I meant more precise descriptions, I know you mean the disembogues northern parts of China but what provinces of China or parts of these. Heilongjiang is a given so are Jilin and I guess you envision taking parts of the autonomous region Inner Mongolia to this (it would be logical) and parts or the whole of Liaoning. Do you see the northern parts of Hebei up to Beijing and Tianjin areas being included also? The Manchu areas (historical) is a bit fluxing as historically controlled areas usually are. It would be good to know if we are talking about the old Manchukoku area or some new northern China puppet state dusted off from Stalin's old idea box.
Being perfectly honest, I don't have a specific area in mind. Honestly, I (and we) have been largely sidetracked in the discussion for want of paying attention. I honestly thought Manchuria is the
least likely of the three candidate regions (that, Inner Mongolia, and Sinkiang) to be "permanently" separated from China in the peace. Having gotten a better idea of the demographics involved has only strengthened the impression for me. Assuming the figures quoted above are accurate, even Tibet is probably more likely.
I think what happened is that it was discussed because Manchuria is the place where the war's large battles would all be decided. When peace was made, the question would be whether or not the Russians were standing on the place, and how firm their hold was. A response to this went off on the inflitration-partisan issue. Then rather than just addressing the key issue (that partisans wouldn't be used because of the loss of face entailed), I also responded to the argument that it would be worse than Afghanistan. The latter was really beside the point, but it was such an apples and oranges thing I couldn't help myself. We've been on that since.
I would point out that the "shortest" rout is not the best rout in supplying a guerilla. But I wanted more to point out that the patrolling of this border is going to depend on where you draw the line for this Manchurian state and this line not necessary is easily patrolled even if it's the shortest possible.
Other nations puppet states don't automatically spell untreatable, what army of Mongolia patrol every inch of its vast border whit china every morning, afternoon and night? Is the Mongols in Mongolia so fanatically loyal to Soviet that there couldn't be people there that wants to profit in trafficking arms etc? And god forbid if the disgruntled minority card could be used in reveres on Soviet by Chinese nationalists. Now for easy to smuggle in guerilla men, arms and supplies I don't know, all I know is that there is many possible routes and along these there is willingly participants until Soviet actually station troops to check every one of them every day. These troops have to come from somewhere and they should not be easily bribed.[/QUOTE]
Fair enough.
Have a good trip, my sources on Chinese ethnical unity is mostly modern (Wang Can and Wang Pingxing and Rhodes off course) and I would not challenge you on that there IS privilege Manchurians that feel and felt this way. I personally know Han Chinese that still feel that the Communist China took there families privileges away unjustly. The come from Taiwan thou. The census data I collect from official Chinese census data and then estimate the provincial and ethnical amount (as china didn't do yearly census each year for every province before 1982). So my numbers differs in the millions and you get the confidence interval of 90-95% that is a bit of spitball and evened out. Hope you don't take offense that I don't do any more significantly statistically correct estimations but I only want to give a inkling of what the problem whit the northern provinces is, not present a population growth chart whit density calculations as that would take to long time.
What I know is that when Communist china officially recognized them as a separate group from the Han Chinese 1952 they did in fact encourage many people in the northern provinces to reclaim the heritage of being Manchu after having hiding it during the period of Manchukoku. This led to a dramatic increase in "Manchu" people in the official statistics whit nearly 1-1.5 million 1953 (from about 1 to 1,5 million) to 2,5 million in 1953 years big census. Between 1982 and 1990 many Han Chinese applied for being officially recognized as Manchu and again doubling the number of Manchurians to today's about 10 millions. So if we regard these families seeing themselves as Manchurian all the time but not bothering registering (even if they received a small reward for it) in the 1950is there should only be about 5 to 6 million of them spread out in the northern parts of china all the way down to south of Beijing in 1969. If all of them are loyal to the new Soviet puppet there is a core of loyal citizens in a sea of Han Chinese anyway. So there is at least a large group of people still present for the red guardists to hide among given that any Soviet soldiers known and could spot the difference between them. If I only include the populations of the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning in 1969 there should only be around 60-70 million people living in this area, much more manageable for the 240 million or so Soviets.
Okay. The numbers speak. I'd been thinking of the region as more the chief bargaining chip / battleground and one of the less likely candidates for puppetization. Given that many ethnic Chinese and the apparent condition of the minorities the latter drops out. The Soviets would probably be more likely to knock a few edges off in the far north than to try to divorce the whole from China. Though I still think their strategy would be to occupy it - forcing the Chinese to bleed themselves in attempts to reclaim it.
Would it not easier for Soviet to split off Xingjian and maybe even Tibet (reaching it through Xingjian) and add inner Mongolia to Mongolia. In these areas there is ethnic minorities ready to throw out any Han Chinese present (or could be compelled/forced to by the Soviet). There is ample of opportunity to split off areas of the Provinces of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan whit majority of these ethnicities in them. This would "secure" large stretches of border without binding large amount of troops and in the same time give China a bloody nose and the west hiccup.
Hahaha. That's actually about the scenario I had in mind, originally. Got side-tracked defending what was
possible as opposed to saying what I
thought would be done. Ah well, at least we seem to be on the same page.
I suspect the mess in Manchuria is used to break the Chinese (although a line south of Beijing is possible as well). Then when someone shows up at the table, they're graciously informed that Manchuria will be returned but, of course, there are certain issues of national self-determination that simply
must be considered....
I could see Mao Zedong collect the country around it, write many speeches and then do nothing about it except glare frostily at USSR until he dies.
Hrm.... I know Tibet's a less likely inclusion, but I can't help but wonder when the place began to be romanticized so in the West. Certainly a theocracy dependent on Soviet support would be a little less idealized!
Have a safe trip. MVH Herr Stjernkjempe
Thankee kindly.