AHC: Democratic China with a GDP per capita of at least $35,000

As a rule, China must control all of the territories of the OTL PRC (so no cheating by limiting them to Taiwan).
 
China is democratic OTL, though. 35k GDP? Have the US go through hyperinflation while somehow getting china's economy to well at least come close to OTL so the chinese economy is on par with a ruined US. This is _hard_ since a collapsed west/hyperinflationary US can't afford to buy chinese products.
 
This will require China avoiding the Communist take over, which will require avoiding or at least greatly limiting the Second Sino-Japanese War, which would require avoiding the division of the warlord era.

China’s top men will have to become selfless martyrs. No one tries to gain power by using divisive politics to pit people against each other. Yuan Shikai shares power with the elected government of 1912. The Kuomingtang then work tirelessly to promote national unity, implement land reform, curb corruption, and build a well organized modern army.

By 1931 the country’s house is in good enough order that Japan is deterred from invading Manchuria.
 
The idea is simply not to end the traditional Confucian examination system during the Xinzheng Reform. The abolition of the examination system resulted in the disenfranchisement of a significant portion of Chinese society, well-educated litterari who were encouraged to study abroad instead. Besides Sun Yat-sen, key figures in the revolution, such as Huang Xing, Song Jiaoren, Hu Hanmin, Liao Zhongkai, Zhu Zhixin and Wang Jingwei, were all Chinese students in Japan

A new class of intellectuals emerged from those students, who contributed immensely to the Xinhai Revolution. Had the examination system not been abolished, it appears unlikely that the New Army and the provincial assemblies would have taken their strong anti-Qing course. I steal this hypothesis from a short essay named The abolition of the imperial examination system and the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 by David Castrillón. I can only tell you to read it.

Here is the article I found and a bad summary :

http://asiapacifico.utadeo.edu.co/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/The-Abolition-of-the-Imperial-Examination-System-and-the-Xinhai-Revolution-of-1911.pdf

Bad summary :
In 1905, acting on Yuan Shikai's advice, Dowager-Empress Cixi issued a decree ending the traditional Confucian examination system that was formalized in 1906. She ordered the Ministry of Education to implement a system of primary and secondary schools and universities with a state-mandated curriculum, modeled after the educational system of Meiji-period Japan. This decree of 1905 mandated that the various governor generals and viceroys autonomously establish modern schools along Western lines in each province.

The creation of those modern schools had two weird consequences. A lot of those schools harbored Anti-Qing societies that were protected by provincial leaders. The modern school system that replaced the traditional examination system also favored the elite rather than the people, eliminating completely the elements of social mobility that characterized the examination system by making study abroad the decisive stage of Chinese education.

Strangely, the provisions of the 1905 decree guaranteed government jobs for holders of the second and third degree, but left nothing to holders of the first degree. It left millions of rural and poor Chinese with few alternatives to make an honest living. Their limited alternatives included joining the military, participating in local politics, enrolling in modern schools, or becoming bandits and revolutionnaries.

Reading it, I found it interesting enough, I believe that this hypothesis combined with better economic reforms could lead to a constitutional Qing monarchy. This constitutional monarchy would probably see the power of the Emperor gradually diminish under popular pressure to a position of figurehead nowadays.

I wouldn't ban the examinations system, but modify its curriculum adding hard sciences and economics. Creating two distinct curriculums is probably a good way to reduce the influence of foreign politics. You would have "science" modern schools with engineering, sciences, medicine and mathematics and "public policies" modern schools with economics, finance, management and law. Those curriculum would be spiced with traditional courses.

Students who finish those schools would become one degree or second degree holders, accoridng to their academic results. Holders of the first degree could be later sent to those new schools and put in charge of the monitoring of the curriculum. They could even have been given automatic seats in the new provincial assemblies in order to counterbalance reformers. The implementation of the new modern schools would be directed by central authorities from Beijing and actions would be taken to keep social mobility in the system.

