Economy of Vietnam
Until the French colonization in the mid-19th century, Vietnam's economy had been mostly agrarian, subsistence-based and village-oriented. French colonizers, however, deliberately developed the regions differently as the French needed raw materials and a market for French manufactured goods, designating the South for agricultural production as it was better suited for agriculture, and the North for manufacturing as it was naturally wealthy in mineral resources. Though the plan exaggerated regional divisions, the development of exports—coal from the North, rice from the South—and the importation of French manufactured goods stimulated domestic commerce.
Haiphong incident
After World War II, the future of the Vietnamese territory was in question. After being under years of French colonial rule followed by Japanese rule during the war, Vietnam began to seek independence. Specifically, the Japanese renounced French claims to the Vietnamese territory on March 9, 1945, officially declaring Vietnam independent over France and under the control of Emperor Bảo Đại. This was quickly counteracted by a rebellion on September 2, 1945, when Ho Chi Minh and his guerilla army declared the official birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh became the leader of the Vietnamese Communist Party, and demanded complete autonomy from Europe. The French disregarded these claims of autonomy and quickly moved to resettle Vietnam as a member for the French Union. However, complete colonization was no longer an option due to power dynamics in the west and on March 6, 1946, after receiving pressure from the western allies, Jean Sainteny, French Commissioner for Northern Indochina met with Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi and signed the Ho–Sainteny agreement. The agreement officially gave Vietnam independence as "a free state with its own government, parliament, army and finances, forming part of the Indochinese Federation and the French Union". Additionally, the treaty allowed for the French to have a military presence in Vietnam for the following five years. At the time of the signing, it was widely thought that Ho Chi Minh had given many concessions to the French. By allowing the continued presence of the French army, Chi Minh allowed for a continuation of the French colonial control of the past. The Communist newspaper "Les Temps modernes" criticized the signing of the deal, calling the agreement "the lamentable surrender of all our [Communists] ideological and political plans". On the French side, Thierry d'Argenlieu illustrated French optimism regarding the treaty in a communiqué he wrote to the Parisian government: "On the French level, the armed forces are assured of a friendly reception and we are pre-empting any reproach for opening hostilities ... We are fully safeguarding French economic and cultural interests now and for the future." Vietnamese worries in regards to the agreement soon came to fruition as France began to exert the same colonial authority it had formally denounced in the treaty. France created a virtual naval blockade of Haiphong by continuing to have a strong naval presence in the Gulf of Tonkin. This led the Vietnamese to reach out for peace talks in order to curb French influence in the region. These peace talks came in the form of the Fontainebleau Agreements which occurred at the Palace of Fontainebleau and were led by Phạm Văn Đồng for the Vietnamese and Max André on the side of the French, beginning on July 6, 1946. The conference at the palace was held to discuss the provisions of the Ho-Sainteny Agreement. At the conference, the French refused to revise the original treaty in any way. The Vietnamese leadership, led by Ho Chi Minh, settled to sign a modus vivendi, postponing talks to a later date. These talks never occurred due to the outbreak of violence in November.