Indochina. It appears to have been a feature of the complex and sometimes fractious French missionary presence in Asia, on one hand, and the history of civil war in the region, on the other. In any case, by 1887, the French consolidated the government of Asian mainland territories under its control into Indochina; Thailand, a neighboring country, remained independent throughout its history ("Indochina" passim).
By 1900, nationalist uprisings in French Indochina were more or less commonplace, and, after World War I, a pronounced communist influence was in evidence. Ho Chi Minh, a nationalist leader of uprisings against France, was influenced by the communists ("Indochina" passim). When France fell in 1940, it still controlled southeast Asia because the governmental power in France was aligned with Vichy and the axis. In 1945, during the period of liberation in Europe, French government leaders there were imprisoned by Japan, which broke up the Indochinese union and identified the three national states of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam ("Indochina" passim).
The puppet independent states remained under Japanese control until the end of the war. As might be expected, the nationalist Vietnamese were dissatisfied under this arrangement. After the Japanese surrendered in 1945, the French, with the assistance of their British allies, moved right back into place in Indochina, essentially reasserting their colonial authority. But, during the war, the Vietminh was formed, headed by Ho. Within days of the Japanese surrender, the nationalist/communist Vietnimh forced Bo Dai, the putative emperor of Vietnam, to abdicate from the seat of power in Hanoi.
Hanoi became the site of revolutionary government. In 1949, the anticommunist Bo Dai set up a rival government in Saigon, a southern seaport in Vietnam. From 1949 until 1954, French and pro-French Vietnamese fought a series of battles, including guerrilla fighting, with anti-French Vietminh an...