III THE INDOCHINESE STAKE AND THE 1947 TREATY OF FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN THE PHILIPPINES AND FRANCE

III

THE INDOCHINESE STAkE AND THE 1947 TREATY OF FRIENDSHIP BETwEEN THE PHILIPPINES AND FRANCE

A Frenchman in Manila: Willoquet and the Philippines (1931-1945)

As had been the case for the opening of a consulate, the early establishment of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and France was at first due to growing problems in Indochina. As a whole, after the Kellogg-Briand Pact57 launched by France and the United States in 1928 and signed by 63 countries, France had hoped for American support for its Southeast Asian colonial policy. As a response to the visit to Indochina in 1931 of then Philippine Governor Dwight F. Davis—former tennis champion-turnedpolitician58—Governor-General Pierre Pasquier came to Manila on February 1932, to meet with Acting Governor George C. Butte, at the very moment the Japanese launched an attack on Shanghai.59 Unfortunately, neither country benefited from these exchanges.

As far as the diplomatic relations of the Philippines and France were concerned, however, France was lucky enough to have the right man for the Philippines: Gaston Willoquet. Born in 1888, G. Willoquet joined the diplomatic service as an interpreter and consular agent. As a former Chancellor of the Shanghai Consulate General in the French concession, he was promoted to Consul and sent to Manila in February 1931.60 As such, he greeted on his arrival Pierre Pasquier, Governor-General of Indochina, and was praised for his professionalism. Helped by his masonic connections, Willoquet succeeded in quickly being assimilated into the Philippines’ various power networks, discovering that Filipinos were “subtle people, using irony rather well”.61 Among his close relations was the President of the Senate, Elpidio Quirino, whom he later called Compadre. In April 1931, President Quezon himself asked Willoquet for the text of the Constitution of the French Third Republic, as he was working on

the future Philippine Constitution, with the intention of winning over the diplomat to his side against his arch-rival Osmeña.62 Not easily influenced, Willoquet described President Quezon as “[a] cunning fellow, crafty and indefatigable”.63 While Willoquet apparently had misgivings about Quezon’s indirect links with Spain’s General Francisco Franco and fascination for fascist regimes, he praised the Philippine leader for displaying “qualities of a truly exceptional statesman”64 in 1939.

Following France’s surrender to Germany in June 1940 and General Charles de Gaulle’s speech on June 18, Willoquet supported the party of De Gaulle’s France Libre (Free France). He launched a call in Manila dailies, calling on June 22 for a meeting of all French citizens living in the Philippines, to reject the armistice with Germany. Consequently, Willoquet, who had been promoted to 1st Class Consul in 1940, had his French citizenship revoked by the collaborationist Vichy government in January 1941. Refusing to leave the Philippines, he kept on collecting intelligence and distributing propaganda leaflets to all French sailors disembarking in Manila, asking them to join De Gaulle in London. After Pearl Harbor, he expressed his condolences to General MacArthur, who was then stationed in Manila.

Upon the arrival of the Japanese Army in January 1942, Willoquet was immediately arrested, jailed in Fort Santiago, and then put in a wooden cage upon the orders by Lieutenant-Colonel Seiichi Ohta, Military Police of the Imperial Japanese Forces. In June 1942, he was finally exchanged for Japanese prisoners detained in North Africa, thanks to the mediation of the Red Cross, which arranged for his transfer to Shanghai with his family, and from there, to the neutral Portuguese territory Lourenço Marques in the Indian Ocean. He finally arrived in London in October 1942.65 Even though he was no longer in the Philippines, Willoquet managed to keep in touch with Filipino politicians, including Quezon,66 by calling them on the phone or by sending letters through various channels.

Post WWII Southeast Asia: The Philippines’ Independence vs. the Independence of the Associated States of Indochina

WWII had left the Philippines in a precarious position. The war had destroyed much of the country’s productive capacity: the 1946 GDP was approximately 40% of the 1937 GDP;67 the communist Huk insurgency 68 remained active in many places of Luzon; Southern

Muslims kept their fingers on the trigger; and state finances were totally dependent on American official development assistance (ODA)—a situation nearly as uncomfortable as that in metropolitan France.

French Indochina did not fare any better. As a staunch anticolonialist, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had been hostile to the return of France to Indochina after the demise of the previous collaborationist administration. In 1944, he even offered the whole Indochinese package to Chiang Kai-shek during the Yalta Conference. The latter refused the burden, explaining to the US President that the Indochinese were not Chinese.69 During earlier private talks with General de Gaulle, Roosevelt had proposed to send Filipino councilors and experts to Indochina, to help the French implement “a policy of Progress”,70 an offer to which the astonished and haughty General Charles de Gaulle did not even condescend to give an answer.

Although Metropolitan France had been liberated in June 1944, the Japanese remained in its former Indochinese territories at the beginning of 1945. On 9 March 1945, the Japanese took over the administration of Indochina and attacked all remaining French garrisons. Following Japanese advice, Emperor Bảo Ðại proclaimed the independence of Vietnam on the same day, and a few days later, on March 13, King Norodom Sihanouk did likewise with Cambodia. King Sisavang Vong followed suit with Laos on April 8, but under constraint—because he considered himself a prisoner. After Japan announced its surrender on August 14, the Việt Nam Ðộc Lập Ðồng Minh Hội, or Viet Minh, launched an insurgency in the North. After Bao Ðại’s abdication on August 25, Hổ Chí Minh proclaimed anew Vietnam’s independence. The Potsdam Conference held from July to August 1945 only aggravated the confusion in assigning the disarmament of the Japanese71 to Chiang Kai-shek’s troops north of the 16th parallel, and the British in the south. When the French authorities came back to Saigon in September, their power was but nominal, even as French troops arrived in the Mekong Delta a few weeks later. Knowing that the French Communist Party had support from about a quarter of the metropolitan population in 1945, the situation became increasingly problematic for the French authorities after the resignation on 20 January 1946 of General Charles de Gaulle, head of the provisional government, as they hoped for a recall that would not happen until 1958.