As in OTL, on August 27, 1908, the Qing court promulgates "Principles for a Constitution". This document called for a constitutional government with a strong monarchy (modeled after Meiji Japan and Bismarck's Germany), with a constitution to be issued by 1916 and an elected parliament by 1917. From this fateful date, I just need to find a solution to keep the monarchy alive until 1916.-1917.


On October 10, 1911, Wuchang uprising still occurs ITTL, but is a failure as less military units revolt than in OTL. Only few units of the non-Beiyang forces revolt against the Qing. Yuan Shikai leads the Beiyang Army into opposing the revolution while also negotiating for the Qing's surrender and his ascendency to Prime Minister of the new constitutional government, hoping to become the puppermaster of the Emperor. On 1 November 1911, the Qing government appointed Yuan Shikai as the prime minister of the imperial cabinet, replacing Prince Qin.

Most of the military Governments, set in a few provinces by the revolting troops (as in OTL), accept to submit to Yuan Shikai. This change in TTL occurs due to a lesser number of Tongmenghui infiltrators in the units than OTL. The situations in Nanking and in Shanghai were more problematic, as the local revolutionaries were led by civilians and weren't interested by the hypothesis of a miltary government controlling China.

After considering the possibility that the new republic might be defeated in a civil war or by foreign invasion after the secession of Nanking, Yuan Shikai refuses to ally with the weakened Tongmenghui. On 18 December, 1911, the North–South Conference (南北議和) is held in Shanghai to discuss the north and south issues, local Tongmenghui leaders are arrested and quickly executed. After weeks of chaos, the city is turned back to Qing control. The siege of Nanking was more complicated and it took months to recapture the soon to be devasted city.

After the fall of Nanking, the provisonal China's Parliament was formally dissolved. To give his government a semblance of legitimacy, Yuan convened a body of 66 men from his cabinet who, on 1 May 1912, produced a "constitutional compact" that effectively replaced China's provisional constitution. The new legal status quo gave Yuan, as Prime Minister, practically unlimited powers over China's military, finances, foreign policy, and the rights of China's citizens. This action was the starting point of a period that historians would later call the "Beiyang government". This "warlord era"will last from 1912 to 1930.

As an autocratic Prime Minister, Yuan Shikai introduced far-ranging modernizations in law and social areas, and trained and organized China's first modern armies on the german model. He sought to build on late-Qing attempts at reforms and to develop institutions that would bring strong and stable government to China. To gain foreign confidence and end the hated system of extraterritoriality, Yuan strengthened the court system and invited foreign advisers to reform the penal system. conomically, Yuan Shikai considered the mining industry as a way to gain more foreign currencies and foreign loans, his death hindered his nationalization and modernization projects. Yuan Shikai only reigned during 4 years and died on 6 June 1916 from uremia.

His "reign" was also marked by the Japanese 21 demands to Beijing on 8 January 1915. Japan demanded an extension of extraterritoriality, the sale of businesses in debt to Japan and the cession of the german concession of Qingdao to Japan. The government of Yuan Shikai wasn't ready to fight agaisnt such demands and chose early to leak them to the western powers. United States expressed strongly negative reactions to Japan's rejection of the Open Door Policy. Great Britain, Japan's closest ally, expressed concern over what was perceived as Japan's overbearing, bullying approach to diplomacy, and the British Foreign Office in particular was unhappy with Japanese attempts to establish what would effectively be a Japanese protectorate over all of China.

After long and tenous negociations, Yuan Shikai was forced to accept some of the Japanese demands before his death. Although Qingdao was ceded to Japan for a period of 99 years until 2015, Japanese had to relinquish their demand of extraterritoriality in southern Mandchuria. The Japanese final decision was motivated by the growing presence of german advisors in China (Hermann Kriebe, Georg Wetzell. Max Bauer), a threat of American boycott on fuel and iron and by a Chinese partial mobilization.

