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With a PoD internal to Vietnam, of 1800 or later, what could the imperial-mandarin regime have plausibly done that would have made it less likely for the empire to lose its sovereignty entirely to the French?

So, a super-optimistic outcome would be Vietnam becomes a Meiji Japan.

But that's not needed at all to satisfy the challenge. The challenge can be satisfied with any chain of events that results in Vietnam being "only" colonized by others to the extent that China, Siam, Afghanistan or Abyssinia were (treaty ports, extraterritoriality).
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