UMassMUN XII March 15th-17th, 2013 French Indo-China Joint Crisis Committee Introduction to the Committee This committee will focus on the fate of French Indochina after 1945. To this point, the French government has fallen and been reinstated. Additionally, the Japanese government has a hefty presence in the region. Complicating the situation further, many territories in the region have declared their independence. History French Indochina is a territory grouping formed in 1887, including Tonkin, Annam, Cochinchina, and the Kingdom of Cambodia. In 1893, Laos was added. The French left the traditional leaders in place, but they were more figureheads without any true power. The French made it illegal for the people to speak of a unified “Vietnam,” but Annam seems to be the default term to refer to these people as a whole. During the 1800s, the Paris Foreign Missions Society made a concerted effort to spread Catholicism to the natives of the region. Despite converting roughly 764,000 people in the area, there was some resistance to the forcing of Western culture on the Eastern people. Many missionary priests of this society were persecuted, as the Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam deemed Catholicism a political threat to its control over the people. The French used such hostilities as a pretext for military interventions. Such French interventions tried to ensure the unimpeded spread of Catholicism and eventually seizing territory. There was some pushback by the Vietnamese people, such as those of Phan Ding Phung between 1885 and 1895. World War II complicated the matter deeply. After the German victory in the Battle of Paris, France was formally ruled by the Vichy French government. This new administration, lasting between July 1940 and August 1944, collaborated with the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. In September 1940, the Vichy French government was obligated to offer Japan military access and the right to build military bases in Indochina. Additionally, Japan believed that it had to offer “protection” to the Indochinese region given the weakness of the French owners. Offering such rights to Japan signaled the extent to which France had weakened. Thailand decided to invade Indochina in October 1940 and was largely victorious in its aims. This is because Japan pressured France to accept terms that returned parts of Laos and Cambodia (including the Angkor Wat – the largest religious monument worldwide) to Thailand. Tensions between Japan and France are deep seeded. This is seen in the Japanese invasion of French Indochina in September 1940. Here, Japan wanted to prevent the Chinese from obtaining supplies through the region. The Vichy French government, though, regarded the Japanese as overstepping the terms of their treaty. Japan, however, disregarded the protests of the Jean DeCoux. In this struggle, the remaining French colonial soldiers fought the Japanese for most of the invasion. Japanese troops remain in this territory to this day, totaling seventy thousand. While many of the natives called for independence, Ho Chi Minh had the most success, creating the League for the Independence of Vietnam in May 1941. By August 1944, the Vichy French government was dismantled and a provisional government was instituted. Beginning on March 9, 1945, the Second French Indochina Campaign was a struggle between the Japanese and this newly reformed French government. On March 9, the Japanese delivered an ultimatum, either the Colonial French officials surrender or likely be killed. This was seen when General Emile-René Lemonnier and Resident Camille Auphalle were killed after refusing to surrender. The French administration was effectively dismantled. The Japanese government encouraged independence movements in the Empire of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos and the Kingdom of Cambodia in an attempt to subvert French control. Emperor Bao Dai of Vietnam as well as King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia complied with such Japanese recommendations for independence. The Japanese however believed the latter to be untrustworthy and ushered in Nationalist leader Son Ngoc Thanh, who was previously exiled in Japan. After being Minister of foreign affairs, he became Prime Minister. King Sisavang Vong in Laos preferred the French and did not declare independence. Bao Dai allowed some Etsumei, or members of the Annamese Independence Movement, into his cabinet. The Dai administration also reignited its desires for annexing the territories of Tonkin and Cochinchina. The Cabinet was so desirous of these areas that they threatened to resign in July 1945. Such moves were only quelled by Japanese promises to restore Tonkin and Cochinchina by September 1945. The Japanese, as they had done in Laos, had returned the friendly Prince Cuong De, and the Etsumei feared that Japan intended to replace Bao Dai with Cuong De. After long scale arrests of them, the Etsumei attacked the Japanese at Tonkin on July 24. British and French troops were parachuted into the territory to secure Indochina. The French forces were most successful in Laos, given the weak enforcement by the Japanese and friendliness of the people. The United States was hesitant to support France in its desires to hold onto the colonies. In fact, Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault only provided air support to the retreating French by stepping outside of his orders. Ho Chi Minh also began fighting against the Japanese in Northern Vietnam, securing partial control over this region. Throughout the war, the United States supported Ho Chi Minh for its opposition to Japan. In August 8, 1945, Ho Chi Minh established the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. After Japan surrendered and accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration on August 16, 1945, much turmoil brewed in the region. Many French residents wanted Japan to be liable for maintaining order, while many Vietnamese contemplated how to prevent a return of French rule. Many acts of terror took place across the region. In an attempt to highlight the capability of the Vietnamese people to govern themselves, Bao Dai’s representative in Hanoi described the creation of a “Political Affairs Committee” which was tasked with bringing about unity in Vietnam. The logic was that if Vietnam could prove that it could govern itself, it would have greater credibility in trying to keep France out. With permission from the PAC, the Independence Party held a mass meeting in Hanoi on August 19 to celebrate and hopefully consolidate power. On August 20, Bao Dai sent a letter to the President reading: “Addressed to the President of the United States of America: Having learned that the Chief of the Provisional government of France will shortly visit Your Excellency for the purpose of determining the future status of Indo-China, we wish to inform Your Excellency that all the Indo-Chinese states have proclaimed their independence and are determined to retain it. Our people, in particular, do not regard the French population as their enemies, and will respect their persons and their properties; but they will resist with every ounce of their strength the re-establishment of French domination in any form whatsoever. The day of colonial conquest is gone, and a people—especially the people of Viet Nam, who have 20 centuries of history and glorious past—can no longer be placed under the guardianship of another people. May France bow before this truth, proclaimed and upheld by the noble American nation. May she recognize it with good grace, so that peace will come also to my country, which has already suffered so much from this war without having participated and which asks only to share the formation of a just peace for the world. We entrust Your Excellency to communicate the contents of this message to the heads of the governments of Great Britain, China and the U.S.S.R. Please accept, Mr. President, the gratitude of ourselves and of all our people for Your Excellency’s kind and noble intervening on our behalf.” Also on August 20, Bao Dai sent the following memo to France’s Charles De Gaulle: “From His Majesty, Emperor Bao Dai, to General De Gaulle and the French people: I address myself to the people of France, to the country of my youth, and also to her chief and liberator; and I wish to speak as a friend rather than a Chief of State. You have suffered too much during four mortal years not to understand that the Annamese people, who have twenty centuries of history and a past frequently glorious, no longer wish and no longer can tolerate any foreign domination or administration. You would understand even better if only you could see what is happening here, if you could feel this will for independence which lurks in the depths of all hearts and which can be repressed no longer by any human power. Even if you succeeded in re- establishing a French administration here, it would no longer be obeyed; each village would be a nest of resistance, each former ally an enemy; and your officials and colonists themselves would ask to leave this oppressive atmosphere. I beg you to understand that the sole means to salvage French interests and the spiritual influence of France in Indo-China is to recognize openly the independence of Viet Nam and to abandon any ideas of re-establishing French sovereignty here or a French administration in any form whatsoever. We could so easily come to an understanding in other ways and become friends if only you would cease undertaking to become once more our masters. Appealing to the well-known idealism of the French people and to the great wisdom of their leader, we hope that the peace and joy which have sounded for all the peoples of the world will be assured equally for all the inhabitants of Indo-China.” The Etsumei became very inflamed and wanted Vietnamese independence even more so now than before.