alternatehistory.com

How could we have China run a network of alliance partners/satellite states as cohesive/responsive/dependent on Beijing as the Warsaw Pact was to Moscow or even as NATO was to Washington?

It can be a Communist China, or any other flavor of Republicanism or Monarchism. PoD definitely must be post-1900 of course.

Reviewing OTL of course, monarchist and republican China were pretty much consumed with trying to claw back sovereignty over the homeland.

Communist China secured sovereignty most effectively and played more on the world stage. But it still was far from having a string of obedient satellite states.

The closest thing to Chinese allies, or clients, we could name in OTL would be North Korea, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Pakistan and Albania. However, this fell far short of US or Soviet alliances.

North Korea - China saved its regime, but China's troops were withdrawn in 1958 and Kim Il-Sung was able to play off both China and the USSR. Rolling forward, the North Koreans must not have ever found Chinese promises to protect them in future war contingencies, otherwise they would not have invested so much in nuclear weapons. (Poland, East Germany, Romania, heck Italy and West Germany, never did).

North Vietnam - China helped North Vietnam materially, but annoyed it and could not control it. When China tried to use ...

...Khmer Rouge Cambodia - as a proxy, united Vietnam rolled through it and overthrew its government without China being able to stop it.

Albania - was far away and joined forces for a time with China for its own ideological reasons. When Mao reoriented foreign policy towards the west and Deng reoriented China's economy towards capitalism, the Albanians ditched the connection.

Pakistan - China started making deals with and aiding Pakistan from the early 1960s. But again China never intervened to actually protect its Pakistani allies against losses to India in 1965 or 1971. Pakistan is fond of calling the US its "fair-weather friend" and China it's "all-weather friend", but Pakistan's own behavior, its independent nuclear program, showed it did not take China's ability to protect it too seriously.

So how can we change things so China has some real satellite states and countries utterly depending on it for their security?
Top