PC: CCP "pre-infiltrates" Taiwan, taking it over in '49 or '50

would early infiltration have made a communist Taiwan likely?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 20.8%
  • No

    Votes: 19 79.2%

  • Total voters
    24

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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WI Mao started to send some CCP cadre to infiltrate Taiwan from shortly after the intent for Taiwan to go back to China is announced in 1943?

I imagine he could send a set of very low key underground agents during the war to set up a clandestine organization.

Meanwhile he could make an effort to aim propaganda at Taiwanese soldiers in the Japanese army and other Taiwanese working in the mainland, especially anybody who becomes a prisoner of the communists.

With the wars ending the CCP can pick up the pace of organizing hideouts and bases on the island. Some undercover agents serving in the KMT army and administration could be sent. For most of the civil war the network could be a back burner effort while the main fighting is in the northeast and north. However, the CCP could try to capitalize on the feb 1947 incident.

However as we get to late 48 and early 49 as the main fighting moves to the Yangtze and guerrilla bases and activity in south China are reinforced, Mao invests even more in CCP in Taiwan, making a decent size rural base.

With all this set up could the CCP conquer Taiwan along with the rest of the southern provinces in the summer and autumn of '49?

If not that, could he have at least a strong enough guerrila movement going and possibly more navy defectors and have this result in a successful cross straits invasion before June 1950?
 
How would Mao be able to send any CCP cadre to Taiwan? Mao has no navy that allows him to ship people to Taiwan. Prior to 1948 or so, he doesn't even have control of any ports. And Chiang was very protective of Taiwan after it was given to China in 1945. He saw it as a chance to rule a fairly developed province that did not have any existing power groups that could dispute central government control. Therfore, the chances of sending CCP cadre on Nationalist controlled shipping is very low.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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Monthly Donor
Well there was merchant traffic back and forth between Taiwan and the mainland to allow infiltration rather than an open invasion.

Fun fact however, young Lee Teng-hui on Taiwan was a communist party member for a little while in this era. See his wiki page. Not that the sympathies of this one recent college grad would have reshaped the fate of the island all by itself of course.

There might have been some underground cells of Taiwanese formerly affiliated with the Japanese Communist party who Mao might have been able to message, directly or indirectly, getting useful information on where it was most possible to operate undetected on the island.
 
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