AHC: US-China "Special Relationship"

Chiang Kai-Shek chokes on a slice of belly pork and his successors curry favour with the Americans, agreeing to be their East Asian ally/client state in return for materiel and manpower with which to fight Japanese and Communists.
 
I think you'd see one if the Nationalists won, at least for a while. FDR thought China would be a great power on the level of the European powers and had a soft spot for them.
 
Yeah the China Lobby had a lot of influence in American politics. Avoid a communist takeover and this is dead easy.
 
As others have said, this is actually easy. It's extra interesting if WW2 is averted and China+US forms a major anti-colonial bloc.
 
As others have said, this is actually easy. It's extra interesting if WW2 is averted and China+US forms a major anti-colonial bloc.

Having Nationalist China be Asia's gendarme against Communism would definitely curry favor with America. I can definitely see Japan being pushed to the wayside as a lesser ally.
 
Chiang Kai-Shek chokes on a slice of belly pork and his successors curry favour with the Americans, agreeing to be their East Asian ally/client state in return for materiel and manpower with which to fight Japanese and Communists.
I think you mean "replace the socialist American diplomats working in China and General Stillwell with people who are actually willing to work with Chiang."
 
I think you'd see one if the Nationalists won, at least for a while. FDR thought China would be a great power on the level of the European powers and had a soft spot for them.
I know it's a cliché but a divided China with the Nationalists holding the main part and the Communists Manchuria and north-eastern Inner Mongolia to help connect it to Mongolia might be even better. A combination of the China Lobby, McCarthy-ite anti-communists, and Cold Warriors supporting them against the Soviets and squashing communist movements in Asia would be a broad and long-lasting base.
 
The 'special relationship', as it concerns US-UK relations, isn't just a military or political alliance, but a remarkable closeness in political, diplomatic, cultural, economic, military and historical relations. It's doubtful that any two countries could develop that kind of relationship that didn't start from the same point as the US and the UK, sharing a common language, common traditions of government, common points of culture, and a history of very close diplomatic relations, often on a personal level. Do we imagine nuclear sharing with Nationalist China, inclusion of them in a Five Eyes type arrangement? There's alliance, and then there's naked Chiang Kai-Shek in Truman's bathtub.
 
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