DBWI-Zhenbao conflict doesn't go nuclear

In 1969, a dispute over the island of Zhenbao on the Sino-Soviet border escalated into a nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. What if the conflict was resolved before it went nuclear? How do we make this happen, and what happens after that?
 
Well, for one, less than 60% of the world's total population would live in the southern hemisphere like right now. The fallout was, as we know, on horrific levels - I won't even go into the global famine that struck the world a few years after.
Second there'll be a lot more democratic governments - from the Japanese fiefdoms in the South Pacific to the notorious Boer Republic of South Africa, the world we live in only has a handful of democracies, all nominal at most. Even Papua has some problems.
It'll be a better world I guess.
 
In 1969, a dispute over the island of Zhenbao on the Sino-Soviet border escalated into a nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. What if the conflict was resolved before it went nuclear? How do we make this happen.....?

For one thing, we'd have to butterfly away the plane crash which killed both Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin. That crash opened the door for Mikhail Suslov to take over as Soviet premier, and it was Suslov's belligerence which escalated the Sino-Soviet border dispute into all-out nuclear war.
 
It is quite generous to call it a nuclear "exchange" - China barely had its first bombs out and the USSR managed to recover after the war. In contrast, China imploded and has been a failed state ever since (or rather, a number of failed states).

Avoiding it would probably be easy, I don't think a nuclear war was a likely result to begin with. It took the combined insanity of the most belligerent Soviet and Chinese leaders of the time to achieve it. Perhaps it would butterfly the Indo-Pakistani nuclear war of 1977, considering that it was the effectiveness of the Soviet first strike that prompted Pakistan to try a similar nuclear curbstomp - as we know, that didn't end well for either of them. I think it was that war which really led to Asia going down the gutter.

(OOC: I was having quite a bit of trouble keeping to the canon established by zeppelinair considering China barely had any WMDs in 1969 and the war would have been quite the curbstomp. Even so, I can't justify 60% in the south.)
 
Well, for one, less than 60% of the world's total population would live in the southern hemisphere like right now. The fallout was, as we know, on horrific levels - I won't even go into the global famine that struck the world a few years after.
Second there'll be a lot more democratic governments - from the Japanese fiefdoms in the South Pacific to the notorious Boer Republic of South Africa, the world we live in only has a handful of democracies, all nominal at most. Even Papua has some problems.
It'll be a better world I guess.

that has a lot more to do with the growth of the global souths population and the complete destruction of china then the fallout.

That said I think we would end up losing nam if the the soviets and Chinese not had their war.

When that happened it completly cut off the north from supplies, that gave the south enough time to recover and get back into gear. I don't know what would have happened to the country if we had lost.
 
It is quite generous to call it a nuclear "exchange" - China barely had its first bombs out and the USSR managed to recover after the war. In contrast, China imploded and has been a failed state ever since (or rather, a number of failed states).

The Soviet Union may have recovered, but its days as a superpower were over. And God help you if you have the misfortune to be born in the Russian Far East.

Avoiding it would probably be easy, I don't think a nuclear war was a likely result to begin with. It took the combined insanity of the most belligerent Soviet and Chinese leaders of the time to achieve it. Perhaps it would butterfly the Indo-Pakistani nuclear war of 1977, considering that it was the effectiveness of the Soviet first strike that prompted Pakistan to try a similar nuclear curbstomp - as we know, that didn't end well for either of them. I think it was that war which really led to Asia going down the gutter.

On the bright side, the loss of Soviet and Chinese backing meant that South Korea was able to crush Kim Il-Sung's regime and reunify the Korean peninsula.
 
One of the stranger aspects is the huge number of Chinese that immigrated to Japan, Europe, and the United States, Asian culture began to greatly influence pop culture. Just consider how terribly racist Breakfast at Tiffany's seems with Mickey Rooney as a Chinese person or Flower Drum Song with its Line that "all white people look alike.." and that was in the same decade. Would Bruce Lee have risen to the heights of stardom in the the 1970s? Would people have watched Jackie Chan action-comedies in the 1980s? Would children be reading manhua starting in the 1990s?...,Probably Not
 
Rather than being overthrown and dying in the aftermath Mao would continue to lead China. He probably dies sometime in the 1970s, but who would be his successor? I would guess either Defense Minister Lin Biao (who was rumored to be one of the Mao's closet allies)or Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai. How China would look afterwards would depend on who won out (Zhou was far less radical than Lin), but the Cultural Revolution probably ends in the late 1970s-early 1980s and China goes back to being a rigidly controlled society cut off from the outside world.
 
One of the stranger aspects is the huge number of Chinese that immigrated to Japan, Europe, and the United States, Asian culture began to greatly influence pop culture. Just consider how terribly racist Breakfast at Tiffany's seems with Mickey Rooney as a Chinese person or Flower Drum Song with its Line that "all white people look alike.." and that was in the same decade. Would Bruce Lee have risen to the heights of stardom in the the 1970s? Would people have watched Jackie Chan action-comedies in the 1980s? Would children be reading manhua starting in the 1990s?...,Probably Not


Jackie Chan would never have become a star he was with out the war. The 1969 war killed off 90% of chinas population, this disaster and the pathos it brought is what made the Kung Fu genre so popular, during the 1970s and eventally led to the rise of asian and asian americans in americas 80s action movies.


