Japan's Advance into Indochina, 1940: The French Response

Abstract

The sudden collapse of France in June 1940 presented Japan with a golden opportunity to exploit French discomfiture and remove several obstacles to its New Order in East Asia. Indeed, the military extremists, who had been temporarily held in check since the humiliation caused by the Nazi–Soviet Pact of August 1939, could no longer be restrained. By seizing Indochina, Japan would be in a strong position to force an end to its interminable struggle with China on its own terms. The large quantity of supplies that had flowed through Indochina to Chinese forces — a situation that had greatly embittered the Japanese and had slowly poisoned Franco–Japanese relations during the past three years — could be brought to a halt. Chiang Kai-shek, further isolated and confronted with the loss of one of his few remaining channels of supply, might be finally forced to give up the fight. Moreover, Indochina could provide Japan with significant supplies of rubber, tin, coal, and rice and thus go a long way toward ending its dependence upon foreign sources for these strategic raw materials. Finally, the strategic location of Indochina meant that it could serve admirably as an advanced base from which the Japanese could strike out against the Far Eastern possessions of the other Western colonial powers — the East Indies, Malaya, Burma, and the Philippines.