ABSTRACT
It was a small group of Allied generals meeting in July 1945 in Potsdam who came closest to realizing President Roosevelt’s efforts to stop Indochina slipping back under French colonial control. They decreed how the Japanese surrender would be supervised by the Nationalist Chinese forces in northern Vietnam and by British forces in the south, with the 16th parallel the dividing line. On 15 August 1945, 180,000 Chinese troops swept into Hanoi under the command of the Yunnan warlord, General Lu Han, who quickly established close relations with President Ho and the DRV. He was intolerant of the few French commanders and their forces and kept them confined in Hanoi’s citadel.1
