AHC: Living standards in China on par with Japan

[NAF]

With a POD of whenever, your challenge is to create a scenario in which Japan and China have roughly equal levels of development and standard of living.

There are some rules, however:

• China must be at least as developed as the modern-day Japan of OTL.
• China must, at the very least, control all OTL Han-majority areas.
• Nuclear war is not allowed

Bonus points for including details on this alternate China's government, culture, media, etc.

 

[Anderman]

There are working on it otl.

 

[amesa]

Well until the last 300 years, the living standards in China were on par with Japan. Do you mean you want 21st Century China to have a high HDI or do you just want to screw Japan over?

 

[NAF]

Well until the last 300 years, the living standards in China were on par with Japan. Do you mean you want 21st Century China to have a high HDI or do you just want to screw Japan over?

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear enough. I want it so that China by 2020 is as developed and has a living standard roughly equivalent to the current day Japan of our timeline.

 

[Walle Ras]

The ROC wins the civil war and China becomes a market economy with democracy.

 

[Bountifulauto82]

The ROC wins the civil war and China becomes a market economy with democracy.

It's not really that simple. Had the ROC won the civil war Chang would continue his dictatorial rule, and China most likely would not become a democracy after his death. I will admit, whatever the Kuomintang had planned is far better than what Mao did.

 

[Walle Ras]

It's not really that simple. Had the ROC won the civil war Chang would continue his dictatorial rule, and China most likely would not become a democracy after his death. I will admit, whatever the Kuomintang had planned is far better than what Mao did.

Thats why I specified as it could have gone either way.

 

[The Undead Martyr]

It's not really that simple. Had the ROC won the civil war Chang would continue his dictatorial rule, and China most likely would not become a democracy after his death. I will admit, whatever the Kuomintang had planned is far better than what Mao did.

This is admittedly damning with very faint praise. The Kuomintang was... not ideal.

I'd have Sun Yat Sen avoid his cancer and love long enough to consolidate the Republic, plus alter WWI so Wilson decides to stick up over the Liotong peninsula rather than waffling (say have and Italian breakthrough on the 10th Izonzo, wilson vents his frustration at the Italians telling him to fuck off by picking a fight with Japan) and have the US generally prop up the ROC as an anti Japanese and anti Communist force.

 

[SolarTechnopolis]

China must, at the very least, control all OTL Han-majority areas.

Would this then include Singapore and parts of Malaysia/Indonesia, along with Taiwan and Hong Kong?

If living standards are your question, control over Overseas territories pretty much doesn't matter.

 

[NAF]

Would this then include Singapore and parts of Malaysia/Indonesia, along with Taiwan and Hong Kong?

If living standards are your question, control over Overseas territories pretty much doesn't matter.

Mainland Han majority areas would suffice.

 

[stevej713]

I'm not sure if it is possible for the entirety of China - that is, all 1.4 billion Han and non-Han Chinese - to have living standards on par with Japan by 2020, at least with a 19th or 20th century PoD. It would require a completely different process than what led Japan to its current position, as the entirety of Japan's population lives less than 120 km from the ocean and Japan's population was much, much smaller, more homogeneous, and more educated on average.

It's certainly possible for China's coastal regions to develop on the same lines as South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, but one has to remember that one segment of a population becoming massively wealthy while a much larger segment remains comparatively poor is a recipe for disaster in any country. Mao was basically able to solidify his rule for life by pillaging the wealth of the coastal elites in the name of the poor inland peasantry. Most regimes would prefer to rule over 1 billion peasants than 900 million peasants and 100 million wealthy urbanites.

Improving standards of living across the entirety of China has been the country's biggest challenge since Deng Xiaoping's reforms. While Chinese in the coastal cities have incomes nearing Western levels, most Chinese in the interior have incomes on par with Sub-Saharan Africa. China's proposed solution has been the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure program that has been extraordinarily expensive and less than successful up to now.

For all intents and purposes, the CCP has the right idea - having good infrastructure is critical to improving standards of living. The problem is that it's just not cost effective. The United States has the benefit of a West Coast, less rugged terrain, and a vast network of waterways, not to mention a much smaller population, so throughput was never a huge concern.

In conclusion - if China had not gone down the Communist route, it's eastern populations might have ended up as wealthy as Japan, however this would have come at the cost of political stability, which is much more important to most historic Chinese governments than standards of living.

 

[herkles]

Since this is before the 1900s. There are a number of ways this could be done. Perhaps the Song stay in power and kick of the Industrial Revolution, so that by 2020 China has a modern living standard comparable to most European countries, same thing with other Asian countries.

 

[dartingfog]

Since this is before the 1900s. There are a number of ways this could be done. Perhaps the Song stay in power and kick of the Industrial Revolution, so that by 2020 China has a modern living standard comparable to most European countries, same thing with other Asian countries.

Or prevent the Ming Dynasty from turning inwards.

 

[SolarTechnopolis]

In that case, the only possible ways to achieve this is an early intellectual, Industrial and Scientific revolutions strong enough to influence the society and hence, the Governments. I think OTL China came near to this but somehow missed it. How could this be achieved? People could come up with more scenarios for that.

 

[YusaEmi]

It's not really that simple. Had the ROC won the civil war Chang would continue his dictatorial rule, and China most likely would not become a democracy after his death. I will admit, whatever the Kuomintang had planned is far better than what Mao did.

South Korea was a military dictatorship until the late 80's, it's doable.