Decolonization and the Cold War through

Transcri pt

an Asian Lens

In this video, Steve Lee explains how the Cold War and decolonization played

out in Asia. The video pays particular attention to anti-colonial and Cold War

conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. The roots of both conflicts lay in the colonial

era, and in both conflicts, the United States and Soviet Union supported

different sides. The video examines several important anti-colonial leaders in

both places and lays out the complex Cold War politics of both conflicts.

Transcript

Decolonization and the Cold War through an Asian Lens

Timing and description Text

00:01

Steve Lee, PhD, University

of British Colombia

Vietnam, Nguyen Dynasty:

1803-1945;

Korea, Choson Dynasty:

1392-1910;

China, Qing Dynasty:

1644-1911

The civil and international wars in Korea and Vietnam were tied to two key

trends in the international system after 1945. The first was decolonization, the

transformation of colonies into independent states. The second was the Cold War,

a global rivalry for spheres of influence between the United States, the Soviet

Union, and their respective allies.

Vietnam and Korea had existed for centuries as independent dynasties closely

related to Chinese history and Confucian culture. In the era of 19th-century global

empire, two dynasties—the Nguyen in Vietnam and the Choson in Korea—were

linked with the Qing Dynasty in China.

01:01

Colonialism and the Roots

of Conflict

Portraits of Kim Il Sung

(1912-1994) and Ho Chi

Minh (1880-1969)

Those ties were undone by two wars that France and Japan fought against the

Qing Dynasty at the end of the century. Ultimately, France colonized Vietnam after

1858 and divided the territory into three sections, and Korea became a Japanese

colony in 1910. The roots of the fighting on the Korean peninsula from 1948 to 1953,

and in Vietnam from 1945 to 1975, lay in this colonial era. The First World War

and the 1917 Russian Revolution both caused nationalist anti-colonial sentiment

to grow faster. In the 1920s, two major figures of the Vietnamese and Korean

revolutions, Ho Chi Minh and Kim Il Sung, joined communist parties.

01:59

Photo of a celebration

of President Woodrow

Wilson; a banner states

“Vive Wilson”

Ho traveled widely. In 1919, at the Paris Peace Conference at the end of the First

World War, he petitioned American President Woodrow Wilson for Vietnamese

independence. Ho was also a founding member of the French Communist Party

in 1920. Kim, meanwhile, moved from Korea to China’s Northeast, near the Korean

border. He joined a Chinese student communist organization in 1929. In the 1930s,

as a member of a Chinese communist guerrilla army, Kim fought Japan’s empire

in both China and Korea. In their respective countries, Ho and Kim faced anti-

communist authoritarian leaders who fought for national independence against

communism.

02:48

Syngman Rhee (1875-

1965)

Ngo Dinh Diem (1901-

1963)

Syngman Rhee, a Korean Christian and South Korea’s first president, turned to

the United States for help when he wanted to end Japan’s colonial rule in Korea.

Like Ho Chi Minh, he drew inspiration from Woodrow Wilson’s ideas about national

self-determination. Ngo Dinh Diem was a Vietnamese Catholic politician. Starting

in 1950, he asked the United States to support an anti-communist Southern

Vietnamese state. Both Rhee and Diem were bitter anti-communists, but like

the communists Ho and Kim, they were fierce opponents of colonialism. Also

like Ho and Kim, they asked for outside help to end colonialism and to establish

independence. This is how the colonial era both united and divided those who

sought independence for their nations, and laid the groundwork for the wars that

would come later in Korea and Vietnam.

03:51

Democratic Republic of

Vietnam, or DRV, was

later called North Vietnam

The end of the Second World War opened immediate opportunities for nationalists

and communists in Korea and Vietnam. On September 2, 1945, Ho declared

Vietnamese independence and created a new state called the Democratic Republic

of Vietnam. French officials, however, still wanted Vietnam under their control. In

November 1946, tensions between French and Vietnamese officials escalated into

violence in the port city of Haiphong. Full-scale war began in the next month with

Transcript

Decolonization and the Cold War through an Asian Lens

Timing and description Text

fighting over control of Hanoi.

04:31

Photo of Mao Zedong

(1893-1976), Chairman of

the Communist Party of

China

This conflict—the First Indochina War—lasted from 1946 to 1954. This anti-

colonial struggle was a war of decolonization. It was also an example of how the

Cold War led to mass violence throughout the global south. The establishment

of the communist People’s Republic of China in October 1949 was particularly

important for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Their officials were glad to

have recognition from the Chinese, who also provided military aid, training for

Vietnamese activists, to make them more effective revolutionaries.

05:16

Photo of Bao Dai, the last

Nguyen emperor, who

reigned from 1926-1945

Meanwhile, French administrators supported anti-communist nationalists in

Vietnam in 1946, fueling the civil war. Colonial officials loved to show off the last

emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty as a symbol of anti-communist nationalism, but

his association with French imperialism significantly weakened the appeal. The

United States, a Cold War ally of France, helped pay for this colonial war. French

leaders ordered 200,000 soldiers to Indochina, including colonial recruits from

France’s empire in Africa. By 1954, France had also raised an army of almost

170,000 Vietnamese soldiers. These efforts were insufficient, however, as the

army of the Democratic Republic defeated French Union soldiers in May 1954.

