After defeating the South Vietnamese in the Vietnam War, the new united Vietnam government makes an agreement with Laos and Cambodia to become a single, large communist nation called the Confederation of Southeast Asian Socialist Republics, as to be able to stand on the same stage of power as China and the USSR. However, soon after, conflict began between the new confederation and the Peoples’ Republic of China. The Chinese easily overpowered the confederation’s army, taking much of northern Laos and Vietnam. After the end of the conflict, ethnic and political tensions developed between the parts of the three nations. Finally, in 1992, following the fall of the Soviet Union, Laos-Cambodia split from Vietnam. Five years later, Laos and Cambodia would split over the issue of communism, Laos in favor of and Cambodia against. Cambodia, with its new democratic socialist government, sponsored a revolution in Vietnam, splitting it again between the communist North and democratic socialist South. The North would eventually be invelloped by China, while the South and Cambodia would become allies, while not going so far as merging into one nation as to avoid the issues of the Confederation.
Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam unite as a single nation.
- Thread starter cypothingy
- Start date
shiftygiant
Gone Fishin'
*Awkwardly smiles, trying to put a brave face on it*
It's not hard, it's just... complicated. Cambodia and Vietnam are very different in their Communism, and Laos views Vietnam more as an aggressive neighbor than anything else. Whilst a Laotian-Vietnam union isn't impossible (Might=Strength and all that), Cambodia is the awkward puzzle piece in the whole thing.
Additionally, everything outlined post-unification is a bit wishy. If the Confederation came together out of mutual understanding and a need to unite, you face a strong backlash against Thailand, who feel existentially threatened by the existence of the CSASR, and China, due to reasons that Vietnam and China went to War IoTL. And like IoTL the conflict between China and the CSASR would end either with stalemate or CSASR victory. The existence of the CSASR as a pro-Soviet anti-Chinese Communist Power butterflies a lot, and could potentially butterfly the fall of the Soviet Union as we know it.
It's not hard, it's just... complicated. Cambodia and Vietnam are very different in their Communism, and Laos views Vietnam more as an aggressive neighbor than anything else. Whilst a Laotian-Vietnam union isn't impossible (Might=Strength and all that), Cambodia is the awkward puzzle piece in the whole thing.
Additionally, everything outlined post-unification is a bit wishy. If the Confederation came together out of mutual understanding and a need to unite, you face a strong backlash against Thailand, who feel existentially threatened by the existence of the CSASR, and China, due to reasons that Vietnam and China went to War IoTL. And like IoTL the conflict between China and the CSASR would end either with stalemate or CSASR victory. The existence of the CSASR as a pro-Soviet anti-Chinese Communist Power butterflies a lot, and could potentially butterfly the fall of the Soviet Union as we know it.
Last edited:
3 major nationalities that historically hate each other always works out well....
not counting the various tribes that are not Laotian, Cambodian or Viet who hate all of them, nor the fact that Vietnam has been divided far longer in its history than its been united.
A tough task to unite them all for any length of time in a conventional nation state
not counting the various tribes that are not Laotian, Cambodian or Viet who hate all of them, nor the fact that Vietnam has been divided far longer in its history than its been united.
A tough task to unite them all for any length of time in a conventional nation state
It's going to be hard to get Cambodia in on the plan, especially once the Khmer Rouge takes power. China wanted to avoid an unified Indochinese state under Soviet influence because of the Sino-Soviet Split and the fact that it was basically boxed in on almost all sides by the Soviets.
Not to be a best of all possible worlds kind of guy, but the Yugoslav war with added communist ideological disputes could become really nasty in ways that could make it worse than Democratic Kampuchea.
I think it's possible but not with that PoD. I would say you need to go back to the decolonisation. You can go two ways.
Either you have it go way smoother and you end up with the Union Indochinoise becoming one country, like what happened to to India: different nations not particularly friendly to each other coming together. They did have a shared history, both pre- and during colonial era. Adding to the fact that Vietnam historically don't mind when they can gobble up some of that sweet Cambodian territory and that Laos can't really stand on its own (poor, relatively depopulated, no coast... it's an historical backwater), you could see an Union Indochinoise under Annamite yoke, more or less forcefully.
Another way to go is for the war to be somehow worse, or at least different enough that the three nations unite against the French in one war rather than disparate decolonisation movements. It would probably end up in a looser confederation than the first option but that might be a way to go.
