Paris proposed a unified government within the French Union under the former Annamite emperor, Bao Dai. Cochin-China and Annam accepted the proposal, and Bao Dai was proclaimed emperor of all Vietnam in 1949. Ho and the Vietminh withheld support, and the revolution in China gave them the outside help needed for a war of resistance against French and Vietnamese troops armed largely by a United States worried about cold war Communist expansion.
The American support of the Viet Minh led Ho to believe that the United States would back his bid for an independent VietNam. But after the war, the Allies allowed France to reoccupy Indochina, setting the stage for the protracted guerrilla campaign that resulted in France's ouster in 1954 and the subsequent partitioning of VietNam into North and South. The recognition and support of South VietNam by the United States would lead to the bloody conflict that ended in 1975 when the Communists overran Saigon, proclaiming an independent Socialist Republic of VietNam.