Would china have been better off if the nationalists won?
>>266255
No idea. Probably India tier though a bit better. And we'd get more cornier Chinese movies due to the lack of Cultural Revolution creating a generation of depressed directors.
>>266255
way better
>>266255
No, it would have descended into another era of petty warlords and split the country apart.
>>266255
Yes.
Jiang Jieshi was a gigantic douchebag but Mao Zedong's reign was outrageously bad. There was widespread death and famine as a result of severely misguided and horrible state policies, and when some Communist leaders like Peng Dehuai dared to criticize Mao even mildly, Mao responded by being a little baby and purging any of his opponents.
Mao's regime was the worst sort of regime imaginable because Mao was not even willing to listen to any kind remonstration, even as people were dying like flies and the economy was tanking.
>>266255
> if the nationalists won?
How exactly are you defining the nationalists "winning"? Even after the chucked the Chi-coms out of the south in those bandit pacification campaigns before the Japanese showed up, they never really managed to exert political control over the areas they "occupied."
To be honest, without some sort of political acumen they never demonstrated historically, I can't really envision a KMT victory, just a question of how long they last and who it is that finally overthrows them.
>>266255
If someone could centralize the state and remove corruption then we could have a China with all the modern benefits without communism or the recent effects of Mao's reign. But that's a huge ask.
Without that centrallization China would doomed to remain backwards and poor. No amount of American economic investment can save the place if all that money goes into the hands of local officials and mini despots that were endemic in National China.
Would Amercia even allow such a hypothetical reformer into power? Or would he be crushed as so many other promising leaders were during the Cold War. Would such a person ever even come to the forefront? If not I believe China is doomed to be incompetent dictatorship with constant social upheaval instead of the ecnomic superpower we see today.
Would we have gotten WWIII if Nationalist China had won?
Serious question, serious shift in the balance of power in the post-war period, and it would have made it significantly harder for Russia to intervene in the Korean and Vietnam war.
>>266401
You're implying the Cold War would have turned out the same way if China wasn't communist.
>>266255
Obviously. Anything is better than communism.
>>266431
Yes. If the Nationalist government remained in power, the geopolitical tension would have been a lot higher.
So for the sake of world peace, it was better to have the communists win.
Shame about the whole GLF and CR thing though.
Much better
ib4 "muh corruption"
>>266451
So, Soviet backed separatists in the west and south? Maybe we'd see an independent Tibet and Turkestan
>>266334
>>266449
However, China emerged from Mao's reign as a powerful industrial nation rising like a rocket with a centralized government in complete control of the country.
The KMT, on the other hand is/was completely corrupt and incapable of controlling the lands they claimed to "govern". KMT officers kept embezzling funds and supplies, and warlords still ruled much of China even up to the Second Sino-Japanese War. There is not a doubt in my mind that if Chiang had "won" the war against the Communists just as many people would have died from all the constant warlord wars that would have erupted. China would literally be Africa-tier in terms of conflict and quality of life.
Hard to say. Really would have backed USSR into a corner and could have led to WW3. Or at the very least proxy wars somewhere. Would China be as well off today as it is now? I kinda doubt it.
>>266438
A big reformer would have threatened Americas position in China. Why take a gamble if could just take him out and ensure your position? If China wasn't Communist it would be Americas number one priority. We subvertered the democracies of a lot of countries to keep our control. Why would it be any different here?
>>266481
>However, China emerged from Mao's reign as a powerful industrial nation rising like a rocket with a centralized government in complete control of the country.
lol
communist blather 4 sure
>>266481
That's a joke, honestly. Mao was a pathetic leader. It took the reforms of Deng Xiaoping and many decades of recovery for China to bounce back from its disastrous years of early Communism.
>>266481
>tfw no modern romance of the three kingdoms
>tfw chiang kai shek isnt cao cao
>>266481
>However, China emerged from Mao's reign as a powerful industrial nation rising like a rocket with a centralized government in complete control of the country.
