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Chapter Six
"Tao guang yuan hui."- Chiang Kai-shek's response to learning of the coup d'etat. (1)
"Tell me one good thing that has come out of this damned coup- and don't say the Nationalists invading Manchuria!"- JFK, commenting a week before his death.
"This is good. Wang Ming will be more willing to accept the idea of peaceful coexistence than Mao. Besides, if we let Chiang Kai-shek conquer Yan'an, then that can only make us look better in Nanjing's eyes. Mao... Mao has served his purpose."- Nikita Khruschev to the Politburo.
"Now that the Soviet revisionists have conspired with that son of a turtle (2) Wang Ming, my power to lead the Chinese revolution has been reduced... I must reclaim China for the sake of socialism."- Mao Zedong, a journal entry on October 10, 1963.

These four quotes basically describe the attitudes of all parties concerned to the coup. For Mao, the main thing is his loss of power over Manchuria, while the Soviets are glad to have someone more dependable at the helm. The Great Leap Forward had been hard to swallow, but the Cultural Revolution was simply a bridge too far. The attitude in Moscow is that Yan'an would last only a few years at most, and then everyone can put this whole Maoist mess behind them and get behind Wang Ming, while Moscow tries to covertly get a slice of the cake that is the Chinese economy. Of course, that means that approximately three million people are slightly f*cked, condemned to living under Maoism on steroids for who-knows-how-long, but Khruschev and the like are willing to pay that price.

Meanwhile, the Chinese attitude is very much one of "wait-and-see". An invasion of Wang Ming's Manchuria might be militarily successful in the short term, but the long-term consequences would be very serious. For all of his talk of "peaceful coexistence", Khruschev would have no qualms about coming to the Soviet Republic of Manchuria's aid should the need arise, and would certainly use nuclear weapons against the KMT army. That would result in World War III. Prideful though the Generalissimo might be, he is not stupid and realises this. Yan'an, however, is a different story. It is an absolute pariah amongst the nations of the world- its communist ideology means that the West wants nothing to do with it, and since the USSR just tried to purge its leader, the Communist bloc keeps its distance. In other words, should Chiang try to conquer the small, mountainous, territory, he will succeed. Nonetheless, Mao has been granted a stay of execution, as other things rank higher on Chiang's list of priorities.

The People's Commune of Yan'an is perhaps most aptly described by the words of one American political scientist: "a blend of Ukraine in the 1930s and the Cultural Revolution-era PRNC, all to the power of 2". Yan'an by this point has been under Maoist rule for almost thirty years and is as such extremely poor. It suffered greatly in the Great Leap Forward, and during the Cultural Revolution became a useful dumping ground for exiled Manchurian cadres. Within two weeks of the coup, virtually all of the exiled cadres are dead. The Maoist propaganda cult, already more extravagant than any in the world, is "turned up to eleven". (3) Not wearing a Mao lapel is grounds for arrest (read: death), and from the age of ten or so, carrying around a Little Red Book and wearing a Mao suit becomes obligatory. Boys are forced to wear their hair like the Chairman, although they do not have to give themselves a bald spot! (4)

During the later 1960s, the rift between the US and ROC widens. This is due to a number of factors: Nanjing's continued authoritarian style of rule, where only the Kuomintang is permitted and dissent is crushed, the occupation of Tibet, Chiang's habit of getting into tense situations with the USSR, forcing America to step in and avert WWIII (such as the Mongolia Claim Crisis), and simple jealousy on the part of Washington as the gap between Washington and Nanjing narrows, both in terms of economy size and as the world's leading anti-Soviet power. Although relations remain cordial for the moment, this gulf will widen...

The Soviet Republic of Manchuria's motto is not "We dodged a bullet", but it might as well be. Wang Ming ensured his popularity with the Manchurian people right from the get-go by condemning Maoism, and by undoing the Cultural Revolution. Little Red Books are banned, as is Mao's portrait. The political atmosphere is also loosened an iota. That said, though, Wang Ming is still a dictator of a Communist country, on a par with Erich Honecker in East Germany or Wojciech Jaruzelski in Poland (or, for that matter, Kim Il-sung in TTL). Manchuria is by no means liberal or capitalist, but it is better off than in the Cultural Revolution days.


