Tran Trong Kim
Trần Trọng Kim (* 1883 in Ha Tinh, Annam, † 1953 in Da Lạt ) was originally school teacher. In 1945 he was premier of the government of the "independent" Empire of Vietnam under Japanese occupation.
Life
Trần Trọng Kim worked as an interpreter in Tinh Binh ( Tonkin ) in 1905, he went as an employee of a private company to France. Three years later he received a scholarship to the Ecole coloniale, which allowed him to teacher training at the Ecole resume normal from Melun (Seine- Marne).
After his return to Vietnam in September 1911, he entered the teaching profession of Annam. He got up slowly and reached the position of the Inspector of the public elementary school system of Tonkin until 1942. However, he was known less as a teacher, but for his scholarly works on history, Buddhism and Confucianism in Vietnam. He was an active and leading member of several Confucian and Buddhist societies.
In 1939 appointed member Tongkinger parliament. After the integration of French Indochina in the Greater East Asia Co -Prosperity Sphere, several Japanese experts consulted him on matters of Vietnamese culture. These contacts made him the continuing ( Vichy ) French colonial administration suspiciously under General Jean Decoux.
When the Sûreté carried out its second purge of pro- Japanese Vietnamese in the fall of 1943, Kim by the Japanese military police ( Kempeitai ) was brought to Hanoi on 28 October 1943. Together with Ba Duan Trac, with whom he had collaborated on a lexicon, he convinced the Japanese, the fact that it was best to evacuate them to Singapore. In early November were both brought to Saigon, where they both were "guests " Dai Nan Kooshi (大 南 公司), were housed a front organization of the Kempeitai. On January 1, 1944 both traveled on a Japanese ship to Singapore, where Trac died of lung cancer in December. Kim was sent then to Bangkok. On March 30, 1945, he was ordered back to Saigon, ostensibly to advise the Japanese history. The Japanese occupiers had before - on 9 and 10 March - disarmed and interned the French colonial troops.
In fact, he was introduced to General Kawamura Saburō of the 38th Army and Lieutenant General Hayashi Hidetzumi, which opened him that he had been with his friend Huang Han Xuang selected to Bao Dai in Hue with via the formation of an independent Vietnamese government advice.
Head of government
After his arrival on April 5, he consulted several times the king. On the 16th he agreed to form a government. On the same day the commander of the 38th Army Tsuchihashi Yuitsu was appointed to the Japanese Governor-General of Vietnam. Kim created a cabinet list with 10 names he - held for talented and worthy ( tài duức ) - in the Confucian sense. They all had a modern education, enjoyed mostly in France; However, none of the nominees had political experience. With one exception, all were under 50 years old. One of the nominees, Luu Van Lang, declined the appointment, the others were found to early May in Hue on to take their activities. Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Tran Van Chuong was (* 1898).
During the four -month term of this Cabinet came to a variety of measures that are inevitably remained mostly ineffective due to the circumstances of the time. The most lasting were the change of name of the country, now officially Viet Nam, and the substitution of the perceived as discriminatory French term Annamites by the name Vietmien. The chosen flag was 1954-1975 again in a very similar shape symbol of the Republic of Vietnam. Special attention is given to " national unity " ( doan ket ) of the three parts of the country. However, insofar as the government actually exercised control, she was on the north - where at that time there was famine - and restricts the center of the country. Tentative attempts to reform the bureaucracy, failed also to the hostility of the parallel government of the Vietminh. The economic situation deteriorated rapidly since the Japanese withdrawals 787 million yen from the state treasury and with paper money fueling inflation. Some measures showed the success, were the reduction in the head tax ( Thue Than ) for the poor, the introduction of examinations in Vietnamese ( romanized ) language and a review of the sentences of political prisoners. Through a partial amnesty in May not only numerous Vietminh, but also many criminals were released, for example, members of the Binh Xuyen.
The government had no military means of power, it was perfect by the Japanese occupation forces depends, however, on June 29, her certain powers " handed " - without ever having recognized diplomatically. For the 8th August as part of the " reunification of Vietnam " the big cities was placed under " governance " Kim. In the chaotic days after the surrender of Japan, the Vietminh took over the nation's effective power. Then broke Kim's government, which was plagued by resignations since the beginning of the month, when Bao Dai abdicated on August 25, 1945.
Kim then devoted himself again to his studies.
Art and literature
Kim has published several books in romanized Vietnamese language ( Quoc Ngu ), Buddhism, Confucianism and Vietnamese history, which made known his erudition. His memoirs Mot Gon Gio Bui were published posthumously in 1969.
- Shiraishi Masaya; The background to the formation of the Tran Trong Kim Cabinet in April 1945; in Indochina in the 1940s and 1950s; New York 1992, ISBN 0-87727-401-0; pp. 87-112
- Tran Trong Kim: Viet Nam Su Luoc ( a history of Vietnam; Orig 1919)
- Tran Trong Kim: La Doctrine of Nho: Confucius et ses disciples. Ha Noi 1924 ( Impr Thuc Nghiep )
- Vu Ngu Chieu; The Other Side of the 1945 Vietnamese revolution. The Empire of Viet -Nam March - August 1945; in: Journal of Asian Studies Vol 45 (1986 ), pp. 298-328