Word: viet
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...success or failure of Indo-China's independence movement now rested largely on China. The main forces of the rebellious Viet Nam ("Distant South," the ancient name for Annam province) had been pushed back to their stronghold in the colony's north. There, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's troops, sent to disarm the Japanese, were in occupation...
Last week a Chungking spokesman declared: the Viet Nam movement was an internal Indo-Chinese affair; while China would not recognize the native "provisional government," neither would it interfere with it. The spokesman also hinted that China wanted a voice in the operation of the French-owned railway that runs from the Indo-Chinese port of Haiphong to Kunming in China's southern hinterland...
...nervous truce, but no agreement, last week with rebellious Annamites at Saïgon. Much to the relief of colonials, a respectable show of French force was possible: the battleships Richelieu and Triomphant had arrived. But in northern Indo-China, liberated and still occupied by the Chinese, native Viet Nam leaders crowed that Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek had personally promised them support...
Britain, the strongest imperialist, had agreed to occupy southern Indo-China until the French could send forces to reclaim it. Moving into Saigon last month, Major General Douglas Gracey told the nationalist Viet Nam Party to suspend business, asked surrendering Japanese to help him keep the peace, let them keep their arms...
Recently, France's good friend, Annamite Emperor Bao Dai (a topflight ping-pong player), formed a government of Viet Minh leaders who promptly ousted Bao Dai. New ruler of Annam, Tonkin and Cochin China was cagy, tuberculous Russian-speaking Premier Ho Chin Minh (known a generation ago around the Paris Peace Conference as Nguyen-Ai-Quoc). Followers of Communist Ho Chin Minh insulted and cowed the French in Saigon, tore down the World War I memorial, flung earth from the Verdun battlefield into the Saigon River...