WW2 & Japanese Occupation of Vietnam

WW2 and Japanese Occupation of Vietnam   In September 1940, the Japanese invaded Vietnam and the French surrendered.  Japanese leaders, driven by militarism and profit, dreamed of creating a ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’: an economic coalition of Asian nations aiming to expel Western imperialists and capitalists, then share trade, resources and commodities between themselves   Japanese forces took only a week to secure a foothold in Vietnam, with minimal losses. By October there were around 10,000 Japanese soldiers stationed there.  For most of their occupation the Japanese left the French colonial government in place – though its authority was greatly diminished. Japan could not spare the men for a full-scale occupation of Vietnam.   The Japanese presence in Vietnam also attracted foreign attention, particularly that of the United States. In 1940 America was not yet at war with Japan, but it was nevertheless seeking to restrict Japanese expansion.   Washington had backed the French colonial regime in Vietnam, hoping it would resist Japanese overtures.  But when the French caved in to Japanese demands, the US changed tack. By 1943 president Roosevelt was openly talking of Vietnamese independence. By 1944, Washington was much more interested in Indochina.   By the start of 1945 the war was going poorly for Japan. In March 1945 the Japanese occupation force, alleging that French colonials were assisting the Allies, withdrew their backing. The French were removed from power; every French colonial official or military officer was arrested and locked up; all French soldiers were disarmed.   But shutting down colonial authority in Indochina only benefited the Viet Minh, which flourished without pressure from French troops. The Japanese invited emperor Bao Dai to declare Vietnamese independence and gave him the reins of power, though both were only nominal. From March 1945, Vietnam was a member-state of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, in effect a Japanese colony run by a puppet government.   The growing Viet Minh   A communist revolutionary, Ho Chi Minh, formed an army (the Vietminh) and began a guerrilla campaign against the Japanese.     The US worked with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh, who supplied the US military with information about Japanese troop numbers and movements. This was more of a working relationship than an alliance, however it gave Ho Chi Minh some hope that Washington might support their claim to independence when the war ended.     Ho Chi Minh declared the Japanese to be the “number one enemy” but resisted calls for a major Viet Minh campaign against them. Knowing the Japanese were in retreat and that a major Allied attack was imminent, Ho preferred to wait.   By June 1945 he felt strong enough to establish a Viet Minh-controlled zone in north-western Vietnam. Since this region was remote and had no strategic significance to the Japanese, they did not launch any major campaigns against it. Through the middle of 1945, the Viet Minh busied itself with organisation, propaganda and recruiting.   In early August 1945 the US dropped atomic weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which eventually led to the Japanese surrender. When the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War 2, Ho believed he would be able to set up an independent Vietnam.   Ho Chi Mihn The defeat of the Japanese in August 1945 created a power vacuum in Vietnam, so Ho quickly attempted to create an independent state, free from foreign control.   At the beginning of September 1945 Ho Chi Minh presented a Vietnamese declaration of independence and sought international recognition for the newly independent Vietnam, but these overtures were ignored by all major leaders, including US president Harry Truman.   Meanwhile, continued violence and unrest in Vietnam gave the French a pretext to move large numbers of troops back into its former colony. This triggered the First Indochina War, with Ho leading the Viet Minh against the French, refusing several offers of a negotiated peace.   After Vietnam was divided at the Geneva conference in 1954, Ho and the Viet Minh established themselves in the north. There he redistributed land to peasants and encouraged the interrogation, torture and execution of former landlords.   When it became apparent that South Vietnam would not participate in elections for the reunification of Vietnam, Ho and his ministers began planning to overthrow the South.   This strategy led to American military intervention and the unfolding of the Vietnam War (1964-75).

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