Franco-Vietnamese Relations

[Mergerberger II]

Deputy Foreign Minister [color=#1C2837][size=2][font="Arial"]Nguyễn Văn Thiệu had been assigned to a new task and another relationship that would rely on his diplomatic capabilities. The invitation, he was informed, had already been sent and the representative was to arrive in Hanoi in three days, and he would meet with the Frenchman at 5:30 local time on that day in the Meeting Hall of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was not nearly as nervous as he was when he travelled to Isara, as now he had some experience, but he was still a bit anxious because he knew that this was a far more respected nation with a prouder history than any in Central Asia.[/font][/size][/color]
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[color=#1C2837][size=2][font="Arial"]Upon arrival, the French representative would find that everything was in order, hopefully. While the MInistry had made the exact arrangements, and really the only thing that [/font][/size][/color][color=#1C2837][font=Arial][size=2]Thiệu knew was going to happen was the meeting itself, he still felt as though it would be his fault if something in the journey went awry, and it would likely reflect poorly on him. He checked the flight departure time, hotel reservations, and preparations made in the Ministry itself at least seven times each over the course of the three days. He slept, but not well, and he knew his negotiation skills would suffer as a result. He knew that he needed to relax, but that knowledge didn't help him to actually calm down.[/size][/font][/color]
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[color=#1C2837][font=Arial][size=2]Nevertheless, he was still prepared to meet with the French representative at 5:30. He waited in a rather comfortable chair, constantly crossing and uncrossing his legs, and drinking his glass of water as the hands of the clock slowly moved.[/size][/font][/color]

[Sarah Tintagyl]

It was by far the busiest Therese had been since the collapse of Burgundy, near constant diplomatic excursions whether both home and abroad. But this was what she had entered into politics for and nothing gave her a better thrill then the constant activeness of running around France and the world. This time she had been on a plane for over sixteen hours toward the city of Hanoi in Vietnam. The Vietnamese, despite having once, in the past, being a French possession, had really no contact with the French people until this time. Along the way Therese couldn't help but chuckle to herself, it was as though all of Asia was opening their doors to her nation at once and she really wasn't complaining, access to less expensive Asian resources was always something to boast and now France could add Vietnam into their economic listing of partners.

Landing in Hanoi, Therese was greeted by the Vietnamese honor guard or something that could at least be attributed to such a battalion before being told that she would be escorted to the Foreign Ministry and the Deputy Minister there. She chuckled again, when first she had responded to the Vietnamese, she had said that a diplomat would be going to begin relations. But on the last minute, she decided to go herself and she hoped that being Prime Minister wouldn't upset the balance of the meeting. Needless to say, she was relaxed, to her politics was just to who you got to talk to and the Deputy Minister seemed by the description like a pleasant man. Something like titles and rank wouldn't get in the way of successful meeting.

Arriving at 5:25 at the Ministry she was lead through the building, a lovely piece of Asian architecture that she had seen in the travel guides, she had read to better acquaint herself with the country before her arrival. The guards led her to a large door at the end of the hallway where she was let in. The room was large and the Deputy Minister was seated in a large chair near the middle. Therese immediately smiled, fixing her hat on her head, her golden hair neatly done, and her white business attire finely pressed. Taking off her lace gloves she walked over the Minister and bowed while extending her hand in greeting. "Monsieur Thiệu, Therese Zelle, Prime Minister of France, it is a pleasure to be in Hanoi, thank you for having me. Forgive, I know you were expecting Monsieur LeCarde, but I figured that I could come myself for such a monumental meeting as this, I hope you don't mind. Shall we begin our conversation?"

[Mergerberger II]

