World War II
In September 1940, during World War II, the newly created regime of Vichy France granted Japan's demands for military access to Tonkin with the invasion of French Indochina (or Vietnam Expedition). This allowed Japan better access to China in the Second Sino-Japanese War against the forces of Chiang Kai-shek, but it was also part of Japan's strategy for dominion over the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Thailand took this opportunity of weakness to reclaim previously lost territories, resulting in the French-Thai War between October 1940 and 9 May 1941.
On 9 March 1945, with France liberated, Germany in retreat, and the United States ascendant in the Pacific, Japan decided to take complete control of Indochina. The Japanese launched the Second French Indochina Campaign. The Japanese kept power in Indochina until the news of their government's surrender came through in August.
Read more about this topic: French Indochina
Famous quotes containing the words war ii, world and/or war:
“Today we know that World War II began not in 1939 or 1941 but in the 1920’s and 1930’s when those who should have known better persuaded themselves that they were not their brother’s keeper.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“Let us beware of saying there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is no one to command, no one to obey, no one to transgress. When you realize there are no goals or objectives, then you realize, too, that there is no chance: for only in a world of objectives does the word “chance” have any meaning.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Our job is now clear. All Americans must be prepared to make, on a 24 hour schedule, every war weapon possible and the war factory line will use men and materials which will bring, the war effort to every man, woman, and child in America. All one hundred thirty million of us will be needed to answer the sunrise stealth of the Sabbath Day Assassins.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)