WI: The United Provinces of China

Here's a thought I had: The United Provinces of China.

The Nationalists hold on to Hainan and Zhoushan. In 1955 the US opts not to abandon the Dachen Islands and the Yijiangshan Islands.

Later on, Britain and Portugal cede Hong Kong and Macau to the Republic of China rather than the People's Republic of China.


Eventually the RoC internally reforms as the "United Provinces of China" - a federal state of Hainan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Zhoushan, and the Dachen Islands (Chekiang Province in exile).



upload_2019-8-15_19-43-24.png
 
Later on, Britain and Portugal cede Hong Kong and Macau to the Republic of China rather than the People's Republic of China.
Even if the UK and Portugal don't switch their recognition to the PRC I don't think they can realistically do that. In the 90s China is still hostile to the ROC, and will simply invade the regions if they given to the wrong China.
 
So, many threads about keeping Hong Kong out of PRoC hands. Why not just have the Republic of China keep control of the entirety of China? Maybe have a different revolution that leads to a Republican government firmly staying in power being led by a party that's based on Sun Yat-sens ideas, or some sort of longer lived alternative with similar ideas.
 
So, many threads about keeping Hong Kong out of PRoC hands. Why not just have the Republic of China keep control of the entirety of China? Maybe have a different revolution that leads to a Republican government firmly staying in power being led by a party that's based on Sun Yat-sens ideas, or some sort of longer lived alternative with similar ideas.

I just enjoy the idea of a Confederal lesser Chinese Republic.

Or to use a pop culture analog, it's the United Republic of Nations to China's Earth Kingdom.
 
I just enjoy the idea of a Confederal lesser Chinese Republic.

Or to use a pop culture analog, it's the United Republic of Nations to China's Earth Kingdom.
That's actually pretty interesting, but it would require more than just having a two separate governments, one ruling islands, and the other ruling the mainland. The reason for why the URN exists is because the old fire nation colonies in the Earth kingdom were just to rooted down with both populations to simply have people from the fire nation pick up and leave. So, instead of staying with either the Earth kingdom of fire nation, those territories became their own nation. For an version of this to happen with China, you would need a Taiwan , and if desired other islands as well, that are so mixed up as to be their own mixed culture. So, maybe have Spain rule Taiwan for several centuries and make sure that the island becomes like Mexico. So, like a Hispanic nation , but in East Asia. And have colonizers and colonized mingle quite a bit. Eventually colonial rule is abolished, but Taiwan doesn't see itself as Chinese since it's majority Catholic, with near everyone having varying degrees of mixed ancestry, and speaks Spanish. Earth Kingdom= China, Spain= Fire nation, and Water Tribe and other immigrants= immigrants from Latin America, Africa , and the rest of Asia.
 
That's actually pretty interesting, but it would require more than just having a two separate governments, one ruling islands, and the other ruling the mainland. The reason for why the URN exists is because the old fire nation colonies in the Earth kingdom were just to rooted down with both populations to simply have people from the fire nation pick up and leave. So, instead of staying with either the Earth kingdom of fire nation, those territories became their own nation. For an version of this to happen with China, you would need a Taiwan , and if desired other islands as well, that are so mixed up as to be their own mixed culture. So, maybe have Spain rule Taiwan for several centuries and make sure that the island becomes like Mexico. So, like a Hispanic nation , but in East Asia. And have colonizers and colonized mingle quite a bit. Eventually colonial rule is abolished, but Taiwan doesn't see itself as Chinese since it's majority Catholic, with near everyone having varying degrees of mixed ancestry, and speaks Spanish. Earth Kingdom= China, Spain= Fire nation, and Water Tribe and other immigrants= immigrants from Latin America, Africa , and the rest of Asia.

To keep it post-1900, I suppose the Japanese could just not be expelled from Taiwan. Going further, maybe Japan takes Hainan and settles it as thoroughly as it did in Manchukuo and then those people aren't expelled. The RoC rump is in charge of those two islands, but they're much more culturally mixed than OTL. Later on the Hoa migrate to the RoC rather than PRC.

EDIT: Going further, Britain ceding Hong Kong and Portugal ceding Macau further promotes the internationalism of the country. I think Hong Kong would need to be a bit bigger. The British considered ceding Weihaiwei for a permanent acquisition of the New Territories on more than one occasion IIRC. Maybe they do that and cede something else in exchange for HK to be bigger and more defensible.
 
