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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
In 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt dispatched vice president Henry A. Wallace to meet with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and offer him the “return” of Indochina to China. Chiang wisely declined the offer.
[1] According to Wallace, “He [FDR] told me [Wallace] to inform Chiang that he proposed to see that both Hong Kong and Indo-China would be returned to China, and that he wanted to see a strong, truly democratic government in China, willing and anxious to live at peace with its neighbors.” Henry Wallace, Toward World Peace (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1948), p. 97. Bernard Fall confirmed the story (and Chiang's declining of the offer) with Wallace. See Bernard Fall, The Two Vietnams (New York: Praeger, 1964), pp. 54; 453n.
[2] King Chen, Vietnam and China, 1948-1954 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. The major French retrocession was Fort Bayard, now Zhanjiang, Guangdong.
[3] History of the Indochina Incident, 1940-1954 (Washington: Historical Division, Joint Secretariat, Joint Chiefs of Staff, originally prepared February 1955, 2nd ed. 1971, declassified edition 1981).
[4] US Department of State White Paper, Aggression from the North, the Record of North Viet-Nam's Campaign to Conquer South Viet-Nam (Washington: Government Publications Office, 1965)
[5] “Viet-Nam Action Called ‘Collective Defense Against Armed Aggression,’” [Department Statement read to news correspondents on March 4, 1965 by Robert J. McCloskey, Director, Office of News], Department of State Bulletin, March 22, 1965, p. 403.
[6] The classic account of these negotiations is Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy (New York: Macmillan, 1986).
[7] Vietnam joined the Soviet led Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) in June 1978, and signed a treaty of friendship in November.
[8] See for instance Douglas Pike, Vietnam and the Soviet Union: Anatomy of an Alliance (Boulder: Westview, 1987)
[9] More than 160 countries had recognized Vietnam by that time. See Bui Thanh Son, “Vietnam-US Relations and Vietnam's Foreign Policy in the 1990s,” in Carl Thayer, ed., Vietnamese Foreign Policy in Transition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), pp. 202-214.
[10] An even more spectacular transformation occurred in US attitudes toward China and Northeast Asia. China went from being the implacable, inhuman enemy in the Korean War to the respected regional convener of the Six Party Talks.
[11] Bronson Percival, The Dragon Looks South: China and Southeast Asia in the New Century (Westport: Praeger, 2007), p. 10.
[12] According to the US State Department, “The United States considers achieving the fullest possible accounting of Americans missing and unaccounted for in Indochina to be one of its highest priorities with Vietnam.” Summary of US-Vietnam relations.
[13] White House, Office of the Press Secretary, November 17, 2006. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061117-4.html
[14] Henry Kenny, Shadow of the Dragon: Vietnam's Continuing Struggle with China and the Implications for US Foreign Policy (Washington: Brassey's, 2002).
[15] Jane Perlez, “Asian Leaders Find China a More Cordial Neighbor,” New York Times, October 17, 2003.
[16] See for example Joseph Nye, Soft Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2004). For a critique of Nye's notion of soft power, see Brantly Womack, “Dancing Alone: A Hard Look at Soft Power,” Japan Focus (November 2005).
[17] Percival, The Dragon Looks South, chapter 7.
[18] Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power is Transforming the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). The term “charm offensive” was first used in 1986 to refer to Mikhail Gorbachev's diplomacy toward the West.
[19] Perlez, New York Times, November 18, 2004.
[20] Robert Sutter, “China's Regional Strategy and Why it might not be Good for America,” in David Shambaugh, ed., Power Shift: China and Asia's New Dynamics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), pp. 289-306.
[21] Brantly Womack, “China and Southeast Asia: Asymmetry, Leadership and Normalcy,” Pacific Affairs 76:3 (Winter 2003-4), pp. 529-548.
[22] Brantly Womack, “Asymmetry and Systemic Misperception: The Cases of China, Vietnam and Cambodia during the 1970s.” Journal of Strategic Studies 26:2 (June, 2003), pp. 91-118.
[23] Brantly Womack, China and Vietnam: The Politics of Asymmetry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
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