AHC: Best-case scenario for China against Japan:

In the 1937 war. What is the best-case scenario for Mao and Jiang here? The answer "No war at all" is outside the parameters of this discussion just to be clear. Was the degree of Japanese victories on the battlefield in 1937-41 a reflection of Japanese skill or that Jiang and Mao were busy still trying to kill each other during the war and less so on Japan?

I suppose what I'm asking is what is the most realistic best-case scenario for the Chinese in the Second Sino-Japanese War?
 
Mao was pretty much trapped in Yenan for most of the war, preying upon both Nationalist and Japanese troops alike. Same with Chaing, as oftentimes he was more pre-occupied with frittering away his strength in meaningless campaigns against the communists than devoting his troops to fight the Japanese.

Throughout the entire war, both Chaing and Mao were attempting to subvert the other, as both knew that once the Japanese were gone war between the two of them would be inevitable.

AS for Chaing, he had a cadre of German trained troops that he used in the defense of Shanghai, all of whom were lost against the Japanese. AFterwards, Chiang was stuck using ill-equipped, ill-led, demoralized conscript troops whose generals were more concerned with filling their pockets with gold than anything else. Warlordism was still rampant in China at the time of the Japanese invasion.

I think the best case for China is that they manage to keep the Japanese confined to the coast and they don't penetrate deep into their centers of population. There's always going to be disagreements between the Communists and Nationalists, but if they can at the very least keep these to a minimum.
 
I wonder what a united China would have been capable of, with a few more years to reform. The PRC was able to fight the US to a draw in Korea, after all, only a few years later.

Cal? Anyone?
 

Cook

Banned
AFterwards, Chiang was stuck using ill-equipped, ill-led, demoralized conscript troops whose generals were more concerned with filling their pockets with gold than anything else.

This overstates the case against Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists considerably. From 1940 the Japanese never had less than 27 divisions in China and a further 12 divisions in Manchuria.

By comparison they used only 4 divisions to conquer Malaya and 10 in the Philippines. These were veterans of the fighting in China and it was Western discounting of Japanese capabilities, because they were only fighting Chinese, not whites, that led to their underestimation of Japanese capabilities.

The vital importance of tying down as many Japanese forces as possible in China was recognised by the British and Americans and led to the Burma highway supply route and the ‘The Hump’ airlift over the Himalayas.
 
Best case scenario for Chiang Kai-shek is American intervention earlier in the war. Ideally US embargo Japan over the Panay Incident. Since 80% of Japanese oil imports came from the US, that alone in 37/38 could end the war.

Second best scenario for Chiang is direct Soviet military intervention by expanding the Khalkhin Gol campaign into a full fledged war with Japan. This would also the the best case scenario for Mao as it would make him an important ally for Stalin.
 
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