After Yuan's death, there was an effort by his successor, Li Yuanhong, to revive the Republic by recalling the legislators who had been ejected in 1912. The National Assembly of the Republic of China reconvened on 1 August 1916, after having been disbanded over two and a half years earlier. This effort was confused and ineffective in asserting political control as Li lacked any support from the military and bureaucrats. ITTL, the military and the bureaucrats owned together half of the new Yuan assembly, de jure, thanks to the 1912 constitutional compact. On 17 July 1917, distraught from recent events, Li officially resigned from office and moved to Tianjin in retirement.

Feng Guozhang was sworn in as prime minister of the Empire of China on August 1, 1917, but his constitutionality was challenged as the National Assembly was not reconvened to recognize it. He took an active role in foreign affairs securing Chinese neutrality, while sending labor battalions to help the western war effort during both WW1 and the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. His foreign agreements against Germany costed him his governmental position, as the Yuan revoked him on 17 July 1918.

Domestically, he created the conditions of the modern Chinese economic boom. He considered, following Yuan Shikai’s vision, that a centralized control of production was urgently needed to finance the Chinese economy. He pushed Pu Yi to sign the Imperial Edict on Control over the Tungsten Industry formulated by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and passed by Executive Yuan’s meeting, which would establish central control over tungsten and construct a legal system for the tungsten industry. This edict also called for foreign funds in order to guarantee Tungsten production and shipments.

Fortunately, I discovered an interesting article on tungsten/wolfram production and exports during Interwar period and during the war in OTL. Let me introduce you to Tungsten in the Second World War : China, Japan, Germany, the Allies and Iberia.

- https://revistas.comillas.edu/index.php/internationalrelations/article/download/8235/7896

China was the world main source of tungsten between 1913 and 1937. 95 % of the tungsten was extracted in the Nanling region, a mountainous area that includes part of the southern provinces of Kiangsi, Kwantung, Kwangsi, Yunnan and Hunan, the first having the largest wolfram deposits and supplying 70 % of the total output of wolframite, the mineral form in which tungsten is most commonly found in the region.


Xu Shichang was the Prime Minister of China, in Beijing, from 10 October 1918 to 2 June 1922. The first permanent prime minister of the Beiyang government to be a civilian, his presidency was also the longest of the warlord era. Xu believed the monarchy had to play a bigger role in foreign relations, and to prepare Puyi for the challenges of the outside world had hired Reginald Johnston to teach Puyi "subjects such as political science, constitutional history and English. He was instrumental in the signing of the 1920 constitution, revoking the power of the Executive branch (Emperor + Prime minister) over finances, foreign policy, and the rights of China's citizens. He created the Bureau of statistics, internal police and audit (BSIPA). This autonomous entity is unique and can be described as a parallel administration fighting against corruption, graft, spies and potential traitors.

He was followed by Hu Weide and Yan Huiqing, this "diplomatic couple" alternatively controlled the position of Prime minister from 1922 to 1931. Both of them were diplomats and prominent politicians prior to their repeated elections, they were able to secure Chinese political position on world stage and successfully denounced the infamous Mukden Incident. They also negotiated a border agreement with Soviet Union and a land-lease on the Mandchurian railways in exchange of tungsten in 1929.

The creation of a protectorate in Manchuria, a land rich in natural resources, was widely seen as an economic "lifeline" to save Japan from the effects of the Great Depression, generating much public support. After the Liaoning Provincial government fled Mukden, it was replaced by a "Peoples Preservation Committee" which declared the secession of Liaoning province and proclaimed the Republic of China under Japanese protection.

Manchurian Crisis had a significant negative effect on the moral strength and influence of the League of Nations. As critics had predicted, the League was powerless if a strong nation decided to pursue an aggressive policy against other countries, allowing a country such as Japan to commit blatant aggression without serious consequences. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were also aware of this, and within three years would both follow Japan's example in aggression against their neighbors: in the case of Italy, against Abyssinia; and Germany, against Czechoslovakia and Poland.

