Cold War-era Asia-Pacific without the Korean War

OTL’s Korean War had consequences on the geopolitical landscape of East Asia stretching throughout the Cold War, and obviously into today. From the PRC being left out of the UN for two decades, to the boost that Japan got from being a US staging ground for the war, to the conflict serving partly as a precedent for US involvement in Vietnam, and the continued division of the Korean Peninsula lasting to the present.

What are some of the alternate ways in which the broader Asia-Pacific region can develop in a scenario where Kim Il-Sung and co don’t launch their war? Would the Yanks still stick to Chiang Kai-Shek and stonewall the PRC’s entry to the UN? Does the Domino Theory have as much weight, depending on how Vietnam goes? And how do the domestic politics of the two Koreas, as well as Japan, China and Southeast Asian countries, develop?
 
Vietnam is happening so long as the French fail to hold on (they aren't going to willingly surrender Indochina), America gets drawn in (maybe under the UN's aegis), and Communist China exists. America likely remains advisors (without Korea to show the shortcomings of the reforms wrought following WWII with a focus on air power and nukes with poor infantry training as an afterthought, America will struggle in conventional fighting). US forces also remain small according to tradition (a large standing force only emerged due to Korea) likely preventing the rise of the military industrial complex. Japan's economy takes longer to rebound (American involvement in Korea was a major boon). Unlikely there is a domino theory if only China fell with the perception it was Kuomintang corruption and incompetence that led to the debacle.
 
Have the Republic of China win the civil war and now you have a very different cold war in the pacific. The Korean War if it happens would be in the favor of the US. The vietnam war might not even happen since the dominio theory might find it harder to get off the ground. Moreover, the RoC doesn't have to be a friend to the US it can be the leader of the non-aligned movement which could give them trouble.
 
The Kim Dynasty was greatly bolstered by the war, so we may not see them being as powerful. Kim Il-Sung would just be a normal communist leader like those of East Europe, not some kind of legendary figure.

I believe I read somewhere that the US contemplated abandoning the RoC before the Korean War. Maybe that happens.
 
OTL’s Korean War had consequences on the geopolitical landscape of East Asia stretching throughout the Cold War, and obviously into today. From the PRC being left out of the UN for two decades, to the boost that Japan got from being a US staging ground for the war, to the conflict serving partly as a precedent for US involvement in Vietnam, and the continued division of the Korean Peninsula lasting to the present.

What are some of the alternate ways in which the broader Asia-Pacific region can develop in a scenario where Kim Il-Sung and co don’t launch their war? Would the Yanks still stick to Chiang Kai-Shek and stonewall the PRC’s entry to the UN? Does the Domino Theory have as much weight, depending on how Vietnam goes? And how do the domestic politics of the two Koreas, as well as Japan, China and Southeast Asian countries, develop?

US sent the 7th Fleet to defend Chiang’s Taiwan before Beijing decided to intervene in Korea. Prior to this the PRC was hoping to stay out of Moscow’s orbit. But American refusal to recognize Beijing meant PRC needed Soviet protection. So even if North Korea did not invade in 1950, US had already decided to defend Taiwan and PRC will ally with the Soviets, though Sino-American relations would at least avoid open conflict in the 50s.

Without the Korean War however I think US would be far less concerned with avoiding war with China in Vietnam. IOTL a top US war priority was don’t make the same mistakes in Korea and get in a fight with China. This may mean the Vietnam War escalates into a full blown Chinese intervention and thus no Nixon in China.
 
US sent the 7th Fleet to defend Chiang’s Taiwan before Beijing decided to intervene in Korea. Prior to this the PRC was hoping to stay out of Moscow’s orbit. But American refusal to recognize Beijing meant PRC needed Soviet protection. So even if North Korea did not invade in 1950, US had already decided to defend Taiwan and PRC will ally with the Soviets, though Sino-American relations would at least avoid open conflict in the 50s.

The Sino-Soviets had already aligned with each other prior to the intervention of the 7th Fleet, and the decision to defend Taiwan was tied directly with the outbreak of the Korean War:


There's a big difference between taking Quemoy and taking Taiwan:
ROC_Quemoy.png


That doesn't mean that the CCP couldn't take Taiwan later in 1950 if the US didn't stand in their way. But this requires that there be no Korean War--at least not in 1950. Which, I think, answers your question "How does this affect the Korean War?"