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To keep it post-1900, I suppose the Japanese could just not be expelled from Taiwan. Going further, maybe Japan takes Hainan and settles it as thoroughly as it did in Manchukuo and then those people aren't expelled. The RoC rump is in charge of those two islands, but they're much more culturally mixed than OTL. Later on the Hoa migrate to the RoC rather than PRC.

EDIT: Going further, Britain ceding Hong Kong and Portugal ceding Macau further promotes the internationalism of the country. I think Hong Kong would need to be a bit bigger. The British considered ceding Weihaiwei for a permanent acquisition of the New Territories on more than one occasion IIRC. Maybe they do that and cede something else in exchange for HK to be bigger and more defensible.

Hong Kong doesn't need to be bigger. Guangdong, at minimum, needs to remain in ROC hands, but that's going to be a lot harder than holding Hainan.
 
To keep it post-1900, I suppose the Japanese could just not be expelled from Taiwan. Going further, maybe Japan takes Hainan and settles it as thoroughly as it did in Manchukuo and then those people aren't expelled. The RoC rump is in charge of those two islands, but they're much more culturally mixed than OTL. Later on the Hoa migrate to the RoC rather than PRC.

EDIT: Going further, Britain ceding Hong Kong and Portugal ceding Macau further promotes the internationalism of the country. I think Hong Kong would need to be a bit bigger. The British considered ceding Weihaiwei for a permanent acquisition of the New Territories on more than one occasion IIRC. Maybe they do that and cede something else in exchange for HK to be bigger and more defensible.
The Japanese would have to have been there for s longer time than OTL, to the point that even the lower classes would have absorbed heavy amounts of Japanese culture . There has to be a semi large class of mestizos, I think for this to work. In Avatar, those fire nation colonies on earth kingdom soil had existed for a hundred years. And there were people whob could earth bend, but who also considered themselves Fire nation too, and who refused to pick one culture over the other. Japanese rule over Taiwan was only existed for half the time that it did in what would become the URN.
 
The Japanese would have to have been there for s longer time than OTL, to the point that even the lower classes would have absorbed heavy amounts of Japanese culture . There has to be a semi large class of mestizos, I think for this to work. In Avatar, those fire nation colonies on earth kingdom soil had existed for a hundred years. And there were people whob could earth bend, but who also considered themselves Fire nation too, and who refused to pick one culture over the other. Japanese rule over Taiwan was only existed for half the time that it did in what would become the URN.
You'd need a pre 1931 PoD, preferably a pre 21 Demands PoD, to allow for any sort of Japanese cultural presence to survive into modern times.

Perhaps Japan skips Manchukuo and ends up getting stomped in a war with, say the US, and China picks up the pieces afterwards?
 
You'd need a pre 1931 PoD, preferably a pre 21 Demands PoD, to allow for any sort of Japanese cultural presence to survive into modern times.

Perhaps Japan skips Manchukuo and ends up getting stomped in a war with, say the US, and China picks up the pieces afterwards?
I don't think the Japanese could have done it TBH. They have to last a long time for the culture to settle well, but the longer they reign, the harder war will get if nukes are invented. And they only took Taiwan in 1895. I really think for the culture to set, a average lifetime will have had to pass on, and colonialism will have to have been a great deal more extensive and thorough.
 
Hong Kong doesn't need to be bigger. Guangdong, at minimum, needs to remain in ROC hands, but that's going to be a lot harder than holding Hainan.
You'd need a pre 1931 PoD, preferably a pre 21 Demands PoD, to allow for any sort of Japanese cultural presence to survive into modern times.

Not just that (in the case of the latter in terms of Japanese cultural influence - which did happen to some degree in the Qing dynasty) - in order to have, IMO, any ROC to live up to its name in an ATL (from a Western POV, hence addressing the former), the ROC would actually need to have more than just islands near the Mainland. In that case, if one of the 1940s lines holds, that would be great news for the ROC - and hence the eventual United Provinces of China.

Before we go any further, let's have a look at this map, which shows the notional ROC claims on the Mainland vs. the PRC's administrative divisions including the claimed Taiwan Province.
ROC_PRC_comparison_eng.jpg

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ROC_PRC_comparison_eng.jpg>

This provides a good idea of where things are in relation to each other. On the map, PRC placenames are in Hànyǔ Pīnyīn Fāng'àn (aka Pinyin), while ROC placenames are in "traditional" Postal romanization.