A state of emergency was quickly declared by imperial decree when the Japanese invaded Mandchuria. Political and military power were transfered to a dual authority led by Chiang Kai-shek and the third degree mandarin Mao Zedong. Both of them were selected by the recently elected Yuan due to their abilities and their reformist views. Similarly to many deputies, they considered that the role of the Emperor was hindering Chinese war effort and blocking its evolution towards modernity. They stayed in power from 1931 to 1975, despite Puyi's repeated complaints.

The war agaisnt Japan was thankfully limited to Mandchuria. The actions of admiral Andrew Chan Chak explain how China was able to limit Japanese actions to this theater of operations. Once appointed in 1923, he focused the chinese navy modernizations on the creation of hunter-killer submarines and the acquisition of torpedo bombers from Germany, knowing that the Chinese fleets would be unable to win against Japan far from the coasts.

The Imperial Chinese Air Force (ICAF) was formed by Beijing after the establishment of the Aviation Ministry in 1920. The Chinese government quickly established contacts with American entrepreneur, like William D. Pawley who funded the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company (CAMCO) during 1930’s. Starting in 1933, CAMCO assembled (probably from factory-supplied kits) about 100 Hawk II and Hawk III fighter-bombers in a factory at Hangzhou Jianqiao Airport. The planes had originally been designed as scout bombers for the US Navy. They served as the backbone of the ICAF the first year of the war.

In September 1937, a secret decree issued by the Soviet Orgburo ordered that 225 aircraft, including 62 Polikarpov I-15, 93 Polikarpov I-16 and 8 Yakovlev UT-4 trainers, be sent to China.Upon a Chinese request the Soviets also agreed to provide military advisors and volunteer pilots. The first group of military advisors arrived in China in early June 1938. By February 1939, 3665 Soviet military specialists headed by Mikhail Dratvin had been deployed. They will stay in China until 1941.


Unbeknownst to Germany, Soviet Union also provided large quantities of arms and ammunition Chinese military and police forces in the form of grants and sales until Barbarossa in exchange of tungsten and foreign currencies as early as 1920s. This aid included a significant number of tanks and the establishment of a tank school in Mongolia. They also helped to build tank factories, which alongside the German-built ones will greatly help China against Japan.

To aid the Imperial government of China and to put pressure on Japan, President
Franklin Roosevelt in April 1941 authorized the creation of a clandestine "Special Air Unit" consisting of three combat groups equipped with American aircraft and staffed by aviators and technicians to be recruited from the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps for service in China. The program was fleshed out in the winter of 1940–1941 by Claire Lee Chennault, then an air advisor to Chiang Kai-shek.

Upon the American entry into the war in 1941, it began to supply China with AFVs which the Soviets were unable to provide. M3 Stuarts, M4 Shermans, and M18 Hellcats trickled in through Burma and formed part of the several well-equipped, well-trained tank divisions. These units were responsible for stopping numerous Japanese attacks during the later phases of the war.

The war in Mandchuria was gruesome, even if Chinese troops were able to keep Japanese troops north of the Yellow River, thanks to German advisors, especially Alexander von Falkenhausen. Von Falkenhausen recommended that Chiang fight a war of attrition as Falkenhausen calculated that Japan could not win a long term war. He suggested that Chiang should hold the Yellow River line, and not attack until later in the war. He also recommended to construct a number of fortifications at strategically important locations to slow a Japanese advance. Falkenhausen also advised the Chinese to establish a number of guerrilla operations behind Japanese lines.

This war hero was naturalized as a Chinese citizen in 1946. He wasn’t the only one, as many other foreign advisors and volunteers disobeyed to their governments and chose to stay behind to help China, like Hermann Kriebel, Georg Wetzell. Max Bauer, Hans von Seeckt or the director of the Sino-British Science Co-operation Office in Chongqing from 1942 to 1946 Joseph Needham. Only a few Soviet advisors stayed behind, as the majority responded to the call of their motherland after Barbarossa. Andrey A Vaslov took over the responsabilities of the former main Soviet attache, Georgi Joukov in 1938 and refused to leave China.


