The Rhetoric and Results of Japanese Occupation in 1940-1945 French Indochina

by Elizabeth Strout

Why was Japan in Vietnam during World War II? It is a question that historians do not answer simply, as the situation of dual Franco-Japanese rule was fundamentally characterized by contradiction, marked by intense resource exploitation, complex propaganda, and growing disillusionment with foreign governance more generally. However, understanding the reasons for and responses to Japanese occupation is critical to illuminating how its ideology directly caused mass starvation and fueled the rise of Vietnamese nationalism and independence.

Japanese troops first arrived in Vietnam (then part of French Indochina) in September 1940, shortly after the Fall of France and the forced Armistice of 22 June 1940, which legally permitted Germany to occupy three-fifths of France’s European territory.[1] Although France’s colonies were excluded from this contract, the metropole's political weakness inevitably translated into instability in the colonial administration of its territories abroad. Sensing both France’s weakness and seeing how control of Indochinese territory could weaken China in the parallel Second Sino-Japanese War, Japan invaded with an ultimatum to close the border between China and Indochina and establish a supervisory Japanese control commission.[2] France conceded, commencing what historian Clarke W. Garrett described as “five years of a bizarre dual occupation by a French regime under the Vichyite Admiral Decoux and by the Japanese Army,” in which formal French governance continued while Japan maintained de facto control.[3]
    In the context of broader conflict, Vietnam shifted from being a trade partner to a political tool in advancing Imperial Japan’s ideology of a Japanese-led “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” as well as a strategic base to block the Haiphong-Yunnan trade route to China, which Japan was concurrently at war with in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). According to historian Richard B. Frank in his book Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, July 1937–May 1942, this motivation was central, since "[a]s early as 17 June, the local French governor announced the suspension of all arms traffic to China. The Imperial Army, however, leaped to eliminate permanently a supply route believed to be providing Chiang [Kai-shek]’s Nationalists with nearly half their munitions. Further, the Imperial Army looked to secure permission to move troops through Indochina to attack into Southern China and to obtain air bases for operations against the Nationalists."[4] Japan’s stated interest in the region was rhetorically about “winning hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese through pan-Asian ideology, which was depicted as a harmonious three-way collaboration in visual propaganda.[5] But in practice, Vietnam was primarily subjugated for usage as a supply line and springboard for the conquest of other territories in Southeast Asia, mirroring, if not amplifying, the colonial tendencies of the empire they claimed to be freeing the Vietnamese from.[6] In one farmer’s words, “The Japanese are a hundred times crueler than the French. Even a worm or a cricket could not live under their brutal violence.”[7]
    Resource exploitation intensified under the Japanese, as farmers in the north were forced by crop conversion policies to grow cash crops for the Japanese army, including jute, cotton, and hemp, thereby reducing the amount of food grown in favor of textile crops. Rice that was grown was required by French law to be requisitioned for Japanese military usage rather than local consumption, such that Indochina became “[b]y far, the largest supplier of rice to Japan from 1940 to 1943,” systematically causing the starvation of 1944-45, the worst recorded famine in modern Vietnamese history.[8] Scholar Tran My-Van analyzed that “the encounter with Japan had an adverse effect on Vietnamese politics in general… the Japanese, by keeping the French in Vietnam at their mercy rather than destroying them completely, created an irreversible movement towards independence from both Western and Asian imperialism.”[9] The disconnect between the rhetoric and results — liberty in contrast with looting — of this period fostered the intense discontent that fueled the creation of diverse social movements in favor of Vietnamese sovereignty, which would lead to multiple wars that would not end until reunification in 1975.
    Japan was in Vietnam thirty years before then, for the geopolitical advantage the territory offered its army as a blockade in a parallel war with China and as a place to supply natural resources useful to its military, resulting in widespread suffering and resistance among the Vietnamese. Although the stated reason for their presence was liberation, the tangible results of Japanese occupation had much more to do with resource exploitation and not the well-being of the people or land they took over. Untangling the contradictions of 1940-1945 is important not only for understanding the true intentions underpinning Japanese militaristic intervention in Indochina but, in recognition of imperialist undertones, developing the ability to accurately identify and ultimately prevent the occurrence of future similar atrocities so that real human rights can collectively be pursued and protected.

Sources: 
1. Garrett, Clarke W. “In Search of Grandeur: France and Vietnam 1940-1946.” The Review of Politics 29, no. 3 (1967): 303–23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405759.
2. Dreifort, John E. “Japan’s Advance into Indochina, 1940: The French Response.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 13, no. 2 (1982): 279–95. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20070499.
3. Garrett, Clarke W. “In Search of Grandeur: France and Vietnam 1940-1946.” The Review of Politics 29, no. 3 (1967): 303–23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405759.
4. Frank, Richard B. Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, July 1937–May 1942. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2020.
5. Llewellyn, Jennifer, and Steve Thompson. “Japanese Occupation of Vietnam.” Alpha History, July 20, 2018. https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/japanese-occupation-of-vietnam/.
6. My-Van, Tran. “Japan through Vietnamese Eyes (1905-1945).” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 30, no. 1 (1999): 126–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20072109.
7. Llewellyn, Jennifer, and Steve Thompson. “Japanese Occupation of Vietnam.” Alpha History, July 20, 2018. https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/japanese-occupation-of-vietnam/.
8. Dũng, Bùi Minh. “Japan’s Role in the Vietnamese Starvation of 1944-45.” Modern Asian Studies 29, no. 3 (1995): 573–618. http://www.jstor.org/stable/312870.
9. My-Van, Tran. “Japan through Vietnamese Eyes (1905-1945).” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 30, no. 1 (1999): 126–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20072109.

Bibliography
Dreifort, John E. “Japan’s Advance into Indochina, 1940: The French Response.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 13, no. 2 (1982): 279–95. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20070499.
Dũng, Bùi Minh. “Japan’s Role in the Vietnamese Starvation of 1944-45.” Modern Asian Studies 29, no. 3 (1995): 573–618. http://www.jstor.org/stable/312870.
Frank, Richard B. Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, July 1937–May 1942. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2020.
Garrett, Clarke W. “In Search of Grandeur: France and Vietnam 1940-1946.” The Review of Politics 29, no. 3 (1967): 303–23. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405759.
Llewellyn, Jennifer, and Steve Thompson. “Japanese Occupation of Vietnam.” Alpha History, July 20, 2018. https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/japanese-occupation-of-vietnam/.
My-Van, Tran. “Japan through Vietnamese Eyes (1905-1945).” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 30, no. 1 (1999): 126–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20072109.