The “Détente to Step Forward” Diplomatic Strategy and Efforts to Save Vietnam’s Fragile Peace from March 1946 to December 1946

Abstract

The historical period 1945–1946 occupies a particularly prominent position in modern Vietnamese history. It was a period full of challenges for the Communist Party, the newly formed government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the Vietnamese people. It was also a period with many historical events including the diplomatic struggle of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to protect and strengthen the revolutionary government in the face of imperialist countries’ plot to monopolize Vietnam. The current study set out to describe the art of the diplomatic struggle of the Government of Vietnam and the Communist Party in the fight against the sabotage of the Preliminary Agreement of March 6, 1946, by Chiang Kai-shek’s army and his henchmen, and the violation of the same agreement by the French colonialists using historical research, logic, analysis, and listing. The diplomatic struggle was “firm in objectives, flexible in strategies and tactics.” Study findings on Vietnam’s revolutionary and modern diplomatic art revealed the plot of France and Chiang, and how the Vietnamese peacefully protected their territorial integrity and national sovereignty.