Mao Zedong dies in 1956
- Thread starter herkles
- Start date
Liu shaoqi would take over as he was number 2 in the party. 100 flowers campaign would still be cracked down in a softer manner. It would be similar to 1987 cracking down of student protest.
Liu was a fan of Soviet style party dictatorship, but he didn't like Soviet economy. He had expressed numerous time about importance of private industries. In the alternative timeline, private industry would flourish and thrive. Soviet would not be happy with that. As a result, the Sino-Soviet split would still happen.
As for China's population, as the economy picked up, urbanization would start and population growth rate would slow down. There would not be a need for one or two kids policy.
Liu was a fan of Soviet style party dictatorship, but he didn't like Soviet economy. He had expressed numerous time about importance of private industries. In the alternative timeline, private industry would flourish and thrive. Soviet would not be happy with that. As a result, the Sino-Soviet split would still happen.
As for China's population, as the economy picked up, urbanization would start and population growth rate would slow down. There would not be a need for one or two kids policy.
Any good source on Liu’s views on privatization? I’ve heard him described as the Chinese Khrushchev and assume the two would get along pretty well.
China’s population bulge came out of the 1960’s. Urbanization didn’t get going until the 90’s/2000’s.
Mao encouraged population growth. If it were up to him China would have 2 billion people and stay agrarian.
One doesn't have to be a wingnut to not know exactly when a policy in China was enacted.
Saying that Chinese people would be a plurality in Zimbabwe and South Africa is pretty firmly in wingnut territory though.
49ersFootball
Banned
Would Chiang Kai-shek exploit this by invading the Mainland & retaking it with brutal military force ?
49ersFootball
Banned
Yet we both know people have kids outside the marriage in secret. I'm NOT a fan of the one-child policy at all.
cracked down softer would mean what?
Jiang did have Project National Glory to do this. However I am going to assume that it would have even less of a chance than it did in OTL. Since I would assume China would be more stable and united without the disaster that was the Cultural Revolution.
I read some his quotes in Chinese books. The way, which I understand, is that China can't achieve communism without going through capitalism. Soviet was a failure because it skipped that step.
In the original timeline, urbanization didn't start until 90s. However, if economy had taken off in 1950s like Japan and Korea, the urbanization process would start earlier.
That means million of people who had voiced their opinions would not have been sent to prison camps. They would be warned without any retaliation.
Japan’s economy took off from American military contracts in the Korean War and early Cold War. South Korea took off considerably later. Either way there’s no way PRC could urbanize in the 60’s.
Thanks for the insight on Liu. Maybe under him PRC would have adopted the Yugoslavia model, i.e small businesses still permitted.
49ersFootball
Banned
Which would mean Taiwan would prosper economically from the US military contracts as well.
Urbanization would not have gone as quickly as it did in 90s and 2000s. Current urbanization is driven by an export oriented economy. A slow urbanization rate would have started.
Following is my logic behind the urbanization:
China has a huge urban population since 50s. According to 1953 census, 80 out of 583 million people were living in urban centers (420 towns and cities) or 14%. Most of towns and cities had population of 20,000 to 50,000 people.
Consider this, China just came out of a civil war. We can assume that war displaced a lot of people. The urban population could have been bigger prior the war. Once Liu had started to focus on economy, demand for labor would drive the people back to the cities again. Unlike Japan and Korea, China would not have 50% or 60% of population live in cities. However, a 20% to 30% could still be possible.
Or I would be wrong. That is why I like the alternative history discussion - endless possibilities.
The great leap forward killed tens of millions of people and is an atrocity but it seems people here say its either that or a great leap backwards with China staying a underdeveloped and decentralized mess with people fleeing towards the cities and then the country. Still, better than the great leap forward of course, but not going forward at all has its definit drawbacks as well. Like all possible replacements to Mao are like Brezhnev. Whilst most were more like Malenkov.
Why wouldn't it go forward? You can have thriving agriculture and industry at the same time. The US did. A thriving agriculture can strongly help industrialization as you need fewer and fewer people to grow more and more food so you can move them into factories without starving anyone.
Given that Chinese birthrates were 1. encouraged to skyrocket during the Cultural Revolution and 2. Were declining quickly before the One-Child Policy, I don't know if China would have that many more people ITTL. Even if it hits a wall in the late 70s, uninterrupted socialist development and urbanization would probably drop the Chinese birth rate fairly quickly, as it did in the USSR.
Of course it does matter a lot who takes over and what policies they choose.
I think he would in the short run keep good relations with the USSR, for pragmatic reasons. In the longer run, ideological differences and China being tired of always being the junior partner will probably lead to some sort of Sino-Soviet divide.
Definitely the stronger reason, there can only be one number one and both China and the USSR wanted to be number one of the Communist World.