Between 1946 and 1949, there was something of an undeclared war between the Republic of China and the Soviets (along with their Mongolian allies). WI it all escalated further and the Pei-ta-shan Incident had triggered a full-scale Soviet intervention in Sinkiang?

Would a Soviet intervention have pushed the United States to intervene more deeply in the Chinese Civil war? Even to intervene on a similar scale to the Korean War? (IMO that is highly unlikely - everything I've read indicates that the US was very leery of getting sucked into China, were exasperated with the Chinese Nationalists and still politically unwilling to engage in a major war so soon after WW2.)

And if the Soviets did conquer Sinkiang and turn it into a puppet state, what would the effects be on the geopolitics of the Cold War?

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Another thought: If the Soviets intervene in Sinkiang in 1947 and if international tensions increase appreciably as a result, might the Soviets decide against blockading West Berlin in response to the introduction of the Deutschmark into West Berlin? And if the Soviets do decide to respond in a less provocative way, what would they choose to do instead?

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Stalin isn't going to throw Jiang to the dogs, he thought the Nationalists would win out, Stalin only supported Mao when the writing was on the wall for the Nationalists. Turning Xinjiang into a puppet state would be political suicide, Xinjiang was since 1933 under the rule of Sheng Shicai who was backed by the Soviets, only for Stalin to cut them loose to Jiang after Sheng betrayed the Soviets after Barbarossa.

Trying to bring Xinjiang back under Soviet influence would ruin any relationship between Stalin and Jiang, that if the Nationalists somehow win the Civil War, you've just brought a nation with a large potential into the western camp, and you've shot down the possibility any further successful revolutions in areas such as Indochina.
 
Stalin isn't going to throw Jiang to the dogs, he thought the Nationalists would win out, Stalin only supported Mao when the writing was on the wall for the Nationalists. Turning Xinjiang into a puppet state would be political suicide, Xinjiang was since 1933 under the rule of Sheng Shicai who was backed by the Soviets, only for Stalin to cut them loose to Jiang after Sheng betrayed the Soviets after Barbarossa.

Trying to bring Xinjiang back under Soviet influence would ruin any relationship between Stalin and Jiang, that if the Nationalists somehow win the Civil War, you've just brought a nation with a large potential into the western camp, and you've shot down the possibility any further successful revolutions in areas such as Indochina.

By 1947, I would say that the defeat of Chiang and the Nationalists was inevitable. IMO the political fallout in China would not be a pissed off Nationalist China as a neighbour, but a pissed off Communist China as a neighbour. That said, I am not sure this would make relations worse in either case. Relations between Chiang and Stalin had already collapsed and Mao and Stalin already disliked each other and loathed the sort of Communism each stood for (most sources I've read paint their attempts at making nice in the 50s as a purely pragmatic move for both Mao and Stalin).

In any case, the Soviets were already trying to turn the Northernmost part of Sinkiang into a puppet state (which was what had triggered the Nationalist counter-attacks in the first place). So it is clear that Stalin did not consider Chiang and the integrity of Nationalist China as important as you seem to believe.

So the PoD here is not that the Soviets change policy, only that they pursue the existing policy with more vigor.

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Do people think that a Soviet intervention in Sinkiang (and not in the main part of China) would provoke the US into intervening in the Chinese Civil War in a major way?

And would the US ever send the regular army into China? (As opposed to the Marines, who were already in China.)

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