The Hundred Regiments Offensive (Chinese: 百團大戰) (20 August – 5 December 1945), devised by Von Falkenhausen, was the final campaign of the China's National Army commanded by Marshall Peng Dehuai, Marshall Tang Enbo, Marshall Zhu De, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek against the Imperial Japanese Army north of the Yellow river. It allowed the reconquest of the ruins of Beijing and led Chinese troops to the Korean border where they linked to their Soviet allies.

The situation on the Southern front was a logistical nightmare, the actions of Sun Li-jen will always be remembered, as his guerilla troops stalled the Japanese advances in both Burma and Indochina. Sun Li-Jen victoriously entered Saigon at the end of the war, while some of his best troops participated in the liberation of Singapore, in 1945.

Parts of the huge Chinese Expeditionary Force, those troops were highly considered by their allies. They were even selected to monitor the Indochina independence referendum of 1954. As Sun Li-Jen was appointed military-governor of Taiwan, his troops were chosen to pacify the island, fighting insurgents and Japanese remnants until 1965.

The Soviet and Mongol occupation of the Republic of China, Liaoning province and a part of Mandchuria, lasted until 1954, when the People’s Khanate called the Chinese Empire for help during a Soviet intervention. Chinese troops swiftly occupied both the Khanate and the Chinese Republic, after threatening to nuke Soviet troops with the new bombs developed by Qian Sanqian and He Zehui, the Chinese Curie.

The state of emergency in China was only cancelled in 1975, when the island of Taiwan finally accepted to join the newly founded Union of China. UCA really modernized under the successive presidencies of Deng Xiaoping, Lee Kuan Yew, and Lhamo Thondup (1975-2025). They invested massively in economy and infrastructures, using the massive tungsten and rare earth materials reserves to build a modern and high tech industry and continued the international legacy of Mao-Kai Shek with the ECA.

Since 1960, the Economic Commonwealth of Asia (ECA) has slowly been constructed as an economic confederation, made of the following autonomous entities :

- United China (1950)
- Singapore (UCA member 1970)
- Taiwan (UCA member 1975)
- Indochinese Federation (ECA member since 1983)
- Brunei (ECA associated member 1984)
- Mongolia (ECA member since 1990)
- Macao (UCA member 1992)
- Hong Kong (UCA member 1997)
- "Shanghaiese Concessions" (UCA member 2001)
- Qingdao (UCA member 2015)
- Korea (ECA associated member since 2018)
- Japan (future status to be determined)
- Siam (future status to be determined)
- Indonesia-Malaysia (future status to be determined)
 
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RousseauX

Donor
Not happening unless China uses state intervention and protection of infant industries. Free markets in a backwards China will keep China backwards forever, reliant on foreign investment, lacking any kind of domestic industry.
Right-wing government frequently use protectionism to develop its economies: see South Korea for example
 
A China with $35,000 per capita would be a MASSIVE economy, four times as OTL (8,826.99). The only two methods are either inflating the US Dollar to accomodate for this figures, or a pre-1900 PoD that has China dominating the global economy to the point of de facto world domination.
 
Right-wing government frequently use protectionism to develop its economies: see South Korea for example

On "Protecting infant industries" generally, it is useful if you also get the opportunity to export into developed economies and then pursue an export oriented industrialisation, with the safety of a protected home market. Asymmetrical protectionism is great, if you can get it to stick.

It's much less so if the developed countries laugh you out of the room that you should expect to export to them while retaining a closed market.

