What if the KMT had won the Chinese Civil War?

[O'Hea]

A friend and I have been talking this idea over recently, and I wanted some input from the brilliant minds of Alt History. If, for whatever reason, the ROC defeated the PRC in the late forties and remained the internationally-recognized government of China, what would the effects of that be both domestically and internationally? Would the mainland ROC have democratized as early or as thoroughly as Taiwan has? What kind of impact would a rightist and pro-American Chinese government have on the Cold War? Would China's economic development have progressed differently?

I can basically see a very optimistic or very pessimistic set of outcomes, and I don't have the specialized knowledge of the times or conditions to know which was more likely. In international conflicts, the optimistic assessment is that a pro-US Chinese government would mean an early reunification of Korea under the ROK and either an easy Western victory in Vietnam or not much of a war at all, and the much weaker Soviet position leads to an earlier collapse for them as well. The pessimistic assessment is that, with a friendly and war-ready China, the West feels confident enough to fight the Soviets shortly after WW2, probably ending in an eventual US victory but also further destroying Eurasia and leaving Europe in much the same state it was in just after WW1. Which is to say, a very dangerous and chaotic one. Domestically, China would have avoided the catastrophic Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, but beyond that it's hard to say what could have happened economically or socially. Optimistically, China would develop more freely and rapidly between 1950-1980 than it has in OTL without facing many additional challenges; pessimistically you'd end up with an economy that is just as corrupt but even more unequal, with serious potential for unrest in the interior and feeding into Burma-style separatist wars with ethnic minorities. I'm not familiar enough with Taiwan's democratic transition to make any kind of assertion about how it may have gone in a mainland context.

[hellheaven1987]

Chiang would have to fight a second war against all warlords anyway.

[visser300]

Soviet would not let this happen in any ways. Even if it did, Soviet simply raise another communist rebellion. A possible outcome would be China would fall into another century of bloody civil war and Soviet would last longer.

[Hresvelgr]

Soviets would prop up the CPC if there was no serious chance of a Chinese communist victory and if a communist victory didn't get them anything. The Soviets had in the past been very friendly with the KMT whereas their relationship was regularly quite strained with China. They can't just snap their fingers and raise a communist rebellion all willy-nilly and even if they could it would be a waste of money and resources. If the Nationalists get rid of Mao and the other primary communist leaders the CPC is more or less done for. In any case, even the more pessimistic outlooks would see China doing a fair sight better than the disastrous regime of Mao. The Korean War either never happens or the North Koreans get themselves destroyed and there's no Chinese army to bail them out and the Soviets would do much more than send pilots to Korea. It could still happen, I don't think Kim Il-Sung even had Stalin's permission or whatever to invade the south and he might still go ahead without a friendly(ish) regime in China on his side.

[hellheaven1987]

Na, there were plenty of people CCP could use to fight KMT; as long as Soviet pumped in materials CCP could always produce another army in no time.

[O'Hea]

If that's the case then how far back is the point of no return? If the Wang Jingwei-Jiang Jieshi conflict played out differently, was there a chance of the KMT keeping enough of the leftists on its side to neutralize the CCP?

[hellheaven1987]

If that's the case then how far back is the point of no return? If the Wang Jingwei-Jiang Jieshi conflict played out differently, was there a chance of the KMT keeping enough of the leftists on its side to neutralize the CCP?

Probably not, since it was Wang purged CCP himself; CCP probably would become less a problem if Chiang could hold China together until mid-1960s, although it was quite possible that Chiang would have to lost both Xinjiang and Manchuria in order to please Soviet Union.

Unfortunately Chiang was stucked in a position that he had to disband most NRA in order to save government budget (the plan was to reduce 300 NRA divisions to 60) but had no resource to disband those troops. My grandfather, who was an NRA officer, told me before the Nationalist government was so short of fund between 1945~49 that they could only disband units on ground by a single announcement - the veterans got no welfare, no pension, no GI Bill, not even a traveling ticket back home.

[AqD]

Unfortunately Chiang was stucked in a position that he had to disband most NRA in order to save government budget (the plan was to reduce 300 NRA divisions to 60) but had no resource to disband those troops. My grandfather, who was an NRA officer, told me before the Nationalist government was so short of fund between 1945~49 that they could only disband units on ground by a single announcement - the veterans got no welfare, no pension, no GI Bill, not even a traveling ticket back home.

I guess most of them went straight to the Communism party after being disbanded.

Mao solved this problem quite easily by Korean war.

[hellheaven1987]

I guess most of them went straight to the Communism party after being disbanded.

A good amount actually went to CCP right straightly when the news of possible disband was leaked out; in reality Chiang never reached an agreement with all warlords whose units should be disbanded, so most "core" units existed during CCW.