How would a Kuomintang-controlled China change the Cold War?

In this timeline, the Communists are defeated in Manchuria and the Republic of China wins the Chinese Civil War.

Aside from the absence of the Korean War and the Vietnam War, how would a China aligned with the United States change the Cold War?
 
The ROC won't play second banana to the US and ends up competing with India for the status of being the head of the non alined movement.

America tolerates this because its one less power in the soviet camp and even if china annoys them at time it beats having yet another communist power, the soviets in turn resent the republic but tolerate them because its better to have an annoying neutral then a US ally at the border. China thus spends the cold war playing the two powers against each other.

By the current day its an authoritarian country with a history of corruption that is slowly clearing up, the economy in some ways isn't as strong but it has better fundamentals. Their also the primary hedgemon of east asia, and the united states and china are semi polite rivals.
 
If Mao was defeated, it would likely have happened while Stalin was still in power.

I suspect that Stalin would then proceed to fund communists in China. There's nothing the Chinese van do to stop it. Their border with the USSR, is too large.
I dont think he would invade. That essentially guarantees WW3, and he would be fighting it, alone, while is country is still devastated by WW2.

Communist China is fairly capable of forcing communism with a supportive USSR.
Koumontang China would never be able to pull that off.

The China USSR border becomes even more of a flash point than it was IOTL.

Constant border skirmishes, or WW1 styles trench borders stretch its span.

China would not be Japan, or Korea, but it would not be India either.
India has a large communist party, no border with the USSR, and an enemy that has border friction with the OITL communists.

China, in this scenario, would at the least disappear anyone in a communist party. The communists nearly beat them in a civil war, and I dont believe the strife would fully end.

There's a decent chance that the US will actively work to help industrialize and empower China, to hurt the USSR by proxy.
The Korean war, never happens here.
The war in Vietnam is much harder on the North without easy access to supplies.
Japan, is less important to American eyes.

There's no telling precisely what the USSR would do about this. It might put them enough on edge to do something stupid.
Domino theory, in this scenario, isnt a thing for the US, but in the same way, the USSR, isnt expanding their buffer, they are instead, being surrounded.
 
If Mao was defeated, it would likely have happened while Stalin was still in power.

I suspect that Stalin would then proceed to fund communists in China. There's nothing the Chinese van do to stop it. Their border with the USSR, is too large.
They are more likely to fund communists in Japan instead and cause Japan to turn red, however this would also cause a complete and utter destruction of the USSR in the long term after Japan and Poland democratizes and Russia would be alone in the end of Cold War with no North Korea, we might have a Russia-Iran axis.
 
A "opposition" China is Russia's nightmare. Whatever the differences with Mao, he had no patron except Russia and until the 60s China was simply in no position to piss off the USSR. Assume Chiang wins, he is going to be heavily dependent upon the USA for a long time, and is not going to try and become the leader of the "neutralist" world. India had the luxury of not having any serious threats bordering it for a long time, Pakistan was (and is) shambolic and weak/smaller and until nukes arrived a limited threat. China, even after they took over Tibet, was conveniently on the other side of the largest mountain range in the world, again a non-issue until Mr Atom arrives. A China without a patron next to the USSR is Finland on a larger scale, they can't piss off the big bully next door without consequences they don't want.

SEATO now includes China, so you have some US bases in China as well as listening posts etc. How would you like to be a Soviet air defense person trying to figure out how to defend against US bombers based in China, and also when the first IRBMs come in. On top of the OTL threats from CONUS and Europe. Imagine the Chinese Army with decent weapons and training in the 50s, or at least a significant part of it. Sure Stalin might very well do his best to stir the pot, but if the KMT has won and has a central government, with US backing this won't get far. Japan won't go red. Period. Given all that wet stuff between the USSR and Japan, and no presence there unlike in Germany, there is only so much the USSR can do and they did their best OTL and got nowhere.

The USSR can live with a non-communist weak/warlord China. An anticommunist China aligned with the USA with a functional government, vodka consumption goes up among the Soviet leadership (or is that ASB).
 