As I wrote some years ago in soc.history.what-if:

***

Obviously, it would have been a lot harder than Hainan (which was much closer to the mainland and which already had a large Communist guerrilla force with which the invaders could link up.) But that doesn't mean that it couldn't be done:

"Rear Admiral Carl F. Espe, the Acting Director of Naval Intelligence, concluded that the successive evacuations [of Hainan and smaller offshore islands] had had a 'devastating effect on morale.'1 The U.S. Charge d'Affairs and the naval and military attaches in Taipei now concluded that 'Taiwan will probably fall to the Communists sometime before the end of July.'2 Although Espe thought the attaches' estimate too pessimistic, he observed that 'there seems to be little doubt that Taiwan will in due course fall into Communist hands.'3

"The Communist drive to seize Taiwan had by then reached fever pitch. U.S. naval intelligence reported advanced preparations by the Chinese Communists for an amphibious attack, labeled appropriately 'Operation Taiwan.' Walter McConaughy, the U.S. Consul General at Shanghai, reported that the liberation of Taiwan was being trumpeted publicly by Peking as the nation's paramount immediate mission and one on which they were staking the reputation and all the resources of the new regime.

"In what would prove to be a prophetic observation, McConaughy reported to Washington that 'there would seem no avenue left for Communist retreat. Either they gain Taiwan, or, goaded by bitter humiliation and by Kremlin propaganda, they must keep it ever before the Chinese people as China's great irredentist issue and perpetual cause for anti-American vehemence. Well to remember that Taiwan Irredentism is not Communist monopoly but popular Chinese national issue.'4

"By the late spring of 1950, the Chinese Communist armed forces were prepared to carry out the assault on Taiwan, their most ambitious maritime operation yet. The Communists assembled 5,000 vessels for the invasion by commandeering freighters, motorized junks, and sampans and refloating ships that had been sunk in the Yangtze River during the fight for the mainland. Further, they gathered and trained over 30,000 fishermen and other sailors to man the flotilla.

"Since the previous year, General Chen Yi's 3rd Field Army, which was responsible for the assault, had been positioned on the Fukien coast opposite the large island. The Communists trained their troops extensively in amphibious warfare and applied the lessons learned from the Hainan and other island seizures. Despite an outbreak of the Asian blood fluke disease, which reportedly felled thousands of soldiers, preparations proceeded apace for the cross-channel attack. Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson later revealed that between June 10 and June 24, 1950, the strength of the field army swelled from 40,000 to 156,000 men. Also prior to June 25, elements of Lin Piao's 4th Field Army moved from south China to the Shanghai area, where they were positioned to serve as a strategic reserve for Chen Yi. Historian Allen Whiting, author of the seminal work, China Crosses the Yalu, relates that by late June, Peking's exhortations to men in the units stationed opposite the island paralleled in fervor those broadcast to the troops before the Hainan invasion. In short, the Communists were now ready to launch the attack on Taiwan and win final victory in the civil war."
http://www.history.navy.mil/colloquia/cch3c.htm

See also Denny Roy, *Taiwan: A Political History*, p. 111:

"For the young PLA, a successful amphibious invasion across the strait was a difficult but not an impossible proposition, especially given the leadership's willingness to suffer high casualties in pursuit of a political victory of such magnitude. The Chinese had reportedly mobilized over 150,000 assault troops and collected in Fujian ports a large number of motorized junks for transporting these troops by mid-1950. These junks were difficult to sink with naval gunfire; the shells tended to pass cleanly through their wood hulls leaving holes that could be plugged. They were fitted with 40 mm guns that would allow them to put up a stiff defense against both aircraft and destroyers. The Sino-Soviet alliance that coalesced in early 1950 increased the likelihood the PLA would conquer Taiwan. Stalin refused to get directly involved in the invasion, but agreed to help beef up Chinese naval and air capabilities in preparation for the assault. United States and British intelligence analysts predicted the invasion would take place sometime in the summer of 1950; the US government ordered its nonessential personnel on Taiwan to evacuate on May 26."

http://books.google.com/books?id=DN...111&sig=rVLcH5SxMpCVwzx-pgDnTVlhvqk#PPA113,M1

So it appears that Taiwan might have been doomed if not for the intervention of the US Seventh Fleet. However, was the North Korean invasion of the South the only thing that could have brought about that intervention? Roy (p. 113) suggests one other interesting possibility:

"The interposition of the US Navy would make an assault on Taiwan by the PLA impossible. Truman indicated, however, that his support for the KMT regime was limited. He added that as a 'corollary' he was calling upon Taipei to cease attacks against the mainland, and that the 'future status of Formosa' was not yet settled--sharp jolts to two core KMT principles. The status of Taiwan had seemed a settled issue. The Cairo Declaration...stated that Taiwan 'shall be restored to the Republic of China.' After the war, having recognized the ROC as one of the major allied powers, the US government declined to push for independence or UN trusteeship for Taiwan, adhering to the position that Taiwan was part of the ROC even after the abuses of the Chen Yi [the Nationalist governor, not the Communist general with the same name] administration came to light. It was the Chiang government's defeat by numerically smaller Communist forces despite substantial US aid, rather than questions about the justice or competence of its rule on Taiwan, that degraded the KMT's status in the worldview of American officials. International politics, not Chinese or Taiwan politics. moved Washington to reopen the question of Taiwan's status. In short, the United States was now following a 'two Chinas' policy to justify denying Taiwan to the CCP. *A successful anti-Chiang coup might have had the same effect*... [emphasis added]

