Treaty of Hanoi (1931)
This article is about the 1931 treaty that transformed the Nanjing Accord from a military alliance into a supranational economic and political union. For the treaty between the Republic of China and the Republic of India, see Treaty of Hanoi (1926).
The 1931 Treaty of Hanoi is a treaty that resulted in the creation of Eurasian Common Market, under which the free movement of Capital, Goods, People, and Services, as well as the standardization of documents, weights, measures, and railway gauges were agreed upon by the members of the Nanjing Accord: China, Japan, Korea, Indochina, Siam, Australia, New Zealand-Aotorea, Burma, Malaya, the Philippines, India, Nusantara, Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Poland, Jabal-Shammar, and the Ottoman Empire.
This treaty would be signed by other nations in subsequent years, including Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Illyria, Bohemia, Slovakia, Hungary, the Autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, and the Autonomous Kingdom of Ukraine.
Background
While the formation of the Nanjing Accord had fostered closer trade relations, immigration, cooperation, and standardization between its members, it was first and foremost a military alliance. Although ranks, equipment, units of measurement, and transportation networks were standardized by its members (as well as the newly-liberated member states in the postwar era), these standardizations were primarily done for military purposes, with civilian implications seen as side-effects.
The Nanjing Accord's victory in the Great War over the European Alliance led to several members questioning the purpose of a military alliance in the postwar era. Though the Settler Insurrections in Africa provided some purpose, the overall purpose of a massive, hemisphere-spanning was debated among members.
In response, Chinese Foreign Minister Lu Zhengxiang and Indochinese Foreign Minister Nguyen Sinh Cung issued a formal invitation to the member states for a conference in Hanoi, in the Republic of Indochina, to discuss the future of the alliance without an enemy.
The Hanoi Conference
Hanoi was chosen as the location of the conference due to its location, as well as its symbolic status as a newly-liberated major city. While the Accord was based in Nanjing, China, it was argued that having China host the event would create the impression that the expanded Accord was an extension of Chinese hegemony over the Eurasian sphere. In contrast, both foreign ministers agreed that hosting the conference in a smaller, liberated, Accord nation such as Indochina would demonstrate the expanded Accord's dedication to equality and cooperation between its member states.
The conference began in November of 1930, with delegations from all member states assembling at the Grand Palais to discuss the exact terms of Pan-Eurasian cooperation. While military cooperation had already prepared most participants for cooperation with one another, the minute details of economic, diplomatic, and technological cooperation would need to be transformed from a tangled mess of backroom deals and boardroom treaties to a single, standardized, and coherent policy agreeable to all participants.
Diplomatic successes, including the Hanoi Conference on Border Disputes between China and India, had ensured that the border disputes were minimal, at most. Economic issues were the primary issue for the participants, with the Chinese insisting on secured supply chains, while the Indians were wary of the Chinese dominating any common market, the Japanese wanting technology and patent reform, and the Philippines insisting on agricultural investments.
In response, several reforms were agreed upon, including (but not limited to):
- The formal adoption of Chinese Patent Law among the Eurasian nations to replace the de-facto recognition among members
- The creation of the Eurasian Development Bank to provide loans and grants for developing members
- A "Local Partnership Agreement" requiring a minimum percentage of local ownership on intra-Accord investments by individuals and organizations
- The adoption of common documentation for licenses, forms, and passports
- The formal adoption of the metric system for weights and measurements
- The adoption of Standard Gauge for rail travel, with investment promises for variable-gauge systems as a stopgap measure
- The enshrinement of basic worker protections, with reference to Chinese law
All of this was in addition to the creation of several new institutions, including the Eurasian Central Court to handle cases between nations, the formation of the Nanjing Accord Police Organization (APO), the aforementioned Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), the Eurasian Passport Service, and the Eurasian Council.
While there were propositions for the formation of a Eurasian parliament, issues regarding representation and voting would leave such an institution out, in favor of the Eurasian Council.
In addition, the Nanjing Accord command structure would be brought under the umbrella of the Treaty, with the command answering directly to the Eurasian Council.
Ratification
While the terms were largely-agreeable to the various governments of the Accord, the Progressive "Green" Kuomintang's insistence on ensuring basic worker protections would lead to their inclusion via an amendment.
Ratification would pass through the various legislatures and governments of the Accord's members, with the Chinese being the first and the Australians being the last due to issues regarding conservation and Aboriginal Rights.
Aftermath
After the ratification of the Treaty of Hanoi, the public response was generally positive. Higher-Development members such as China saw it as a means to uplift their fellow peoples, while the Lower-Development members saw it as a means to prosperity, health, and an end to hunger.
In the immediate aftermath of Treaty, intra-signatory migration would reach an all-time high, with Indians and Chinese moving to the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Jabal Shammar to work in the oil fields, while Australia would see massive migration from Indian and Chinese population due to manpower shortages in the mining and construction sectors.
