URL originale : https://books.openedition.org/irasec/10498
Introduction
A History of Bridges from Hoi An to Danang
p. 1-4
Texte intégral
1Today the Japanese have become great builders of works of art, particularly tunnels and bridges. During the post-war period, infrastructure such as ports, railways and roads as well as big facilities such as dams and electricity plants, were carried out in large numbers in Asia by the Japanese. This was made possible because of war damages and thanks to developmental aid. To a certain extent, their big Public Works companies remodeled Asian cities. Before this recent period, the Japanese had left only very few traces of their passage or colonial occupation in Asia, whether in Korea, Manchuria or Taiwan which still retain a few administrative buildings and industrial installations, but very little compared to what had been left by the former European imperial powers in their ex-colonies.
2In central Vietnam, however, we find a strange bridge believed to have been constructed by the Japanese who had lived between the 17th century in the small town of Hoi An, a historical jewel that has been miraculously saved from the past and recent wars and very recently declared a world heritage site by the UNESCO. This small bridge constitutes the most remarkable evidence of an earlier presence. It is known as Bridge Pagoda (Chua Cau) or Lai Vien Kieu (bridge of faraway visitors) and is believed to have served to connect the Japanese to the Chinese quarter.
3This historical monument kindles our interest in “bridges”, which are both a symbol and a characteristic feature of Japan’s presence in Asia. Some of these symbols, however, have been cast into negative light in the public consciousness, like the famous “Bridge on the River Kwai”, which was popularised by a well-known film based on Pierre Boule’s novel. The new emblematic bridges are more positive like the one recently constructed at Danang. In this modern port, that has replaced Hoi An, silted for centuries now, the Japanese have recently finished constructing a superb bridge. It is a coincidence that these two works of art just a few kilometres apart, are separated by many centuries. They could well-illustrate the relation between the two countries.
4We can also cite the construction of the Hoang Long Bridge and the Ham Rong viaduct in Thanh Hóa province in North Vietnam, which were inaugurated in November 2000 by Prime Minister Phan Van Khai. Part of the first phase of an ambitious project of renovating works of art on National Highway 1 with Japanese aid, the project is the outcome of a partnership between the Thang Long Company and a Japanese firm, Sumitomo Group.
5According to the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Vietnamese Institute of Transport and Communications Development Strategy, the construction of 38 bridges in 17 provinces in the Mekong delta is in the pipeline. Out of this, the Japanese government will give a non-refundable aid to construct 21 bridges and supply steel girders for 17 others, the construction of which is Vietnam’s responsibility. Other big builders could, however, lay claim to this symbol, to begin with, the French whose Doumer Bridge at Hanoi is definitely a remarkable structure in the landscape and in the history of their presence in Vietnam. Yet, what enhances the analogy in the Japanese case is that the Japanese seem to have made it their specialty to construct bridges between the “banks” of rival nations in Asia and particularly in Southeast Asia, a favoured area of Japanese diplomacy. So much so that this typical Japanese approach of striving to connect, more or less successfully, nations separated by past or present conflicts, was called “bridge diplomacy” in the post-war period. Admittedly, Japanese diplomacy does not have a monopoly in this area, but the bridge image is in line with their style of diplomacy, particularly in this region.
6Thus symbolism and reality coincide as in the case of the Friendship Bridge over the Mekong, that was financed by the Australians and connects Laos (a few kilometers from Vientiane, the capital) to the city of Nong Khai in North Thailand, its powerful and dreaded neighbour. In 1993, the Japanese built the Cambodia Japan Friendship Bridge (Chroy Changwar Bridge) in Cambodia and in December 2001, the Kizuna Bridge (meaning “the link” in Japanese), the country’s biggest bridge on the Mekong. It is true that the Mekong River is the common point in continental Southeast Asia. It should have connected the people but for a long time it separated them by serving as a border between the nations of the region. In the past, the river represented the dashed hopes of the French who saw in it as a possible access to South China, by providing a vertical axis to their regional expansion. Today, crossing the Mekong has replaced going up the Mekong and has thus substituted the vertical axis envisaged by the French by a horizontal axis leading to the increase in exchanges within the peninsula. The Japanese, along with others, were very much involved in the main development projects around the Mekong basin, as much through their institutions and also their companies and NGOs that are very active in this part of the world.