"Truman so quickly decided on using the Seventh Fleet to enforce a neutralization of Taiwan because his advisors had already discussed this contingency, *although they had linked it with Chiang's removal by a coup d'etat.* Since the war preempted the coup, the United States was now stuck protecting Chiang." [emphasis added]

So there is another interesting what-if: An anti-Chiang coup in Taiwan in 1950 before the Communists invade? According to Robert Accinelli, *Crisis and Commitment: United States Policy Toward Taiwan, 1950-1955*

"The boldest interventionist schemes came from Nitze, Dulles, and Rusk. In early May Nitze concocted a scheme that hitched a possible defensive military commitment to the establishment of a new government under Gen. Sun Li-jen, who several months earlier had become commander-in-chief of the Nationalist army. The American-educated Sun...was well-regarded in Washington for his military competence and progressive views...Nitze's proposal envisaged a coup d'etat led by Sun (but not involving the United States) to oust Chiang and his most prominent loyalists. With a new government in place and with 'veiled but vigorous' American guidance, Nitze hypothesized that Taiwan might become a show window for Asia and a platform for clandestine propaganda and subversive activities against Soviet imperialism on the mainland."

http://books.google.com/books?id=26...Fpmr&sig=FuiXInDw20NTBktx3c4-TG6Mo9s#PPA30,M1

Accinelli, though, thinks it unlikely that Sun could depose Chiang, "a master of the art of political survival and intrigue." "A US intelligence report in March 1950 dismissed the likelihood of a coup attempt by Sun. Noting that rumors of a possible coup had been in wide circulation on Taiwan in recent months and were known to Chiang's entourage, the report went on to point out that Sun was politically inexperienced and lacked influence with important military and political figures." Moreover, his authority did not extend to the air force and navy.

It should be noted that there *were* some officials who even before the Korean War suggested schemes for the "neutralization" of Taiwan *not* dependent on an anti-Chiang coup, notably John Foster Dulles and Dean Rusk (although Rusk's plan did call for the retirement of Chiang who was to be "induced"--Rusk did not say how--to turn over the administration of the island to General Sun and the provincial governor K.C. Wu). Regrettably, according to Accinelli, there is no record of how Acheson reacted to the Rusk plan. Acheson did tell the British ambassador in early June that he and his staff were searching for a way, short of military intervention, of keeping Taiwan out of Communist hands. Still, "short of military intervention" was the sticking point. In mid-June Dulles told a group of pro-Nationalist Republican senators that Truman and Acheson remained adamant on Taiwan. Moreover, within the military, the advocates of armed action had to contend with the opposition of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Even Rusk retreated somewhat with a subsequent proposal to put the Taiwan issue before the Security Council. The idea was that the Council would appoint a commission to investigate the Taiwan question. Pending the commission's report, both Communists and Nationalists were not to attack each other in the Taiwan Strait area. Rusk added that only if the USSR vetoed the creation of such a commission or if Communist forces tried to frustrate the UN initiative or invade neighboring states would the US consider military force. It is not clear whether Truman and Acheson would have agreed to such use of force, though.

Accinelli concludes (pp. 29-30) that

"Contrary to what some historians have written, the Korean crisis was a major cause for the intervention in the Taiwan Strait and more than just the occasion for it. Despite wavering support for the nonmilitary policy within the State and Defense Departments prior to the crisis, no irresistible undertow pulled government officials toward armed intervention. Although many of the motives were clearly present for such a move, the crisis was itself a significant determining factor in precipitating it...Certainly the rapidity and unanimity with which officials embraced military action would have been impossible without the Korean crisis."

One other point: As Dulles lamented to KMT officials, one of the chief arguments raised by those who opposed any further military aid to Chiang was that in case of an invasion the Nationalists would put up no real resistance, and that the American arms would therefore fall into Communist hands. [1] If the Nationalists did put up staunch resistance to a Communist invasion, this argument might be harder to make, and the political pressure to intervene might be hard to resist.

In short, the possibility that the US would have intervened militarily even without the Korean War and even without a coup against Chiang cannot IMO be dismissed entirely. For one thing, the Pentagon by June was recommending a military fact-finding mission by General MacArthur to Taiwan; it might have been difficult to prevent that from leading to a full-scale military commitment, because once the general set foot on Taiwan, the prestige of the US would be at stake. For that reason, George Kennan urged that before a military survey was sent, two conditions had to be met: the removal of Chiang from power and a commitment by the Joint Chiefs to "go the whole hog if required." (p. 27) (It is possible that by June Chiang was so desperate that he would have "voluntarily" resigned to get US backing for Taiwan; supposedly he said as much in a secret letter to Truman.) But there was certainly no decision for such intervention before the Korean crisis. The non-interventionist line was weakening but had not yet been abandoned.

