Far Eastern Conference in Geneva

A Four-Powers Conference is convened in Geneva on 26 April 1954. Foreign ministers from the USA, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France plan to discuss the political future of Indo-China as well as of Korea. In view of its looming defeat in the war in Vietnam, Paris has had to lay to rest its plans to re-establish a colony in Indo China. After the three-year long Korean War only a cease fire prevails on the Korean Peninsula.

© DoDiS View of the conference room in Geneva

On 21 July 1954, after two months of negotiations, the conference participants decide on the provisional partition of Vietnam along the 17th parallel into the „Democratic Republic of Vietnam“, in the north, which is controlled by the Viet Minh („League for the Independence of Vietnam“) and the „Republic of Vietnam“ in the south, which is supported by France. Elections are to be conducted after two years and the country reunited. The kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia, which also belong to Indo China, are declared independent states as well. By contrast, the Four Powers reach no agreement on the Korean issue.