High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Pacification of Tonkin (1886–96) was a slow, frustrating but ultimately successful military and political campaign undertaken by the French Empire in the northern portion of Tonkin (modern-day north Vietnam) to re-establish order in the wake of the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885), to entrench a French protectorate in Tonkin, and to suppress Vietnamese opposition to French rule.