7Through its contemporary history, Vietnam, in its independence struggle during the Indochina War and more so during the Vietnam War led by the Americans, occupies a special place in the memory and collective way of thinking of the Japanese. Their feelings about this country were very well-conveyed by a Japanese expression that summarised their situation in the face of this terrible conflict. This expression “fire from the other side of the river” (Taigan no Kasai), means that a major event does not really affect us as long as we are on the opposite side, safe and beyond its reach. Thomas Haven made use of this image for the title of his book on the Vietnam War from the Japanese angle: Fire Across the Sea, the Vietnam War and Japan 1965–1975.
8Even though Japan was away from the Vietnamese conflict, on the other side of the Pacific, so to speak, it had front-row seats in the military operations theatre. In fact, the archipelago was soon to be transformed into a formidable aircraft carrier for the Asia-Pacific American Forces, with bases spread over all over its territory, without which this war would not have been possible, according to American military chiefs. But in spite of themselves, the Japanese were one of the essential pillars of the air and naval “bridge” between the two enemies. It was an ambiguous situation and a source of discomfort for the Japanese to find themselves de facto accomplices of a war that they did not want and the futility of which they soon became aware. This frustration was the cause of a new Japanese approach, not only towards Vietnam but also the whole Asian region. With respect to the American experience in Asia, Japan built its own vision of the zone. This new vision corresponds of course to a complete revision of the pre-war concept known as the “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” that envisaged placing the region as a whole under Tokyo’s political aegis and military control. Now Japan defends the idea of an Asian coherence in Asia-Pacific, a new spatial concept popularised by Japan in the 1970s, both within the concerned region and also outside it.
9Thus for the Japanese, Vietnam occupies a special place in Asia though it cannot vie with some of its neighbours in the sphere of economic attractions for Japan. It does not have any of the strategic wealth of the Indonesian Archipelago in terms of raw materials or oil, nor is it the key component of Japan’s industrial and commercial set-up. This place is occupied by Thailand, the Land of the Rising Sun’s leading partner, and home to more than 30,000 Japanese expatriates. Yet Vietnam takes on great importance in the eyes of the Japanese. In fact, this country has become indispensable, not only for the stability of Southeast Asia, but also for North Asia because it is a hub serving as a “geographical, political and cultural bridge” between the two regional entities formed by Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. The former, however much it is influenced by ASEAN’s political clout, is today a reality. The latter still exists only on paper, but most probably one day it will become a coherent geopolitical reality.
10So, given their very challenging nature, Nippo-Vietnamese relations must be better analysed, and not merely by a simple monographic study of bilateral relations. Japanese diplomatic action that is easily underestimated by summarising its international situation using the well-known but reductive assertion that Japan is “an economic giant but political dwarf” must be viewed in a better perspective. We will see that Indochina and Southeast Asia have enabled Japan to return to the international scene but this important fact in itself is nowhere near the perspective of regional integration in the widest sense and the important question in the background is that of China’s gaining a foothold in the peninsula, thanks to its southern province, Yunnan, which is connected to its southern neighbours by the Mekong River.
11The current context, with Japan’s reduction of its public development aid in a bid to turn around its economy, and with China’s predominance in all fields, including aid, throws up the question of what place Vietnam, as an ASEAN member, will come to occupy in the Japanese and Chinese chessboard. In other words, is the Indo-Chinese Peninsula an important stake, or merely secondary to the rivalry being played out between the two big Asian powers?
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Japan-Vietnam
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