Indochina. The French presence on China’s southern border had,
therefore, to be eliminated.
Chinese recognition of the DRV effectively internationalised the
war in Indochina. France nominally transferred sovereignty to royal
governments in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, which were promptly
recognised by Washington and London. United States military assis-
tance immediately began flowing to all three countries. From being a
colonial war for independence, the war in Indochina became part of
the global struggle against communism. By the time it ended in 1954,
the United States was meeting three-quarters of the military cost, as
well as providing economic assistance.
Apart from security, however, more complex motives lay
behind the Chinese decision to back the Vietminh. Ideological
support for revolution, and Beijing’s ‘international obligation’ to
assist the Vietnamese people were two factors, but so too was a
desire to test the Chinese ‘model’ of revolution. The success of the
CCP in coming to power in China had convinced its leadership that
the Chinese model constituted a major theoretical advance for
Marxism–Leninism. In November 1949, in his opening address
to the Conference of Asian and Australasian Trade Unions, PRC
President Liu Shaoqi had stated: ‘The path of the Chinese people’s
victory...is the path which should be taken by the people of many
colonial and semi-colonial nations who struggle for national in-
dependence and people’s democracy.’^6 The means, Liu told delegates,
should be through formation of a united front of classes, groups and
individuals devoted to national liberation, led by a dedicated and
disciplined communist party that would establish and lead a
‘national army’. The first test of this model, the Chinese decided,
was to be in Vietnam. Success there would powerfully strengthen
China’s revolutionary status.
There was yet another reason, however, why China was prepared
to provide assistance to the Vietminh that harked back to historical
precedent, one that both Chinese and Vietnamese were well aware of
Communism and the Cold War