>powerful industrial nation
It was a starving shithole
Thank god Deng Xiaoping canceled of Mao's policies. Mao was one of the biggest fucking retards in history.
>>266521
Interestingly enough, Mao actually loved ROTK and thought of the Soviet Union, China and the USA as the three powers in a tripartite global order.
He was flattering himself and his country even if he thought that China was Shu-Han (the weakest), though.
>>266531
But Mao's commonly been compared to Cao Cao
>>266526
>>266510
Fair point. Mao was a shithead.
But I would still argue that China's position was still better off than if the KMT had won, if only because of the governmental control. Either option is shitty, but I don't know if constant civil war is really any better than living under a totalitarian dictatorship.
On a theoretical level a nationalist government should have propelled China to massive economic development back in the early 50s instead of the 80-90s.
However, a dictatorship is only going to be as good as the leaders and Chiang was bad. He was surrounded by corrupted party members and generals who are in effect land owning warlords. If he died too song China goes back to another few decade of Warlord rule.
Now if Sun Yat was in charge, China would already be the most powerful country on earth and strongest ally of America.
>>266539
That's deeply insulting to Cao Cao.
Lai Sing Lam wrote a book about how Mao Zedong used allusions from ROTK to grasp the international world order, though. I read a bit of it and it was interesting.
>>266544
>But I would still argue that China's position was still better off than if the KMT had won
Why? Because China was unstable during a fucking civil war and a fucking world war? What a myopic view.
It's not like the communists had a very strong hold on north western china during the 1930s, which was supposed to be their country..
>>266526
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism was a mistake
t.
Deng Xiaoping
>>266539
>>266526
Wow, you guys are not getting his point.
The fact that Deng was actually in a position to reverse Mao's policies is exactly what's different about this situation from pre-1950s.
There's a world of difference between being a bad government, and a non-existent government.
China was primed for industrialization under Deng, because Deng could actually implement policies across China.
Chiang could never do that, and it's likely he never could, and it's likely his successor couldn't until someone came along to ACTUALLY rule China.
>>266554
>That's deeply insulting to Cao Cao.
Implying.
They were both power-monger who lacked legitimacy but forged a mighty force in their own right. Also they both had a lot of talented generals in their ranks.
>>266555
>Because China was unstable during a fucking civil war
A civil war that Chiang was supposed to have won in 1928, which is my point. Even after consolidating China under the Nanjing government, warlords STILL ruled vast swathes of the country and STILL fought each other constantly.
>>266552
RIP Sun Yat Sen
>>266569
>Chiang could never do that, and it's likely he never could
[citation needed]
>during the japanese invasion of China during ww2, he didn't control all of the country
>this clearly proves that only saint-mao (pbuh) could unify China
>>266544
>>266552
I'll give you guys credit though because Jiang Jieshi was a gigantic douchebag. In fact, I said as much earlier in this thread. He and his cronies were obviously corrupt and incompetent. I'd say he was still the lesser of two evils because Mao's rule was an absolute disaster. It's very hard for me to imagine anything worse. I think the chronic strife that characterized warlordism China was pretty bad, yet even that seems preferable to the ramifications of the Great Leap Forward or five year plans.
I remember reading an author who said that if Mao Zedong had been the Emperor of a dynasty in Imperial China times, he would have easily been accused of losing the mandate of heaven and his regime would have collapsed. It's probably true because there were widespread economic and even natural disasters while he was leader and he wasn't listening to the remonstrations of earnest officials.
>>266569
Basically,
Despite calling themselves nationalists they had an extremely loose decentralization of the country.
The maoists, initially wanting power to be in the hands of the countryside ironically ended up being super centralized.
>>266580
>this clearly proves that only saint-mao (pbuh) could unify China
millions of dudes could have done a better job than mao, none of them named Chiang.
>>266322
Wouldn't that have made the rest of the world a better place? Or would China just have ended up The Middle East II: Mongorian Jihadist Edition?
