Is a united Indochina possible?

Is it possible to have French Indochina become a unified, independent country comprising modern Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos? By the modern day, it would have a population of about 120 million people, with around 65-70% Kinh (Vietnamese), 10-15% Khmer, 5% Lao, and 10-15% Other (Thai, Han Chinese, Hmong, Tay, Muong, Khmu, etc). Would it more likely be a communist-ruled country?
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Maybe if the French put the Vietnamese in charge of Cambodia and Laos during colonialism? Don't know much about French Indochina, but I think the PoD need to be during the tiem they were all French colonies. It'd basically be a Greater Vietnam.
 
With good POD it not be impossible. Many Asian countries are pretty multinational in OTL. Could it be possible if after Vietnam War communist Vietnam overthrown Laotian and Khmer regimes and forms with them socialist federal state?
 
Back story here is the Viet are fairly recent intruders into the region. Decended from migrants from what is now south China they appeared in the Red River delta around 2000 years ago. After circa 1200 CE they migrated south along the rice growing land along the coast, assimilating the the indigneous population and pushing the holdouts into the highlands. The Khmer regarded the Mekong delta as their territory. During the French colonial era Vietnamese were drifting west into the upper Mekong basin of Cambodia & laos. Mostly into the growing urban areas. I expect ethnic nationalists among the Khmer & Laotian populations would have resented the more numerous and wealthier Vietnamese.

The Chinese warlords who fled the Communists into the golden triangle region would also have been suspicious of a larger federated state claiming jurisdiction on their turf. They might have supported the nationalist groups if they thought a Federation government a threat to their business.

SEATO and several regional international development projects were a sort of attempt to better connect the four nations of the Mekong basin.
 
You have the Union Indochinoise and later the Fédération Indochinoise before the independance.

If Dien Bhien Phu goes different or if the Geneva conference is delayed or non-existent, you might end up with this model.

Alternatively, everything goes as OTL until the French evacuation and the Vietnamese decide to, hum, spread the gospel to neighbouring countries. As Carl has pointed out, the Vietnamese are an imperialistic country. Historicallym they encroached their neighbours so it would make sense they continue once the French are gone and the region is in turmoil. They did invade Cambodia for example
 
The book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson explores this in some detail.

Basically if the French ran Indochina as a single, unified colony, then it would likely seek independence as a single, unified nation. See Indonesia, a place the Dutch ran as a single colony. Native administrators, educated people, and bureaucrats were allowed to travel across the country and a pan-ethnic nationalism formed accordingly. In French Indochina, Cambodian administrators were only allowed to work in Cambodia, Laotian administrators in Laos, etc. So while Indonesia was a much more ethnically diverse place than Indochina, the people of Indochina never saw themselves as one nation. They would never freely agree to being governed as one state.
 
The book Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson explores this in some detail.

Basically if the French ran Indochina as a single, unified colony, then it would likely seek independence as a single, unified nation. See Indonesia, a place the Dutch ran as a single colony. Native administrators, educated people, and bureaucrats were allowed to travel across the country and a pan-ethnic nationalism formed accordingly. In French Indochina, Cambodian administrators were only allowed to work in Cambodia, Laotian administrators in Laos, etc. So while Indonesia was a much more ethnically diverse place than Indochina, the people of Indochina never saw themselves as one nation. They would never freely agree to being governed as one state.
I really have to disagree here.

Indonesia was ruled as a single entity by the Dutch for longer than the French were in Indochina, way longer actually.

In Indochina, you had distinct policies which had existed in similar forms for centuries. There was a distinct state of Cambodia and a very distinct Vietnam with a history as a distinct nation for millenias. The French would have had to stay there for way longer to erase this. They managed to do so in Africa over a similar period of time but African polities were not as stable as South Asians ones.

This means that the French organisation grafted itself on a few very different beasts, from an Imperial organisation in Vietnam, to a loose protectorate in Cambodia and a network of feodal princes in Laos. Trying to rule it as a single country would have failed badly.

You also have the fact that since the Dutch started their colonisation earlier, they weren't as impacted by racialist ideology. The French were and would have been less inclined to rule the different countries in a unified fashion
 
I really have to disagree here.

Indonesia was ruled as a single entity by the Dutch for longer than the French were in Indochina, way longer actually.

In Indochina, you had distinct policies which had existed in similar forms for centuries. There was a distinct state of Cambodia and a very distinct Vietnam with a history as a distinct nation for millenias. The French would have had to stay there for way longer to erase this. They managed to do so in Africa over a similar period of time but African polities were not as stable as South Asians ones.

This means that the French organisation grafted itself on a few very different beasts, from an Imperial organisation in Vietnam, to a loose protectorate in Cambodia and a network of feodal princes in Laos. Trying to rule it as a single country would have failed badly.

You also have the fact that since the Dutch started their colonisation earlier, they weren't as impacted by racialist ideology. The French were and would have been less inclined to rule the different countries in a unified fashion

No I agree 100%. There were good reasons why the French didn't try to govern Indochina as one polity, I'm just saying that it's the only possible way that a single Indochinese national identity can develop. As it is IOTL Indochina as a concept basically only existed on paper. There were strong national identities that the French didn't try to and probably weren't capable of destroying unless they had arrived much earlier. Basically a unified Indochina isn't going to exist post-colonialism with a post-1900 PoD unless it's a Vietnamese imperial project.
 
Top