View source for Cường Để

{{Short description|Vietnamese revolutionary}}
{{Infobox person
| name                      = Cường Để
| native_name               = {{Lang|vi|彊㭽}}
| native_name_lang          = vi
| image                     = External marquis Cường Để at Japan.jpg
| caption                   = External marquis Cường Để at Japan. Picture was taken by [[Nguyễn Đắc Xuân]].
| birthname                 = Nguyễn Phước Dân
| birth_date                = {{birth date|1882|01|11|df=yes}}
| birth_place               =
| death_date                = {{death date and age|1951|04|05|1882|01|11|df=y}}
| death_place               = Tokyo, Japan
| known_for                 = Vietnamese revolutionary
}}
'''Cường Để''' ({{vi-nom|彊㭽}}, {{IPA|vi|kɨ̂əŋ ɗe᷉|IPA}}; born '''Nguyễn Phước Dân''' ({{lang-vi-hantu|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 Indochina|French colonial occupation]].<ref>''A Vietnamese Royal Exile in Japan: Prince Cuong De (1882-1951)'' (Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia) 2005 p23 "At fourteen, Cường Để inherited the title and with it the duty to perpetuate his line."</ref>
Cường Để was a royal relative of the [[Nguyễn 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 Cảnh]].<ref>''A Vietnamese Royal Exile in Japan'' by My-Van Tran, Tran My-Van My Duong, p. 22 [https://books.google.com/books?id=XTW6ZlhLUQYC&pg=PA22&dq=%22My+Duong%22&sig=ACfU3U1Z5eardGPD8QBoQtQK9rvFLfY90A]</ref> He was officially an "external marquis" (''Kỳ Ngoại hầu'').
==Study in Japan==
Prince Cường Để went in secret to Japan under the name of Minami Kazuo (南一雄) at the end of 1905, leaving a pregnant wife and two young sons in [[French Indochina]]. He attended a military academy in the [[Kanda, Tokyo|Kanda]] district of Tokyo, followed by [[Waseda University]], where he learned to speak perfect, accentless Japanese. While in Japan, he supported and became the figurehead for the ''[[Đông Du|Phong Trào Đông 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 [[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 warrant 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 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 [[Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội|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.
[[File:Phan Boi Chau va Cuong De.jpg|thumb|right|[[Phan Bội Châu]] (''right'') with [[Cường Để]], circa 1907.]]
Returning to Japan, Prince Cường Để found help from the [[Pan-Asianism|Pan-Asian movement]], including [[Tōyama Mitsuru]] and was given a monthly allowance by his old friend Inukai Tsuyoshi. However, he was devastated by the news of the arrest of Phan Bội Châu in Shanghai in 1925, followed by the [[May 15 Incident|assassination of Inukai]] in 1932.  Prince Cường founded the Phuc Quoc (''Việt Nam Phục quốc Đồng minh Hội'', "League for the Restoration of Vietnam") in 1938, which also had an armed wing, as a monarchist alternative to the left-leaning [[Viet Minh]] (''Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh Hội'', "League for the Independence of Vietnam") movement created by [[Ho Chi Minh]] and led by the [[Indochinese Communist Party]]. 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 Cường Để lived in [[Taiwan under Japanese rule|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 Cường Để remained loyal to the concept of the [[Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere]] and made contact with leaders of the [[Cao Đài]] movement who were interested in a monarchy led by Prince Cường Để. Following the collapse of the Vichy French government, the Japanese staged a [[Japanese coup de main in French Indochina|coup de main]], creating the independent [[Empire of Vietnam]]. Prince Cường Để brought forth a five-member [[provisional government]], which was sponsored by the [[Thirty-Eighth Army (Japan)|IJA 38th Army]]; however, Tokyo made the surprising decision to retain Emperor [[Bảo Đại]] as nominal head of state, and Prince Cường Để's efforts to return as ruler of Vietnam were frustrated.
==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==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050529073432/http://www.yale.edu/seas/phan%20boi%20chau.pdf Phan Bội Châu and the Dông-Du Movement] edited by Vinh Sinh of Yale University (PDF).
{{Vietnamese independence movement}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuong De}}
[[Category:1882 births]]
[[Category:People from Thừa Thiên-Huế province]]
[[Category:1951 deaths]]
[[Category:Vietnamese nationalists]]
[[Category:Vietnamese revolutionaries]]
[[Category:Nguyen dynasty princes]]
[[Category:Pretenders to the Vietnamese throne]]
[[Category:Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội politicians]]
[[Category:Place of birth missing]]
[[Category:Vietnamese monarchists]]
[[Category:Vietnamese anti-communists]]
[[Category:Vietnamese emigrants to Japan]]
[[Category:Waseda University alumni]]
[[Category:Vietnamese collaborators with Imperial Japan]]
[[Category:Naturalized citizens of Japan]]