>>266580
He was supposed to have controlled all of the country after the Northern Expedition. He didn't.
>>266575
Wat? There was a civil war in 1930
>>266588
Don't you mean Wigger Jihadist?
>>266586
>I remember reading an author who said that if Mao Zedong had been the Emperor of a dynasty in Imperial China times
I understand the point of the analogy but its a bit moot.
Mao would always be the barbarian sweeping away the decadent rulers and implementing harsh rule on his new citizens before mellowing on on that sweet sweet imperial life.
>>266570
Cao Cao killed a bunch of literati and massacred civilians in Xu but brought order to Northern China. Tuntian was an actually good policy that helped relieve famine and hardship. Mao Zedong's disastrous policies, by contrast, brought disorder, starvation, cannibalism and death. The scope was also greatly different.
Mao Zedong is pathetic. You're better off comparing him to the First Emperor of Qin (who he admired for some reason) or some other maniacal and disastrous tyrant in Chinese history.
I'm actually not even a great fan of Cao Cao but I'll defend him on this point.
>>266596
>>266596
I don't mean the Communists. I mean the warlords. Chiang was supposed to have brought them to heel, but since he was so focused on killing the Communists he never bothered to make them obey. Largely the only change after the Northern Expedition was that the warlords changed uniforms from the Beiyang Army to the NRA.
>>266598
>Mao would always be the barbarian sweeping away the decadent rulers and implementing harsh rule on his new citizens before mellowing on on that sweet sweet imperial life.
No, Mao is literally Li Zicheng
>>266580
this desu. Chiang may have been had deep flaws but he had everything going against him. nobody expected the Northern Expedition to be successful in 1926 and it came as a miracle when it did. And regardless of his actual policy the Nanjing decade he presided over saw precipitous economic growth (and people also don't realize warlord era had this too, industrial capacity increased 300% from 1912-1926). While I'm not a libertarian, I think this shows that China didn't necessarily need central planning to achieve an industrial breakthrough. Chiang was corrupt but the Japanese utterly wrecked his army and economy
>>266606
>Mao Zedong is pathetic. You're better off comparing him to the First Emperor of Qin (who he admired for some reason) or some other maniacal and disastrous tyrant in Chinese history.
Qin Shihuang brought order and centralization to a war torn land. He implemented efficient laws and principles of government and united various warring kingdoms into one great empire.
>>266621
Except the actual area of control under Jiang's government is like what, 30, 40% percent of the country?
The rest of China was either in the hands of warlords, or the Japanese.
>>266610
So China had a small period of instability during the 1930s because, following a chaotic civil war, there were some autonomous warlords in the north.
I guess this justifies the great leap forward and the 60 million dead through collectivization.
>>266621
No, no you don't understand, Chiang was an incompetent, and he had a tiny penis! Only a man as great and bold as Mao could so courageously hide in the woods while Chiang did all the heavy lifting, then descend like a plague and do the remarkable feat of making China, which was already an abominable shithole, even worse.
>>266637
>So China had a small period of instability during the 1930s because, following a chaotic civil war, there were some autonomous warlords in the north.
Starvation and poverty was just as common if not more common during the Warlord era.
Source: My grandparents lived through both the warlord era and the GLF
>>266625
which then collapsed pretty swiftly because of his harsh authoritarian rule
to be honest, comparing anybody to mao is insulting to the other person but at least compare him to somebody brutal.
to all those criticizing the lack of central authority and centralizing the Nationalists only had a few years in power before the 32 war and then 36. Plus they were still trying to eliminate and reduce the power of warlords
>>266645
>Starvation and poverty was just as common if not more common during the Warlord era.
But that's blatantly not true.
60 million chinese didn't die of starvation during the warlord era...
>Source: My grandparents lived through both the warlord era and the GLF
Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
>>266648
>which then collapsed pretty swiftly because of his harsh authoritarian rule
Which was substituted by the Han dynasty which lasted 400 years and brought the Chinese civilization to unprecedented heights and the status of a world power.
