4.4 Decolonization
Decolonization in Asia
Decolonization of French Indo-China
France also had to cope with demands for independence from its colonies which you studied in when you looked at the American War in Vietnam. You might remember that in 1945 Ho Chi Minh, head of the communist nationalist movement the Viet Minh, seized power and decreed the country’s independence on behalf of the provisional government, officially proclaiming the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Emperor Bao Dai was forced to abdicate.
In 1945, French troops reoccupied Cochin-China. The next year, the French Commissioner of the Republic, signed an agreement with Ho Chi Minh that provided for the recognition of Vietnam as a free state within an Indo-Chinese Federation and as part of the French Union.
North Vietnam 1948 - Gutted houses left standing in village, in French Indo China.
From 1949 onwards, Tonkin, Annam and Cochin-China were grouped together in the new state of Vietnam, part of the French Union and ruled from the city of Saigon by Emperor Bao Dai, who had returned to Vietnam in April 1949.
From late 1949, the Chinese positioned troops along the Vietnamese border. The Soviet Union and Mao Tse-Tung’s communist China stepped up their support to the Viet Minh troops by sending weapons, equipment, instructors, etc. In response to this threat and with the Korean War beginning in June 1950, the United States declared that it was willing to give material aid to the French war effort by supplying arms. The war in Indo-China was in line with the US policy of containment and became a front line in the struggle against communist expansion.
The Geneva Accords of 21 July 1954 put an end to the conflict and France was obliged to leave the country. Vietnam was divided into two parts: whilst northern Vietnam fell under the communist control of Ho Chi Minh, a nationalist dictatorship took power south of the 17th parallel. Laos and Cambodia were officially recognised after proclaiming their independence in 1953. But unlike France, the United States refused to accept the outcome of the Geneva Conference and remained firmly behind the cause of independence for South Vietnam.
Once France had freed itself from the powder keg that was Indo-China, it lost an important part of its colonial prestige, fuelling the independence movements already active in French North Africa.