During his stint as commander of US forces in Burma and India during the Second World War, Joseph Stillwell absolutely loathed the Nationalist government of China and had a particular loathing for Chiang Kai-shek for his corruption and procrastination. In his diary, Stilwell began to note the corruption and the amount of money ($380,584,000 in 1944 dollars) being wasted upon Chiang and his government. The Cambridge History of China, for instance, estimates that some 60%–70% of Chiang's Kuomintang conscripts did not make it through their basic training, with some 40% deserting and the remaining 20% dying of starvation before full induction into the military.
Eventually, his frustrations grew to the point that not only did he propose cutting off Lend-Lease aid to China, but he even ordered the Office of Strategic Services to draw up plans to assassinate Chiang if his position was under threat from internal rivals. Obviously, this never happened and Chiang would later lose the Chinese Civil War and flee to Taiwan, where he remained in power until 1975, where he died from kidney failure.
But what if the OSS decided Chiang Kai-shek was too much of a liability and decided to assassinate him before the end of the Second World War? Who would succeed him in such a scenario?
Eventually, his frustrations grew to the point that not only did he propose cutting off Lend-Lease aid to China, but he even ordered the Office of Strategic Services to draw up plans to assassinate Chiang if his position was under threat from internal rivals. Obviously, this never happened and Chiang would later lose the Chinese Civil War and flee to Taiwan, where he remained in power until 1975, where he died from kidney failure.
But what if the OSS decided Chiang Kai-shek was too much of a liability and decided to assassinate him before the end of the Second World War? Who would succeed him in such a scenario?