Look at the bigger picture, I swear to god.
>>266654
>60 million chinese didn't die of starvation during the warlord era...
The difference is only statistics. Living conditions were all the same.
>Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
Uh yeah, where were the Mao era propaganda in the 1930s?
>>266637
>Only a man as great and bold as Mao could so courageously hide in the woods while Chiang did all the heavy lifting, then descend like a plague and do the remarkable feat of making China, which was already an abominable shithole, even worse.
this so much!
>>266637
>So China had a small period of instability during the 1930s because, following a chaotic civil war, there were some autonomous warlords in the north.
That's the fucking problem. The warlords were supposed to have been brought into line with the KMT and actually report to Nanjing. They didn't. Nothing changed. Warlords still controlled most of the country, they still fought each other constantly.
All Chiang did was get them to agree to kill commies with him, and then proclaimed the Civil War over so he could focus on killing Mao. Nothing fucking changed.
>>266588
A bit of that, but mostly Sub-Saharan Africa II: This Time With Even More Warlords!
>>266661
>The difference is only statistics. Living conditions were all the same
Well they were clearly not. If living conditions were the same, you'd notice a similar death toll during the 1930s.
>Uh yeah, where were the Mao era propaganda in the 1930s?
I'm talking of during Mao's time stupid.
>>266610
> Largely the only change after the Northern Expedition was that the warlords changed uniforms from the Beiyang Army to the NRA.
Haha, I don't think it even accomplished that.
The Chinese 'nationalists' could never field a standard uniform.
>>266655
I get your point that the Han built upon the achievements of the Qin and that Deng built upon the achievements of Mao, but in both cases I'd rather give credit to the reformers. I feel that they were more responsible to enduring prosperity. Sometimes there were dynasties which unified China but then just outright failed, like the Western Jin. I don't think that unifying China like Mao and the First Emperor did is enough to warrant paeans of praise. I don't think you should credit Mao for modern China's success or credit the First Emperor for the Han dynasty. You should credit Deng Xiaoping and other like-minded reformers for current China's relative success (compared to Mao times) and credit Liu Bang and his advisers/generals for the Han.
>>266671
>That's the fucking problem. The warlords were supposed to have been brought into line with the KMT and actually report to Nanjing. They didn't. Nothing changed. Warlords still controlled most of the country, they still fought each other constantly.
Then why didn't Saint-Mao unify China in the late 1920s and early 1930s? If communists are so great at creating centralized governments, why did they hide in the woods?
>>266632
You're implying that Chiang somehow "let" the warlords run the country. Believe me, if he had the funds, he would certainly have reunified the country. But when he took power his government was broke and BARELY staying afloat. He had to literally kidnap Chinese industrialists in Shanghai and exhort them for cash to keep the money flowing to the government and the army. You have to remember that the Great Powers treated China like a bitch on a tether. They forced her to keep her tariffs at a mere 3 or 5%, (and this was a major source of tax revenue for all govt in those days, but especially China without a sophisticated bureaucracy. Tariffs are easy taxes to collect cause you just establish agencies in big port cities.) Chiang actually threatened to kick the foreigners out and he thereby got control of government's tariff revenues. Even so, that wasn't enough money, and it is true his administration was corrupt and incompetent. Nevertheless, something like 60 to 80% of the budget went to military expenditures, so it wasn't like he didn't have plans to reunify the country. But holding distant territories was expensive and assembling another expedition takes a shit ton of supplies, organization and money.
>>266677
>Well they were clearly not. If living conditions were the same, you'd notice a similar death toll during the 1930s.
There was no sparrow extermination or race to produce pig iron in the 1930s.
>I'm talking of during Mao's time stupid.
And they lived before Mao's time where they got to see how shit the Warlord era was with their own eyes.
>>266688
Okay, here's the disconnect. You think I'm saying Mao was good. I'm not.
