Notice that Ho draws directly from the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and set forth the intentions of the British colonists in North America to separate from Great Britain.

Notice that Ho also draws directly from the Declaration of the Rights of Man, approved by the National Assembly of France on August 26, 1789.

The French established their interests in Vietnam during the 17th century, when their missionaries were forced out of Japan. Thus, the missionaries began to convert the Vietnamese people to Catholicism. As the number of converts grew, French trading interests in the region also increased. During the 18th century, Vietnam’s ruling Nguyen dynasty was committed to Confucianism and hostile toward Catholicism. This religious conflict placed the Nguyen rulers at odds with the French, who increasingly moved to control Vietnam and neighboring Cambodia and Laos. By the 1890s, the French controlled the entire country, and they were committed to making Vietnam a profitable colony. As a result, the French exploited the Vietnamese as laborers and tenant farmers, who worked under harsh conditions with very little food.

“Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” was the rallying cry of the French Revolution, which successfully overthrew an oppressive ruling monarch.

In 1940—the beginning of World War II—the German army pushed into France, quickly conquering the majority of the country. As war raged in Europe, the Japanese began to move into territories in Southeast Asia. Just as France fell to the Germans, the French rulers in Vietnam quickly capitulated to the Japanese.

By making reference to the willingness of the Vietnamese to treat the French in “tolerant and humane” way, Ho Chi Minh was trying to increase his chances of garnering the sympathy of his global audience. Pointing out the ways that the Viet Minh League assisted average French persons during the Japanese occupation allowed Ho to demonstrate that his motivation was simply a desire for independence, not hostility toward the French people.

Here Ho Chi Minh is arguing that since the Japanese surrendered, the Vietnamese declared their independence. Since the French handed control of the land over to the Japanese in 1940, Ho Chi Minh believed that they had no further right to make any claims on the territory.

In forcefully declaring the intentions of the Provisional Government to pursue Vietnamese independence, Ho makes a point of having the united support of all of the Vietnamese people. Thus, he increases the impression that all of the Vietnamese people are unwavering in their intention to fully separate from French colonial rule. This statement of unity parallels the statement in the American Declaration of Independence that presents a united front supporting the separation from Great Britain.

Making reference to the Allied nations (primarily the Americans, the British, and the Soviets), those who opposed the Axis powers (the Germans, the Italians, and the Japanese) in World War II, Ho Chi Minh made an appeal for support from the political leaders who repeatedly condemned fascism and oppression during the conflict. He suggested that since the Vietnamese fought for the cause of the Allies during the war, they had earned the support of those powers in their struggle against French colonial rule. Quickly after the close of World War II the key geopolitical conflict moved from a contest between fascism and liberal democracy to one that pitted capitalism against communism. By 1947 the relationship between the Soviet Union and the other Allied powers had deteriorated into a prolonged struggled over the global balance of power.

By mentioning Tehran, a strategy meeting of the Allied Nations, Ho Chi Minh reminded his audience of the landmark joint statement issued by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin on December 1, 1943. As the leaders of the Allied powers, who were battling the Axis powers (Germany, Italy and Japan), they urged other nations to join their fight for freedom, saying “We shall seek the cooperation and active participation of all nations, large and small, whose peoples in heart and mind are dedicated, as are our own peoples, to the elimination of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance. We will welcome them, as they may choose to come, into a world family of Democratic Nations.”

In mentioning San Francisco, Ho Chi Minh was referring to the establishment of the United Nations, whose charter called on member nations “ ... to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom ... ”