Politically too, the French position in the south grew steadily weaker. In August 1946, Dr. Nguyen Van Thinh, the avowedly anti-Communist president of the French-backed Cochin Chinese Republic, complained privately that d’Argenlieu’s administration seemed hell-bent on making him look like a puppet. What kind of entity did he lead, he asked bitterly, a colony or a republic with genuine authority? The French claimed the latter but acted otherwise. Thinh’s frustration continued to grow in the weeks that followed.
