Cường Để
Cường Để | |
---|---|
彊㭽 | |
Born | Nguyễn Phước Dân 11 January 1882 |
Died | 5 April 1951 Tokyo, Japan | (aged 69)
Known for | Vietnamese revolutionary |
Cường Để (彊㭽, IPA: [kɨ̂əŋ ɗe᷉]; born Nguyễn Phước Dân (chữ Hán: 阮福民); 11 January 1882 - 5 April 1951) was an early 20th-century Vietnamese revolutionary and nationalist who, along with Phan Bội Châu, unsuccessfully tried to liberate Vietnam from French colonial occupation.[1]
Cường Để was a royal relative of the
Study in Japan
Prince Cường Để went in secret to Japan at the end of 1905, leaving a pregnant wife and two young sons in French 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.[citation needed] 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 Bội Châu 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 Cường Để made a trip to
Interwar period
Prince Cường Để 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 (Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội). He traveled to British Hong Kong and then to Bangkok in 1911, but was apprehended by Siamese authorities and deported back to China. He then traveled 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 Cường Để found help from the
Under Japanese rule
Prince Cường Để lived in
Final years
Following the end of World War II, Prince Cường Để 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 Bảo Đại, should Bảo Đại sign agreements granting France colonial rights in Vietnam again. However, as a Japanese subject, he was not permitted a Vietnamese passport. His attempts to return to Vietnam via Thailand and via Hong Kong disguised as a Chinese with a fake passport were foiled in 1950. Prince Cường Để died of cancer in 1951 at the Nippon Medical School Hospital in Tokyo.
References
External links
- Phan Bội Châu and the Dông-Du Movement edited by Vinh Sinh of Yale University (PDF).