October 3, 1963: In Yan'an, the Chinese Communist Party is formally outlawed, with Mao claiming that it is "in the hands of Wang Ming and the counter-revolutionary aspects which are stooges of the Soviet Union." In its place, the Chinese Maoist Revolutionary Party is created. (It's a mouthful in Chinese as well, for the record- 中国毛主义革命党, Zhōngguó máo zhǔyì gémìng dǎng). The central goal of the party is "to advance Mao Zedong Thought". This represents the ludicrous cult of personality centred around Mao in the newly independent Yan'an- worse than that surrounding Stalin in his day.

November 22, 1963: US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated. His replacement is Lyndon B. Johnson. A sign of the deteriorating state of Sino-US relations is that, whereas normally Nanjing would have dispatched a senior government official to the funeral, the ROC delegation consists merely of vice-ambassador Luang Linbo, who stays for as brief a period as possible and refuses to make a speech.

December 17, 1963: The China Space Bureau is formally launched- pun intended- with its headquarters in Beijing. Its leader is China's premier rocket scientist Qian Sanqiang (5). Construction on a rocketry base in Lop Nor, Xinjiang, is begun, projected to cost somewhere in the region of $100 million USD. (6) The US does not offer much in the way of technical assistance, preferring a joint Sino-American space project. Hopes of this come to nought, however, as Chiang views outer space exploration as a means of giving vent to nationalism.

May 27, 1964: Indian Prime Minister Jawalahru Nehru dies. Two weeks of power struggles follow, before the Indian Communist Party gets its man into power: Kandispal Vispoot. (7) Vispoot pledges to "aid our Tibetan comrades", "resist Chinese aggression", and "show the imperialists that they have no place in this corner of the world."

The Western world takes a very dim view towards Vispoot's taking power. America steps up aid to Pakistan and offers a security guarantee to Sri Lanka. Chinese troops are rushed into Tibet, both as a precaution against another uprising and in case Chiang decides to go to war with India. Moscow, meanwhile, is elated. Already close before India's conversion to communism, aid massively steps up. Red Army advisors help modernise the Indian Army, and Mig-21 jets and T-64 tanks are sold to India.

Throughout the summer of 1964, it becomes evident that China and India are on the brink of war. Since China is a nuclear power and India is not, New Delhi is dependent on a Soviet nuclear guarantee, which would in turn involve the USA... and there we have World War III again. Frantic American negotiators try to extract a guarantee that Chiang will not start a war, but Nanjing is noncommittal.

During this period, the USSR sponsors the Tibetan People's Committee- an organisation of Tibetan emigres who see Moscow as a potential liberator. Its militant wing, the Tibetan People's Liberation Army (TPLA), is a very small force but is well-equipped.

June 22-July 1, 1964: Starting on the twenty-third anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the Vostok Soyuz military exercises are held in Mongolia. The USSR, Manchuria, and Mongolia all send troops to practice "for a liberation war in East Asia"- read, war with China. In total, three million communist troops take part. The East Turkestani ambassador to Moscow, Pashid Ruhazizi, also declares that the Second East Turkestan Republic will permit "any and all units of the Soviet Red Army through East Turkestani territory." In People's Daily, Liu Shaoqi urges the "Indian comrades to boldly venture forwards, unafraid of the rightist army opposing them."

June 30, 1964: In a speech given to the Chinese Parliament, which has been called into an emergency session to discuss mobilisation, Chiang Kai-shek claims that China is under threat from "a great red arc stretching from Harbin to Moscow to Urumqi to New Delhi." In the end, the Republic of China mobilises for war.

August 1, 1964: Chinese Ambassador to the US Zhou Shukai converses with President Lyndon B. Johnson. Zhou asks for a guarantee that if the USSR uses nuclear weapons on Chinese soil, America will enter the conflict. Anything else, he promises, China can deal with. In order to placate the US, Zhou promises to grant American companies a major stake in the soon-to-be-opened Taipei Open Investment Zone. Johnson is noncommittal but does promise that in the event of an unprovoked, pre-emptive nuclear strike on the ROC, the US will place all of China under its nuclear shield. The US also expels a number of Indian diplomats, although it retains the ambassador and vice-ambassador.

