French Indochina and Rise of Nationalism

• By 1883, France had conquered Vietnam and Cambodia.
• In 1887, France formed the Indochinese Union.
• In 1893, Laos was added to the Indochinese Union.
• The Indochinese Union was also known as French Indochina.
• Vietnamese nationalism rose in the early 20th century.
• Political exiles in China, Japan, and France created nationalist parties.
• When leaders of the nationalist parties tried to organize within Vietnam, they were jailed or executed.
• Only clandestine parties survived under French rule.
• Ho Chi Minh was the most skilled organizer among the clandestine parties.
• In 1930, Ho Chi Minh founded the Indochinese Communist Party.
• During World War II, Indo-China was under Japanese occupation.
• The Japanese occupation compelled the people of Indo-China to fight for independence.
• Ho Chi Minh organized the Vietminh Front to launch an uprising.
• Ho led the Vietnamese against French and Japanese forces to control their homeland.
• At the end of World War II, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and became its president.
• In 1946, France wanted to reestablish its rule in Indo-China, leading to failed negotiations.
• The first phase of the war between the two lasted from 1946 to 1954.
• In late 1946, France forced the Vietnamese out of southern Vietnam.
• The French tried to legitimize their rule by establishing a puppet government led by Bao Dai.
• In 1954, after eight years of Vietnamese guerrilla attacks and the defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French agreed to negotiate.
• The war was unpopular in France and known as the "Dirty war".
• Chinese communists and Soviet Russia supported the Viet Minh.
• President Truman of the USA supported France.
• The Geneva Accords in May 1954 resulted in the decision to divide Vietnam into northern and southern halves.
• Laos and Cambodia were made independent as part of the Geneva Accords.
• The North and South Vietnam were separated at the 17th parallel.
• A communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam was established in the North and headed by Ho Chi Minh with its capital at Hanoi.
• South Vietnam, with its capital at Saigon, would remain non-communist.
• The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China supported the North, while the United States supported an independent, non-communist South Vietnam.

The Vietnam War

• Considered the second phase of the war.
• After Geneva, the Vietnamese in Hanoi began building a Communist society.
• The non-Communist regime in Saigon was toppled by anti-Communist president Ngo Dinh Diem (1901–1963), who declared the Republic of Southern Vietnam.
• Diem, with US diplomatic support, refused to hold elections and attempted to destroy Communist influence in the South.
• By 1959, fighting had started with guerrilla warfare in the south.
• The struggle grew into a full-scale war between the north and the south.
• The USSR and China aided the North.
• The USA aided the South with troops numbering up to half a million.
• Diem was overthrown and killed in a coup launched by his own generals in the fall of 1963.
• The security situation in South Vietnam deteriorated, putting the Communists within reach of victory.
• By 1964, the Vietcong controlled around 40% of South Vietnam.
• The war between the USA and the Vietcong escalated.
• US President Lyndon Johnson approved the regular intensive bombing of North Vietnam called "Rolling Thunder" in early 1965 to prevent the total collapse of the Saigon regime.
• The dispatch of US combat troops into the South marked the overt entry of the United States into the Vietnam War.
• A program known as Vietnamization was introduced by Nixon from 1969-74.
• The goal was to reduce American involvement in the Vietnam War by transferring all military responsibilities to South Vietnam.

Outcome of the Vietnam War

• The resistance of the South Vietnamese forces collapsed.
• On April 30, 1975, the Communists seized power in Saigon.
• South Vietnam and the United States lost the war.
• The Vietnam War had left more than 15 percent of the Vietnamese population killed or wounded (around 3 million Vietnamese and 58,220 US servicemen).
• In 1976, the South was reunited with the North as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
• Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

Reasons for the defeat of South Vietnam and the United States

• The South Vietnamese government was corrupt and unpopular, while Ho Chi Minh was a national hero.
• Even anti-Communists viewed the USA as the successor to France and supported Communist guerrillas.
• Both the Communist guerrillas in the south and the North Vietnamese troops fought better than the South Vietnamese troops.
• The jungle terrain of Vietnam made the US's military technology ineffective.
• Strong opposition against US involvement in Vietnam at home forced the US to withdraw its troops.

Korea: Partition and War

• Korea was a colony of Japan between 1910 and 1945.
• After World War II, the USA and the USSR divided Korea along the thirty-eighth parallel and created American and Soviet zones of liberation.
• Both the USA and the USSR used their presence to promote friendly governments.
• The USSR supported Kim Il Sung, a Communist who had led anti-Japanese guerrillas.
• In the South, the United States supported Syngman Rhee, a nationalist who had opposed the Japanese.
• Both Kim Il Sung and Syngman Rhee strongly favored reunification, but each under their own rules.
• In 1947, both the US and the USSR began arranging separate governments.
• US-sponsored elections in 1948 led to the founding of the Republic of Korea (south) in August 1948.
• The north followed in September 1948 by establishing the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The Korean War

• Was a military struggle fought between 1950 and 1953.
• Civil strife in South Korea and opposition to President Syngman Rhee persuaded Kim Il Sung that he would be welcomed by many South Koreans as a liberator who would overthrow the Rhee government and reunite the two Koreas.
• The North Korean army, equipped by the Soviet Union, invaded South Korea on June 23, 1950.
• The invasion was seen in the United States as an act of aggression by world Communism.
• The conflict developed into a limited international war involving the United States and 19 other nations.
• The United States immediately responded by sending troops from Japan to South Korea.
• On June 27, the UN Security Council, with the Soviet Union voluntarily absent, passed a US-sponsored resolution calling for military sanctions against North Korea.
• 19 UN member states including Ethiopia sent soldiers to support South Korea against the North.
• The UN force was placed under an American officer, General Douglas MacArthur.
• The action was unique because neither the UN nor its predecessor, the League of Nations, had ever used military measures to repel an aggressor.
• The Communist offensive was halted in January 1951.
• The war became stalemated in 1951 and ended with an armistice on July 27, 1973.
• The Korean War was one of the most destructive conflicts of the twentieth century.

Outcome of the Korean War

• The Korean War resulted in an estimated four million casualties.
• High military causalities included South Korea (1,312,836), North Korea (2 million), the United States (157,530), UN allies (16,532), and China's estimated losses in action which were 900,000.
• The economic and social damage to Korea was incalculable.
• South Korea was saved from communism.
• The relationship between Russia and China was revived.
• China became a major power in Asia and saved North Korea from America.
• American protection for Taiwan (Formosa) increased.