18

The role of Asians in the Franco-Vietnamese war for Vietnam has often been neglected. If the Japanese presence in Indochina between?1940 and?1945 is well known, one often forgets that the defeat of the Japanese in August?1945 did not necessarily end the Japanese presence, in Vietnam in particular. Following the Japanese capitulation, hundreds of men, private soldiers as well as a handful of officers, crossed over to the Viet-Minh ranks. Their motives for doing so were very diverse, as were their contributions. This article examines the technical, economic and military contributions of these Japanese who crossed over to the Viet-Minh during the early years of the Franco-Vietnamese war. Given the fragility of the Vietnamese army, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam used the foreign contributions to make up for its own military shortcomings and, on the other hand, to deal with the technical and military superiority of its enemy. By welcoming the Japanese recruits, the new Vietnamese state tried to make up for the technical and military gap dividing its army from the French one it faced. The Japanese cross-overs also help us to understand better the diverse roles played by Asian participants in a conflict that extended far beyond Vietnam, and even Indochina.