Immediately following the UN resolution to aid South Korea, only the Republic of China (besides the US) volunteered ground troops:
So... What do you think would happen? Perhaps Mao would see sense, ignore the token RoC contribution, and keep the war confined to Korea as in OTL... but conversely, it's possible that the war might have expanded to the Taiwan Straits. In this context, it might be significant that Truman's initial authorization to MacArthur to commit US ground troops also ordered him to
What if the offer had been accepted? I don't see how they'd have had any appreciable military impact on the war, but I think the political impact - especially later, when Communist China intervened - would have been huge. Remember that, at the time, the Republic of China was still internationally recognized by virtually all non-Communist countries; it held China's UN seat.The US Army History Center for Military History said:Only Nationalist China offered ground troops-three divisions totaling 33,000 men, together with twenty transport planes and some naval escort. General MacArthur eventually turned down this offer on 1 August because the Nationalist Chinese troops were considered to be untrained and had no artillery or motor transport.
http://www.history.army.mil/books/korea/20-2-1/SN04.HTM
So... What do you think would happen? Perhaps Mao would see sense, ignore the token RoC contribution, and keep the war confined to Korea as in OTL... but conversely, it's possible that the war might have expanded to the Taiwan Straits. In this context, it might be significant that Truman's initial authorization to MacArthur to commit US ground troops also ordered him to
It's quite possible, of course, that this might have changed later...by naval and air action defend Formosa against invasion by the Chinese Communists and, conversely, prevent Chinese Nationalists from using Formosa as a base of operations against the Chinese mainland
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