Indochina

“ In spite any misunderstanding which might have arisen in minds French in regard to our position concerning Indochina they must appreciate that we have fully recognized France's sovereign position in that area and we do not wish to have it appear that we are in any way endeavoring undermine that position, and French should know it is our desire to be helpful and we stand ready assist any appropriate way we can to find solution for Indochinese problem. ”

“ France Retains a Significant Foothold in Indochina The results at Geneva also allowed France to hold on to something very tangible — most of Indochina itself. The Viet Minh forces and auxiliaries in Cambodia and Laos were shunted aside, preserving paramount French influence in Vientiane and Phnom Penh. Moreover, in South Vietnam the French maintained clear title to their military, cultural, and economic interests; in North Vietnam, they had some prospect of salvaging their investments. ”

“ Indochina and United Action, 1954 In the spring of 1954, however, the deterioration of the French situation in Indochina caused a re-evaluation of U.S. policy on collective security in Asia and precipitated proposals by the U.S. to the French, the British and several other countries to establish some kind of Southeast Asian coalition. ”

“ Pending the establishment of the unified governments in the Three States, the economic and cultural relations of Indochina with France will temporarily remain without a change such as they exist now. However, in the areas where communications and trade ties have been broken off, they can be re-established on the basis of understanding between both sides. The citizens of both sides will enjoy their privileged status to be determined later in matters pertaining to domicile, movement, and business activities on the territory of the other side. ”

“ Importance of Indochina Indochina was of special importance because it was the only area adjacent to China which contained a large European army which was in armed conflict with "communist" forces. The Chinese Communists were believed, to be furnishing the Viet Minh with substantial material assistance. Official French sources reported that there were some Chinese troops in Tonkin, as well as large numbers ready for action against the French on the Chinese side of the border. ”

“ If Indochina should fall, Thailand and Burma would be in extreme danger, Malaya, Singapore and even Indonesia would become more vulnerable to the Communist power drive....Communism would then be in an exceptional position to complete its perversion of the political and social revolution that is spreading through Asia....The Communists must be prevented from achieving their objectives in Indochina."11 The Republican Administration clearly intended to prevent the loss of Indochina by taking a more forthright, anti-Communist stand. ”

“ The United States should immediately reconsider its policy toward Indochina whenever it appears that the French Government may abandon its military position in that country or plans to refer the problem of Indochina to the United Nations. Unless the situation throughout the world generally, and Indochina specifically, changes materially, the United States should seek to dissuade the French from referring the Indochina question to the United Nations. ”

“ The loss of Southeast Asia, especially of Malaya and Indonesia, could result in such economic and political pressures in Japan as to make it extremely difficult to prevent Japan's eventual accommodation to communism."4 The possibility of a large-scale Chinese intervention in Indochina, similar to the Chinese intervention in Korea, came to dominate the thinking of American policy-makers after the start of the Korean War. ”

“ Communist China has been and now is training; equipping and supplying the Communist forces in Indochina. There is the risk that, as in Korea, Red China might send its own Army into Indochina. The Chinese Communist regime should realize that such a second aggression could not occur without grave consequences which might not be confined to Indochina. ”

“ The generally accepted theory is that the prolongation of the war in Indochina is a fatality imposed by events, one of those dramas in history which has no solution. The theory of the skeptics is that the impotence or the errors of the men responsible for our policy in Indochina have prevented us from finding a way out of this catastrophic enterprise. ”

“ Indochina is a key area of Southeast Asia and is under immediate threat. "The neighboring countries of Thailand and Burma could be expected to fall under Communist domination if Indochina were controlled by a Communist-dominated government. ”

“ We have noted the fact that the problem of meeting the threat to the security of Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos which now enjoy independence within the French Union is primarily the responsibility of France and the Governments and peoples of Indochina. The United States recognizes that the solution of the Indochina problem depends both upon the restoration of security and upon the development of genuine nationalism and that United States assistance can and should contribute to these major objectives. ”

“ The Position of the United States with Respect to Indochina, NSC 64, February 27, 1950 (TOP SECRET) . 3. Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, April 5, 1950 (TOP SECRET) . 4. Ellen J. Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina, 1940–1955; (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1955) , pp. 301–302. 5. Summary and Comments, NSC 161st Meeting, September 9, 1953 (TOP SECRET) . 6. Deptel 868, September 9, 1953 (TOP SECRET) . 7. An experienced French journalist in Indochina wrote: "To be sure, American officers also tried to supervise strategy ”

“ It is important to United States security interests that all practicable measures be taken to prevent further Communist expansion in Southeast Asia. Indochina is a key area of Southeast Asia and is under immediate threat. ”

“ And therefore we believe that solutions in which each of the states in the area can maintain its national independence, without being dominated by one, is quite frankly -- though you're a better judge -- in your long-term interest. If Indochina was dominated from one center, an aggressive force, in the context of some of the schemes for Asian collective security, could cause you problems. ”

“ The key to this problem [the Indochina war] is a strong and effective Nationalist army with the support of the Populace behind it." Debriefing, M/General Thomas J. H. Trapnell, Jr., 3 May 1954, in OSD files 092/092.2 Indochina. U.S. decisionmakers seemed to agree virtually unanimously with this statement. 5. In April 1953 CHMAAG General Trapnell reported that French observers had returned from Korea with little but a list of reasons why U.S. training procedures could not be effectively applied in Indochina. Msg, CHMAAG Indochina to AC of S G-3 and CINFE, MG619A, DA-IN-257701, 15 April 53. ”

“ On April 30, indicating that the British were prepared to defend the area outside Indochina, and possibly the free part of a partitioned Indochina, Eden proposed to Secretary Dulles "an immediate and secret joint examination of the political and military problems in creating a collective defense for Southeast Asia, namely: (a) nature and purpose ”