[color=#1C2837][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif][size=2]Thiệu stood as the French Prime Minister entered the room and, to say the least, he was surprised. He had been simply sitting and waiting for a French representative, probably of similar political status to himself, and now before him stood the Prime Minister of France. Nevertheless, on the exterior he kept his calm, shaking hands with her warmly, covering her single hand with both of his, and bearing a large smile of immense gratitude. He motioned and asked for her to sit down in the chair across from the one in which he had been sitting earlier. [i]Lucky,[/i] he thought, [i]that my palms didn't sweat during that exchange. That would have been rather awkward and humiliating.[/i] Of course, as soon as he thought this, he could feel a pang of nervousness and the tips of his fingers begin to sweat again. But, he remained with a look of coolness and simply rested his open palms on the arms of his chair to help to cool them off and hopefully remove the moisture.[/size][/font][/color]
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[color=#1C2837][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif][size=2]He began to speak his third language, French, with eloquence and an obvious Vietnamese accent. The words did not quite roll off of his tongue the way Vietnamese did, but he was still an excellent speaker of the language, one he considered very, very beautiful.[/size][/font][/color]
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[color=#1C2837][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif][size=2]"Thank you so much for coming, Madame. I cannot begin to express my appreciation for your visit, though I must say I am quite surprised to see you instead of Monsieur LeCarde. A pleasant surprise of course. Indeed, I hope this meeting becomes one for the history books and begins a period of Franco-Vietnamese relations far more amicable than they have been in the past. Fortunately, most of the nation has put the old memories of being controlled by a foreign power across the world behind them, or forgotten them entirely. Indeed, this is not a nation of old men, but rather a nation of young people, open to new ideas and dismantling the old.[/size][/font][/color]
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[color=#1C2837][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif][size=2]"Madame you honor me with your visit here and I will do my very best to ensure that it is a fruitful visit. I apologize for skipping the customary small-talk, but I, like you, am rather busy these days trying to ensure the stability and a bright future for this young state. For that purpose, I will move from here directly to the point. As you are aware, we have called you here to discuss the possibility of an economic treaty and a pact of non-aggression between our nations and I believe our purpose is simply to hammer out the details of this pact. [/size][/font][/color]
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[color=#1C2837][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif][size=2]"As Asia opens her doors once again to the West in a new age of trust and understanding far different from the days of the rivalries between the Francoists and the Nordsocs, Vietnam finds herself on the edge of the possibility of a new economic golden age. Already we have ensured continued prosperity through major improvements to our infrastructure, and now we look abroad as our companies seek to expand and our people wish to look upon what is out there with great favor. For this reason, we have called you here to discuss an economic pact, specifically the possibility of the existence of a doctrine of free trade between our nations. This would be of great benefit to both of our nations, immediately to yourself due to your more advanced infrastructure and economy, and in the future to us once our economy can build itself to a respectable level. [/size][/font][/color]
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[color=#1C2837][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif][size=2]"I ask for this doctrine of free trade not singly as a man, but instead as a representative of the interests of Vietnam. We have seen overwhelming support for the globalization of our economy and we intend to carry out that sentiment in our early government. The people support the measures the government is taking to ensure their economic freedoms across the globe, and we have called you here today to ask you to assist us in ensuring the freedom of our people."[/size][/font][/color]

[Sarah Tintagyl]

Therese sat down across from Thiệu crossing her legs as she listened to his introduction, his greeting, and his surprise that she had come herself, but that was all expected. His French while having the natural Vietnamese accent was near perfect and she understood him as he continued. Vietnam and France had both come a long way since the colonial period centuries before, both nations desired progressive relations with both their societies moving away from rivalries of the past and so forth, everything being to make sure that French and Vietnamese relations would be at the beginnings of fruitful relations. Beginning the talks of the possibility of an economic and non-aggression pacts, Therese nodded as he spoke. In honesty, the past existence of Francoists and Nordists in Europe and Asia did not concern her at all. Those fallen states were in the past and their philosophies were still not totally gone, she was sure that cells of Francoism and Nordism both existed across Eurasia, it was the way the world worked. She just hoped that more progressive philosophies would take their places. As she thought and lost the words in her head, the words 'free-trade' sprang into her mind and her teeth clenched, now it was time to talk.

"Well in all honesty Monsieur Thiệu, I have no complaints with the ideas of solidifying our relations. Though in truth, since the times of colonialism, France and Vietnam have not had any previous relations, and so the idea of total free-trade is unacceptable I'm afraid. The French economy thrives with tariffs existing even between some of our allies in Europe. I would only consider the possibility of free-trade if France and Vietnam become almost eternal partners on the world stage." She smiled. "Not saying that couldn't be done, but given that we have only started our negotiations, free-trade is undesirable. I will however look at reduced tariffs, increased trade in the Asian sector, along with cultural exchange and getting to know our peoples a bit better. There are many countries that share our French heritage, Vietnam, Louisiana, Disparu, the Mechodemian States, and so on. I think there could be the creation of a Francophone alliance, a culture alliance, if we are the beginning, then more power to our peoples. Your thoughts?"

[Mergerberger II]

He had been leaning forward, with his head resting on his right thumb and his four fingers covering his mouth, listening intently to what Therese had to say. Once she had finished her statement, he leaned back and crossed his legs. His hands folded in his lap and he looked at the floor as he began to speak.

"My friend, of course I must agree with everything you have said. I do indeed see the advantages for both of our nations should we simply agree to lower our tariffs. Indeed, it is far more beneficial to the immediate Vietnamese economy for us to simply lower tariffs between our nations rather than discuss free trade entirely. Free trade, however, must be a goal of our nations and our future relations, and we each must ensure that our relations remain amicable in order for us to reach a goal of such trust sometime in the future. Vietnam, being that its economy is only in a stage of infancy, must look to retain its tariffs for the time being to allow our corporations of the future to get off of the ground. I believe we are in agreement here and we can continue with the discussion of how we want to word a treaty detailing this."

