Without Chinese support, the North Koreans would surely have been defeated and annexed into South Korea. This could lead to one of two things. Either the American position in Asia is much stronger than in OTL, or the Koreans no longer see the need for US support, so there is a decline in strength in Korea. The latter seems very unlikely, as there is still the Red Chinese to worry about. I wonder how lack of North Korean support would have affected Vietnam in the later war there. Probably not much.
If Red China had been backed down from support the North Koreans because of the threat of US Nuclear attack. Would they have nerve to try again?
If Red China had been backed down from support the North Koreans because of the threat of US Nuclear attack. Would they have nerve to try again?
Nice world, and them hippie's wouldn't have the chance to have said "I told you so".Well depends. Chinese support of North Vietnam came in response from Soviet support. Both sides were trying to outdo the other at times, China gives AA weapons, Russians donate SAMs, and so on. I'd think the Chinese would be even more encourgaed to support North Vietnam.
First reason, the Americans and a united ROK already threaten China on the Yalu, no need to give the USA another base to threaten them from. Next there will be the competition issue with the USSR which I assume kept up its support of North Korea and Vietnam.
If Red China had been backed down from support the North Koreans because of the threat of US Nuclear attack. Would they have nerve to try again?
As soon as they had their own nuclear deterrent (which would probably be made an even higher priority than in OTL) I imagine they would.
So lets image in TTL that there was no Confrontation with Red China in Korea or in Vietnam.
Lets say the chinese get their bomb. Would have had a real confration on Taiwan in 60s? Insteed of Vietnam?
I could see China still getting involved with Vietnam; others have mentioned several good reasons for them intervene, and China became a nuclear power in 1964 in OTL.
One possible knock-on effect is that states probably would be even more eager to acquire nuclear weapons than OTL, since there would be a powerful and public demonstration of their deterrent value against non-nuclear states.
The PRC, in 1964 (actually October 1964), was a nuclear power like North Korea is a nuclear power today, albeit with a better design, it was 1967 before the PRC had any reasonable deliverable weapons. They had detonated a test device, but did not have a deliverable weapon. As late as the 1970's the PRC was, in nuclear terms, capable of "the last great act of defiance" relating to the United States; able to hit Japan, Tawain, & South Korea, including American bases in Japan & the ROK (and of course, Vietnam), but completely incapable of striking the CONUS. This meant the Beijing government could inflict damage on U.S. surrogates or U.S. military forces, but would expose itself to crushing counterstrikes on the PRC proper.
The PRC had sufficient deterrent to hold India at arm's length, perhaps even make the USSR think twice about a full scale invasion by the late '60s, but any deterrent vis a via the U.S. had to wait until the first, fairly primitive, PLAN sub launchable weapons. It could be argued that the PRC had only achieved any reasonable deterrent againt U.S. action in the 1990s.