While there have been some racial tensions, cases of discrimination dropped in the five years after the treaty was signed and inter-Accord cultural programs were proposed and funded.
Worker exploitation cases at the Eurasian Central Court have seen a marked drop after an initial surge in the first year of migration, with the APO being mobilized to enforce worker protections in various member states, followed by prosecution in the ECC.
The creation of a "Local Partnership" has done little to prevent tax enforcement, and recent studies have shown that APO resource-sharing and increased funding to tax enforcement have lowered the effectiveness of tax havens in Singapore and
See also
- Panama Conference of 1932
- Paris Socialist Conference of 1933
- Nanjing Accord Expansion Into Africa
- International Coalition Treaty of 1933
MIB Headquarters, Nanjing, National Capital Region, Republic of China, 31 October 1931
"What the actual fuck?" That was all Rachel could say to the proposal. "No. Just no."
While yes, she knew it was a threat-analysis and action plan that was likely done as training, the
content of it was honestly a bit much, even for her. The fact that she is (Was? At this point, she didn't know herself) an MSS double agent paled to the absurdity of the proposal.
Cultural programs she could get. They had a hefty budget, and a good amount of that went to cultural programs to nudge society in the right direction. Feminism, Anti-Racism, Critical Thinking, and similarly Modernist concepts were all fair game, and they spent a good amount of money on those in the hope that it would set humanity on the right course.
And it had. The voting rights of women and minority populations around the world had skyrocketed, even if the Americans had only done so out of a gambit gone horribly right. Not to mention the general sentiment that the empowerment of women allowed a society to live up to its full potential.
Though the fact that the slogans were, quite literally, "Women Hold Up Half The Sky," would never stop being funny to her.
Was it effective? Yes. Did it work all the time? Only about three-quarters of the time.
There were more-dubious missions, of course. Rachel had been the on the ground during the Riyadh op, and she'd pulled the trigger on the Saudis as they tried to escape. "Killed in the fighting" would be the official record, but she knew the truth about all those dead.
Sure, she
knew that killing them would stop the spread of Wahhabism, but she also knew that she was directly responsible for the deaths of non-combatants in an effort to accomplish that. A "Necessary Evil," as she would tell herself, but pragmatic evil was still evil in her eyes.
But this? This was just stupid.
The Catholic Church was the single largest religious organization in the world. And while she was
very well-aware of all the abuses going on,
actively trying to cripple them would be a fool's errand, assuming they
didn't get caught. If for no other reason than the collapse of the world's largest religion would almost-certainly destabilize sizable chunks of Europe and Latin America.
Property seizures were one thing, but actively trying to go after the Pope, then putting him on trial (let alone
kill him for what his subordinates did) or demanding reparations would do more harm than good. At
best, there would be a religion-sized hole in the cultures and societies of those countries.
The worst-case scenario would be the birth of some far-right movement that'd be some cursed combination of Nazis with Crusaders. France is strong, but this would possibly start a full-on insurrection in Europe.
Sure, one could point to the op to kill the Saudis, but their influence was minor, when the Ottoman Sultan was still the Caliph. That, and at least they could make that look like unnecessary civilian casualties, rather than martyrs for more-conservative movements to rally around.
Killing the Pope, on the other hand (and a reform-minded one at that, no less) would almost-certainly lead to a rise in more traditionalist, conservative sentiment rather than the reforms were currently underway at the Synod. From a purely-pragmatic point of view, their resources would be better-spent supporting the reformists' rise rather than the church's fall.
And that was assuming they even
had resources to begin with. The MIB's budget was nothing to sneeze at, but most of those funds were already being spent somewhere. Taking the fight to the Catholic Church would almost-certainly divert resources that could be used to push for civil rights, anti-racism, and other more-practical cultural projects the MIB was focusing on.
So no, she wasn't going to sign off on this hypothetical plan. Besides the fact that the MIB bringing the fight to the Catholic Church would do more harm than good, this wouldn't even be the most-effective way to lower religious influence in the world. If anything, it would be easier (and much less expensive) to just devote resources towards pushing secularism and the separation of church and state as a virtue by showing the fallibility of religious leadership.
So no, she wasn't going to go sign off on this proposal, even if it was largely an exercise to train recruits. Then again, she also wasn't going to sign off on any proposals to murder the Belgian Royal Family.
That, as far as she could tell, would be even more of a waste of resources when King Leopold II was one, dead, and two, succeeded by somebody who had devoted himself to charity work to continue improving people's lives in the Congo.
Could they go after them? Rachel figured it would be easy enough to blow them up with a drone or a car bomb, but that would cause more trouble than good. As far as she was concerned, Leopold II's successor wasn't the one responsible for all the hands being chopped off, and the last thing they needed was a resurgence in monarchist sentiment from a martyr.
No, "Letting Them Live" (if she could even call it that) would do more to serve the MIB's purposes right now.