He leaned forward now, his forearms resting on his knees, fingertips each touching their opposite, and he looked up and slightly right to her face as he spoke, "But this other proposition of yours, this bloc based around Francophone, it certainly is interesting and not something that I can say I expected at these negotiations. Perhaps a bit of escalation, but not on this level. Indeed, we have already engaged in negotiations with Mechodamia, and those are ongoing. The other two I must say we have had no contact with. I am certain that it is possible that we may come to trust them as you have, but that is for the future. From what I know of the Mechodamian negotiations, they are going well, and our disposition towards them is quite favorable."

Leaning back and crossing his right leg over his left, he took a sip of water from the glass on the table between them and continued. "However," his mouth was still in the glass, "however I must say that it does bear some merit and a possible reason for becoming closer with the nations of which you speak. In spite of this, however, I must tell you that French is a severe minority language in Vietnam. It is a second language of many, but the culture here was not eradicated by the colonists as it was in Quebec. Indeed the Vietnamese people were remarkable for retaining some degree of independence, which I suppose can be attributed to the relatively short time during which France ruled over this land, at least when compared with other colonies such as Quebec and West Africa.

"If you are at all still interested in this bloc on the Francophone premise, then we may discuss this at another time, for now, let us finalize the terms of the treaty whose premise we have established."

[Sarah Tintagyl]

"Well then we have an accord for our economic interests Monsieur Minister, we will reduce tariffs to Vietnam and given that France is already in negotiations with the Chinese state, the United States of China to be exact, what we know of the People's Republic is less than amicable. So by doing this, the whole market of Asia is opened too us, it will benefit both Europe and Asia in the long run, I am sure of that. As to the Francophone Alliance, I have no problem of talking about that at a later time than this. To be honest, we haven't had much contact with Disparu or Louisiana for that matter. It has only been a year or so since France was able to unify. We had problems between Aquitaine and Burgundy, that Aquitaine was able to rectify. But I will bring it up again at a later time."

Therese stretched and cracked her knuckles. "Now, what else needs to be discussed for the conclusion of this treaty of ours?"

[Mergerberger II]

"At this point, neither of us is prepared to completely eliminate tariffs and engage in completely free economic policies. However, we are prepared to reduce tariffs. I am also fairly certain that we are both interested in protecting different industries, so for that purpose, I will request that you tell me the industries you are more interested in protecting and we will establish different tariff limits for different industries based on what we want to protect and what we are prepared to allow to trade more freely."

[Sarah Tintagyl]

"Well before we could tell you ours Monsieur, unfortunately I do not know what Vietnam is in production of, your industries, your raw materials and so forth. We can work from your resources and establish a happy medium for both of our nations."

[Mergerberger II]

Well, then allow me to make the following proposal:
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Preamble

The undersigned nations of the Republic of Vietnam and the French Empire do hereby agree to the following terms in following their commitment to peace and protection of friends and allies against outside threats. This treaty, signed in friendship, is a symbol of the close relationship between the undersigned nations and shall remain as such so long as it is in existence.

Article I

Neither nation shall engage in aggressive action against the other, herein defined as, but not limited to, espionage, violations of sovereignty, aggressive language in formal diplomatic channels, or aggressive military action in any form.

Article II

Both nations do hereby agree to lower their tariffs so as to promote economic growth and development and strengthen the relationship between the undersigned nations. These tariffs may be lowered at the discretion of each individual nation, and both nations reserve the right to forbid foreign companies engaged in certain industries which are vital to national security from entering and exploiting their nation, so as to protect their industries.

Article III

Both nations agree that should either make the decision to cancel this treaty, which may be made at any time, though it is frowned upon without reason, they will give the opposite signatory 4 months' (1 week) notice prior to the cancellation taking effect and this treaty being considered null and void by both nations.

Article IV

Signed for the Republic of Vietnam,

Prime Minister Nguyen Van Binh
Parliament of Vietnam

Signed for the French Empire,[/quote]

[Sarah Tintagyl]

"Yes, I believe France can most definitely agree to such a proposal." Therese said signing. "Convenient too with the French base in Hong Kong, trade will be easier than ever before."

[quote]
Signed for the French Empire,

[i]HIH Therese I[/i]
[b]Empress of France[/b]

[i]Charles Talles[/i]
[b]Foreign Minister[/b]
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"Will we be discussing anything else?"

Edited May 21, 2010 by Sarah Tintagyl