I'm saying Chiang Kai-Shek was a fucking incompetent powermonger who was incapable of ruling China.
>>266692
Yes. I agree with all of that.
However remember that even warlords under his allegiance and service were un-controllable to Chiang. He couldn't even control the elites within his own ranks, and they answered to his orders.
>>266692
>Believe me, if he had the funds, he would certainly have reunified the country
If he had the funds, he would have passed them off to T.V. Soong to hand around as kickbacks.
>Nevertheless, something like 60 to 80% of the budget went to military expenditures, so it wasn't like he didn't have plans to reunify the country. But holding distant territories was expensive and assembling another expedition takes a shit ton of supplies, organization and money
The claim isn't that Chiang didn't WANT to unify the country, but that he was militarily and politically incapable of doing it. And the proof is, he was the premier military power in China for a DECADE and he couldn't do it.
If money was the only factor, how the fuck did Mao pull it off?
>>266693
>There was no sparrow extermination
Is this like the Great Emu War?
Did Mao intentionally kill millions of his people, did he simply not care about collateral at all, or was he just really incompetent and surrounded by yes-men?
>>266722
All of the above.
>>266718
Except with way more casualties.
>>266683
Well they got rid of the based Five Races Under One Banner flag, so that was a downgrade at the very least.
No I don't care that Sun Yat-Sen liked the other flag better, the original Republic of China flag just looked good.
>>266722
All of these but mainly the latter point (imo).
>>266722
He was not incompetent, but ignorant. And surrounded by yes-men. The only people that could talk some sense into him were Zhu De, Peng Dehuai and Zhou Enlai.
And they were responsible for talking him down after the failure of the GLF.
>>266735
>faggot rainbow flag
>good
>>266596
>I agree that he was too lenient. He should've rounded up and shot every communist.
He tried, remember? He got tunnel-vision trying to do just that.
>>266693
>There was no sparrow extermination or race to produce pig iron in the 1930s.
Right. Hence why it was better in the 1930s. I mean, unless your grandparents actually liked starving.
>>266703
>I'm saying Chiang Kai-Shek was a fucking incompetent powermonger who was incapable of ruling China.
As opposed to Mao who was...?
>>266747
>He tried, remember?
He barely purged a few cities. He should've sent death squads roaming the countryside.
![2000px-Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China_%281912-1928%29.svg[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/nZYgpcK.png "2000px-Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China_%281912-1928%29.svg[1].png")
>>266746
Fuck you, it's GOAT.
>>266748
>Right. Hence why it was better in the 1930s. I mean, unless your grandparents actually liked starving.
They don't like starving. That's why they didn't like the Warlord era where everyone was starving, there was high food scarcity, price inflation through the roof, and unsecured food supply.
![2000px-Beiyang_star.svg[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/orDzasr.png "2000px-Beiyang_star.svg[1].png")
>>266758
>>266746
The insignia was objectively the best.
>>266703
Mao was 10 times more incompetent than Chiang ever was. The Great Leap Forward was a fuckup of legendary proportions
>>266763
>That's why they didn't like the Warlord era where everyone was starving, there was high food scarcity, price inflation through the roof, and unsecured food supply.
Right, but nothing comparable to the starvation under Mao.
>>266768
>communists
>support
Communists gained support through red terror, like they always do.
>>266710
>he would have passed them off to T.V. Soong to hand around as kickbacks.
true senpai, keeping up appearance of parliamentary government filled with cronies when in reality power is all in your hands is expensive as fuck. Chiang should have done away with it all and declared a dictatorship. But I think he had in mind impressing America and securing international support more generally in mind so he kept up appearances. China lobby was powerful in America.
>If money was the only factor, how the fuck did Mao pull it off?
