As we all know, the Republic of China is probably the world's largest economy and is a thriving democracy, but what if it had somehow fallen to Communism (it had a prominent Communist Party which allied with the KMT in the "United Front")? What PODs might be needed for such a Communist China? The left-wing of the KMT not winning out in the post-Sun Yat-Sen power struggle (and co-opting large segments of the CCP)? What would a Communist China look like? How would it adapt Communism to an agrarian country (as Communism is meant to be adopted by industrialized countries)
DBWI: Communist China?
- Thread starter Whiteshore
- Start date
I don't see them taking power. The Chinese Communists were, and still are, a quintessentially urban movement in a predominantly rural country and most of their base was absorbed into the KMT. They're more of a pressure group lobbying for an anti-imperialist foreign policy than an independent party these days.
If it did happen, it might make Communism more of an issue in the US, with some canard along the lines of "Who failed China?" being used as a rhetorical weapon to block the careers of numerous political and government figures.
What PODs do you see leading to a Communist China? I've read this timeline called "The East is Red" where the right-wing of the KMT wins out in the post-Sun Yat-Sen power struggle and cracks down on the Communists, who go underground and eventually take over China after TTL's WW2.
if they engaged the rural areas a lot better then i think they would have had a chance, i mean it was no secret that their was a lot of government dissatisfaction at the time. Even then they wouldn't have had the firepower to overthrow the nationals at the time.
Either way its hard to predict really, i mean the nationals were a dictatorship at the time and it did take time to transition to democracy so maybe the same thing happens but with the communists instead.
Either way its hard to predict really, i mean the nationals were a dictatorship at the time and it did take time to transition to democracy so maybe the same thing happens but with the communists instead.
BigBlueBox
Banned
That was the one in which the KMT and CCP had a long civil war which was interrupted by a Japanese invasion, followed by the continuation of the civil war with CCP victory and the KMT fleeing to Taiwan right?
That is correct, and how likely do you think was it's POD of Jiang Jieshi instead of Wang Jingwei (who somehow betrays China in that timeline) taking over the KMT after Sun Yat-Sen died?
The only way this could happen is if the KMT somehow got weakened, like say by a large-scale war with Japan, or the western powers continuing to chip away at China like with the Qing.
The former would require a major shift, though not necessarily ASB or requiring a pre-1900 PoD, in Japanese strategic planning, which prioritized naval spending over the army (Korea notwithstanding). The latter is something European economies could not afford after WWI, and their financial obligations to America (which has always upheld Open Door) made resumption of those policies during the economic prosperity of the 20s an unwise prospect.
Alternatively, Mao and the CPP could have expanded underground with Soviet assistance, and later on launched a large-scale uprising with Soviet support. The former isn't quite impossible or even improbable, landowners and big business held a problematically-large amount of clout in the early days of the KMT, but the latter is rather...contrived. For one thing, large-scale intervention in China would necessitate transferring assets from European Russia to Siberia, and something Stalin would never have risked, and it would have provoked Japan and America. With the threat of Germany to the west, even if it was no longer the Great Power it once was, the Soviets could not have afforded major war with an emerging Great Power like China, and a full-fledged one (Japan) likely backed by at least one other Great Power (America). And Stalin knew it.
Mao never really had a chance, barring an...improbable, series of PoDs.
The former would require a major shift, though not necessarily ASB or requiring a pre-1900 PoD, in Japanese strategic planning, which prioritized naval spending over the army (Korea notwithstanding). The latter is something European economies could not afford after WWI, and their financial obligations to America (which has always upheld Open Door) made resumption of those policies during the economic prosperity of the 20s an unwise prospect.
Alternatively, Mao and the CPP could have expanded underground with Soviet assistance, and later on launched a large-scale uprising with Soviet support. The former isn't quite impossible or even improbable, landowners and big business held a problematically-large amount of clout in the early days of the KMT, but the latter is rather...contrived. For one thing, large-scale intervention in China would necessitate transferring assets from European Russia to Siberia, and something Stalin would never have risked, and it would have provoked Japan and America. With the threat of Germany to the west, even if it was no longer the Great Power it once was, the Soviets could not have afforded major war with an emerging Great Power like China, and a full-fledged one (Japan) likely backed by at least one other Great Power (America). And Stalin knew it.
Mao never really had a chance, barring an...improbable, series of PoDs.
A founding member of the Chinese Communist Party, and later Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from 1930 until his death at some point in the late 30s to early 40s. The records aren't clear on this, at least the publicly-available records of the RoC that is.
So, what about the POD of the right-wing of the KMT winning out over the left-wing as opposed to what happened historically?
Also, what do you think would have happened to Zhou Enlai ITTL? Historically, he was initially part of the Chinese Communist Party but was part of the faction of the CCP co-opted by the left-wing of the Kuomintang and became leader of China after Wang Jingwei died in 1948.
BigBlueBox
Banned
I'm not sure, but I do remember that that TL had Wang Jingwei become a Japanese collaborator, die after being injured, and have his tomb destroyed and his body burned by Jiang Jieshi. I feel the author might have had something against Wang Jingwei.
Korea would be divided if communists took control of china. Korea has become first world top democracy, but with communist china.. Would have been impossible.