Would the Cold War still have existed if China didn’t fall to the CCP

Bellacinos

So saw alternatehistorys video on if KMT won the CCW, and it got me thinking. Would the Cold War as we know it really have existed if China didn’t go communist?

So for this timeline two major changes to guarantee a KMT victory.

1. Instead of launching operation Ichi-go Japan opts to use these troops to fortify the home islands in anticipation of operation downfall. As a result Chiang has several hundred thousand more of his best troops ready for the impending civil war.
2. Manhattan project is accelerated by six weeks, Trinity test occurs June 1st 1945. United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on July 16, then one on Nagasaki July 20, then one final one on Kokura August 1. Japan surrenders August 3rd. Because of the accelerated timeline on the Manhattan Project, Stalin is not able to declare war on Japan and invade Manchuria in time, and therefore is not able to turn over all that equipment to Mao. However as the Red Army’s blitz on Manchuria did contribute to Japan’s surrender in this ATL without it, the US has to use 3 nukes to subdue Japan.

With the KMT not losing so many of its troops at Ichi-Go, and Mao not getting that equipment, the KMT is able to win against the CCP in 1949, and China is now United under the KMT and Chiang. This China is more favorable to the US than IOTL but there are still some tensions. North Korea still invades South Korea in 1950 and the U.S. led coalition is able push them all the way to Chinas border as there is no counter invasion from China as this China remains neutral in the conflict. Korea becomes United under one Korea modeled after S Korea IOTL.

Vietnam war still happens however without the fear of China intervening militarily, a U.S. led coalition with S Vietnam is able to invade and subdue N Vietnam pretty easily as China remains neutral. Vietnam is United but Under S Koreas leaders. China does end up carving out a buffer zone in both Korea and Vietnam, as per an agreement with US. While this China is much more friendly to the US, they are still hesitant to have US troops on their border so they negotiate a small buffer state at the border of each country.


So with both Korea and Vietnam both being decisive victories for the US, and no communism in China, N Korea, Vietnam, or Cambodia, and basically no domino theory.
Would there really even have been a Cold War as we know it? Sure you would still have tension between the US and USSR, but without all those countries going to communism and no fear of it spreading like in our timeline, it looks like the US would have such a lop sided advantage, in this that I feel like so much of the tension of the Cold War cools down with China not falling to the communists and it’s really just some tension between the two countries.
 
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InvaderX

The Cold War would certainly be less tense in this case, but I think it would still happen. While the expansion of communism in east/southeast Asia is curbed, the Iron Curtain still exists, and there are parts of Africa, South America, western Asia, etc. still with the potential to fall into the Soviet sphere of influence.
 
Emperor Norton I

Emperor Norton I

The Cold War would still happen. The Soviets are already keeping their temporary occupations in place, installing Communist dictatorships and creating satellite states. The Soviets do not trust the West, and the West does not trust the Soviets. Berlin is already a flashpoint. Without Korea or the fall of China, it is calmer (and the Red Scare in America is weaker) but it is still a simmering pot ready to boil over. Everyone is aware of the new world order and the new enemies.

The Communist Sphere would be weaker in the short term, but have a strength of unity it did not have in the OTL in the long term. Sino Soviet friendship created a power bloc with half the world under Marxist-Leninist-Stalinism. That balance of power shocked the West, and it looked like it would grow in countless brushfires in the Third World. The Sino Soviet split cut Marxist-Leninist Communism in half, with further subsections under/between Soviet Communism and Maoism. Post-Stalinism (if it comes) is still in play and may be a source of disunity as it was. But the context of the Communist movement will be wholly defined and controlled by the Soviets with no comparable alternative point of power or philosophy-with-an-army.
 
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Wendell

Yes. China becomes the foil of India in this scenario. Whereas India was nonaligned but tacitly pro-Soviet, China goes nonaligned but tacitly pro-U.S.
 
Emperor Norton I

Emperor Norton I

To hone my inner Nixon, "let me just say this...". And to hone my inner self, please bear with my run on sentences. I cannot summarize the ideas any more densely.

I've come to feel that the narrative of the Cold War focused on the United States, Europe, the Soviets, and China, where the regions of Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas are purely ancillaries to the power blocs and important only in terms of the influences or possibilities of relations to those power blocs, is far too limited a narrative. The narrative of Democracy vs Communism or Capitalism vs Community is fair in its place.

However, I feel the narrative that will take importance into the 21st Century is the latter 20th Century as the Post-Colonial Era: the old world powers and concept of global power itself eroding, giving birth to independent national governments and giving the context for the world which local national power would arise in, as well as the difficulties navigating Post-Colonial realities, domestic realities and the contexts and opportunities presented in a world defined between Western Democracy and its types and Communism and its types. It is an effort for sense of self and being within larger global realities that shift year after year.

In short, I feel the emerging narrative will be focused on the post-colonies rather than the world powers of the age. It will be focused on those emerging people as themselves rather than people done to by the US, USSR or China (or other world powers) or doing things to those said powers. I think that will also emerge with the rise of the global south and nations like Nigeria in the upcoming century. I feel that juxtaposed and in tandem with the traditional narrative is the most whole narrative. However, I'm woefully ill equiped to comment precisely because it's "people power" with countless peoples, identities, cultures and forces.
 