Power vacuum. The warlords, as far as I know, were gone in the north when the Soviets conquered Manchuria from the Japs. They purposely held out letting Chiang take the region (which the Japanese had industrialized significantly) and let Mao and his gommies take control of the area and its large cache of weapons. I also won't deny Mao had massive popular support from the peasantry and this had always been Chiangs weak point. Mao did work wonders with mass mobilization techniques and he had cadres infiltrate the countrysdie everywhere and got peasant support all over. The peasants joined Mao cause the countryside had become increasingly unequal since 1910 and the Beiyang and Nanking governments had their eyes towards the cities rather than the countryside.
Also after WWII Chiang didn't get his shit together fast enough and corruption was still rampant. His army looked good on paper but it was full of starving men, corrupt officers and generals and the like. Nobody really felt loyal enough to Chiang's govermnent in the end to support it
>>266758
man that's a 10/10 flag right there
>>266783
So what you needed was White Terror to combat them. That will obviously endear you to the average Chinese peasant who doesn't give a shit about his government as long as he isn't being shot. Surely they will react positively to the death squads roaming the countryside with the sun on their caps as opposed to the death squads with the red star on theirs.
>>266785
>http://www.amazon.com/The-Deng-Xiaoping-Era-Socialism/dp/0809078155
>Meisner explains how the dictatorial Deng regime, under the ideological cover of communism, dismantled collectivized agriculture, stripped urban workers of lifetime job guarantees and ended a welfare benefit system that once provided secure pensions, medical care and promises of income. For the average citizen, the result, says Meisner, is ever more intensive labor exploitation by a corrupt new bourgeois elite, as well as widespread apathy, spiritual impoverishment, disillusionment and nihilism.
lelmao
guy is a marxist
>>266798
>So what you needed was White Terror to combat them
It always helps.
>That will obviously endear you to the average Chinese peasant who doesn't give a shit about his government as long as he isn't being shot. Surely they will react positively to the death squads roaming the countryside with the sun on their caps as opposed to the death squads with the red star on theirs.
The white squads wouldn't target the peasants (unlike the red squads) they'd target the commies.
>>266809
>they'd target the commies.
....who would be among the peasantry.
Flawless logic, retard. Thank god no one of your mental caliber is in charge of any modern nation.
![vjs16[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/YDLPoKH.jpg "vjs16[1].jpg")
>>266786
>Also after WWII Chiang didn't get his shit together fast enough and corruption was still rampant. His army looked good on paper but it was full of starving men, corrupt officers and generals and the like. Nobody really felt loyal enough to Chiang's govermnent in the end to support it
I warned you fucks this would happen. I warned you about how bad the Nationalist Chinese government was. And yet everyone was fucking surprised that Kai-Shek couldn't govern his way out of a wet paper bag.
But nobody listens to Stillwell.
>>266786
I'll give you another factor: At the end of the day, the commies just wanted it more.
There were the kickbacks going downward, but there was also the kickbacks going upward. Why actually bring down the local warlord when it's less expensive to just take bribes from him?
There's a reason they were called warlords, and Chiang was just the biggest warlord. He didn't have a nation, or a government. He just had a bunch of armed forces he used to get more money.
That's why he did dumbshit things like plundering Nanking in 1945. That is not a thing you do if you have any plans for statebuilding.
He had a good thing going, and he'd rather not risk that by trying to rule China.
>>266809
>The white squads wouldn't target the peasants (unlike the red squads) they'd target the commies.
And how will you tell them apart, genius? Would you just shoot people "just to be sure" if you don't know that they're actually Communist?
This is why roaming death squads literally never help.
>>266829
>Nobody listens to Stillwell
His front is so forgotten, the mental block extended beyond the limits of the actual war.
>>266836
>That's why he did dumbshit things like plundering Nanking in 1945. That is not a thing you do if you have any plans for statebuilding.
>Chiang looted his own captial
>the capital he had spent a decade building industry up in
Okay, he deserved to lose for that alone. Nobody that stupid deserves to rule.
>>266817
>....who would be among the peasantry.
Hiding among them, but not peasants themselves. Most communists came from wealthy urban backgrounds.
If you think communists were mostly comprised of disenfranchised peasants, you are literally a moron.