They are more likely to fund communists in Japan instead and cause Japan to turn red, however this would also cause a complete and utter destruction of the USSR in the long term after Japan and Poland democratizes and Russia would be alone in the end of Cold War with no North Korea, we might have a Russia-Iran axis.
The chance of Japan turning red after ww2 are next to nil, the US had the place locked down
 
If Mao was defeated, it would likely have happened while Stalin was still in power.

I suspect that Stalin would then proceed to fund communists in China. There's nothing the Chinese van do to stop it. Their border with the USSR, is too large.
I dont think he would invade. That essentially guarantees WW3, and he would be fighting it, alone, while is country is still devastated by WW2.

Communist China is fairly capable of forcing communism with a supportive USSR.
Koumontang China would never be able to pull that off.

The China USSR border becomes even more of a flash point than it was IOTL.

Constant border skirmishes, or WW1 styles trench borders stretch its span.

China would not be Japan, or Korea, but it would not be India either.
India has a large communist party, no border with the USSR, and an enemy that has border friction with the OITL communists.

China, in this scenario, would at the least disappear anyone in a communist party. The communists nearly beat them in a civil war, and I dont believe the strife would fully end.

There's a decent chance that the US will actively work to help industrialize and empower China, to hurt the USSR by proxy.
The Korean war, never happens here.
The war in Vietnam is much harder on the North without easy access to supplies.
Japan, is less important to American eyes.

There's no telling precisely what the USSR would do about this. It might put them enough on edge to do something stupid.
Domino theory, in this scenario, isnt a thing for the US, but in the same way, the USSR, isnt expanding their buffer, they are instead, being surrounded.
Would he or his successors continue to do it if ROC develops nukes?
 
Would he or his successors continue to do it if ROC develops nukes?

China's going to want Nuclear Weapons, but the Soviets won't be sharing any information with them TTL. I wonder who'll assist China. Israel perhaps? The knock-on effects there would be significant.

The USSR has likely detached Manchuria and Xinjiang from China.
 
China's going to want Nuclear Weapons, but the Soviets won't be sharing any information with them TTL. I wonder who'll assist China. Israel perhaps? The knock-on effects there would be significant.

The USSR has likely detached Manchuria and Xinjiang from China.

With the Republic of China in the western camp by necessity, USSR is now truly surrounded by enemies!
This makes for a much tenser cold war which eventually culminates in a global nuclear war!

The end!

I want someone to refute me if possible!
Position of USSR is much weaker making MAD a much more likely scenario.
 
With the Republic of China in the western camp by necessity, USSR is now truly surrounded by enemies!
This makes for a much tenser cold war which eventually culminates in a global nuclear war!

The end!

I want someone to refute me if possible!
Position of USSR is much weaker making MAD a much more likely scenario.

The USSR was surrounded by enemies after the Sino-Soviet split, yet there was no World War.


With a Soviet Manchuria, Soviet Mongolia, Soviet East Turkestan, and Soviet North Korea, Moscow will have plenty of buffer space between itself and China.
 
Would North Korea still be communist? OTL the only reason why they managed to survive the Korean War was because China was willing to bail them out, with a China that is at best hostile but neutral the Soviets would need to intervene directly or exercise enough control to stop North Korea from starting the war in the first place.
 
A "opposition" China is Russia's nightmare. Whatever the differences with Mao, he had no patron except Russia and until the 60s China was simply in no position to piss off the USSR. Assume Chiang wins, he is going to be heavily dependent upon the USA for a long time, and is not going to try and become the leader of the "neutralist" world. India had the luxury of not having any serious threats bordering it for a long time, Pakistan was (and is) shambolic and weak/smaller and until nukes arrived a limited threat. China, even after they took over Tibet, was conveniently on the other side of the largest mountain range in the world, again a non-issue until Mr Atom arrives. A China without a patron next to the USSR is Finland on a larger scale, they can't piss off the big bully next door without consequences they don't want.