Now, first off, let's start off at a later stage, that of trying to hang onto as much Mainland territory as possible in the South - so around the time of the flight towards Taiwan and all that. Now, the ROC claimed that while all provinces were lost, the following provinces had at least some territorial hold by the KMT/GMD:
*Taiwan (Táiwān)
*Fuchien (Fújiàn); known as Fukien on the map
*Kiangsu (Jiāngsū)
*Chekiang (Zhèjiāng)
*Szechwan (Sìchuān)
*Hsikang (Xīkāng), known as Sikang on the map
*Kwangtung or Canton Province (Guǎngdōng)
*Hainan SAR (Hǎinán)
*Yunnan (Yúnnán) - which IOTL had the notoriety of having its capital-in-exile at Bangkok
*Sinkiang (Xīnjiāng)

There were also two additional special municipalities, Guangzhou and Chongqing, that were claimed but for obvious reasons, well, -

Now, as I see it, anything from Guangdong up is fair game; anything east to that would be problematic (Fujian is optional to have at least some retention of Mainland territory, at least in the areas near Quanzhou and Xiamen (Amoy), but the rest would remain as island possessions, though at the bare minimum only those areas of Fujian retained IOTL by Taiwan would count) and would probably, in this first scenario, remain island territories (Fujian, Chekiang) or titular (Kiangsu). Xinjiang itself can also be sacrificed as it's too far away from the rest of the ROC-held territory and would hence also be titular unless the Ma clique holds firm in Tsinghai (Qīnghǎi), in which case not only Xinjiang but also Tibet could be counted in. Which leaves the core remaining ROC territory (Guangdong, Hainan, Yunnan, Szechwan, Hsikang), which has a giant hole separating Guangdong from the others. That is unacceptable and needs to be modified. First off, Guangxi (Kwangsi, Guǎngxī), Guangdong, and Hainan are somewhat closely related to each other, to the point where they shared the same viceroyalty under the Qing dynasty. In particular, along with HK and Macao, Guangdong and Guangxi are closely related culturally as part of a general Lingnan culture - even in the case of Guangxi with the presence of the Zhuang people. That helps close some of the gap, but not completely because Southwestern China is very mountainous and thus there is no form of good connection with Yunnan, let alone any connection between Guangzhou and Chongqing without having to cross PRC territory. To be sure of such connections, Kweichow (Guìzhōu) would be needed to complete the ensemble. This minimum scenario (minus mainland Fujian, Tibet, Qinghai, and Xinjiang) would probably be the closest both to a Taiwanese model of economic development as well as the post-Mao Chinese economic reform, except the democratic transition would include a period between CKS's authoritarian military dictatorship and the eventual blossoming of full democracy as modern OTL Taiwanese would know it (and hence the United Provinces of China), as well as many others, where the ROC is basically a mega-Singapore on steroids or Mexico during the latter days of the PRI's classic period. Yet Hong Kong would play a vital role here as breathing space for all sorts of opinions that would not be tolerated in the ROC, such as the predominant usage of Cantonese instead of the ROC's insistence on Mandarin (for example), which will eventually prove to be somewhat influential on the Mainland.

There is yet another scenario, which thus fills in a certain region that the ROC already recognized back in the day:
Southern_China_map-1.png

Combine the dark and medium red areas together, and you get the classic definition of South China (華南, Huánán) as the later pre-1949 ROC understood it. In this case, take the scenario above and add Hunan (Húnán), Kiangsi (Jiāngxī), and mainland Fujian - and then you roughly get what the frontline eventually was before 1949 changed everything. Chekiang would remain a bunch of islands here, Qinghai is uncertain and Xinjiang could still be written off as a loss, but at least it would be more retained territory by the ROC.

The ultimate, which I think would be ASB but would work better if a longer Qing dynasty is substituted for the ROC pre-WW2 (say, for example, the Qing dynasty basically "pulls a Meiji" - literally, in that an overcentralized system becomes even more overcentralized and ultimately descends into a system more fascist than Shôwa Japan, but at least we get our industrialization in the face of everyone else who prefers a weak China - and hence because of its pretty more-than-overt sympathy to the Nazis gets broken up and occupied by the Allies, creating a Chinese Soviet Republic in the North and a United Autonomous Provinces of China in the South) but would be the ultimate for a surviving ROC in this case since that would mean that Nanjing and Shanghai would at least be "safe", is going for the traditional boundary line separating northern and southern China - the Qinling Huaihe Line, which means Jiangsu and Anhui get sliced in half, small pieces of Henan and Shǎnxī remains with the South, while a small piece of Hubei remains with the North, and Szechwan is intact within the South (while Gansu is intact within the North). Basically, imagine that east and northeast of Sichuan/Szechwan the light red area remains part of the ROC.
 
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