It was better to have monarchs in exile or pseudo-exile, rather than martyrs in a coffin. That was true for the Pope in Rome as much as it was for the exiled Belgian royals in Copenhagen.
Outskirts of Jerusalem/Al-Quds, Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, Ottoman Empire, 13 November 1931
"With differing circumstances," David Ben-Gurion said to the crowd of immigrants, "Come different decisions. That, my friends, is why this agreement with Constantinople is so monumental to our efforts."
"While outright statehood would be preferable, our people will be able to immigrate to the Holy Land once more. Rights will be respected, and the bloody conflicts between Israelis and Arabs, Jews and Muslims, may be avoided this time. For this, I am grateful that so many of you have come to join us in this endeavor."
"Despite coming from Ethiopia, Arabia, Russia, or Europe, we are united by our shared faith and a shared dream of living here in peace, just as so many of our ancestors have dreamt of for generations."
Outskirts of Oran, French Algeria, 20 December 1931
If he was being completely honest, the old man never thought he would be here, but so much of life had been unexpected.
He had never thought he would have had a second chance at a career in the military, let alone serve as a general. Yet when the OAS attacked, he was one of the officers who had remained loyal to the Parisian government, and Major Alfred Dreyfus would soon become
General Alfred Dreyfus.
That was all in the past. He was content to enjoy retirement far away from Paris and all of its politicking. That was a young man's game, and he was anything but a young man.
No, if anyone had earned a peaceful, simple retirement, it was him, and life on a kibbutz was more than enough for him.
That, along with regular phone calls from his children, though Pierre and Jeanne were always insistent on visiting him every few months. Pierre would commiserate with him about the inefficiencies of the chain of command, and Jeanne would say the same of the bureaucracy that came with journalism.
If he didn't know better, he'd have thought that the two of them were as motivated to get away from Paris as they were to spend time with him. Not that he minded, of course. They were still his children, and he was still the main reason they were coming here so frequently.
Life was good. It was peaceful, dignified, and most importantly, his little granddaughter would live longer than twenty-five.
What more could he ask for?
National Taipei University, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China, 31 December 1931
"Alright!" her mother exclaimed, seemingly out of nowhere. "Oh... Sorry, Morgan."
"Did something happen, Mama?" Morgan asked her. It wasn't every day that her mother raised her voice, so
something had to be up. "What is it?"
"Child mortality rate is down again, dear," her mother said with a happy smile. "Down to about a five percent rate, from seven last year."
"Meaning..."
"About five in every hundred children will die before the age of five this year, compared to seven last year."
"That's good?" From the way her mother nodded, that was the right thing to say. "So, that's a lot, right?"
"Well, when you factor it up to the millions, we're looking at tens, if not
hundreds of thousands of children alive today who wouldn't be alive a year ago. And it's even better than it was before modern medicine was a thing."
"Ah..." When her mother put it that way, it made sense. "Wait... how bad was it back then?"
"Four hundred?" Morgan's mother looked at her laptop, "Four hundred and eleven per thousand, for ages five and under."
"Is that bad?"
"Well, let's take you and your brother, alright?" Morgan nodded. "Well, there's a very good chance at least one of you would die by the age of 5 from preventable causes."
"...Oh." Now Morgan got it. "So there are lots of people who are alive right now who wouldn't be, because Baba's island got sent back in time, which means that all those people who would have died... got treatment?"
"Well, that's half of it," her mother agreed, using her professorial tone. "That, and no Warlord Era. Turns out not having your country fall apart into small military dictatorships trying to kill one another to be the legitimate government is
really good for the people who live there."
"That makes sense. So there are
millions of people who are alive today because of modern medicine and fewer wars?"
"Also mechanized agriculture. You can't forget that, Morgan. Now that we have modernized agriculture, there are fewer people starving to death."
"How many are we talking about? Millions?"
"Probably," her mother figured. "In fact, more people probably died from starvation than getting shot and stabbed."
"Huh... Well, that's interesting."
Harare, Federation of Zambia, 1 January 1932
As far as celebrations went, this had to be the first time the locals were celebrating a military force of foreign soldiers leaving a country.
No, that wouldn't be accurate. Not when the end of colonialism had happened within the last decade. This had to be the first time that the locals were celebrating
with the foreign soldiers as they left the country.
And they had their reasons to, now that the Settler Insurrection had been finished for the most part. While yes, there were still bandits in the brush, they were a far cry from the Settler Holdouts that had been raiding from their redoubts for over half a decade.
As far as AFRICOM was concerned, this was all the more reason to begin a drawdown. Sure, there would still be some presence in the form of drones and intel, but the African troops would be the ones wearing most of the boots on the ground.
There would be civilian advisors, of course, while the next generation of bureaucrats were being educated here and abroad, but the estimates said that the Accord advisors would be phased out for the Africans they'd trained. It would take a bit longer, but Colonel Lei knew that it was harder to run a state than it was to win a war.
The best lessons were those learned from one's own mistakes, and he had learned much from Mao Zedong.
