No Yuan Shikai?

Suppose, sometime during the Xinghai Revolution, Yuan Shikai is killed somehow (maybe by an assassin?). What are the effects on China after the Revolution?
 

yourworstnightmare

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Yuan Shikai can partly be blamed for the whole warlord debacle. However I don't know if Sun-Yat-Sen and a civilian government had any future. It could just lead to some other general launching a coup. Hendryk would be able to answer this question best, but he's banned...
 
Why, Pray tell, does this come up in a thread about the Chinese Revolution?
Hendryk was generally regarded as the forum's China expert. He's been banned twice both due to his own habit of turning personal disagreements into a Jihad on his opponents' arses. First time it was gun control, second time it was MLP (a bit of Ponyspam in 'his' comic thread got him started, but even when the Ponyspam was properly confined to the Pony Thread he wasn't happy...).

So, I'd be more inclined to say Hendryk's f***ing lack of self-control.
 
Can we stop and get back on topic please? I'd like answers other than "Oh, Hendryk could do this best, but he's banned"
 

raharris1973

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...the default consequences of this are that

the Republican civilian government does have a future.

Warlordism was not well established yet and provincial, and the national assemblies were the locus of political legitimacy.

The republic would be based on in Nanjing, and Sun Yat-sen would likely be overshadowed by populist Guomindang politician Song Jiaoren, who was assasinated on Yuan's orders in OTL.

The young republic will benefit from WWI related business.

However, I do not know if it would be any more decisive than Yuan's regime in moving fast to retake Qingdao from the vulnerable Germans in 1914. Our default presumption should be that Japan still moves faster in the ATL.

There's nothing that overdetermines any type of collapse of the republic, at least in its first five years. Down the road, who knows. The Guomindang will face a more conservative opposition in parliament.

Militarized politics may come, but I would think that political instabilities and deep fissures that emerge would probably start in the civilian world, with the military possibly getting sucked in later.

Yuan was critical to many 20th century developments in China, from warlordism and the reshaping of his democratic opponents into a more conspiratorial vanguard party. Most of the mess in the country for a couple decades can be attributed to him.

Now China's not likely to be a completely shiny-happy place, if for no other reason than most places and times are not.

However, a China that is lucky in 1912, might simultaneously have democracy and stable power transfers for decades (like India from 1947 on), even while having massive poverty and stubbornly persistent social problems. And, while not inevitable, there is a decent chance of a very destructive war with Japan, and a less likely, but still possible chance of a wide-ranging communist insurgency at some point.
 
Assuming that we avoid the worst of warlordism and corruption, then the conservative opposition might lose a great deal of popular support after WWII. Victory and Reform, We didn't sacrifice millions of people just to got back to the old ways, We've done our bit for China, When's China going to do its bit for us etc etc.
 
However, I do not know if it would be any more decisive than Yuan's regime in moving fast to retake Qingdao from the vulnerable Germans in 1914. Our default presumption should be that Japan still moves faster in the ATL.

This is true, but China in 1918 will not be a state cascading into warlordism.

I am not as pessimistic about Japan as the rest of the board, who thinks that they are fated to move into all of Asia. A successful Chinese republic would have influences on anticolonialism in Southeast Asia, India, and Japanese culture and political thought. Perhaps in the OTL they lobby for a racial equality clause with Japan at Versailles.

Moreover, the 1920s were the high mark of Japanese liberalism, when despite the weakness of China the Japanese moved lightly. As the OTL Korean War showed, a reformed China could be a thoroughly capable foe; if there is, say, 15 years of stable government between 1911 and 1925, then I think Japanese militarism may not get off the ground as we know it.
 

raharris1973

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I'm not sure we disagree as much as you may think...

Originally Posted by raharris1973
However, I do not know if it would be any more decisive than Yuan's regime in moving fast to retake Qingdao from the vulnerable Germans in 1914.


Our default presumption should be that Japan still moves faster in the ATL.

ahh, Faeelin, the default presumption I was making about Japan moving faster was not that its strategic aggression that flowered in the 30s and 40s would move faster, I was simply saying the most reasonable presumption would be the Japanese, as a militarily-efficient member of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, would be likely to attack and defeat the Germans at Qingdao before the Chinese could decide on and execute a plan to do the same.

