Quote: (09-03-2018 03:59 AM)Tresor Wrote:
Quote: (09-01-2018 09:23 AM)ed pluribus unum Wrote:
Quote: (09-01-2018 03:05 AM)Pride male Wrote:
How bad was it for the Vietnamese during French occupation? Did the French abuse and exploit the locals?
If I had to make an educated guess, I would draw a parallel with French West African colonies (shitholes) to British African Colonies (relative stability).
Wrong.
Indochina was the second largest exporter of coal in Asia and had a lively mining industry.
It was a major exporter of a variety of high-value agricultural crops such as rubber (think Michelin), coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco…
Dozens of thousands of acres of land were claimed from the swamps and put in cultivation. In a matter of decades, Indochina became the second largest rice exporter… in the world!
It also boasted a burgeoning industrial sector.
Vietnam was the single most profitable territory in the French empire. It was a major contributor to the economy of France!
It was the same in the British Empire with two of its colonies, Ireland and India being net exporters. India exported raw materials like cotton, jute and tea which the machines of Industrial Revolution Britain made into finished products and exported to the world. Ireland on the other hand was a net exporter of food which fed the industrial cities of Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Glasgow etc. and also a source of cheap, unskilled manual labor. Despite being resource rich, both of these colonies were dirt poor with millions of Irish and Indians starving to death in the 19th and 20th centuries in man made famines as both of these colonies were exploited for resources to the max, often with little to zero benefit for the locals.
Colonialism was good if you were the metropolitan power. However if you were on the receiving end, life was pretty shit. History is littered with these sad stories. Same with Indochina and France.