AHC/PC: Soviet-Japanese partition of China

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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Jon Halliday & Jung Chang's book on Mao asserts that many in China shortly after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and partition of Poland believed that a Soviet-Japanese pact and partition of China were also imminent. They allege Mao hoped for this and saw personal opportunity in being the guy in charge of the Soviet sphere of influence within China.

Later on, one Japanese leader proposed partition of China with the Soviets, with the latter getting the CCP held areas. If they actually just allocated CCP base areas to the Soviets that would make for a weird, leopard-spot map. Maybe the Japanese proposer of this deal just meant Yanan and northwest China going to the USSR?

Could this have happened, and if so, how/why?

The main difficulty I see that unoccupied China was not a particularly rich or valuable acquisition for the Soviet Union.

Thoughts?

You win if you can come up w/ a plausible scenario of Soviet-Japanese partition happening. Double your points if the PoD is after the consolidation of Soviet Stalinism and Japanese military rule in the 1930s.
 
It couldn't have happened for the following reasons:
- The USSR and Japan were not very close at all.
- China was too big to "partition" in the sense that one would partition a smaller country like Poland.
- In Zhang Rong's book that you mentioned, Mao's hope was that Chiang Kai-shek would get his ass kicked by the Japanese, who would simply occupy the south while he got the north. The Soviet Union at the time saw the KMT as more reliable than the CCP, and even if they did see the CCP as a true ally they would still have no reason to "sell out" the KMT while they were still fighting the Japanese in the south.

Finally, while I don't doubt that Mao may have toyed with such an idea, it was probably more of a "it would be cool if this could happen...but" rather than a serious proposal. It shows how much of an enemy Mao saw the KMT as.
 
To closest to a partition one would get between Soviet and Japan is that Japan accepts Soviet dominance over Sinkiang (Xinjiang) which was ruled by a pro-soviet Warlord, making Sinkiang quite similar to Mongolia.
 
yeah that's another issue. The Japanese would never agree to anything like what is proposed.
 
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