AHC WI Tianmon Sqare no massacre

WI either the leadership decides not to order troops to attack the protests or troops refuse to do so.

How much of a democracy could China be?
 
Country devolves into civil war? (for like the 3rd time within the century). I always wondered what a nuclear civil war would look like...

Seriously, the reason the government decided to go full oppression OTL was because there was an actual threat to their hold on power, and if they can't ensure enough loyalty from the military (or lack the guts to use the military, which would lead to lack of loyalty from them anyways) to crush the "flowering of democracy" then their days are numbered.

Medium to long term events:
-china gets trashed, again, nothing new except maybe the amount of radiation this time (death count might be somewhere between the previous civil war and Taipei Rebellion)
-SE Asia will reap the benefits of globalization and Western investment, some might even take a couple of chunks of land from the Chinese mess in the meantime
-various island disputes became a much more grey and grey affair since none of the remaining relevant claimants have a moral high ground anymore due to PRC out of the picture.
-DPRK is fucked, unless they act a lot of rational/irrational, like getting nukes much earlier
-Taiwan maybe getting back their UNSC seat? Or maybe that'll go to the upcoming superpower India?
-some nuclear scientist will end up in interesting places working for other countries. Nuclear proliferation might happen a bit more than OTL
-whoever wins the civil war will be very butthurt revanchist and angry, and extremely nationalist to boot. Think bigger and meaner OTL DPRK.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Country devolves into civil war? (for like the 3rd time within the century). I always wondered what a nuclear civil war would look like...

Seriously, the reason the government decided to go full oppression OTL was because there was an actual threat to their hold on power, and if they can't ensure enough loyalty from the military (or lack the guts to use the military, which would lead to lack of loyalty from them anyways) to crush the "flowering of democracy" then their days are numbered.

Medium to long term events:
-china gets trashed, again, nothing new except maybe the amount of radiation this time (death count might be somewhere between the previous civil war and Taipei Rebellion)
-SE Asia will reap the benefits of globalization and Western investment, some might even take a couple of chunks of land from the Chinese mess in the meantime
-various island disputes became a much more grey and grey affair since none of the remaining relevant claimants have a moral high ground anymore due to PRC out of the picture.
-DPRK is fucked, unless they act a lot of rational/irrational, like getting nukes much earlier
-Taiwan maybe getting back their UNSC seat? Or maybe that'll go to the upcoming superpower India?
-some nuclear scientist will end up in interesting places working for other countries. Nuclear proliferation might happen a bit more than OTL
-whoever wins the civil war will be very butthurt revanchist and angry, and extremely nationalist to boot. Think bigger and meaner OTL DPRK.
Actually the protests were winding down by the time the troops got sent in

there were protests in almost every major city in China during 1989, by June the vast majority had peacefully dispersed after reassurances from local government officials that nepotism and corruption were going to be addressed and the public was starting to lose interest in the protests

even in beijing the students were dispersing for the most part before June 4

a fairly small number stayed behind and the leadership thought to some degree the Americans were using them to overthrow the government

if government had acted less provocatively during the preceding months the whole showdown might have being avoided, it was not some inevitable road to civil war
 
Why are we assuming that not crushing the protestors or the fall of the CCP would lead to civil war? There's no especial reason to assume that, or even that you couldn't have a scenario where the CCP gives up its monopoly on power and authoritarian stances but the Chinese state survives.

I'm also curious what happens if as above the Chinese government doesn't go in quashing the June 4 protest and simply allows it to disperse with a few additional assurances.
 

RousseauX

Donor
WI either the leadership decides not to order troops to attack the protests or troops refuse to do so.

How much of a democracy could China be?
The first scenario (no troops get sent in) and the second (the troops mutiny) are pretty different

the the former case there's a pretty good chance the students in the square keep dwindling (as they were by June 4th) and the whole thing winds down, but the precedent is set that large public protests are allowed to occur in major urban areas which has a lot of implications going forward
 
I have to say, the inner workings of the Chinese government are so opaque that it's hard to know what the hell would have happened.
 
They're admitted to the WTO earlier and their economic development is that much farther along.

A more interesting POD is, during the crisis, there were rumors that a general and his army were going to come to the aid of the students. I dont know what the benefit of history says to the rumor but that is where you get the potential for a major change, even if its not violent.
 
Alright, most of the government’s statements about addressing corruption are fig leaf,

but say about a third of the actions actually amount to something?

The difficulty is, the tension is, that China is already rather far along the bell curve as far as being an economic success. Yes, it’s possible for China to be even more successful economically, but just because of regression to the mean, I think rather unlikely, say less than a 10% chance.
 
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