Plausibility check: RoC holds Chinese coastline

[Midas]

Is there any conceivable way the RoC can still lose most of the Civil War, but the RoC ends up holding more of the Chinese mainland- perhaps around the coast? I'm thinking mostly around Hainan, but bonus points if you can work a situation around where they occupy territories roughly analogous to the coastal-regions the Japanese held, (parts of) the Liaodong peninsula and (parts of) the Shandong Peninsula?

It doesn't have to be all, but any comments on something beyond Hainan is what I'm aiming for (there's a few threads on that I read). You can use any PoD really, I'm pretty open, so long as the RoC are still forced to make some sort of retreat. Any foreign powers aiding them is also welcome.

If this is totally ASB haha then well, just say so!

 

[Cook]

If this is totally ASB haha then well, just say so!

Pretty much since by definition the Civil War would not be over.

The only reason the Nationalists were able to survive in Taiwan was because the Communists had no way of getting to them.

 

[CalBear]

Short answer is no. The CCP had the numbers and the ROC didn't have the firepower to counter the imbalance.

It is questionable if even the U.S. at its WW II peak could have held the China coastline without liberal use of nuclear weapons (even then it would probably have been touch and go). As has often been proved quantity has a quality all its own.

 

[Typo]

No, the Chinese coastline is not inherently geographically featured with better defenses which would be needed for the KMT to hold on to it.

 

[Midas]

Hm, this is good and direct. With some American assistance say, could it not even hold a few coastal cities or any favorable bays? Or were they just far too out of the war by this point. I certainly don't mean hold a continuous strip of territory around the Chinese coast, more like an increase in the smaller islands they own around Fujian iotl, perhaps some minor ports or a Hong Kong type region.

Seems like the odds are against this though .

 

[Faeelin]

Short answer is no. The CCP had the numbers and the ROC didn't have the firepower to counter the imbalance.

It is questionable if even the U.S. at its WW II peak could have held the China coastline without liberal use of nuclear weapons (even then it would probably have been touch and go). As has often been proved quantity has a quality all its own.

This is a bit surprising. The CCP of 1941 (nor the KMT) couldn't keep the Japanese from rampaging at will, but by 1948 the Communists had improved that much?

 

[LeX]

The CCP of 1941 (nor the KMT) couldn't keep the Japanese from rampaging at will,

The CCP of 1941 was not fighting the Japanese, or at most making only a token effort. It was building up supplies, weapons, and men around Yan'an and in contested regions so that it would have the strength to defeat the KMT in 1948.

If you want the RoC in control of, say, only Guangdong south of the Xi river, you'd probably have to get the CCP to be attacked and stunted somehow, and for the civil war to be indecisive enough for the KMT to recognize their perilous situation and try to consolidate a small area (as mentioned above) rather than keep all of China. Then the CCP may be willing to conduct a cease-fire, which they will certainly intend to break, but by that point (the late-ish 50s perhaps) the surviving RoC will be safely under America's nuclear umbrella.

In OTL, present-day Guangdong is known as a bastion of capitalism and economic development. In a TL where the RoC keeps a good chunk of of, this quality would perhaps be even more exemplified, in contrast to the Maoist agrarian state north of it. It would be like a mega-Hong Kong. Such things could cause political butterflies to affect situations like Tiananmen or the death of Mao.

 

[Gridley]

Short answer is no. The CCP had the numbers and the ROC didn't have the firepower to counter the imbalance.

It is questionable if even the U.S. at its WW II peak could have held the China coastline without liberal use of nuclear weapons (even then it would probably have been touch and go). As has often been proved quantity has a quality all its own.

Oh, this isn't going to be good, I'm going to disagree with CalBear.

The US Military at its WWII peak, assuming no other commitments, could indeed have held a portion of the Chinese coastline, and with conventional weapons.

Simply put, the US will quickly have total air supremacy; two dozen fleet carriers and scores of escort carriers could bring the better part of 5,000 aircraft to the party alone, and Formosa could be used as a massive aircraft carrier.

Once you get within 20 miles of the coast you start taking shells from 90 16" guns on the fast battleships, and if you get closer the US has 126 more 14" and 16" guns on the old battleships. At about 15 miles the 8" gunned cruisers join the party; the US has about two dozen of those, each typically with 9 8" guns. A few miles further in and the light cruisers pile on - we're still a dozen miles from the coast and now you're taking fire from almost three dozen light cruisers each mounting 12 or 15 guns as heavy as most nation's heavy field artillery of the period, each tube firing up to ten times a minute.

No organized Chinese force can come within ten miles of the coast. Infiltrators and fragments of units WILL make it through, of course... and face intact ground units with a large percentage of veterans un-handicapped by Vietnam-era political restrictions.

Now, this scenario wouldn't happen for various reasons, and beyond 20 miles inland or so the US probably can't hold, but to say the US military at its peak couldn't do it just isn't right.

 

[Faeelin]

The CCP of 1941 was not fighting the Japanese, or at most making only a token effort. It was building up supplies, weapons, and men around Yan'an and in contested regions so that it would have the strength to defeat the KMT in 1948.

That's true, but even when the civil war heated up again in 1946, the KMT was doing very well, at least initially. What gives?