Rising Sun Flag
When Laos was a French protectorate, the French colonial administration brought many Vietnamese people to Laos to work as civil servants. This matter was the object of strenuous opposition by Phetsarath Ratanavongsa, who in the 1930s made an unsuccessful attempt to replace Vietnamese in the government with Lao people. After Vietnamese emperor Bảo Đại's declaration of Vietnamese independence in 1945, Vietnamese people all over Laos held demonstrations; in particular, members of Savannakhet's Vietnamese youth association staged a march through the town waving a Japanese imperial Rising Sun Flag and a Vietnamese flag. Despite their common interest with the Lao people in preserving their independence from France, some had irredentist aspirations to detach parts of southern Laos and integrate them into the Vietnamese state, which led Phetsarath to develop further suspicion of them.