The USA tended to allow China, South Korea and Japan to export to the USA while having lots of domestic protection, as a foreign policy move against the spread of Communism and to encourage democratic capitalist consumer societies in these nations. (Worked well in Japan and SK, less well in China, where we've ended up with an authoritarian one party state in charge and a fairly well developed economy). (Ref - https://blogs.worldbank.org/growth/past-and-future-export-led-growth - "For geopolitical reasons and out of confidence in its own innovation capacity and competitiveness in high value adding activities, the United States was willing to open its markets to imports from economies in Asia and Europe which were important allies in the Cold War. The vast, efficiently retailed and organized American market proved to be an elastic source of demand and U.S. companies were ready to vacate niches for low end labor intensive imports.")

If that's not the case, and you can't export, "protecting infant industries" is going to get you Galapagos Syndrome or a much slower economic development than you'd get under "The Neoliberal Consensus". (This is probably the case where countries like the US and the UK tried protectionism in the past; foreign competitors responded in kind, and so it didn't particularly help them industrialize at all, probably harmed them).

In any case, a population the size of China can't export it's way to very high GDP / capita...
 
On "Protecting infant industries" generally, it is useful if you also get the opportunity to export into developed economies and then pursue an export oriented industrialisation, with the safety of a protected home market. Asymmetrical protectionism is great, if you can get it to stick.

It's much less so if the developed countries laugh you out of the room that you should expect to export to them while retaining a closed market.

The USA tended to allow China, South Korea and Japan to export to the USA while having lots of domestic protection, as a foreign policy move against the spread of Communism and to encourage democratic capitalist consumer societies in these nations. (Worked well in Japan and SK, less well in China, where we've ended up with an authoritarian one party state in charge and a fairly well developed economy). (Ref - https://blogs.worldbank.org/growth/past-and-future-export-led-growth - "For geopolitical reasons and out of confidence in its own innovation capacity and competitiveness in high value adding activities, the United States was willing to open its markets to imports from economies in Asia and Europe which were important allies in the Cold War. The vast, efficiently retailed and organized American market proved to be an elastic source of demand and U.S. companies were ready to vacate niches for low end labor intensive imports.")

If that's not the case, and you can't export, "protecting infant industries" is going to get you Galapagos Syndrome or a much slower economic development than you'd get under "The Neoliberal Consensus". (This is probably the case where countries like the US and the UK tried protectionism in the past; foreign competitors responded in kind, and so it didn't particularly help them industrialize at all, probably harmed them).

In any case, a population the size of China can't export it's way to very high GDP / capita...


About the US and Uk...I believe the US industrialized in the 19th century with high tariffs on imports....but the rest of the world at the time (Europe) also had high tariffs on imports. Western industrialization in the 19th century was due to lots of internal factors. The US had immigration, settler expansion on empty land, capital outlays, and innovative industrialists.

I thought some European countries like the UK protected their home markets and exported their manufactured goods to their colonies. These colonies were like open markets

In regards to the US allowing others to export, it is kind of true. Japan got complaints in the 60s and 70s with a trade war in the 80s. South Korea slipped under the radar more. China also got complaints in the 90s, 00s, and now 10s. The US did not really allow it...the decision was made by some political figures with plenty of domestic backlash and skepticism. These political figures took hits on their domestic popularity.

If the KMT won the Chinese civil war, nobody in Asia will go on a fast export drive to the US. No post war Japan boom , no Korean miracle on Han river, etc. If the US is going to give Asia market access, it will be gradual with each GATT negotiation round. A KMT dominated all of China will screw any chance Communism has of spreading to Asia. The US will throw investments in Japan, China, and more to facilitate more regional trade in Asia. In this ATL, expect a more regional trade bloc in Asia. The soviets will see Asia as a lost cause and focus more on Europe.

Vietnam will be divided. The Viet Minh (Communists) were going to control the North no matter what. However, with no Chinese support, they will not be strong enough to form a fighting force. Soviet support will have logistical hurdles. The USSR would have to use sea routes to get to the North, which could get blockaded. Korea may remain divided or united under a South. The Soviets may leave their portion of Korea if the KMT win in China since it would not make sense to have a small rump state surrounded by non-Communist powers and somewhere the soviets could not have easy access to. There would likely be no Korean war.
 
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