why was the vietnam war called the second indochina

Ho’s attempt to garner support from the United States was useless because, unknown by him, the fate of Indochina had already been decided at the Potsdam Conference. In a speech given on September 2, 1945, Ho announced the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, modeled nearly verbatim after the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, to half a million people assembled in Ba Dinh Square. Once Hanoi fell, the Viet Minh declared its independence, established the provisional government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), and made Ho president and minister of foreign affairs. When the news of Japan’s surrender in World War II arrived, the local Japanese military command turned over governance to the local authorities. The Congress also elected nationalist Ho Chi Minh, leader of the National Liberation Committee, as the head of the provisional government.

The latter three later united to form Vietnam.ĭirectly after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Vietnam's communist Viet Minh National Congress met in Tan Trao to ratify the Central Committee’s recommendation to begin a general uprising in the hopes of ousting the Japanese military command. French Indochina included Cambodia and Laos plus Tonkin, Annam, and Cochin China.

The Indochinese Peninsula consists of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, formerly Burma Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Billions of dollars spent in military aid and equipment from the United States ended after more than 58,000 American lives were lost and another 153,000 were wounded in what is sometimes called “The Impossible War.” The United States involvement in the struggles of French Indochina began in 1945 at the Potsdam Conference and continued through many phases, culminating in a final withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975. Abuses perpetrated against the North Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian people, which began as far back as the French occupation in the 1840s, galvanized many to fight a 30-year battle for their eventual freedom from foreign occupation.

Why was the vietnam war called the second indochina