沒有國民黨就沒有中國, Without the Kuomintang there would be no China, A Republic of China Story

I’m very doubtful that this newly independent united Vietnam will stay peaceful. Civil war between the VNQDD and Viet Minh is all but inevitable and considering these two are the largest and most organised independence groups and have their own militaries, I needed say anymore.
Hello,

The question is how would the Viet Minh get material support from the Soviet Union if China no longer provides the supply routes as in OTL?
 

Deleted member 2186

Chiang Kai-shek was loved by many and hated by many. He could take solace in the fact that the majority of the Kuomintang backed him for President. Presidential elections in the Republic of China were decided not by the popular vote, but by the National Assembly [1]. Just like presidential elections, the Republic of China Constitution in 1947 stipulated that National Assembly elections would occur every six years. In 1953, the Kuomintang once again won an overwhelming majority of seats in the National Assembly. This meant that any serious challenge to Chiang Kai-shek’s reelection the following year would have to come from within the Kuomintang. There would be a high-profile challenger from within the KMT, Vice President Li Zongren. Li Zongren was supported by members of the National Assembly from his native Guangxi Province and also by people who didn’t particularly like Chiang Kai-shek. He and Chiang were not on the best of terms, and Chiang believed that Li had been too conciliatory towards the Communists.

View attachment 717063
(Li Zongren)

Chiang Kai-shek overwhelmingly won the presidential vote with over 80% of delegates supporting him. This came as a surprise to no one, including Li Zongren and his supporters (Li didn’t actually seek out the presidency, he was merely nominated by a group of anti-Chiang politicians). Just as in 1948, the election for vice president was much more competitive. And just like in 1948, Chiang Kai-shek supported Sun Fo over Li Zongren. General Yan Xishan was a serious contender for vice president as well. There were also two minor candidates. There was Lei Chen, a pro-Democracy member of the Legislative Yuan from Zhejiang and Xu Fulin, a member of the Legislative Yuan and leader of the China Democratic Socialist Party. With the exception of Xu Fulin, all candidates were affiliated with the Kuomintang.


On the first ballot, Sun Fo came in first place with 1,311 votes. Li Zongren came in second with 882. Yan Xishan received 460 votes, Xu Fulin received 207 votes, and Lei Chen received 85 votes. On the second ballot, much of Yan Xishan’s support went to Sun Fo. Sun Fo received 1,552 votes, 19 more than were required to win. He would become the new Vice President in May 1954. Chen Lifu, Vice President of the Legislative Yuan, would become the new President of the Legislative Yuan. Li Zongren had been defeated, but he was not retiring from politics. He returned to Guangxi where he began to plot his way back into power. He had plenty of supporters across the country, including the warlord Bai Chongxi. Meanwhile, further west, Warlord Ma Bufang was put in command of an invasion force.

Presidential Election of 1954
Votes
Chiang Kai-shek (KMT-Zhejiang)2,252 (80.5%)
Li Zongren (KMT-Guangxi)582 (19.1%)

Vice Presidential Election of 1954
First RoundSecond Round
Sun Fo (KMT-Guangdong)1,311 (43.1%)1552 (51.0%)
Li Zongren (KMT-Guangxi)882 (29.0%)998 (32.8%)
Yan Xishan (KMT-Shanxi)460 (15.1%)325 (10.7%)
Xu Fulin (CDSP-Guangdong)207 (6.8%)170 (5.6%)
Lei Chen (KMT-Zhejiang)85 (2.8%)

1: Basically an electoral college that has some other powers like amending the constitution.
So how many terms can Chiang Kai-shek run.
 
No country on the planet recognized Tibetan independence barring the Mongolian Khanate of Bogd Khan - which was reversed by the Mongolian Communists as well. Nepal and Bhutan had de-facto foreign relations with Tibet, but both countries devolved their foreign relations with Tibet as an 'autonomous' part of the Chinese office.
Thanks for the correction, I'll change that part to say that they had diplomatic relations with Tibet.
 
What will Chiang's other son, Chiang Wei Kuo be up to? Chiang Chingkuo has been shown leading troops against the PLA, will he later return to a civilian post?
 
What will Chiang's other son, Chiang Wei Kuo be up to? Chiang Chingkuo has been shown leading troops against the PLA, will he later return to a civilian post?
Chiang Wei-kuo is still in the military. He will become more prominent in this TL later on. Chiang Ching-kuo was appointed Governor of Rehe after the success of the Northeastern campaign.
 
Also, what of Sun Liren? He was sent to train troops on Taiwan otl, which he did with great success, would he stay be on Taiwan in the 50s?
 
十五, Land Reform
The Chinese government’s land reform campaign was in full swing. It was not universally popular, however. Many were dissatisfied with the slow progress of land redistribution. Some believed that the government was not actually going to carry it through to completion. Others opposed the reforms entirely. In 1955, landlords organized protests against the government. The first protests took place in Chiang Kai-shek’s hometown of Ningbo. They soon spread across Zhejiang and Jiangsu Provinces and then into other parts of China. The protesters denounced land reform as Communist. Hundreds gathered in Shanghai to protest near the American and British consulates. They hoped to make common cause with the Shanghai business community, which had been hurt by Chiang Kai-shek’s policies and no longer needed to support him in order to prevent the Communists from taking over. Chiang Kai-shek was worried that the CIA might be involved, but his fears were unfounded.

