After the 1949 victory of the Chinese communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong and the founding of the PRC, the Việt Minh gained an important, if problematic, ally. At this time, the Việt Minh desperately needed Chinese medical supplies and training. Starting in May 1951, supplies from the USSR also began to cross the North Vietnam-China border. Between 1952 and 1954, the Việt Minh received over 100 tonnes of medical supplies and equipment from China and the USSR.

In a now largely forgotten episode of the First Indochina War, the Việt Minh charged the French with the use of biological weapons after similar allegations had been made against the US military in North Korea and China. This path explores how the Việt Minh learned the details of the charges and how to develop their own study of imperialistic germ warfare. First see some of the images related to germ warfare produced in China and compare them to the Việt Minh pamphlet viewed in Path 1. Also consider some of the evidence provided at an international conference advancing the charges of US germ warfare. Then consider the structure and work of the Việt Minh's Committee to investigate biological weapons. Finally, look at the rural surveys conducted by the Việt Minh and consider what their results tell us about germ warfare in northern Vietnam and rural society of the 1950s more generally.

Tôn Thất Tùng was a key player as he traveled to China and North Korea in July 1951 with Hoàng Quốc Việt. Tùng arrived in Peking (Beijing) on 28 July and proceeded to carry out both political and medical exchanges. Tùng next visited the Democratic Republic of Korea. In August 1951, the fighting on the Korean peninsula was intense and Tùng witnessed the regular bombings of Pyongyang. He noted in his diary how the residents of Pyongyang had come to know the schedule of what he called 'American' bombs. Tùng's observations of life in North Korea were eerily similar to later accounts of life in Hanoi during the US bombings of the 1960s. Tùng left at the end of 1951 before the charges of US germ warfare and his training as a surgeon would not have shed much light on biological weapons. He did, however, serve as the chair at the first meeting of the Committee to Prevent Germs (Ban Chống Trùng) held from September 12 through 16, 1952.