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

@CELTICEMPIRE what happened to the USS Thresher submarine ITTL? I think that there is a good chance that unlike in OTL it would not have sunk since it was the Cuban Missile Crisis and the armament race launched by Khrushchev that led the Navy to rush the submarine into her fleet with an inadequately trained crew due to the all-time high tensions between the USA and USSR.
Without the Thresher sinking the SUBSAFE program would have been delayed but not for long since the USS Scorpion would sink in 1968 just like in OTL.
 
@CELTICEMPIRE what happened to the USS Thresher submarine ITTL? I think that there is a good chance that unlike in OTL it would not have sunk since it was the Cuban Missile Crisis and the armament race launched by Khrushchev that led the Navy to rush the submarine into her fleet with an inadequately trained crew due to the all-time high tensions between the USA and USSR.
Without the Thresher sinking the SUBSAFE program would have been delayed but not for long since the USS Scorpion would sink in 1968 just like in OTL.
The USS Thresher wasn't built ITTL.
 
China was determined to keep troops in Vietnam until the insurgency was over. The general consensus in China was that the war would only last a few more years.
The idea of China fighting an external war is intriguing. OTL, Chinese troops have not seen any sustained action since the Korean armistice in 1953.

It's also interesing in that it's a Great Power in an external war that is not the US or the USSR. The Soviets used proxies in Africa, and finally committed their own troops in Afghanistan.
 
Because it was built in 1958 OTL. There will be plenty of submarines like it, however.
Given the fact that the original USS Thresher was the most decorated US Sub in WWII, I think it *quite* likely that a class of Submarines with the USS Thresher as the lead boat is still likely iTTL. However, there is no guarantee that it will have the same characteristics, suffer from the same problems with Silver Brazing or anything else similar. the 10 years since the POD is *quite* a lot of time in Submarine design.
 
Awesome TL so far. It's great to see Chiang Kai-shek and the ROC enjoy some well-deserved success.

I'm curious about the situation in Xinjiang. To my knowledge, most of the Han Chinese lived in the north and east, while the south-southwest area was dominated by Uyghurs and other minorities. The fact that ITTL only the central/western part of Xinjiang is under Soviet control (at least according to that map some user made earlier in the thread, I'm not sure if it's canon or not) suggests that the Soviet puppet state is perhaps more "communist" than "Uyghur nationalist," and that somehow the KMT was able to form a political alliance with the Uyghurs. However, this seems unlikely given that the Uyghurs had tensions with the ROC ever since the fall of the Qing, even going so far as to side with Russia in hopes of kicking out the Chinese.

Vietnam seems like it will suffer even worse ITTL. I can't see the Chinese pulling out because of guerrilla warfare, instead, they are likely to react with multiple troop surges and maybe even genocide to subdue the defenders.
 
Awesome TL so far. It's great to see Chiang Kai-shek and the ROC enjoy some well-deserved success.

I'm curious about the situation in Xinjiang. To my knowledge, most of the Han Chinese lived in the north and east, while the south-southwest area was dominated by Uyghurs and other minorities. The fact that ITTL only the central/western part of Xinjiang is under Soviet control (at least according to that map some user made earlier in the thread, I'm not sure if it's canon or not) suggests that the Soviet puppet state is perhaps more "communist" than "Uyghur nationalist," and that somehow the KMT was able to form a political alliance with the Uyghurs. However, this seems unlikely given that the Uyghurs had tensions with the ROC ever since the fall of the Qing, even going so far as to side with Russia in hopes of kicking out the Chinese.

Vietnam seems like it will suffer even worse ITTL. I can't see the Chinese pulling out because of guerrilla warfare, instead, they are likely to react with multiple troop surges and maybe even genocide to subdue the defenders.
As for the Uyghurs, relations are a lot better under the ROC than the PRC (this is true for other Chinese Muslims too). The Soviet-backed East Turkestan Republic is more Communist than Uyghur Nationalist, though they do desire to rule all of Xinjiang. A lot of Uyghurs in China are affiliated with the Kuomintang, particularly the hardline anti-Communist wing of the party.
 
