In part 15 of the series, Laura Lam shares how Ho Chi Minh was arrested in Hong Kong to "Protect the security in Indochina".
>>Part 1: Paris, my two worlds
>>Part 2: A journey in search of freedom
>>Part 3: Nguyen the Patriot
>>Part 4: Indochina and little emperors
>>Part 5: The rise of patriotism
>>Part 6: Finding a compass
>>Part 7: Young Ho Chi Minh with Grand Chef Escoffier
>>Part 8: Young Ho Chi Minh in America
>>Part 9: Ho Chi Minh versus Albert Sarraut
>>Part 10: The path of destiny
>>Part 11: Moscow’s resolution on Indochina
>>Part 12: Lenin and Peoples of the East
>>Part 13: From Moscow to Canton
>>Part 14: A cross-cultural political training school
On November 11, 1929, while Nguyen Ai Quoc was visiting Thailand, a French colonial court in Vinh (Nghe An province) sentenced seven revolutionaries to death. Quoc was one of them, being given the death sentence in absentia.
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| Nguyen Ai Quoc in prison. Chinese characters on his gown are his name “Sung Man Cho” |
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| Victoria prison compound in 1930’s |
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| Entrance to Victoria Prison today, from Old Bailey Street |
Quoc arrived in Hong Kong in May 1930. The British territory was known at the time as the city without gates, welcoming people from around the world for resettlement. Ho Tung Mau and Le Hong Son received Quoc and they handed him a letter from the Executive Committee of the International Communist Party (ICP). He was advised to set up a branch of the Communist Party in order to utilize their existing network for organizing and mobilizing his forces in Indochina. Quoc felt he had to act quickly.
Several important events were taking place in Viet Nam during 1930. These included the Yen Bai uprising which led to the execution of Nguyen Thai Hoc and twelve others and numerous peasant demonstrations in Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Ngai, and Cochinchina. There were several assassinations of French officers and administrators, including Alfred Bazin, who was head of the recruiting office for Vietnamese laborers. All punishments by the colonial regime were severe. In his writings, Quoc referred to the French suppression of the revolts as the “White Terror”.
While the French regime was shaken by the power of the underground forces, General Henri Claudel was making a tour of the Far East to study the resistance movement. He concluded, “The Sûreté can arrest men, but it cannot imprison their thoughts.”
As head of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Quoc called for a conference, inviting representatives from Indochina and other countries. The Party’s office was a shabby little room in Kowloon. Quoc rented a large room in a two-star hotel nearby for the delegates’ accommodation. The three-day conference produced remarkable results and Quoc was able to resolve the differences among the representatives of the 211 members, providing them with one policy to follow.
Quoc lived in Kowloon with eight other members of the Party. Each day he went to work at the ICP’s office, at that time disguised as an outlet of a trading firm. Quoc traveled often to Shanghai and Guangzhou, speaking several Chinese dialects. Thinking of the arrest of the nationalist and scholar Phan Boi Chau in Shanghai by the British police some years earlier, he felt unsafe. Quoc decided to disguise himself as a Buddhist monk.
But someone had betrayed Quoc and the Sûreté Générale found out about his presence in Hong Kong. Shortly after midnight on June 6, 1931, Quoc heard a knock on the door and it was the British police. At the time of his arrest, he claimed to be a Chinese national with the name Sung Man Cho. The French believed that he was Nguyen Ai Quoc and the French Consulate immediately passed a secret file on him to the British government, labeling him “a very dangerous element for the British monarchy”.
The French, with help from the British police, began a series of arrests of activists in early June. First was the detention of Serge Lefranc, a Comintern agent who was traveling in the Far East. Second to be arrested was Le Quang Dat, who had been assigned to Shanghai by Quoc. A few days later Hilaire Noulens and his wife were detained in Shanghai for his role as a secret Comintern representative. Noulens was handed over to the Chinese authorities under Chiang Kai-shek and was sentenced to life imprisonment. With intervention from the International Red Cross, Noulens and his wife were later released and returned to Moscow.
The Governor-General of Indochina reported Quoc’s arrest to the Minister for the Colonies, “The enemy is extremely active and dangerous. He was arrested in Hong Kong. His detention is important in order to protect the security in Indochina.”
On June 7, the journal L’Opinion in Sai Gon printed, “With the assistance of the British intelligence, the police arrested the entire group of Nguyen Ai Quoc. The task was so easy, like picking a flower.” But the Paris journal L’Humanité ran an article on June 19, “The Imperialists in Solidarity” with the conclusion, “The arrest of Nguyen Ai Quoc will not break the revolutionary spirit or the momentum of the Indochinese people.”
Quoc was incarcerated at Victoria Prison in Central Hong Kong, located on a steep slope alongside Old Bailey Street. At the bottom of the slope was the popular Central Market, still existing today. When Quoc was interrogated, he spoke only English and denied that he was Nguyen Ai Quoc. He said he wasn’t Vietnamese, and that he had been born in the town of Tung Hing in Guangdong province near the Sino-Vietnamese border. He denied having any connection with the Comintern or having been to the Soviet Union. The Hong Kong authorities never found Quoc’s passport to prove his identity.
A delay in the verification of his identity was favorable for Quoc, as it allowed enough time for someone to intervene on his behalf. This frustrated the French, who had a ship waiting in the Hong Kong harbor, anxious to transport Quoc out of the territory.
