No China Incident. KMT Policies From 1939

Waive a way the Japanese invasion of China. Leave Japanese policy only a little worse than the Europeans and their policies in China.

What would be the core policies of the KMT into the 1940s? We have to remember two points: 1. the Nazi government was friendly to the KMT through 1937 & had a robust military mission there & other connections. 2. The USSR had not given the post 1928 Communits significant support. They did not understand mao & his strategy & had largely dismissed the isolated Communist state established post Long March.

My first guess is the KMT continues its 'Anti Bandit' campaigns. That is forcing recalcitrant warlords into compliance, and preparing for a eventual showdown with Maos group.

Second guess is a effort to roll back the Unequal Treaties and reduce the independent foreign Concessions in Chinas cities. With the Europeans embroiled in another fratricidal war they can leverage their German connection into a concession to bring the Concession enclaves closer to a end.

Third guess is a more radical move after France falls with the KMT military strong arming the weakened French, British, and the others into abandoning the Concessions and the old treaties.

Either the second or third would be immensely popular with the population of the affected provinces, gaining some support for the KMT government.

The risk with the third course is it makes China a defacto ally of Germany, leading to military action the KMT can't cope with. Perhaps with Japan forcing the way with another action similar to the Twenty One Demands of the Great War era.
 
do Germany and USSR cooperate earlier? or not have cold war relations 1933-1939? due to expanding German-Chinese ties?

anything that even resembles an alliance between the three, counterpoint to the colonial powers (including in that latter camp Japan) would ... not sure of a word? ... reverberate?
 
My assumption is that the Second Sino-Japanese War is being waived off, in other words Japan still invades and conquers Manchuria but does not attempt the conquest of China itself. And the Sino-German relationship was birthed under the Weimar and quashed by Hitler who assumed Japan was a stronger ally versus the USSR. If you waive away the conquest of Manchuria then I think you have given the KMT a better window but one beset with obstacles laid down by the colonial powers, and I think you butterfly American sympathy that is taken for granted.

Although I get to the same place from a different path, I think that given European and American weakness as the Depression sets in certainly would embolden Japan to carve off Manchuria and they might get away with it but by 1937 the European powers absent a resurgent threatening Germany certainly might dissuade Japan from further conquest no matter how itchy the Army. At bottom I think you need things more settled in Europe to restrain Japan. I am dubious Japan holds back once war kicks off in Europe, or even the clouds, and that gets us on track for OTL. And I am doubly dubious the Europeans are worth much once the Japanese arrive, they essentially humiliated them in Shanghai and openly asserted that a new Master was in town. Again, I think one needs to butterfly the Second World War.

That said, I think the KMT works to secure power in any scenario, we can argue that to Chiang the Communists are just more bandits, he should be able to leverage German aid and possibly American, to reform his army and unify China under the KMT, basically a German army and an American air force, more American money and material but perhaps German industrial development, beginning in munitions and arms. (This is how I have very not-Nazi Germany and ROC forging links that butterfly forward). And I think the power of the Communists is often dismissed as it applies to the peasantry and working class Chinese, the KMT would need to pursue land reforms to truly prevail and generally reform the lot to ever build a lasting nation. Even without much Soviet support the Communists had far more staying power because they did better in "hearts and minds."

So long as the Soviets do not fully support Mao or a breakaway Soviet client-state, possible with a more stable surviving Weimar-Soviet "alliance" (?), the KMT should eventually put China back together, assuming Chiang is not sabotaged by the British and French (and perhaps Italians) who rather like a weak divided China in this era. Thus I agree, the KMT's real goal is to do as Japan did, shake off the unequal treaties and regain her sovereignty, dignity and place at the table as more than just the coolie. It is that goal that runs China afoul of all the powers that can help her. And I am dubious that the KMT can achieve that with the Second World War and survive. I think China needs a weird realignment of the Great Powers or to go into the Soviet camp, oddly as a Soviet client Chiang might achieve all his aims but the risk of war with Japan goes through the roof. Can one tell I find China beset with enemies in this era? How odd that Weimar Germany was its last best hope so long as America found Japan repugnant due to its invasion! One needs more butterflies to get a KMT ROC.
 
Thus I agree, the KMT's real goal is to do as Japan did, shake off the unequal treaties and regain her sovereignty, dignity and place at the table as more than just the coolie. It is that goal that runs China afoul of all the powers that can help her. And I am dubious that the KMT can achieve that with the Second World War and survive.

You are suggesting the KMT will have to take a cautious course & use the politics of WWII to leverage small increments of the unequal treaties away? One opportunity is after the fall of France, use a careful carrot & stick approach to get some concessions from the desperate British.

A non Axis aligned Japan is a strong incentive for the KMT to remain circumspect. They can't afford Japan acting as a Allied nation by trying to eject the European soldiers from Chinas cities.
 
Considering the corner the communists had been backed into by 1936, I'd buy them being crushed outright. At the start of the war with Japan, they were absolutely marginal in terms of armed forces; IIRC about 3% of Chinese soldiers were communists. I doubt the warlords would prove the intractable, mortal threat the Communists were in the long run.
 
..so yet another 'anti bandit' campaign vs the Communist enclave.

I wonder how much actual assistance Germany could have provided to influence KMT decisions 1937-41? My take is not enough to create a Chinese ally and encourage the KMT to act rashly vs the Allied nations.
 
The price for China-Japan peace--even in the absence of any "incidents" like the Marco Polo Bridge Incident and even if the extremists in the Japanese Army could be curbed--would be Chiang's recognizing Manchukuo and agreeing to a dominant economic role for Japan in China proper. There did seem a time in the mid-1930'swhen this was possible https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/dM3HAoVyc5M/8OR70VbeMW4J but the problem is that even as authoritarian a regime as Chiang's could not ignore public opinion entirely, and by 1937 it was overwhelmingly against further concessions to Japan.
 
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