Jackie Chan is a funny man and a skilled martial artist but what made him an award winning star was his pathos. Would preditor be nearly as good with out Jackies anti russian rant?

Would Die hard 2 have nearly the same emotional weight with out Jackie's speech about losing your home? With out those roles Jackie never would have won his Oscer.
 
that has a lot more to do with the growth of the global souths population and the complete destruction of china then the fallout.

That said I think we would end up losing nam if the the soviets and Chinese not had their war.

When that happened it completly cut off the north from supplies, that gave the south enough time to recover and get back into gear. I don't know what would have happened to the country if we had lost.

Most likely, the North would have ground down America's will to fight and conquered the south after we pulled out.
 
Well, for one, less than 60% of the world's total population would live in the southern hemisphere like right now. The fallout was, as we know, on horrific levels - I won't even go into the global famine that struck the world a few years after.
Second there'll be a lot more democratic governments - from the Japanese fiefdoms in the South Pacific to the notorious Boer Republic of South Africa, the world we live in only has a handful of democracies, all nominal at most. Even Papua has some problems.
It'll be a better world I guess.

Europe did fairly well in cmparison. There were increased cancer rates put down to the fallout from Western Russia of course. When the tepretures fell between 1 and 4 degrees that affected agriculture world wide. Rationing was introduced right across Europe and there were a lot of thigs we just couldn't have growing up in the 1980s. Things as basic as milk and bread were very expensive well into the 1980s after the rationing system was relaxed. It was difficult for most people but we did not experience the mass starvation seen in much of Africa and most of Asia which was really hit hard. Vietnam got more aid than most, prversely becausr of the lage scale deploymennt of the US military for the Vietnam War. Which pretty much ended after the Sino-Sviet nuclear exchnge. South and North Vietnam remaied seperate nationsand niether can be considered democracies. South Vietnam does have elections so can in rtheory be classed as democratic. But the political and econmic corruption is rampnt with power going to the party who can buy the most votes. And every few years the military take power in a coup and even this "demcracy" gets suspended for five years or so. As with the present military Junta led by General Lam.

Korea is not too differet thugh forcibly reunified in 1978 following the invsion by the US and South Korea. The military have ruled the cuntry almost permanntly apart from a brief experiment with democratic rule from 1998 - 2000. General Jong-Un is the head of the current Junta having overthrown the previous regieme of General Pak (2000 - 2012) like most South Koren military regiemes there are frequent crackdowns on food protests and democracy activists.

This is pretty typival of much of Asi.

Large parts of China remains under the conrtrol of warlords with a weak residual central government in Wuxi where the remnants of the pre war government ended up after the nuclear war Nobody considers their claims to authority maning very much at all.

The Soviet Union broke up after the exchange fallling into the bloody Second Russian Civil War 1970 - 1976. Russia itself gained a reasonable amount of stability when vladimmir Putin tok power in 2001. Uder him there has been considerable recovery. Ukraine, Georgia and the Baltic Staes graitated toward the EU. East of the Urals it is a mess. The US considered occupying parts of Siberia and did deploy troops to the coast during the late 1970s (I think it was 1976 - 1978) mostly to secure remaining Soviet nuclear weapons in the Soviet Far East after the Second |civil War and to provide humanitarin aid. The mission ws regarded as being a limited success and the area was left to he local Siberian warlords. Nobody has bothered to intervene in Siberia again.
 
Jackie Chan would never have become a star he was with out the war. The 1969 war killed off 90% of chinas population, this disaster and the pathos it brought is what made the Kung Fu genre so popular, during the 1970s and eventally led to the rise of asian and asian americans in americas 80s action movies.


Jackie Chan is a funny man and a skilled martial artist but what made him an award winning star was his pathos. Would preditor be nearly as good with out Jackies anti russian rant?

Would Die hard 2 have nearly the same emotional weight with out Jackie's speech about losing your home? With out those roles Jackie never would have won his Oscer.

Those are some great examples. I would point to Jackie Chan's role in Goodbye Nanjing , where he clearly showed his acting chops with Robin Williams, which earned Oscars for him, Steven Spielberg and Robin Williams,...

Also Chow Yun Fat as Jango Fett in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones was epic. Who else could've balanced the pathos and anger of Boba Fett's father being part of a dying race, seeing cloning as the only means to save his people,...
 
Jackie Chan would never have become a star he was with out the war. The 1969 war killed off 90% of chinas population, this disaster and the pathos it brought is what made the Kung Fu genre so popular, during the 1970s and eventally led to the rise of asian and asian americans in americas 80s action movies.


Jackie Chan is a funny man and a skilled martial artist but what made him an award winning star was his pathos. Would preditor be nearly as good with out Jackies anti russian rant?

Would Die hard 2 have nearly the same emotional weight with out Jackie's speech about losing your home? With out those roles Jackie never would have won his Oscer.

That's all rather ironic, seeing as how Jackie Chan came from Hong Kong, which was untouched by the Russians.
 
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