SEATO now includes China, so you have some US bases in China as well as listening posts etc. How would you like to be a Soviet air defense person trying to figure out how to defend against US bombers based in China, and also when the first IRBMs come in. On top of the OTL threats from CONUS and Europe. Imagine the Chinese Army with decent weapons and training in the 50s, or at least a significant part of it. Sure Stalin might very well do his best to stir the pot, but if the KMT has won and has a central government, with US backing this won't get far. Japan won't go red. Period. Given all that wet stuff between the USSR and Japan, and no presence there unlike in Germany, there is only so much the USSR can do and they did their best OTL and got nowhere.

The USSR can live with a non-communist weak/warlord China. An anticommunist China aligned with the USA with a functional government, vodka consumption goes up among the Soviet leadership (or is that ASB).

Stalin was perfectly willing to discard CCP if it served his interests, and he did abandoned them by signing off the 1945 Sino-Soviet treaty, in exchange for KMT's guarantee to Soviet interests in Manchuria. Same logic could be applied to here, the Berlin crisis would reach its height in 1948 and Stalin in absolutely no circumstance would want to escalate hostility in China.

At the same time, the US posture to KMT, as shown by Marshall's 1946 ceasefire blunder that terminated all US military aid to Nanking until late 1947, can best be described as indifference, and by 1949 when the China White Paper was published, it turned into an open contempt towards the Chiang regime. KMT in turn, had they won the war despite of the American embargo, would have no desire nor reason to serve as an US agent of influence, let alone the fact that they already recognized the Soviet zone of influence in Manchuria with no room for American troops there.
 
A key driver for the direction taken by a KMT-China would how they won the civil war.

Say for instance, this was a bitter civil war, where the communists fought long and hard with lots of support from the USSR. Then we would likely see a South Korea on steroids with the USSR-China border as one long DMZ. In the case of a Vietnam or Korea being divided or going communist, then a Chinese invasion in the 50s or 60s seems likely - with the tacit blessing of NATO. While China would never join NATO, then it would certainly collaborate against the "common enemy". USSR would face a potential two-front WW3 and military planning would be a lot more defensive. China industrializes/opens in the 1970s and democracy emerges in the 1980s. Also, the Soviet Union breaks slightly down earlier because of increased military spending.

Say on the other hand that fueled by success in WW2 and maybe an early death for Mao, then the Communist maintains the united front with the KMT and vice versa. Then we would likely see a China leading the non-aligned block together with India. Nationalist movements in Africa and Asia would take inspiration from KMT, which would be seen as a Diet Communism. Assuming this United Front coalition holds and gradually rolls over into something that looks like the Mexican PRI, one could imagine even earlier industrialization and democratization.

In both cases, since we don't get crazy stuff like Mao's cultural revolution and general central planning value destruction, we are talking about a serious bonus to world population, commerce and thus development. Expect technologies to appear 3-7 years earlier. Population to be some 100m higher by 2020 and world GDP some 10-15%.
 
I am curious about how Japanese-Chinese relations would be here; even with the Kuomintang in power, the Chinese people won't forget the Japanese military's atrocities against them during WW2.

What effect would Kuomintang China have on the Japanese bubble economy of the 1980s?
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
In both cases, since we don't get crazy stuff like Mao's cultural revolution and general central planning value destruction, we are talking about a serious bonus to world population, commerce and thus development. Expect technologies to appear 3-7 years earlier. Population to be some 100m higher by 2020 and world GDP some 10-15%.
Expect climate change, pollution, and sea trash to be far worse as well.
 
Expect climate change, pollution, and sea trash to be far worse as well.

Not really. A China more like either South Korea or Mexico would likely have much less pollution due to a combination of increased prosperity and accountability.

As for co2 emissions, this would depend on whether China goes for nuclear power like France or coal in their electrification. Coal is most likely for a couple of reasons, so chances are that they would be up, but hardly on a level where you would expect a noticeable change. Again, the increased wealth in SE Asia would likely increase the ability of the region to respond to any potential adverse effects.
 
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