During World War II, Japanese forces displaced the French colonial rulers of Vietnam. Following Japan's surrender, the Viet Minh, a communist-dominated nationalist grouping under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, stepped into the power vacuum and proclaimed Vietnam's independence in September 1945. The French tried to re-establish their authority over Vietnam, however, and fighting erupted between their forces and the Viet Minh. Following their defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French agreed at the 1954 Geneva Conference to withdraw. Vietnam was effectively divided into a communist-controlled North (the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and a Western-backed South (the Republic of Vietnam). After the South reneged on an agreement to hold nation-wide elections, the North began to strengthen the communist movement in the South with the aim of achieving national re-unification. The South became increasingly dependent on the USA.

 

The US began direct military intervention in the early 1960s and increased its commitment in Vietnam as the war escalated, reaching over 500,000 US troops in 1968. Withdrawal began thereafter due to lack of military success and domestic US opposition to the war. The US and North Vietnam finally reached a peace agreement in Paris in 1973. At this point, many Western countries, including the UK, established full diplomatic relations with North Vietnam. The civil war continued, however, and in 1975 the southern forces were defeated. Vietnam was formally re-unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976 and admitted into the UN in 1977.

 

But national re-unification did not lead to peace and stability. Relations with Cambodia's Khmer Rouge government and their Chinese backers soon deteriorated. After a series of provocative border incidents, Vietnam sent troops to Cambodia in 1978, removed Pol Pot's regime and installed a friendly government. Vietnam's intervention was widely condemned internationally. China launched a short punitive invasion into northern Vietnam in 1979, although quickly withdrew. Conflict in Cambodia continued into the 1980s as Vietnamese forces and their Cambodian allies faced attack from Khmer Rouge guerrillas. Vietnam endured a period of international isolation, supported only by the Soviet Union and its allies. Vietnamese forces finally withdrew from Cambodia in 1989.

 

Vietnam's economy, sapped by over 30 years of war, was further weakened by the disastrous introduction of Soviet-style collectivist economic policies after reunification. As Vietnam neared economic collapse, hundreds of thousands of refugees (the 'Vietnamese Boat People') fled in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Vietnam's government, faced also with declining Soviet aid, was forced to make a drastic change in economic direction. In 1986, Vietnam introduced a ground-breaking new economic programme called 'doi moi' (renovation), which slowly introduced liberal market principles and set the foundations for today's rapid economic growth in Vietnam.

 

Following formal settlement of the Cambodian conflict at the 1991 Paris Conference, Vietnam's international isolation ended. Vietnam normalised relations with China in 1991, with Japan in 1993 and (finally) with the US in 1995 - the same year Vietnam became a member of ASEAN.