06:09

Photo of the international

conference in Geneva

An international conference in Geneva soon agreed to partition the country

temporarily. The plan was to hold a vote on the unification of the divided territory

within three years. The vote never came, and the end of the French empire in

Indochina enabled increasing American involvement in the conflict.

06:34

The Korean War

Animated map shows the

split between North Korea

(occupied by Soviets) and

South Korea (occupied by

Americans)

Like their Vietnamese counterparts, Korean nationalists and leftists celebrated

the end of the Second World War by creating a new state, the Korean People’s

Republic. As in Vietnam, anti-communists at home, as well as foreign powers,

contested the new state. After the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, American

officials recommended the division of the Korean peninsula into two separate

zones, one occupied by Soviets and the other by Americans. The Soviet Union

agreed, but neither of these big powers consulted Koreans about the future of their

country. There was also an important difference between Korea and Vietnam. In

Korea, after the Japanese were defeated in 1945, decolonization from Japanese

rule was immediate and rapid. In Vietnam, France attempted to reimpose their rule,

and Vietnam responded by fighting a long anti-colonial war.

07:38

On the other hand, Koreans now had to contend with two new superpowers on the

peninsula, the United States and the Soviet Union, each an empire in its own right.

Korea’s decolonization became entangled with the new imperial rivalry commonly

referred to as the Cold War. In this conflict, American officials often supported

anti-communist leaders, while the Soviet Union and China embraced revolutionary

goals.

08:10

A young girl holds a baby

on her back in front of a

tank

By 1948, American and Soviet state-building projects had created rival North and

South Korean regimes. Soon after, there were serious border clashes between

North and South Korea. The Soviets backed a North Korean offensive starting

in June 1950. The United States, incorrectly believing the North Koreans to be

puppets of the Soviets, and now wanting to confront the global power of the Soviet

Union, gathered together allies in the United Nations and sent military forces

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Decolonization and the Cold War through an Asian Lens

Timing and description Text

Images of violence and

destruction at the Korean

Peninsula

to the Korean Peninsula. This significantly increased the violence and scale of the

conflict.

08:50

Photo of American soldiers

drinking

Another major escalation occurred when Chinese volunteer soldiers joined the

North Koreans in the autumn of 1950. The war created millions of refugees, as

both sides repeatedly moved up and down the peninsula over 1950 and 1951.

Negotiations to end the fighting started in the summer of 1951, but stalled when

negotiators could not agree where to send prisoners of war after the fighting

stopped. Two years later, American policymakers were planning to use nuclear

weapons against the communist powers. Before that could happen, the United

States, China, and North Korea signed an armistice, an agreement to end the

fighting. By then, North Korean towns and cities had been destroyed by the U.S.

Air Force and up to three million Koreans had been killed.

09:48

The war in Korea acted as a kind of model for American policy in Vietnam:

American generals directed the war and maintained strategic control over

the South Korean military. With help from the United States, South Korea had

established one of the largest armies in the world by 1953.

10:11

The Vietnam War

A war ship fires from the

water

In Vietnam, meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam extended support

to communists in South Vietnam in 1959. Fearing communist expansion, the

Americans sought to impose authority over Vietnam. But Diem, who was now

president, viewed the initiative as a return to colonialism, and rejected the

proposal of a so-called partnership. The Vietnam War, like the Korean conflict,

was brutal. The communist North Vietnamese state dealt harshly with its critics

and imposed severe censorship on society. Meanwhile, in South Vietnam, by 1963,

almost nine million people were forced out of their villages to prevent them from

falling under communist influence.

11:00

Photo of the Tet Offensive,

1968, shows people killed

in the street; a 1969 photo

of US soldiers in the water

in Hue, Vietnam

That year, the United States supported a military coup that assassinated Diem.

From then on, the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam each

increased their military commitment to the war. By the late 1960s, there were

about 550,000 U.S. soldiers in the field, but the communists also mobilized

hundreds of thousands of their own troops, bringing the battlefield to a stalemate.

American officials soon decided to change U.S. policies toward Vietnam and Asia,

and to withdraw U.S. troops from the region. Discussions to end the fighting began

in Paris in 1968. An accord in 1973 led to the removal of American troops by 1975.

A final offensive by Northern armies that year defeated South Vietnam and united

the country under communist rule.

11:58

The conflicts over Vietnam and Korea were complicated. They were linked

to decolonization and the Cold War, yes, but they were also both wars of

reunification. The Vietnam War ended in 1975, and the United States and Vietnam

normalized their relationship 20 years later. By contrast, none of the combatants

in Korea have yet signed a peace treaty, and the Korean War continues to this day.

But the violence of these Asian wars highlighted the inability of all sides to

view their actions in light of the shock and tragedy that war inflicted on their

populations. It is up to the current generation of policymakers to reject the

suffering of war and to establish powerful foundations of peace.