>>266846
>And how will you tell them apart, genius?
I think it would be pretty obvious to tell a person wearing a hammer and sickle cap from a peasant.
>>266856
Not just the industry matters here. Think of what this does about his image, and more than that just how far of that is from the thoughts of a statesmen.
>This is the site of the worst atrocity committed against our people.
>It is also our capital, the home of my movement.
>The Japanese are withdrawing and I am able to peacefully enter the city.
That should have been Chiang's best moment. If he and his people had comported themselves with basic behavior, he'd get that sweet liberator halo.
Instead
>Lol, rape and looting!
>>266836
>>266829
what could he have done though? chiang made Stillwell resign after he accused him of being a shithead lmao
>>266836
i think intepreting chiang as a warlord is valid. but mao was a also warlord, just a more ideological one. all men from that era came to see violence as the means to power because the civilian government had lost all legitimacy when Yuan Shikai died after 1916.
mao said "power comes from the barrel of a gun" for a reason. he was explaining chinese reality at the time
>>266859
>I think it would be pretty obvious to tell a person wearing a hammer and sickle cap from a peasant.
I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, anon, but hats are removable.
>>266883
>I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, anon, but hats are removable.
Right, I'm sure komissars would be completely invisible among the peasantry.
>>266255
>People ITT saying China would be like Africa, Instead of TAIWAN, where the KMT actually held power.
kek
I don't really agree with the idea of asking questions like "what if X happened instead of Y?" It's sort of a waste of time.
>>266891
As it turns out, people start acting differently when their back is against the wall and they don't have any power left.
Chiang's conduct when he was milking the golden cow that was China is well known.
>>266891
I disagree. Anytime you make a non-tautological historical statement, you're engaging in a differently stated counter-factual.
For example, in this thread, if I say "It was a dumb idea to pillage Nanking." I am implicitly saying "It would have gone better if he hadn't pillaged nanking."
>i think intepreting chiang as a warlord is valid. but mao was a also warlord, just a more ideological one. all men from that era came to see violence as the means to power because the civilian government had lost all legitimacy when Yuan Shikai died after 1916.
By warlord, I don't just mean someone who employs armies to political violence.
I mean someone who uses war as a racket. The reality was that power comes from the barrel of a gun, but Chiang never knew what to do with it. He knew how to use violence, to get more money, and get more guns, and do more violence, but there was never any plan about how to get from that to a Chinese State. The corruption was a direct consequence of how Chiang operated as a warlord.
Comparitively, Mao was always by inclination a politician. Even when he was chairman of some caves in Yennan like a fucking neanderthal, he still set up an orderly government there. In fact, I've read biographies bitching about the fact that as the Sino-Japanese war was raging, Mao was bothering with useless meetings.
But the two men perpetuated the systems they used as they won.
Chiang won battles, and put in warlords who would be his opponents someday. Battles were a Sisyphean task for him, and he didn't seem to mind.
Mao won battles and set up political committees where he went.
>>266891
Taiwan is a tiny island. Mainland is a hulking mass.
Taiwan has a small population.
Mainland is 1/4th the world.
>>266499
>We subverted the democracies of a lot of countries to keep our control.
is china our biggest success?
>>266987
well thats just mao having better political instinct. chiang had dreams of unifying china but he went about it the wrong way. he relied too much on the chinese elite and his cronies and had a paternalistic idea of leadership. new life movement was basically a morality movement because he thought that if people were just more loyal and disciplined the nation could be united. this idea of leadership came from his own personality flaws and it shows in his government; he set up the government in such a way that he was indispensable. he also had a compulsive habit to micromanage everyone.
the contrast between mao and him were great in these years. arguably mao from 1930s to 1958 was a great leader. he built a movement from the bottom up rather than from the top down like chiang tried to do. his end game was also reuniting china and he did it because his plans were better (he was able to have a lot of time to experiment in yanan)
>>267079
For sure. A lot of people don't realize but we've been trying for over a century to court China. The European Colonial powers tried to get in the way, the Japanese tried, then the Soviet tried. Now they are all gone and we finally have China all to ourselves. All the worked has payed off.
