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Concept
Vietnamese famine of 1945
Summary
The Vietnamese famine of 1945 (Nạn đói Ất Dậu – famine of the Ất Dậu Year or Nạn đói năm 45 – the 1945 famine) was a famine that occurred in northern Vietnam in French Indochina during World War II from October 1944 to late 1945, which at the time was under Japanese occupation from 1940 with Vichy France as an ally of Nazi Germany in Western Europe. Between 400,000 and 2 million people are estimated to have starved to death during this time.
According to a 2018 study, the primary cause of the famine were typhoons that reduced the availability of food, Japanese occupation, American attacks and bombardment on the Vietnamese transport system, and French colonial administration hindering an effective famine alleviation response.
The famine had many causes. The direct cause was the effects of World War II on French Indochina. The involvement of France and Japan in Vietnam caused detrimental effects to the economic activities of the Vietnamese. In 1944, after US bombing had cut off supplies of coal from the north to Saigon, the French and Japanese used rice and maize as fuel for power stations. According to the diplomat Bui Minh Dung, "the Japanese occupation of Vietnam was the direct cause, in the final analysis, of several other factors, in turn affecting the famine, but their military efforts together with their economic policy for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere per se seem to have systematically played a role considerably greater than any other factors in the Vietnamese starvation."
The mismanagement of the French administration in Vietnam was the indirect cause. The French reformed the economy to serve the administration and to meet the needs of war, including the Japanese occupation. They imposed a compulsory system of government rice purchases with a price ceiling of 1.40 puastres for every 10 kilograms, which they continued paying even as the market rates soared from 2.50 to 3 piastres in 1943 to 6 to 7 in June 1944. It ballooned tenfold to 60-70 piastres the following year.
Official source
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