二十六, The Presidential Election of 1960
In 1959, elections to the National Assembly, the body that elects the president, were held. To nobody’s surprise, the Kuomintang won the vast majority of seats, though they decreased their majority from 1953. Most of this was due to KMT officials leaving the party rather than KMT candidates being defeated. The members of the National Assembly who had been purged in 1958 were mostly replaced by pro-Chiang loyalists. In January 1960, elections for the Legislative Yuan were held. Once again, the Kuomintang was dominant. But membership in the Kuomintang did not always translate into loyalty to or support for Chiang Kai-shek. Many owed their loyalty to the local warlord who were responsible for their positions in government.

Former Vice President Li Zongren was a candidate for President. He had been gathering supporters ever since the last election. Everyone knew he was preparing for a rematch. He criticized Chiang Kai-shek for the 1958 purges and his failure to finish the land reform campaign by 1959. He said that Chiang Kai-shek should have abided by the 1948 Constitution and stick to two terms. Lei Chen, who ran for Vice President in 1954 and was accused during the purges but kept his seat in the Legislative Yuan, was also a candidate. His message was simple; China needed to be a more democratic country. Lei Chen’s base of support was much smaller, as most critics of Chiang saw Li Zongren as the only person who could realistically challenge Chiang. Li had the support of the New Guangxi Clique and therefore the assemblymen from Guangxi. He also had supporters scattered throughout the country.

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(Li Zongren)

Li Zongren received most of his support from his home Province of Guangxi and the Northeast. Most of Lei Chen’s support came from the Northeast as well. But both candidate’s numbers were dwarfed by those of Chiang Kai-shek. 821 delegates voted for Li Zongren and 65 voted for Lei Chen. 2,059 voted for Chiang Kai-shek, giving him a massive majority. Li knew that his campaign would be an uphill battle. He and his supporters were disappointed by the results, but they were not expecting victory. He did significantly better than he did in 1954. Vice President Sun Fo was a little bit more vulnerable than Chiang Kai-shek, however. Multiple candidates would challenge Sun Fo in the Vice-Presidential election.

The main challenger to Sun Fo was Beiping Mayor He Siyuan. Mayor He had been a longtime opponent of Chiang Kai-shek. He had the support of Li Zongren. There was also Li Zhonghuang, a member of the assembly, who was the candidate of Yunnan Warlord Lu Han. Yan Xishan and the Ma warlords, on the other hand, backed Sun Fo. Xu Fulin died in 1958, so the China Democratic Socialist Party chose Jian Yiqiao, member of the Legislative Yuan from Hubei and a former revolutionary, as their candidate for Vice President. The pro-democracy delegates who had left the Kuomintang and supported Lei Chen backed newspaper editor Liang Shuming for Vice President. In the end, Sun Fo easily won reelection on the first ballot.

1647218944202.jpeg

(He Siyuan)

Presidential Election of 1960
Votes
Chiang Kai-shek (KMT-Zhejiang)2,059 (67.6%)
Li Zongren (KMT-Guangxi)821 (27.0%)
Lei Chen (I-Zhejiang)65 (2.1%)

Vice Presidential Election of 1960
Votes
Sun Fo (KMT-Guangdong)1,906 (62.6%)
He Siyuan (KMT-Hebei)690 (22.7%)
Jian Yiqiao (CDSP-Hubei)245 (8.0%)
Li Zhonghuang (KMT-Yunnan)132 (4.3%)
Liang Shuming (I-Hebei)72 (2.4%)
 
Here are two maps of the election results (admittedly low quality, there really aren't any good blank ROC province maps).

President:

TN5cNov.png


Vice President:

grFTkq4.png
 
Nuclear Weapons...

iOTL, the first nuclear weapon test of the five NWS are:
USA: 1945
Russia: 1949
UK: 1952
France: 1960
China: 1964

Is China likely to be earlier or later than OTL?
 
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