WI: Chiang assassinated

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/03/assassinating-chiang-kai-shek-china-taiwan-japan-world-war-2/

"During the Cairo Conference in November 1943, attended by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chiang, Roosevelt met privately with his senior commander in China, Maj. Gen. Joseph Stilwell. “Big boy,” Stilwell said when he got back to China’s wartime capital Chongqing, quoting Roosevelt to his chief of staff, Gen. Frank “Pinky” Dorn, “if you can’t get along with Chiang and can’t replace him, get rid of him once and for all. You know what I mean. Put in someone you can manage."

I don't know how true the article is, but it's very interesting. What if the United States assassinates Chiang Kaishek in November 1943?
1. Likely successor?
2. Effect on war against Japan?
 
China would be in more of a mess. Stilwell strikes me as pompous fool who couldn't see past his field of vision at the complexities of Chinese political/military affairs. Him getting rid of Chiang would be his personal victory but it would also mean that China has no effective leader heading the millions of Nationalist troops fending off the Japanese. It would be even more disastrous than if Stalin suddenly died on the Soviets, since at least the USSR had a robust military institution that could theoretically keep working without his presence. Chiang's death would leave a vacuum at the worst time possible, and I can't see anyone good filling it. None of the warlords would trust each other enough to cooperate to any meaningful degree, and they would probably all hate the US for screwing things up.
 
What about Li Zongren as the successor leader? He was already a hero for more or less saving the Nationalist Army from destruction.
 
I don't think the issue is one of incompetent military leaders, but more in finding someone who had the connections, leadership experience, and trust that Chiang had. Zhang Xueliang understood this at Xi'an in 1936, and was willing to sacrifice himself because of it.
 
I agree with what Richard Bernstein wrote on this: "There was of course no assassination of Chiang, nor did Dorn receive further instructions from Stilwell on this matter. There is, moreover, no other evidence that FDR expressed any desire to have Chiang eliminated, and it seems unlikely that he did, despite the ominous sound of that you-know-what-I-mean uttered to Stilwell. Roosevelt had his occasional bursts of irritation at Chiang, but he also nurtured a certain sympathy for him as a fellow head of state" https://books.google.com/books?id=qTCOAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT29 and even (to Churchill's puzzlement--Churchill thought FDR vastly overrstimated the importance of China) wanted Chiang to be one of the postwar Big Four with Stalin, Churchill, and himself. I don't think there was any real possibility of anyone going through with this.

For a more likely way for Chiang to meet his death during the Pacific War--and a discussion of some of his possible successors--see my post at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/BmozOjACGl4/rsidr8Eo9-QJ
 
Thanks for that, David. Reading up on the source you gave, I guess the question changes.

What happens if Chen Cheng is elected Vice President and then President after the war is over? The source says that Chen Cheng was popular with the U.S.

In addition,
He also helped to initiate land reforms and tax reduction programs that caused Communism to become unattractive in Taiwan, where peasants were able to own land.

Maybe he can negotiate something with the Communists, which Li Zongren failed to do. I'm not sure if he can do it, though.

So what happens if Chiang Kai-shek gets the heart attack that killed him soon after World War II is over?
 
I know it might seem very coincidental just for Chiang to get a heart attack as soon as WWII is over (maybe we could have it timed at the exact moment (conspiracy theories abound).

Would this have any effect on the negotiations with the Communists?
 
Really negotiating with the communists is doomed. What you need instead is no busy bodies forcing a truce so the communists get wiped out and the Soviets suck it up and keep backing the nationalists.
 
There was no American plan to assassinate Chiang. Stilwell likely embellished a story. If he did actually organize an assassination, it would be on him and his plotters alone. If it became known, it would be a huge scandal and the US would disown him.

Chiang's appointed political successor at the time was Chen Cheng. He'd likely become the de jure leader of Nationalist China. However, he'd likely have trouble maintaining the coalition Chiang controlled in the KMT's central government, much less the Communists and warlords.

Chen's political allies included TV Soong and other reformers. He would have many rivals, but none of them have the influence to prevent him from becoming leader. They could do a lot to sabotage him however in the hopes of creating an opportunity to succeed him. However, given the state of the war, this is unlikely. I suspect Chen will reach out to many of Chiang's rivals and give them some positions of real influence to keep them on board. My instincts are that the leaders of the Guangxi Clique, Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, would play major roles given their immense talents and that by this time they had lost their independent powerbase and required cooperation with the central government.

However, nothing will change in China itself during the war. It was not Chiang's leadership that was the issue, but China's isolation because of the closing of the Burma Road. Chiang did make some mistakes by hoarding too many military assets, but there are reasons why he did that. There might be a slight improvement in military operations with a more coherent command structure and the full cooperation of Stilwell (or another top American general) with the new government, but the end of the war will not look substantially different from OTL.

Any major change will occur in the postwar period. Chen is more likely than Chiang was to begin major reforms before deciding to eliminate the Communists militarily. However, that likely means the permanent loss of Manchuria and perhaps North China in a separate Communist state. Better than losing all the mainland though.
 
There was no American plan to assassinate Chiang. Stilwell likely embellished a story. If he did actually organize an assassination, it would be on him and his plotters alone. If it became known, it would be a huge scandal and the US would disown him.

Chiang's appointed political successor at the time was Chen Cheng. He'd likely become the de jure leader of Nationalist China. However, he'd likely have trouble maintaining the coalition Chiang controlled in the KMT's central government, much less the Communists and warlords.

Chen's political allies included TV Soong and other reformers. He would have many rivals, but none of them have the influence to prevent him from becoming leader. They could do a lot to sabotage him however in the hopes of creating an opportunity to succeed him. However, given the state of the war, this is unlikely. I suspect Chen will reach out to many of Chiang's rivals and give them some positions of real influence to keep them on board. My instincts are that the leaders of the Guangxi Clique, Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, would play major roles given their immense talents and that by this time they had lost their independent powerbase and required cooperation with the central government.

However, nothing will change in China itself during the war. It was not Chiang's leadership that was the issue, but China's isolation because of the closing of the Burma Road. Chiang did make some mistakes by hoarding too many military assets, but there are reasons why he did that. There might be a slight improvement in military operations with a more coherent command structure and the full cooperation of Stilwell (or another top American general) with the new government, but the end of the war will not look substantially different from OTL.

Any major change will occur in the postwar period. Chen is more likely than Chiang was to begin major reforms before deciding to eliminate the Communists militarily. However, that likely means the permanent loss of Manchuria and perhaps North China in a separate Communist state. Better than losing all the mainland though.

Thanks Blackfox! I'm going to try another timeline (but like the rest, it's going to stop on page 1, probably) about Chiang getting a heart attack the second the war is over. Chen Cheng will be the next leader, then.
 
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