In any TL, Cambodia won't go down easily. Either they'll have to be forced politically or outright conquered. They're no match for the Vietnamese who just have more resources and men, but they won't go down without some kind of fight
Either you have it go way smoother and you end up with the Union Indochinoise becoming one country, like what happened to to India: different nations not particularly friendly to each other coming together. They did have a shared history, both pre- and during colonial era. Adding to the fact that Vietnam historically don't mind when they can gobble up some of that sweet Cambodian territory and that Laos can't really stand on its own (poor, relatively depopulated, no coast... it's an historical backwater), you could see an Union Indochinoise under Annamite yoke, more or less forcefully.
Another way to go is for the war to be somehow worse, or at least different enough that the three nations unite against the French in one war rather than disparate decolonisation movements. It would probably end up in a looser confederation than the first option but that might be a way to go.
In any TL, Cambodia won't go down easily. Either they'll have to be forced politically or outright conquered. They're no match for the Vietnamese who just have more resources and men, but they won't go down without some kind of fight
I voted kill it with fire because your specific TL can't work. After 1945, the independence of what is now Cambodia were inevitable. Cambodian nationalism's them-group is the Vietnamese; the Khmer Rouge fell because it told itself that Cambodians were so much better than the Youns that eventually it believed its own hype, fomented war, and instantly lost. Vietnam, meanwhile, would not really be able to annex Cambodia outright.
In contrast... in a thread a few weeks ago, before it turned into people's fantasies of ethnic cleansing and was closed, someone pointed out that Vietnam's demographic expansion to the south was such that it could've held to Indochina's colonial boundaries. The Vietnamese are by far the dominant ethnic group in the region - there are 77 million of them, vs. 14 million Khmer, 4 million Laotians, and 16 million smaller minority groups. Their homeland is in the far north - they used to live in Guangdong before China displaced them to around Hanoi, and the expansion to the Mekong Delta happened well into the Early Modern era.
So the post-WW2 shuffle of colonial boundaries could have led to a Greater Vietnam, treating the Khmer and Laotians about as nicely as OTL's Vietnam treats the Hmong. The Khmer would become a poster child oppressed minority for anti-communists around the world, much as the Palestinians are for far leftists and postcolonial nationalists, the Kurds are for far leftists as well as Western neocons, and the Rohingya are for postcolonial nationalists of Muslim background.
(Incidentally, my Anglo-French TL, which tends toward fewer, larger countries than in OTL, has four Indochinese states - Tonkin, Annam, Laos, and Cochinchina, the latter including OTL's Cambodia and featuring ethnic strife between the Khmer majority and the more urbanized and market-dominant Vietnamese minority. It doesn't end well for the Vietnamese.)
In contrast... in a thread a few weeks ago, before it turned into people's fantasies of ethnic cleansing and was closed, someone pointed out that Vietnam's demographic expansion to the south was such that it could've held to Indochina's colonial boundaries. The Vietnamese are by far the dominant ethnic group in the region - there are 77 million of them, vs. 14 million Khmer, 4 million Laotians, and 16 million smaller minority groups. Their homeland is in the far north - they used to live in Guangdong before China displaced them to around Hanoi, and the expansion to the Mekong Delta happened well into the Early Modern era.
So the post-WW2 shuffle of colonial boundaries could have led to a Greater Vietnam, treating the Khmer and Laotians about as nicely as OTL's Vietnam treats the Hmong. The Khmer would become a poster child oppressed minority for anti-communists around the world, much as the Palestinians are for far leftists and postcolonial nationalists, the Kurds are for far leftists as well as Western neocons, and the Rohingya are for postcolonial nationalists of Muslim background.
(Incidentally, my Anglo-French TL, which tends toward fewer, larger countries than in OTL, has four Indochinese states - Tonkin, Annam, Laos, and Cochinchina, the latter including OTL's Cambodia and featuring ethnic strife between the Khmer majority and the more urbanized and market-dominant Vietnamese minority. It doesn't end well for the Vietnamese.)
Um, no. Vietnam could have dominated Cambodia and Laos. Thailand and Burma, not so much. Burma is geographically isolated from the rest of the Southeast Asia; Thailand isn't, but has a long history as a unified kingdom, and had no real reason to ever unify with Vietnam. The only things those three countries share is that they're mainland Southeast Asian nations that are not China. That's not enough. They're all too far from China and too hard for Chinese colonizers to get to to want to unify as a bulwark against China. Vietnam is the closest and easiest, but it's also the most Sinicized - why would Thailand and Burma want it around their necks?
Consider that the other half of Southeast Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia, is far more culturally uniform than the Mainland, and is still perfectly happy existing as five different states, with different colonial heritages. (Okay, six, but the Indonesia/East Timor separation wasn't amicable.) Even Malaysia and Indonesia, which share the same language and religion, are happy apart.