ROC Hainan?

The POD would be a delay of the PRC invasion of Hainan - for whatever reason, the mainland isn't able to attack until the Korean War begins, and after that, the American shield makes it a non-starter.

So now instead of just Taiwan and a few nearby islands, the ROC also has Hainan (and maybe the currently disputed South Seas islands? who, if anybody, occupied them in 1950?). What impact might this have on regional history, and the development of Hainan and the ROC? Would, for instance, Hainan remain the Free Area of Guangdong Province or would it be granted provincial status in its own right?
 
That would be interesting. That and the ROC retaining the Dachen Islands, aka the ROC's Chekiang province.

In any case - at the time of the ROC fleeing to Taiwan in 1949, Hainan was due to become a province that year, after having become an SAR since 1944 by splitting it from Kwangtung province. When the PRC took over, Hainan was reintegrated into Guangdong province but still had some autonomy due to its distance from the rest of the province; Hainan truly became a separate province sometime in the 1980s. So, in the case of Hainan remaining part of the ROC, Taipei (and Jiang Jieshi) have two options. One is to allow Hainan to remain on schedule and become a province. The other is to temporarily suspend its accession as a province as its on the frontlines, thus keeping it as a SAR (which, over time, would essentially become a province anyway in all but name - that or like its OTL arrangement as province+SEZ).
 
Along those lines, what other off shore islands were under ROC control at the beginning of 1950? I imagine the international situation would be much tenser if the ROC held on to islands all up and down the coast as far as the approaches to Shanghai.
 
So now instead of the ROC being just "Taiwan", it's "Taiwan and Hainan". I wonder if we would have to call it that in casual speech? Also, I wonder how many mainland refugees fleeting the PLA you could get to emigrate to Hainan. It would be interesting to see how having to govern two islands relatively far away from each other would impact the KMT leadership.
 
So now instead of the ROC being just "Taiwan", it's "Taiwan and Hainan". I wonder if we would have to call it that in casual speech?

South China, maybe?

Also, I wonder how many mainland refugees fleeting the PLA you could get to emigrate to Hainan. It would be interesting to see how having to govern two islands relatively far away from each other would impact the KMT leadership.

I wonder if Hainan would be used as an American base area during the Vietnam War (assuming there is one)? It's very close to North Vietnam and I'm sure the USAF could make use of it. (I certainly can't imagine the PRC being even slightly annoyed by that sort of thing.)
 
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It takes some steam out of the Taiwanese Independence movement, given more will see themselves as Chinese.

Hainan however is going to see a lot of PRC covert activity, and become a constant sore for the ROC given they can't properly reciprocate.

 
It takes some steam out of the Taiwanese Independence movement, given more will see themselves as Chinese.
That was my initial thought, but maybe you just get two rebellious groups against the ROC, one for Hainanese and one for Taiwanese independence. But then again Hainan was never influenced by Japan as much as Taiwan was, so things may be different.

Hainan however is going to see a lot of PRC covert activity, and become a constant sore for the ROC given they can't properly reciprocate.
It might make the ROC more militant and alert, if anything.
 
Tainan? Island China?

Tainan is already the name of a Taiwanese city. Island China sounds like a joke. "South China" probably works best, but "Taiwan and Hainan" probably works too, didn't we have "Bosnia and Herzegovina" awhile ago?
 
It takes some steam out of the Taiwanese Independence movement, given more will see themselves as Chinese.


Not necessarily, remember that the large majority of Taiwans population presently are recent descendants from Mainlanders and Indpenedence has developed among them, so their's no reason to think it would'nt be the same for the descendants of the evacuees in Hainan.

That said what might happen is their being tw competing independence movements, one for a United stated and one for each island to become seperate countries.
 
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Not necessarily, remember that the large majority of Taiwans population presently are recent descendants from Mainlanders and Indpenedence has developed among them, so their's no reason to think it would'nt be the same for the descendants of the evacuees in Hainan.
It's a bit more complex than that. Less than 5% are aboriginals (not Chinese in any way shape or form), a few millions are Chinese from centuries ago, and then the rest are from the post-1900 period. A majority of Taiwanese now consider themselves Taiwanese only, but there is still between 30 and 40% who think themselves Chinese as well, probably mostly those who came in 1949.

There would not be the same impetus on Hainan. It was never out of Chinese control for the last century except during WW2 so the people there have always been Chinese. Any independent sentiment there would be fringe and unsupported, like less than 10%.
 
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So now instead of the ROC being just "Taiwan", it's "Taiwan and Hainan". I wonder if we would have to call it that in casual speech?

Since Taiwan is still the more prominent of the two major islands (due to it holding the "provisional" capital of Taipei), then I think it would still be called Taiwan. Unless the KMT comes up with some unusual name, like "Táihǎi" (台海), "Hǎitái" (海台) (only if we want to be semi-serious), or even "Táiqióng" (台瓊/台琼), from the provincial abbreviations.

Also, I wonder how many mainland refugees fleeting the PLA you could get to emigrate to Hainan. It would be interesting to see how having to govern two islands relatively far away from each other would impact the KMT leadership.

Yeah, that's the million-yuan question. I would assume that initially much of the settlement would be in the north of the island, but that's just me. That's one area where I don't know much about it.
 
There would not be the same impetus on Hainan. It was never out of Chinese control for the last century except during WW2 so the people there have always been Chinese.

True, but then again Hainan has some minority peoples too - the original inhabitants, who are one of the PRC's officially recognized minority groups, speak a Tai-Kadai language, and IIRC there's also a Hmong-speaking community on Hainan.
 
Tainan is already the name of a Taiwanese city. Island China sounds like a joke.

I'm not saying they're good names, I'm saying they're names lazy US reporters would come up with when they're tired of writing "Republic of China" and don't want to use an acronym :D
 
I'm not saying they're good names, I'm saying they're names lazy US reporters would come up with when they're tired of writing "Republic of China" and don't want to use an acronym :D

Well, back in the bad old days there was also Nationalist China and Free China as options (for the longest time, the main shortwave radio station, mainly targeting foreigners, used to be called the "Voice of Free China" - now it's called Radio Taiwan International), with the PRC denigrated as Red China or Communist China.
 
True, but then again Hainan has some minority peoples too - the original inhabitants, who are one of the PRC's officially recognized minority groups, speak a Tai-Kadai language, and IIRC there's also a Hmong-speaking community on Hainan.
It does not really matter. They never got the same notions of modern nationalism that some Taiwanese developed under Japanese rule and have today. Language does not automatically determine a wish to separate, especially not in China.
 
It does not matter. They never got the same notions of modern nationalism that some Taiwanese developed under Japanese rule and have today. Language does not automatically determine a wish to separate, especially not in China.

Of course I know that. My apologies if that was the implication - I was just trying to say that it's more than just Han Chinese living on the island, even if they speak a form of Min Nan that is, shall I say, very interesting.
 
I wonder if Hainan would be used as an American base area during the Vietnam War (assuming there is one)? It's very close to North Vietnam and I'm sure the USAF could make use of it. (I certainly can't imagine the PRC being even slightly annoyed by that sort of thing.)

That's a possibility up until the moment that diplomatic relations are normalized between the US and PRC. IOTL, the USAF had airbases in Taiwan from which they flew U2 recon flights over the mainland, but the US military presence was removed the instant recognition was withdrawn and switched to the PRC.
 
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