Mao Renfeng, head of the Juntong, had agents infiltrate the protests. These agents caused divisions among the protesters. The protests mostly fizzled out after that. Anti-land reform candidates would campaign for the 1956 legislative elections, hoping to be able to somehow stop Chiang Kai-shek from achieving his goal. When voters went to the polls, they elected a significant number of candidates who were willing to oppose the president. The China Democratic Socialist Party won 44 seats while the China Youth Party won 41. The Kuomintang still won 634 seats. 40 seats were won by independent candidates. However, the Kuomintang would not have done as well in a fairer election. In some cases, opposition candidates were kept off the ballot, and in others opposition ballots were thrown away. While China allowed two opposition parties to operate, others who tried to organize electoral opposition to the KMT were arrested. In 1955, pro-democracy activist Zhang Lan had died while under house arrest.

While the Kuomintang won over 80% of seats in the Legislative Yuan, a significant number of those legislators were opponents of Chiang. Li Zongren, the former Vice President, was still popular within much of the KMT. Even though it was four years away from 1960, everyone paying attention to politics understood that Li planned on running for president. While Chiang Kai-shek was a dictator, and he did not need to worry about being voted out of office by the people, if he became unpopular enough, there was a real possibility that he might lose power. His power depended on the support of the Kuomintang at multiple levels of government, as well as the cooperation of the military. If enough national and regional power-brokers sensed that country was turning against Chiang, they might overthrow him. Not to mention the possibility of another Communist uprising. That was why land reform was so important. Chiang Kai-shek’s future could be in jeopardy if it failed.

1644724893463.jpeg

(Chiang Kai-shek)

Landlords continued to relinquish their land for redistribution to their tenants. Sometimes this was voluntary and sometimes it was forced. The progress of land reform was still slow. Chiang Kai-shek has stated in 1953 that the peasants would all own the land they worked by 1959. But at the rate it was going, this wouldn’t actually happen until well into the 1960s. It cost a lot of money to compensate landlords. And paying off landlords could only be a small part of the national budget. The Chinese government was spending a great amount of money on infrastructure as well as establishing and running state-owned enterprises. And thus, despite Chiang’s words, tens of millions of Chinese peasants lived as tenants.

1644724643603.jpeg

(Chinese farm)

Chiang Kai-shek was helped by aid from both the United States and the Soviet Union. And that was how China was able to fund land reform. The KGB at this time was actually ordering Chinese Communist operatives still in China to resistance to the Kuomintang regime and to instead work on infiltrating it. Despite the purges that took place during the Civil War, there were still Communist-sympathizing Kuomintang officials in government who had made such sympathies a secret. There were even some people who had been purged who were allowed back into the government. These leftist officials in the Kuomintang supported Chiang Kai-shek’s land reform campaign. Wang Kunlun, a secret Communist who had been working within the Kuomintang for decades, loudly praised Chiang’s policies. At the same time, Ambassador Wellington Koo assured US President William Knowland that Chiang was still a committed anti-Communist and was just using the Soviets for money.

1644725007935.jpeg

(Wang Kunlun)

Throughout 1956, landlords were compensated with cash payments. Many felt that they weren’t getting the full value of their land, and complained to the government about it. Their concerns were largely ignored. The other method of compensation was shares in state-owned enterprises. The Taiwan Machinery Shipbuilding Corporation, China Cement, Minkuo Electronics, Sinopetrol, Sichuan Steel, and others had shares given out to landlords as compensation. Most landlords preferred payments in cash. This was because they were skeptical of the profitability of some of these enterprises. Indeed, many of these companies would not turn a profit for years. Some of the companies turned out to be massively successful later on and made their shareholders wealthier than they ever imagined. By the end of 1956, 21% of China’s farmland was still owned by the landlord class. This was still a lot but it was a huge decrease from only a few years earlier.
 
Hello,

Is Chiang Ki-shek still known by the nickname Generalissimo? Also, does he intend to make the President of the Republic of China a hereditary office?

Will there be a technical readout of the ROC armed forces' (ROCAF) equipment and vehicles. This does not need to go into excruciating detail, but it can give an idea of what the ROCAF is currently working with and what may be acquired in the future. I suspect it may consist of mostly WW2 surplus from the US but is the ROC considering other sources?

Overall, are there plans to develop the ROC similarly to what happened to Taiwan in OTL (economy, commerce, education, etc.)?
 

El_Fodedor

Banned
Hello,
Also, does he intend to make the President of the Republic of China a hereditary office?
I don't think he will be capable to pull this off with the whole of China, even with all the prestige he has right now. Turning Taiwan into his family's fief was realistic, but continental China is a different animal whatsoever.

The KMT isn't nearly as ominous as the CCP in regard to taking control of all levels of society, as the last chapters clearly shows, so this only exacerbates the difficulties.
 
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Hello,

Is Chiang Ki-shek still known by the nickname Generalissimo? Also, does he intend to make the President of the Republic of China a hereditary office?
He is still the Generalissimo.

Chiang Kai-shek's sons are pretty much guaranteed to have power and influence, even after their father dies. However, Chiang Ching-kuo is in no way guaranteed to become the next president of China.
Will there be a technical readout of the ROC armed forces' (ROCAF) equipment and vehicles. This does not need to go into excruciating detail, but it can give an idea of what the ROCAF is currently working with and what may be acquired in the future. I suspect it may consist of mostly WW2 surplus from the US but is the ROC considering other sources?
I'll figure out what equipment and vehicles the ROC has and I'll post it at some point.
Overall, are there plans to develop the ROC similarly to what happened to Taiwan in OTL (economy, commerce, education, etc.)?
In some ways it will be similar, in some ways it will be different.
 
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