“ Department appreciates difficulties facing any French Government taking decisive action vis-a-vis Indochina, but can only see steadily deteriorating situation unless [there is] more positive approval [Bay of Ha Long] Agreement, enactment legislation or action permitting change Cochinchina status, and immediate commencement formal negotiations envisaged that Agreement. Department believes [that] nothing should be left undone which will strengthen truly nationalist groups [in] Indochina and induce present supporters [of the] Viet Minh [to] come to [the] side [of] that group. ”

“ Indo-China contains many more of the monosyllabic and tonic tribes than of others; if, indeed, there are any at all of the dissyllabic and non-tonal classes; and the Chinese have no difficulty in merging themselves with Annamese, Tonquinese, Cambodgians, Siamese, Shans, Thos, Laos, Mons, and such like peoples: but their own administrative base is too far north; the conditions of food and climate in Indo-China are not quite favourable for the marching of armies, especially when it is remembered that the best troops used have always been Tartars, used to warm clothes and heating food. ”

“ Because these continuing concentrations in Indo-China have reached such large proportions and because they extend now to the southeast and the southwest corners of that Peninsula, it is only reasonable that the people of the Philippines, of the hundreds of Islands of the East Indies, of Malaya and of Thailand itself are asking themselves whether these forces of Japan are preparing or intending to make attack in one or more of these many directions. ”

“ BUT the name of India can only with propriety be applied to the country which is distinguished in Asia as well as in Europe by the name of Indostan.
THAT part of the western side of Indostan, which is not bounded by the sea, is separated from Persia and the Usbeg Tartary by desarts, and by those mountains which were known to the ancients under the name of Paropamisus: Mount Caucasus forms its barrier to the north, separating it from various nations of Tartars, from the great and little Thibet. ”

“ Japan does not covet Indo-China. I have shown elsewhere that the French colonies in the Far East have no perceptible influence upon the situation of Japan, either from a political or an economical point of view. Japan has sufficient to do at home, she does not want to plunge into external adventures, such as meddling with Indo-China or picking a quarrel with a country like France. You may be sure that it would be more politic for France to cultivate amicable relations with Japan than irritate her by such accusations. ”

“ Sometime after driving the red man across to North America, the expanding Chinese cleared the Andonites from the river valleys of eastern Asia, pushing them north into Siberia and west into Turkestan, where they were soon to come in contact with the superior culture of the Andites.
In Burma and the peninsula of Indo-China the cultures of India and China mixed and blended to produce the successive civilizations of those regions. Here the vanished green race has persisted in larger proportion than anywhere else in the world. ”

“ TO PNOM-PENH BY THE JUNGLE TRAIL
Indo-China is a great bay-window bulging from the southeastern corner of Asia, its casements opening on the China Sea and on the Gulf of Siam. Of all the countries of the Farther East it is the most mysterious; of them all it is the least known. Larger than the State of Texas, it is a land of vast forests and unexplored jungles in which roam the elephant, the tiger and the buffalo; a land of palaces and pagodas and gilded temples; of sun-bronzed pioneers and priests in yellow robes and bejeweled dancing girls. ”

“ WE see in those parts of Indostan which are frequented by the European nations, the customs or laws which regard lands subject to contradictions, not easily reconcileable. The husbandman who possesses a few fields has the power of selling and bequeathing them, at, the same time that the district in which these fields are included is annually let out by the government to a renter, who pays a certain sum of money to the lord of the country, and receives from the cultivator a certain part of his harvests. ”

“ Thirty and more years have rolled by since the defeat of the ill-starred expedition, Upper Burma has since fallen into the lap of Great Britain, the ponderous wheels of the Chinese diplomatic machine have been set in motion from time to time with a view to determining boundaries between the now coterminous empires, but the engaging spectacle of India and China grasping hands can even now be only said to have been realised in a modified degree. ”

“ After the appointment of M Doumer, successor to M Rousseau, who died on the 10th of December 1896, this decree was again put in force on the former scale, and in 1898 it was supplemented by the decrees of the 3rd and 31st of July, which definitely established the political and financial unity of Indo-China. The governor-general is the sole intermediary between the Indo-Chinese Union and the home government, the powers of which, with few restrictions, are delegated to him. ”

“ In 1862 the government of India, in the prospect of a treaty being negotiated with the king of Burma, directed their Chief Commissioner, Sir A. Phayre, to include in it, if possible, the reopening of the caravan route from Western China by the town of Bhamô, and the concession of facilities to British merchants to reside at that place, or to travel to Yunnan, and for Chinese from Yunnan to have free access to British territory, including Assam. The first of these objects was to be effected by obtaining the king’s sanction to a joint Burmese and British mission to China. ”

“ Little by little the French strengthened their hold upon the Indo-China peninsula, and the final contest came in the eighties, a part of the universal game of grab then going on in Africa and Asia. Although China gave up her claim to the territory a quarter of a century ago, it took many years longer to pacify the country, and there is still something to be done. The cost in men and money has been very great, and at one time the whole policy of colonial expansion became so unpopular that it spelled political ruin to the man most identified with it, Jules Ferry, "l'homme de Tonking." ”

“ Indo-China.—This is an appropriate name for Burma, Siam, Cambodia, Annam, &c., for both in position and in civilization they lie between India and China. Indian influence is predominant as far as Cambodia (though with a Chinese tinge) , Indian alphabets being employed and the Buddhism being of the Sinhalese type, but in Annam and Tongking the Chinese script and many Chinese institutions are in use. The population belongs to various races, and also comprises little-known wild tribes, (i.) ”