China and the First Indo-China War, 1950–54

Despite its obvious significance, the involvement of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the First Indo-China War has long been an under-researched and little understood subject in Cold War history. Because of lack of access to Chinese or Vietnamese sources, few of the many publications in English deal with China's connections with the war. In such highly acclaimed works as Marilyn B. Young's The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990 , Jacques Dallaoz's The War in Indo-China , 1945–1954, Anthony Short's The Origins of the Vietnam War , R. E. M. Irving's The First Indo-China War , Ellen Hammer's The Struggle for Indo-China, 1946–1955 , Edgar O'Ballance's The Indo-China War, 1945–1954 , and Bernard Fall's Street Without Joy: Insurgency in Vietnam, 1946–1963 , the PRC's role is either discussed only marginally or almost completely neglected.