The Chinese Communists flee to Taiwan instead of the Nationalists

GravitySpeed

In this hypothetical alternate timeline, the Chinese Communists, rather than the Nationalists, are the ones who lose the post-World War II civil war and are driven to the island of Taiwan instead.


A very corrupt Kuomintang takes control of China and grows it into a big, economically booming, corrupt, authoritarian country. The Kuomintang government is like South Korea's before 1990; a corrupt, U.S.-ally government that is very problematic.


The Communists turn Taiwan into an island version of North Korea. Taiwan becomes an international pariah state, impoverished and destitute, with programs to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The threat of war between Taiwan and China still exists just the way it does today, except with the roles reversed - with the Nationalists warning the Communists not to secede Taiwan from China, and promising war if such a scenario does happen.


The Korean War of 1950-1953 either doesn't take place, or, if it does, the North Koreans are defeated and all of the Korean peninsula is annexed under a U.S.-friendly allied government. The Nationalist Chinese may decide not to intervene in such a Korean War.
 

Sharunaku

They had no time to build up a network in Taiwan. The pre-war Taiwanese leftists had mostly been absorbed by the establishment and had no connections with the mainland Communists anyway. Setting up new cells isn't going to have a big difference because they would be wiped out in 228 one way or another. The Communists had little navy, either. Few would defect to them if they are getting smacked by the government.

In anyway, I don't consider this plausible without a pre-war POD.
 

Alex1guy

Problem is thought Taiwan was already controlled by the KMT so when the mainland fell, they had somewhere to fall back to. You have to somehow make Taiwan be controlled by the Communists in the first instance, a scenario that seems quite hard to engineer. The Communists if they have been militarily crushed don't really have such a luxury as most of their power-bases existed in the North. Having them escape all the way from up there seems difficult as they had few naval assets. Even assuming these factors are met, KMT Taiwan in OTL had managed to make off with a lot of gold reserves, money and some of China's best and brightest who didn't fancy living under a Communist regime. This is what helped maintain their economy, the Communists wouldn't have such a luxury. Also Taiwan is protected by the USA, who's protecting Communist Taiwan in this scenario from simply being invaded or annexed by the KMT on the mainland?
 

Dain

Seems like Taiwan would be that timeline's North Korea, if only briefly. There'd be no protector preventing its neighbors from defeating the regime.
 

RousseauX

Donor
In this hypothetical alternate timeline, the Chinese Communists, rather than the Nationalists, are the ones who lose the post-World War II civil war and are driven to the island of Taiwan instead.
Click to expand...

ERrrr...how?

Taiwan is in the south of the country whereas the Communists were based in the north of the country.

Also since there isn't the equivalent of the 5th Fleet protecting it the fall of Communist Taiwan becomes inevitable if the Nationalist controls and stabilizes the mainland ala South Korea.

A Communist Party which loses out the civil war and still exists would probably hold either Ya'an or Manchuria as China's version of GDR/DPRK
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Communists flee to Taiwan instead of the Nationalists.

Hmmm.... I didn't know the Communists fled to the Nationalists, iOTL. :):p
(Don't you LOVE English, where one sentence can legitimately be parsed so many ways.)
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The American Navy blockades the islands until they surrender. The Soviets might have played brinkmanship with all of China, but they're not going to bother with an island like Taiwan, especially as they can send it no direct support.

Still, as others have said, there is really no realistic way for this to happen in the first place.
 

MapleTekh

Not possible. The KMT already controlled the island, making the escape to Taiwan for the Communists would effectively destroy the latter.
 

Corbell Mark IV

RousseauX said:
ERrrr...how?

Taiwan is in the south of the country whereas the Communists were based in the north of the country.

Also since there isn't the equivalent of the 5th Fleet protecting it the fall of Communist Taiwan becomes inevitable if the Nationalist controls and stabilizes the mainland ala South Korea.

A Communist Party which loses out the civil war and still exists would probably hold either Ya'an or Manchuria as China's version of GDR/DPRK
Click to expand...

Agreed. It would be or could be supported and protected by the Soviets.

Hell, maybe even soviet "volunteers" flying air support in soviet planes "given" to their Communist brothers...
 
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