August 1964: Violence against occupying Chinese troops in Tibet increases, and is met with harsher and harsher crackdowns. Border skirmishes between Chinese and Indian troops also occur, although these are limited to individual soldiers taking shots and throwing rocks at each other, and the like.

August 12, 1964: US Secretary of State Dean Rusk travels to Islamabad to meet with top Pakistani military officials. His goal is to negotiate an arms sale between the US and Pakistan, as well as to advise the Pakistani military in how best to resist India's inevitable invasion should war break out. He leaves two days later. The ageing Nationalist general Li Zongren also visits Pakistan for the same purposes.


The term "Summer of 64" will become ubiquitous in the years to come with the China-India slide to war. Fearful observers in both the US and USSR predict a Third World War. The situation is widely compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis of two years previous.

During this period, large numbers of Red Army troops enter Manchuria and East Turkestan, just in case...

August 28, 1964: Start of the Great Tibetan Uprising. Soviet-educated TPLA leader Mi-Gyaltsen (8) sparks an uprising in Lhasa, which quickly ejects the KMT garrison. The slogan "Chinese go home!" is shouted in front of government buildings, and ROC army barracks are attacked, in the name of "the people". The conflagration spreads quickly, and within three weeks much of 1959 Tibet is in revolt. In response, Chinese troops become increasingly vicious,

The Dalai Lama is hesitant to throw his weight behind the new rebellion- while he naturally wants to see the ROC leave Tibet and is not opposed to some of the tenets of Marxism, it is clear that what will come of this revolt is a state-atheist, communist Tibet under Moscow's thumb.

India begins to send arms and men covertly through Himalayan passes to the rebels, while also escalating border incidents with Chinese troops. Prime Minister (and General Secretary of the Communist Party) Kandispal Vispoot urges "the brave Tibetan comrades to oppose Chinese imperialism, aware that the Indian people stand behind them." It is taken as an Indian promise to go to war soon.

September 3, 1964: A development in the USSR sets events moving beyond the point of no return. Nikita Khruschev is ejected from power in a coup led by Leonid Brezhnev (9). He retires to a house in the countryside and cedes all of his official posts. He will die in obscurity seven years later. Brezhnev is opposed to peaceful coexistence and is dead-set on confrontation with the West. Two days after his confirmation by the Politburo, he dispatches his number two Alexei Kosygin to New Dehli to confirm that the USSR will stand by India should war break out.

September 9, 1964: Eighteen years to the day after the bombing of Baicheng, the storm breaks. Chiang Kai-shek formally declares war on India, sending troops to attack Indian positions on the border. The USSR, Mongolia, Manchuria, and Second East Turkestan Republic declare war on China that same day, and Pakistan declares war on the communists a day later. America, for the moment, remains neutral, although it has contingency plans drawn up to use nuclear weapons and declare war should the need arise...

(1) Deng Xiaoping will never get to use this iconic quote ITTL, and I wanted to use it somewhere.
(2) A Chinese phrase roughly equivalent to "son of a bitch"
(3) I can promise that ITTL Nigel Tufnel (Spinal Tap still gets made ITTL, by the way) is not a supporter in any way, shape, or form of Mao's dreadful personality cult. I couldn't resist inserting this, though!
(4) Roughly analogous to a mistaken rumour that in OTL North Korea, young men are forced to wear Kim Jong-un haircuts.
(5) IOTL Mao's top nuclear scientist
(6) ITOL Mao's main nuclear test site
(7) A fictitious character
(8) Traditionally, Tibetans lack surnames. Mi-Gyaltsen, as far as I can tell, translates very roughly as "people's conflict." If anyone has access to a reliable Tibetan translator, please leave a comment saying so!
(9) This coup had been in the works since March. ITTL, with the slide to war, Brezhnev might decide to go ahead a month earlier.

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