Phan Chau Trinh

Phan Chau Trinh

(born 1872, Tay Loc, Quang Nam province, Viet.—died March 24, 1926, Saigon) Vietnamese nationalist leader and reformer. Trinh, who fought in the resistance movement against the French even as a boy, came to believe that modernization was a prerequisite for developing an autonomous state, and he thus made modernization his primary goal. He urged replacing the civil service system with vocational schools and commercial firms, but his attempts to persuade the French to undertake major reforms failed, and he was twice imprisoned. He was mourned as a national hero after his death. See also Phan Boi Chau.