Briefly speaking, French Indochina is French Indochina, a French colony in South and Southeast Asia. French colonization of the region

Let's talk a little bit about what French Indochina is

French Indochina was a French colony in South and Southeast Asia. French colonial rule in the region lasted for more than 70 years, from 1887 until the Independence Revolution and the subsequent Vietnam War. During colonial rule, French Indochina included Cochin-China [Vietnamese: Nam Kỳ; Chinese: 南圻, meaning southern. Intercontinental Indochina is located in southern Vietnam and southeast of Cambodia. During the French colonial era, the French name of the place was Cochinchine and the capital was Saigon. Annam, Cambodia, Tonkin [Tokyo, Vietnam], Kwangchowan (Zhanjiangbi District formerly known as Guangzhou Bay] and Laos, and its sphere of influence also extended to Yunnan, China.

Today, this French colonial area is divided into three countries: Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Although wars and civil strife broke the continuity of the early history and culture of these countries and regions, the overall living conditions and civilized conditions of the people in these areas have been significantly improved over the years of French occupation.

Early exploitation and colonization

Although there were missionaries from France who came to Vietnam as early as the seventeenth century, the French officially occupied the area from 1887, when france formed a confederation called "French Indochina" here.

They called the area "colonie d'exploitation," or translated in milder English as "colony of economic interests." The high taxes levied by the French on local salt, opium, rice wine and other commodities greatly enriched the treasury of the French colonial government. According to statistics, by 1920, these three revenues alone accounted for 44% of the government revenue of the authorities.

As the wealth of the local population nearly ran out, the French began to turn to exploiting the region's natural resources in the 1930s. Since then, Vietnam has become a rich source of zinc, tin, coal and cash crops such as rice, rubber, coffee and tea. Cambodia offered pepper, rubber, and rice; however, because Laos had no valuable mines to develop, the French harvested expensive timber in large quantities.

The large supply of high-quality rubber led to the establishment of famous French tire companies such as Michelin. During its colonial rule, France also invested in industrialization projects in Vietnam, building factories to produce cigarettes, alcohol and export textiles.

Invasion of Japan during World War II

In 1941, when the rapidly rising Empire of Japan, influenced by Western culture, invaded French Indochina, the Nazi-allied French Vichy government handed over Indochina to Japan. During the Japanese occupation, some Japanese military officials began to vigorously promote the idea of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" and actively encouraged nationalist and independent revolutionary movements in the region. However, Japan's military leadership in Tokyo and its own government are really only intending to make Indochina a vital source of their country's essentials such as tin, coal, rubber and rice.

It turned out that Japan had not and could not liberate these countries and regions, and the living conditions of the people had become worse than during the French occupation.

Most Indochina citizens soon understood and woke up to the fact that the Japanese were more ruthless than the French, exploiting them mercilessly, seizing their lands and plundering their resources. This sparked a protest among the local people. The Vietnamese people spontaneously formed guerrilla groups and formed the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi) in Vietnamese, or Viet Minh for short. The Vietnamese people heroically resisted the Japanese occupation, and they united peasant anti-Japanese activists and urban nationalists to launch an independent revolutionary movement with communist overtones.

World War II ended with the liberation of Indochina

When World War II ended, France hoped that other Allies would return its former French Colony of Indochina to it, but it was widely opposed by the people of Indochina. They wanted to gain complete independence, and this disagreement sparked the First Indochina War and the Vietnam War. In 1954, the Vietnamese led by Ho Chi Minh defeated the French in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, and the French passed the Geneva Accords of 1954, abandoning colonial rule over the former French Indochina. Later, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in Indochina gained complete independence.