WI Mao Zedong dies early.

What if Mao Zedong dies early. Lets say he dies of a heart attack in 1955. By now the communist party is firmly in power and even with Mao's death that will probably not change. The power struggle won't be enough to give the nationalists another chance. On the other hand this is well before the Great Leap Forward which wreaked havoc on the Chinese economy. It is also before the Sino-Soviet split which occured in the late 50s. Wo will succeed him? What will China be like today?
 
I'm not sure but... uh, somebody... had a quote that sums this up very well:

If Mao had died in 1956, he would have been remembered as a true hero of China. If he had died in 1966, he would have been remembered as a great man - flawed, but great. But he died in 1976, and so...
 

boredatwork

Banned
no great leap backward saves tens of millions of lives and doesn't wreak such pointless havoc. That goes double for no cultural revolution. You get a deng xiaoping type pragmatist earlier, and by this point china is either flat nationalist/fascist, or basically a bigger, more cultured version of france or sweden.

Essentially - a much better world for pretty much everyone.
 

Hnau

Banned
I second that. Zhou Enlai would have most likely taken over. The PRC would swing over to the US sooner, which could have various effects. No 'Great Leap Forward' or 'Cultural Revolution' means that the economy grows instead of shrinks and the population is higher by tens of millions. Earlier market reforms similiar to those made under Deng allows the PRC to become an economic giant two decades earlier, entering superpower status (if WWIII is averted) probably around 1990. That's kind of generalizing a lot, but, whatever happens, it'll probably be closer to this result than anything else.
 
Top