[1] As repeatedly happened on the Mainland: Derk Bodde (an American professor who was a witness to the Communist takeover), describing the PLA victory parade in Beijing in 1949 said "What made it especially memorable to Americans was the fact that it was primarily a display of *American* military equipment, virtually all of it captured or obtained by bribe from Kuomintang forces in the short space of two and one half years."
 
The Kim Dynasty was greatly bolstered by the war, so we may not see them being as powerful. Kim Il-Sung would just be a normal communist leader like those of East Europe, not some kind of legendary figure.

I believe I read somewhere that the US contemplated abandoning the RoC before the Korean War. Maybe that happens.

Truman was ready to throw Chiang under the bus but PRC intervention changed all of that. No Korean War (you still have a standoff on the Peninsula) and that changes things WRT the US and the ROC.
 
The Sino-Soviets had already aligned with each other prior to the intervention of the 7th Fleet, and the decision to defend Taiwan was tied directly with the outbreak of the Korean War:

It would depend on what you mean by “aligned”. Mao had sought alliance with Stalin but was rebuffed. He wanted a lot more money and Soviet military assistance for the invasion of Taiwan but got a modest loan instead. The friendship treaty they signed in Feburary 1950 was still quite limited and was not fundamentally different than the prior treaty of the same name signed between Nationalist China and USSR in 1945. China certainly had not pledge to fight the US in Asia or host Soviet bases in China.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/10/w...ce-was-uneasy-newly-released-papers-show.html

In January Truman had said US would not fight China over Taiwan. In late June he ordered the defense of Taiwan two days after North Korea invaded the south. Sino-American relations deteriorated rapidly after that. China sent its forces across the Yalu in October.
 
It would depend on what you mean by “aligned”. Mao had sought alliance with Stalin but was rebuffed. He wanted a lot more money and Soviet military assistance for the invasion of Taiwan but got a modest loan instead. The friendship treaty they signed in Feburary 1950 was still quite limited and was not fundamentally different than the prior treaty of the same name signed between Nationalist China and USSR in 1945. China certainly had not pledge to fight the US in Asia or host Soviet bases in China.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/10/w...ce-was-uneasy-newly-released-papers-show.html

In January Truman had said US would not fight China over Taiwan. In late June he ordered the defense of Taiwan two days after North Korea invaded the south. Sino-American relations deteriorated rapidly after that. China sent its forces across the Yalu in October.


Perhaps this sets the stage for an earlier US-China rapprochement.
 
The Korean War was a major catalyst for the United States military buildup in the 1950s. It was an arms race that even Stalin realized that the USSR would lose. Whether the Truman could have convinced Congress to make such a large financial commitment in such a short amount of time is an unresolved question.

Stalin miscalculated America's intervention in Korea. At one point, he was ready to throw Kim Sung to the roadside if the Chinese couldn't have been convinced to join the fray. Mao allowed himself to be maneuvered into coming to North Korea's aid. Stalin figured that Chinese intervention would truly alienate the Chinese from the Americans. It took some nerve for Stalin to say to Mao "You intervene, but the USSR won't send troops" The Korean War didn't do China any favors.

The Korea War may have propelled Stalin to send his Peace Note to the West in 1952. Whether Stalin was sincere with that initiative or just trying to divide the West is another unresolved question. However, it's unlikely that the West was never going to make any deal with the Soviets that would have allowed a free united Germany in central Europe that might have swung to allying with the Soviets.

Truman may have been reelected in 1952. The Korean War wore heavily on his popularity. Many Americans couldn't understand what their country was fighting for. Losing American lives for a stalemate wasn't very popular. Vietnam proved that a decade and a half later.

Perhaps, the United States would have warmed to Mao. It's an interesting question. Mao had a love/hate relationship with Stalin. However, the conservatives in America would have been not too pleased with a reconciliation with the Red Chinese. Truman took a great loss of prestige over the loss of China, though it was Chiang that really lost it. I doubt any amount of financial aid would have saved the Kuomintang and the last thing that we needed was a land war in Asia. China would have bled us white, cause massive political upheaval at home and took our attention away from areas that we would be more likely to be successful in. Besides, the fate of China had already been decided by 1950.

Japan loses it economic boast and more Anti-Americanism is likely. The Japanese are far more troublesome in the occupation than the Germans.

Speaking of the Germans, Korea gave the United States the push to rearming West Germany. The Americans realized that war was possible and that without German manpower, the Soviets could possibly push to the Channel without all that difficulty. I'm not saying that Stalin was planning that, but the Americans no longer trusted the Soviets.
 
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