Name Cuong De | ||
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Full Name Nguyen Phuc Dan (阮福單) Born 11 January 1882 ( 1882-01-11 ) Died 5 April 1951(1951-04-05) (aged 69)
Tokyo, Japan Known for Vietnamese revolutionary | ||
Prince Cuong De (born Nguyen Phuc Dan; 阮福單); 11 January 1882 – 5 April 1951) was an early 20th-century Vietnamese revolutionary who, along with Phan Boi Chau, unsuccessfully tried to liberate Vietnam from French colonial occupation.
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De was a royal relative of the Nguyen dynasty, and, according to the rule of primogeniture, was the heir of the dynasty, directly issued from the line of first-born descendants of Emperor Gia Long and his son Prince Canh. He was officially an "external marquis" (Ky Ngoai Hau).
Study in Japan
Prince Cuong went in secret to Japan at the end of 1905, leaving a pregnant wife and two young sons in Indochina. He attended a military academy in the Kanda district of Tokyo, followed by Waseda University, where he learned to speak perfect, accentless Japanese. He also married a Japanese woman. While in Japan, he supported and became the figurehead for the Phong Trao Dong Du ("On the Way to the East" movement), led by the revolutionary Phan Boi Chau in support of Indochinese independence from France. The organization was encouraged by the victory of Japan over Russia in the Russo-Japanese War, and received financial support from Sun Yat-sen, Liang Qichao as well as Inukai Tsuyoshi and Kashiwabara Buntaro. Between 1905 and 1910, it sponsored some 200 Vietnamese to study in Japan.
However, after the Franco-Japanese Treaty of 1907, French colonial authorities applied diplomatic pressure against Japan to suppress the organization and many of its members were deported by 1910.
Prince Cuong made a trip to Siam from November 1908-March 1909, returning to Japan in May 1909. However, his presence in Japan was reported by the French government to the Japanese, who issued a warranty for his arrest. He hid until September, at one point escaping out a hotel window in Kobe as the police came in through the door. However, he was finally deported to Shanghai at the end of October.
Interwar period
Prince Cuong then went to Beijing, where the Chinese warlord Duan Qirui offered financial support if he would start an uprising against the French in Indochina as leader of the 1911 Vietnam Restoration Organisation (Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi). He travelled to Hong Kong and then to Bangkok in 1911, but was apprehended by Siamese authorities and deported back to China. He then travelled via Singapore to Europe, visiting Berlin and London. However, in 1913, he was sentenced to death in absentia as the French started to suppress pro-independence agitation more harshly.
Returning to Japan, Prince Cuong found help from the Pan-Asian movement, including Toyama Mitsuru and was given a monthly allowance by his old friend Inukai Tsuyoshi. However, he was devastated by news of the arrest of Phan Boi Chau in Shanghai in 1925, followed by the assassination of Inukai in 1932. Prince Cuong founded the Phuc Quoc ("Restoration Party") in 1938, which also had an armed wing, as a monarchist alternative to the ("Association of Young Revolutionaries") movement created by Ho Chi Minh. He approached the Japanese military, hoping to be restored to the throne in Vietnam as Puyi had been restored to the throne in Manchukuo.
Under Japanese rule
Prince Cuonglived in Taiwan from 1939 to May 1940, where he produced a daily four-hour radio show. Later that year, the Japanese invasion of French Indochina occurred, but left the Vichy French colonial administration intact in order to maintain stable conditions to obtain essential war materials. However, Prince Cuong remained loyal to the concept of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and made contact with leaders of the Cao Dai movement who were interested in a monarchy led by Prince Cuong. Following the collapse of the Vichy French government, the Japanese staged a coup de main, creating the independent Empire of Vietnam. Prince Cuong brought forth a five-member provisional government, which was sponsored by the IJA 38th Army; however, Tokyo made the surprising decision to retain Emperor Bao Dai as nominal head of state, and Prince Cuong's efforts to return as ruler of Vietnam were frustrated.
Final years
Following the end of World War II, Prince Cuong became a Japanese citizen, taking the name of Masao Ando. He gave a press conference in August 1949, vowing to return to Vietnam to oppose Bao Dai, should Bao Dai sign agreements granting France colonial rights in Vietnam again. However, as a Japanese subject, he was not permitted a Vietnamese passport. His attempted to return to Vietnam via Thailand and via Hong Kong disguised as a Chinese with a fake passport were foiled in 1950. Prince Cuong died of cancer in 1951 at the Nippon Medical School Hospital in Tokyo.