Even if a modus vivendi with Cambodia was established in early 1946, and even as French soldiers disembarked in the port of Hải Phòng in March, the Da Lat and Fontainebleau Conferences on Indochina,

held in May and from July to August, failed to turn back the clock and restore France’s authority on most of her former Southeast Asian territories. In December 1946, France was officially at war with the Viet Minh.

After the adoption by referendum of a new constitution in October 1946 and the subsequent holding of general elections in November, Vincent Auriol became President of the French Republic in early 1947. Institutional stabilization thus allowed France to resume an international policy extending beyond WWII allies. When the Cold War broke out, the framework of international relations was changed drastically, as illustrated by President Truman’s address of 11 March 1947: “At the present moment in world history nearly every Nation must choose between alternative ways of life. […] One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions […] The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression […]”.

Instead of granting Indochinese States full independence, the French government followed the 1946 constitution and, in March 1947, decided to negotiate the integration of Associated States of Indochina into a Union Française. Entangled in the Indochina trap, under pressure from the French Communist Party—which supported decolonization and left the government in May 1947—France had no other choice but to secure support from the United States: in Europe through the Marshall Plan (as proposed by Secretary of State General Marshall in his speech at Harvard University on June 5),72 as well as in the Far East. The establishment of diplomatic relations with America’s regional hub and Indochina’s newly independent neighbor, the Philippines, had become a prerequisite.

Willoquet back in Manila

On 18 March 1945, Willoquet returned to Manila and was promoted to Consul General. On 4 July 1946, he attended the proclamation of the Philippines’ second independence, writing in his long dispatch (excerpts):

The birth of a Nation is not a very common event and the world contemplates it with all the more interest because this event is rare. Is the newborn quite fully formed? Is it likely to survive? For the Philippines, the answer to these questions is yes. The new republic begins its independent life under the most auspicious conditions. First of all, independence did

not come abruptly. Using never-ending care and benevolence, the United States had, since 1898, been preparing the Filipino Nation for the day it would be able to control itself and be declared all grown up. Since 1935, the Filipino Commonwealth had enjoyed complete autonomy and during eleven years, including three years of war, it proved that it could take its place within the family of Nations without disadvantage.

The artificial economy that the Philippines had developed for fortyeight years, thanks to free trade with America posed the most serious and fearful danger; the abrupt rupture of this economic partnership would start a crisis from which the Filipino people would probably never recover. The US government solved the problem with the passing of the Bell (Trade) Act […]

Some prophets had predicted that people would take the streets in masses, and that there would be plundering and riots on the day after the unveiling. They were completely mistaken. Nothing happened, and never had there been duller and calmer days in Manila than these first days of July 1946. When they woke up on the morning of July 5th, Filipinos realized that the sun had risen like any other days, that it was still shining as the earth continued to revolve around it, that the Americans were still there, their jeeps parked in front of bars. They knew, of course, that it would have been a catastrophe for them if, during the night, everything American in the archipelago had magically disappeared. They heaved a sigh of relief when they saw that the Merikanos were still there, ready to lend them assistance to rebuild their ruins.[…]73

A few months later (November 1946), Willoquet became the first French extraordinary envoy and plenipotentiary to the newly independent Philippines, remaining in Manila until March 1949. 74 Having a good knowledge of the country, its politicians and its complexity, Willoquet wrote to Manuel Roxas on the occasion of his inauguration as President of the Philippines (4 July 1946) “it has been my privilege to know you for more than 15 years and I am well aware that, owing to your statesmanship and devotion to your country, the Philippines is in good hands […]”75 On the occasion of the presentation by Willoquet of his letter of credence, President Roxas answered: “Mr. Minister, your Government could not have chosen a representative more deserving of our confidence and affection. You are one who has shared with us our sufferings. By your record of gallant resistance during the enemy occupation, you proved yourself a good and true friend […]”.76

During Willoquet’s tenure, his daughter Madeleine married a WWII hero in Manila, Lieutenant-Colonel Edwin Ramsey, officer

of the 26th cavalry regiment, who had remained in the Philippines after MacArthur’s retreat and organized resistance forces of about 40,000 Filipino scouts, who fought until the return of American forces.77 Having spent more than fifteen years in the Philippines, Willoquet wrote after his retirement the first French “Que-sais-je” book on Philippine history (Figure 106) published by the academic Presses Universitaires de France.78

But even Willoquet’s aura and wit could not compensate for the lack of substance in the economic relations between Philippines and France, nor gain Manila’s political support for French Indochina in exchange for the hasty opening of full diplomatic relations through the signing of the Treaty of Friendship on 26 June 1947. The United States had waited for the ratification on 4 February 1950 of the Élysée Agreements granting formal independence within the French Union to the three ‘associated states’ to recognize them, followed by Thailand a few days later.79 Newly-independent Philippines, however, was hostile to colonialism especially because it was not as free as it had wanted to be—as shown by the remaining twenty-three American military bases on the national territory and the presence of Americans inside the national administration: they postponed any kind of recognition of the three Indochinese states until the end of the first Indochina War that put the states’ “association” status to an end.

Figure 105. Gaston Willoquet, on his Brazilian residence permit document, January 1950

Figure 106. The cover of G. Willoquet’s book on Philippine history