SE Asia in a world where the KMT won the Chinese Civil War

Thande

Donor
Currently re-reading Le Carré's The Honourable Schoolboy and it got me thinking: how much of the chaos and ideological conflict in SE Asia in the latter half of the 20th century is attributable to the presence of Communist China?

Although most of the Communist rebel movements tended to be aligned with the Soviets rather than the PRC, I think the fact that China was seen as an example of the triumph of Communism must surely have helped inspire their ideological bent. After all, as others have observed, Ho Chi Minh for example was primarily a nationalist and his adoption of Communism was more pragmatic than ideological.

But I'm not that knowledgeable about the area and the period so I'll throw it up to the house: let's say we have the stereotypical KMT victory scenario - Chiang doesn't invade Manchuria, the Chinese Communists are restricted to a rump Manchurian "Chinese Democratic Republic" which is never anything more than a minor puppet of the USSR (obviously, no Sino-Soviet split then) and the Republic of China develops as a loose ally of the United States, though I have a feeling they might go nonaligned eventually.

What effect does all this have on Southeast Asia, from the defeated Communist insurgencies in Malaysia and the Philippines up to the successful ones in Indochina?

Thoughts?
 
Beacuse China is republican, the USSR dosen't have the projecting power to supply communists in SE Asia, so they'll remain minor players. I would like to know if this China has Tibet or Mongolia, but that's mainly as info on the attitude to Britain and the USSR. Malaysia and Indonesia might rebel, might not, but it would be comapareable to the Indian Rebellion of 1857-never really spreads far enough. French Indochina will rebel though. It may be a situation like Algeria- French attempt to keep it and a few stable (or at least more stable) republics are set up. China may supply the rebels, may not.

I couldn't say much more as it's not a particular area of expertise.
 
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The strongest independence movement of French Indochina was by far the Viet Minh in northern Vietnam - which was heavily controlled by the Indochinese Communist Party. A big bad scary anti-Communist China in the northern border would probably force Ho Chi Minh to abandon his communist ties (he already downplayed them early on IOTL). The other, and more plausible IMHO, side is France still holds on to Indochina some time longer, although it would be probably looser post-WWII.
 
Beacuse China is republican, the USSR dosen't have the projecting power to supply communists in SE Asia, so they'll remain minor players. I would like to know if this China has Tibet or Mongolia, but that's mainly as info on the attitude to Britain and the USSR. Malaysia and Indonesia might rebel, might not, but it would be comapareable to the Indian Rebellion of 1857-never really spreads far enough. French Indochina will rebel though. It may be a situation like Algeria- French attempt to keep it and a few stable (or at least more stable) republics are set up. China may supply the rebels, may not.

I couldn't say much more as it's not a particular area of expertise.

Possibly Tibet, almost certainly not Mongolia since that would be directly screwing with Soviet puppets and Chiang or his successors might as well just grab Manchuria back. After the fall of the Soviets? Maybe, the Western world/NATO isn't going to go all Kuwait on *China* over *Mongolia*.
 
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