ABSTRACT
If the above definition is applied, then Indochina’s decolonization, which started in 1945, was not complete until 1975-6, when the ‘Vietnam War’ ended in the creation of three communist regimes, each represented in the United Nations. An international conference in Geneva in 1954 had affirmed the national sovereignty of French Indochina’s three successor states – Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos – but their territories continued to be contested by rival regimes and armed movements, and some local governments reverted to foreign domination. Indochina’s decolonization is therefore best seen as a process lasting from 1945 to 1976.
