, were managed and used in French Indochina through the colonial period. The Forest Service's plan involved rational, systematic logging with the participation of companies that generally excluded local inhabitants from the reserved forests and restricted forest use for their livelihoods. Also, the “communal reserves” established in some areas to prioritize locals' forest use led to regional strife. Despite the colonial authorities' view that maintenance of the abundant forests was a manifestation of their civilizing mission, the actual implementation of such policies was frequently accompanied by strict policies and repressive control. Friction existed between the various parties using the forest and the Forest Service concerning forest management. The views and behavior of the colonial authorities were also inconsistent, due to the multifaceted nature of the forests, which were at once natural treasures that supported people's lives as well as a stage for conflicts between varied actors and interests, including local inhabitants, villages, outsiders, the Forest Service, and administrative agencies.

© 2019, University of Hawaii Press. All rights reserved. This article seeks to clarify the relationships that formed among the French, Japanese, and Vietnamese when they coexisted in Indochina during the Second World War. The French and the Japanese jointly ruled Indochina, due to their respective interests in preserving suzerainty and securing bases for the Pacific War. These two groups maintained constant mutual awareness in this complicated and unstable relationship while avoiding conflict and seeking the support of the Vietnamese population. However, despite efforts of French and Japanese authorities, the contradiction of mutual coexistence between France, as the “missionary of civilization,” and Japan, as the “liberator of Asia” from Western colonialism, could not be concealed. Whereas the Japanese government’s policy of “maintaining peace” in Indochina ensured that interactions between the Japanese and Vietnamese were limited, the relationship between the French and the Vietnamese shifted during this time, with the effect of stimulating the local population’s identity and leading to France laying the groundwork for postwar decolonization. By examining the quotidian facets of the Franco-Japanese rule of Indochina, this article reveals how mutual encounters among the French, Japanese, and Vietnamese undermined French colonization and Japanese occupation.