ABSTRACT
The communist victory in China in 1949 and onset of the Korean War in 1950 intensified external interest in Indochina. From 1950, both the United States and PRC launched a concerted effort to aid their respective allies in Vietnam. Yet ideological and geopolitical common interests between the DRV and China, on one hand, and the United States, France, and the Associated States, on the other, obscured a fundamental ambivalence toward the Cold War shared by many Vietnamese on either side of the ideological divide. Other Vietnamese refused to side with either the Associated State or Vietminh, preferring to wait and see how the military and political tussles turned out. While some nationalists believed that they played an important role in a global struggle between two blocs, the consequences of the extension of this conflict into Vietnam raised serious challenges. First, the danger of “internationalization” posed a serious material hazard—as the Korean War demonstrated. Second, external interest in the Indochina War threatened to erode Vietnamese independence—a danger that equally troubled supporters of the Associated State and DRV. This fear of Vietnam’s embroilment in the Cold War influenced Vietnamese political leaders in 1954. Fear of the consequences of US intervention helps to explain Ho Chi Minh’s willingness to seek a compromise that divided his country. Likewise, nationalist ambivalence toward the growing US role in Indochina tempered the response to the prospects for an armistice among the Vietminh’s opponents because many nationalists also dreaded US intervention, which would bring greater destruction and might erode or postpone political independence.