I brought up Qingdao only because a Chinese retaking of Qingdao was the opening victory of the fortunate Chinese regime in Hendryk's "Superpower Empire", which incidentally, has the same premise as the opening post of this thread. (plus I had thought of it a similar scenario I sketched out for myself before the era of the web, based on succes of the Guangxu Emperor)

This is true, but China in 1918 will not be a state cascading into warlordism.

I am not as pessimistic about Japan as the rest of the board, who thinks that they are fated to move into all of Asia.

I do not think the Japanese are fated to move into all Asia, however, I do think that in any PoD as late as 1911, and that has a Central Powers vs Entente war, Tokyo is very likely to seize German possessions in China and the Pacific, and to make the 21 Demands. As for whether they would go on to an aggressive binge in Manuchuria, China and Southeast Asia in latter decades. Unlike the generation of historians and commentators writing in the shadow of WWII, I see little necessary continuity between Japanese expansionism before the 20s and expansionism after the 20s.



A successful Chinese republic would have influences on anticolonialism in Southeast Asia, India, and Japanese culture and political thought. Perhaps in the OTL they lobby for a racial equality clause with Japan at Versailles.

This has fascinating implications, I wouldn't doubt it would affect China's neighbors. And, had China been stable instead of being a chaotic basket-case, I could see Japan not being immune from some influences or exchange of ideas with China. Japan would have a lead in most material aspects of modernization, and would be quite a proud nation, but the gulf between a stable China and Japan as of 1925 would likely not be so great as between the Japan and China of OTL 1931.

I actually wonder what Chinese diplomats did say about racial equality at OTL's Versailles. While I think they could be quite supportive of the idea, if Qingdao is a bone of contention that the Japanese are trying to either hold on to permanently or for purposes of heavy-handed bargaining, it will harm the coherence of any Sino-Japanese anti-racist front.

I agree a successful republic means alot for anticolonialism. Heck, the attitude of truly independent, republican China towards the Russian Civil War could be interesting too.

---some bloke's idea of a reformist generation is also pretty interesting too.

---and if my thread themes seem to have touched on Japanese expansionism, its just because switching around and playing with the strategies of empires and major nations is my shtick in AH.

Moreover, the 1920s were the high mark of Japanese liberalism, when despite the weakness of China the Japanese moved lightly. As the OTL Korean War showed, a reformed China could be a thoroughly capable foe; if there is, say, 15 years of stable government between 1911 and 1925, then I think Japanese militarism may not get off the ground as we know it.


Very possible - as I remarked before, there's a decent chance of a sino-japanese war, but it is not inevitable.
 

raharris1973

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shtudmuffin

..for a thorough answer to your original query, see "Superpower Empire". It has your premise of Yuan Shikai's elimination as a starting point, but that timeline it China prospers through a reformist monarchism. It is a plausible and very entertaining timeline, although I think republicanism had a better shot at legitimacy in China by 1911 than monarchy did.
 
I was simply saying the most reasonable presumption would be the Japanese, as a militarily-efficient member of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, would be likely to attack and defeat the Germans at Qingdao before the Chinese could decide on and execute a plan to do the same.

Apologies if I was not clear here. My point was more that I think Japan would still take it in ATL, since the Chinese didn't make more than tentative moves to seize it in 1914.

Japan would have a lead in most material aspects of modernization, and would be quite a proud nation, but the gulf between a stable China and Japan as of 1925 would likely not be so great as between the Japan and China of OTL 1931.

The other thing we are learning lately is that China saw surprising economic growth during the Warlord period. It makes you wonder what the place would look like in an ATL without it, but rapid economic growth does not seem improbable.

As OTL's Korean War showed, the Chinese became a powerful nation fairly quickly once the nation was reunited under a centralized regime.

I actually wonder what Chinese diplomats did say about racial equality at OTL's Versailles. While I think they could be quite supportive of the idea, if Qingdao is a bone of contention that the Japanese are trying to either hold on to permanently or for purposes of heavy-handed bargaining, it will harm the coherence of any Sino-Japanese anti-racist front.

The Chinese supported it, but 1) were too busy pushing for the cessation of qingdao and more importantly 2) were already in the middle of the warlord era.
 
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