Maps of 1887 Sino-Tonkin boundary arrangements

Bill Hayton bill.hayton at bbc.co.uk

Sun Oct 11 20:56:08 PDT 2015

Dear VSG,

Would anyone have – or know where I could find – digital scans of the maps attached to the 1887 Sino-Tonkin convention? The convention text refers to three maps “signed and sealed by the two parties”.

Thank you

Bill Hayton

Independent researcher

William Noseworthy wnosewor at gmail.com

Mon Oct 12 22:19:53 PDT 2015

Dear All,

To piggy back on to Mr. Hayton's request...my ongoing 'seeking' in the

field of Vietnamese Studies has led to a recent re-fascination with Cá

Ông/Cá Voi/Ông Nam Hải worship in south central Vietnam.

Ranging from Phu Yen to a massive grave site for Ca Voi spirits in Vung Tau

I always found that the worship was credited to the Cham. Leads from a

report Ivan Small mentioned to me years ago and the Đại Nam Nhất Thống Chí

have already been checked out. Do others have any other accounts or

sources? Particularly those in Vietnamese language are appreciated.

Thanks again to all who helped out on the Viet-Lao research.

Very best,

Billy (UW-Madison)

Bill Hayton bill.hayton at bbc.co.uk

Tue Oct 13 18:01:29 PDT 2015

Thanks to some helpful vsg-ers I think I’ve tracked down something close to the one I want.

It’s not the actual 1887 map but something based on it, that I found on the blog of Trương Nhân Tuấn. Tuấn self-published a book on the topic in 2005 and reproduced maps from the Archives National d'Outre Mer in Aix. The blog is at http://nhantuantruong.blogspot.ca/2013/02/bien-gioi-viet-trung-vung-quang-ong-hai.html

For those of you who follow Bien Dong matters, there is a claim made by ‘the other side’ based on the wording of the 1887 convention:

“At Kouang-Tong the disputed points located east and northwest of Monkai, beyond the boundary determined by the delimitation commission, are awarded to China. The islands east of the Paris meridian 105°43’ east longitude, that is, of the north-south line that passes through the eastern point of the island of Tch’a Kou or Ouan-chan (Tra-co) and forms the boundary, are also awarded to China. The Gotho and other islands located west of this meridian belong to Annam. “

This has become an argument that the French signed over every island east of Tra Co to China. However, by looking at the scale of the map the location of the islands involved – so close to the mainland – it’s obvious that the drafters weren’t thinking about the sea outside the Tonkin Gulf. When the two sides were negotiating their maritime boundary agreement in the Tonkin Gulf in the 1990s, China argued that this line was not a maritime boundary but merely indicated which islands were allocated to whom. They take a different position on the U-shaped line today…

One final question – and this may provoke some smacking of hands against foreheads. Why does the 1887 convention, which is entitled ‘Convention relative a la Delimitation de la Frontiere entre la Chine et le Tonkin’ allocate islands which would seem to logically belong within Tonkin to Annam?

Thanks

Bill

Shawn McHale mchale at gwu.edu

Tue Oct 13 18:26:24 PDT 2015

On this question: "One final question – and this may provoke some smacking

of hands against foreheads. Why does the 1887 convention, which is entitled

‘Convention relative a la Delimitation de la Frontiere entre la Chine et le

Tonkin’ allocate islands which would seem to logically belong within Tonkin

to Annam?"

France only had a protectorate over Tonkin and Annam, and the supposed

actual ruler of the whole was the court in Hue.

Shawn McHale

Bill Hayton bill.hayton at bbc.co.uk

Tue Oct 13 18:28:22 PDT 2015

Understood, but why allocate islands just a few hundred metres (in some cases) off the coast of Tonkin, to Annam?

Sophie Quinn-Judge sophie.quinnjudge at gmail.com

Wed Oct 14 03:24:12 PDT 2015

It may be that the French were using Annam to refer to Vietnam, as the

entire country. They referred to the people as Annamese. I agree that this

usage can be confusing, as at other times they used Annam to mean the

central Vietnamese territory.

Sophie Quinn-Judge

Fellow, Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society

Temple University