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Hugh Third of Five

Bellacinos said:
North Korea still invades South Korea in 1950 and the U.S. led coalition is able push them all the way to Chinas border as there is no counter invasion from China as this China remains neutral in the conflict. Korea becomes United under one Korea modeled after S Korea IOTL.
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I don't think there would be a North Korea if the Soviets didn't enter the war against Japan.
 

raharris1973

Falecius said:
Yes. Also, Japan still includes the Kurili Islands and, I guess, Karafuto. Neither Korea or Vietnam are likely to be partitioned.
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South Sakhalin/Karafuto might still be handed over without a fight immediately upon Japan's capitulation, just because it's considered the right thing to do, does not hand over any 'victim peoples' to Soviets except unsympathetic Japanese.

Bellacinos said:
Vietnam war still happens however without the fear of China intervening militarily, a U.S. led coalition with S Vietnam is able to invade and subdue N Vietnam pretty easily as China remains neutral.
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Not sure why Vietnam would be partitioned like that/north-south, under these alternate circumstance. Not sure what would happen there at all. Vietnam/Indochina would be a wildcard.

Falecius said:
Neither Korea or Vietnam are likely to be partitioned.
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Agree on Korea, Vietnam is hard to figure out. Nothing ahead is certain.

walmart said:
There is no Korean war or Communist victory in the first Indo-China war with KMT in charge.
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The outcome is tricky to predict. France will not be able to stay forever, and its perceived puppets will be unlikely to be popular as well.

MildSeven said:
You might even see a VNQDD-led Vietnam aligned with China, giving them the buffer state they wanted.
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Just maybe, among any number of possible outcomes. But quick, can you even name a leader from the group? I can't. At least not one who lasted after 1930, a leader named Nguyen Thai Hoc I think was executed around then or the late 1920s. I think the group had to accept subordinate membership in the Viet Minh coalition by 1945. And KMT China, during its brief occupation of 1945-1946, really did a poor job promoting non-Communist nationalist factions or keeping Ho Chi Minh's communist leading group away from power in the Chinese occupied north.

Bellacinos said:
Vietnam is United but Under S Koreas leaders.
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Vietnam would be a wildcard but not *that* wild a card :p - no South Korean hegemony over Vietnam, thank you very much!
 

Ryan lozano

Um won’t china end up as the china we know as today only that it kept its culture instead of tearing it down and also wouldn’t it be the number one economic rank
 

Bellacinos

Ryan lozano said:
Um won’t china end up as the china we know as today only that it kept its culture instead of tearing it down and also wouldn’t it be the number one economic rank
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I do think a KMT led China, that enters the global market in 1949 versus 1975, that is spared of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution would have the highest GDP.
 
Siberian Tiger

Siberian Tiger

There would still be a cold war, but it would be smaller and confined to Europe for the most part. China would end up kind of like India in TTL. Large, poor and neutral.
 
ennobee

ennobee

China not going full-out communist still does not butterfly away the USSR's takeover of Eastern Europe, the Iron Curtain, the West Berlin Blockade and eventually the Berlin Wall. It will not stop Cuba and various South and central American states flirting with communism. In the end it will not stop the Cuban Missile Crisis either.

So in the end a non-communist China will not stop the Cold War.

However it might stop the 'Domino theory' in Asia: the idea that between China, the USSR and North Korea, Communism is creeping southwards country by country and if unchecked one day there will be red flag waving penguins on Antarctica. There will be low-level left-wing guerillas and insurgencies in various Asian and Asian-pacific counties like Burma or Indonesia, but they will be more influenced by post-colonial ideals than by hardcore communist ones.

Instead I imagine both the US and USSR's focus shifting to South America and Africa. Perhaps with low-level conflicts brewing in Congo, Angola, Iran, Nicaragua and Columbia with one of those conflicts having the potential to grow into the OTL version of the Vietnam or Afghan wars.
 
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Bellacinos

ennobee said:
China not going full-out communist still does not butterfly away the USSR's takeover of Eastern Europe, the Iron Curtain, the West Berlin Blockade and eventually the Berlin Wall. It will not stop Cuba and various South and central American states flirting with communism. In the end it will not stop the Cuban Missile Crisis either.

So in the end a non-communist China will not stop the Cold War.

However it might stop the 'Domino theory' in Asia: the idea that between China, the USSR and North Korea, Communism is creeping southwards country by country and if unchecked one day there will be red flag waving penguins on Antarctica. There will be low-level left-wing guerillas and insurgencies in various Asian and Asian-pacific counties like Burma or Indonesia, but they will be more influenced by post-colonial ideals than by hardcore communist ones.

Instead I imagine both the US and USSR's focus shifting to South America and Africa. Perhaps with low-level conflicts brewing in Congo, Angola, Iran, Nicaragua and Columbia with one of those conflicts having the potential to grow into the OTL version of the Vietnam or Afghan wars.
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Very interesting, I’d be curious as to what butterflies this has in the Middle East.
 
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