Beiyang Republic of China

So something I am wondering about but what if it was the Beiyang Republic of China that was able to unite the country in the warlord era, and not the KMT? Of the various cliques, the ones I think that the fengtian, Zhili, and the Anhui cliques. In our timeline they all lost out to the KMT which was able unite china for the most part following the Northern Expedition.

However, what if that didn't happen or it failed and one of the cliques mentioned was able to unite china. How would they handle the Communists and various movements that were going on at this time. What would china look like under these cliques. How would they handle the second Sino-Japanese War?

In general what would China be like under them?
 
Which Beiyang Government? Yuan Shikai's? One of the administrations that came after him and were controlled by a constantly shifting set of cliques (Anhui, Zhili, Fengtian)?
 
I like this, I wonder if it'd be a more traditionalist oligarchic republic crewed by warlords and landowner types vs. the more Western-inspired Nationalist ROC.
 
China was "united" during the Beiyang era, though, in that all of the warlord cliques recognized the government in Beijing as the legitimate government of China, and this government received international recognition. Sure, the country itself was fractured among numerous warlords, but this was the case during the Nationalist era, too, so it's not like that disqualifies China from counting as "united".

If we assume that unification here means a warlord clique other than the KMT becoming overwhelmingly dominant, then the Zhili in 1923-1924 were getting increasingly close to that critical mass. Had it not been for Feng Yuxiang's Beijing Coup, they could have reasonably had a shot at taking out Fengtian and then defeating the Guangzhou Military Government before the Northern Expedition starts, at which point nothing would really be able to challenge them one on one save for the clique fracturing (a possible outcome).

The Zhili clique was anti-Japanese and nominally more liberal than their Fengtian counterpart, but authoritarian nonetheless. Japan intervening to establish Manchukuo is less likely than it was in OTL given that Zhang Xueliang would not have anyone to defect to, but if it happens, then the same course of Japan trying to gnaw away more and more concessions from China would take place. Arguably, though, a Second Sino-Japanese War would happen earlier than OTL - without the Northern Expedition, the CCP would hardly reach anywhere near the same level of nation-wide support as it did in OTL, the KMT would be a spent force in Chinese politics at this point, and so unless other forms of internal unrest take place in China at the time, be it inter-clique wars or whatever, then Beiyang China would be more assured in their position and be able to oppose Japanese expansionism earlier.
 
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