"Go West" in Cochinchina: Chinese and Vietnamese Illicit Activities in the Transbassac (c. 1860 - 1920s)

Abstract

Illicit activity was endemic in several coastal areas of pre-modern Vietnam. This article focuses on one such region, the west or Transbassac area of modern South Vietnam and its extended coastline from the Mekong Delta to Cambodian Kampot and Kompong Som and Siamese Trat. Chinese who settled here operated in both legal and illicit economies, as farmers and traders as well as smugglers, bandits, and pirates. This article discusses the geo-political factors that encouraged illicit activities, and outlines the historical circumstances that shaped local peoples into various economic, social, religious or political movements or organizations, including into Chinese and Vietnamese secret societies. Despite increasing colonial administrative penetration, many of these factors endured and ensured similar activities returned whenever circumstances changed, like during the First Indochina War.