War Claims and Compensation: Franco-Vietnamese Contention over Japanese War Reparations and the Vietnam War

Japanese Troops enter Saigon September 1940

Time Magazine Cover of Ngo Dinh Diem

Emperor Bao Dai

Geoffrey Gunn
The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus

This article seeks to disentangle the complex claims and counterclaims to Japanese war reparations deriving from the period of Japanese rule in Vietnam in the years 1940-45.

It demonstrates that, alongside Cambodia, Vietnam stands out among the beneficiaries of Japanese war reparations for the huge gap in expectations over compensation issues. Not only was the Tokyo government challenged internationally by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) as the sole legal claimant upon these reparation funds against both the Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and France, it was also challenged domestically by Japan’s major left-wing opposition parties. The issues were complicated by the fact that the major Japanese reparations-aid project, a hydro dam, was crippled by the DRV’s southern arm, the Viet Cong. But even prior to the French invention of the State of Vietnam in 1949, France made claims upon Japan for war damages and reparations, as well as for unpaid loans and debts. The multi-sided diplomatic contest also engaged Washington and not all issues were resolved by the San Francisco Conference in 1951 or the emergence in 1955 of the independent Republic of Vietnam. Although Emperor Bao Dai had been restored in 1949 by the French as head of a partly autonomous Associated State of Vietnam, in backing the Republic of Vietnam, the Americans turned to another figure who had served under the French, namely Jean Baptiste Ngo Dinh Diem.

A staunch anti-communist Catholic ally, Diem would eclipse Bao Dai in a rigged election in October 1955, becoming the President of the Republic of Vietnam until his assassination at Washington’s behest in 1963. With the emergence of the Republic of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Cambodia, and the Kingdom of Laos as independent states following the Geneva Conference settlement (1954), the three countries virtually stepped into the shoes of France in negotiating their future relations with Japan, war reparations included. Just as the three Indochinese states established diplomatic relations with Japan on their own terms, encouraged by the United States with Cold War considerations to the fore, France looked to the future in its relations with Japan, putting aside a host of acrimonious wartime claims and recriminations. On the other hand, Japan sought to expand its political, economic, and commercial links with the three Indochinese states, while also entering into a commercial relationship with the DRV, under the formula of “separating politics from economics.” But Tokyo neither recognized the DRV nor provided reparations. This article problematizes the interwoven themes of French war damages claims, Vietnamese reparations demands, and Japan’s contested postwar political and business links with Vietnam in support of US goals.

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