Salt and State-Building on the China–Vietnam Borderlands, 1870–1940

Among the commodities circulating across the China-Vietnam borderlands, salt—an important source of revenue and a staple food item in both pre-colonial Vietnam and imperial China—was often at odds with state surveillance. While the Qing state exercised strict control over the production and distribution of salt, in Nguyễn Vietnam, it was primarily subject to land taxes and customs duties. The disparity in supply and regulation encouraged the smuggling of sea salt from the Red River Delta into the “zomia” regions of southwestern China. However, this pattern of salt circulation had been increasingly constrained since the 1890s with the establishment of a salt monopoly (Régie du sel) by the French administration in the Tonkin protectorate. The salt monopoly, aimed at eliminating speculative middlemen and securing the fiscal autonomy of Indochina, brought scattered, self-sufficient salt makers of coastal Tonkin under the centralized control of the colonial state, which sought to impose quotas on both exports and domestic consumption. Yet the quota system for salt production remained vulnerable to unpredictable weather conditions—ironically creating more speculative opportunities.
This paper examines the circulation of salt across the China-Vietnam borderlands, both overland and by sea. It focuses not only on the movement of salt from coastal Tonkin into inland China, but also on the maritime smuggling routes that brought Guangdong salt into northern Vietnam, a consequence of the dysfunction of the French salt monopoly. In doing so, the paper also explores the entangled history of state-building in China and French Indochina.