>>266765
The insigna is alright, the flag is not
>>267103
dem post-stalin sin-soviet relations tho
Would the great leap have happened without the collapse in soviet support
Mao gave us based Deng Xiaoping. Could have been worse desu
>>266255
would've been even better under japanese rule desu
>>267598
THIS, PHAM
>>267381
can't recall why it happened. but mao and stalin also had a chilly relationship while it lasted. mao only came to memorialize him after he died, but when stalin was alive he made mao his bitch in moscow.
even after stalin died though the ussr had thousands of soviet advisors in the country for many years after.
I wish China and Japan still had their original culture. Westernization/modernization was a mistake.
>>267625
yeah no shit (I thought Stalin and Mao's relationship unthawed close to the end of Stalin's death as he calls Mao a true communist) but had the soviet's not withdrawn diplomatic ties had Mao not stuck a pin up Kruschev's ass would the leap forward have happened.
>>267648
Communism's demonizing of traditional culture ironically rolls out the red carpet for mass market capitalist slop.
If they "won" because they got their shit together, then China would be much better off.
If they "won" insofar as communist leaders magically die of heart attacks, then no, it would be a shithole of warlordism for decades and then who knows.
Why did they get so utterly BTFO in WW2?
>>267795
by 'they' do you mean the chinese or the KMT
>>267800
China
I know literally nothing of their history of the time desu
>>266481
The whole "KMT was corrupt" meme was started by communist propagandists and brought to the U.S. by sympathetic intellectuals such as Edgar Snow and Owen Lattimore.
The KMT were no more corrupt than what is usual in Asian politics. The South Korean dictators, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japanl, they are also "corrupt" and they still managed to build nice countries, there is no reason to think that a Nationalist China would have fared worse when in every case a country was divided between communist and anti-communist parts, the anti-communist ones fared better (see Finland vs Russia, South vs North Korea, West vs East Germany, even Taiwan vs Mainland China).
Communism sucks, it's only popular because intellectuals in the West think they are going to become the nomenklatura in a communist country, instead of being sent to labour camps by some secret policeman.
>>267819
>didn't mention South Vietnam
You fucked up there bud
>>267841
They never had a chance to show their worth.
>>266255
Better. The Cultural Revolution decimated the PRC economy and probably traumatized a generation. The great famine could also have been mitigated, so millions of people would have been spared.
>>267853
No, they did, and they fucked up because corrupt cronies got in charge and went on regular commie purge campaigns.
>>267914
It was the same in South Korea, the difference is that by the 1960s the communist intelligentsia in the West was powerful enough to change U.S. foreign policy.
Again, accusation of "corruption" is the typical modus operandi of Asian communists to discredit their enemies.
>implying communist china wasnt and isnt corrupt
It's fucking China.
The only argument is the level of consolidation of power.
>>267938
It reminds me of how the Dixie Mission, that went to China and came back singing praises about how the communists were pacifist, democratic reforms.
At the same time Mao was purging the shit out of the party in the Yan'an rectification movement. Somehow these American "observers" missed that.
>>267938
>It's China, bro
>It's Ancient Art, bro
>It's Freedom, bro
>It's 2015
>bro
Sending you down south
t. Mao
>Would china have been better off if they didn't spent a decade worshipping mangoes?
>>267795
>>267804
Because they didn't have as large of a truly modern fighting force as Japan did. The Guomindang did have the larger military, but a lot of these troops were warlord forces who could range from well-trained and well-equipped to literal peasants with a rifle older than him.
Not to mention the fact that the majority of their industrial capacity was in easy reach of the Japanese; by the latter years of the war, when the Burma road to the Allies was cut and the Guomindang forces had no source of supplies but limited inland industry, everything started to fall apart. Diseases were rampant and everyone was poorly supplied. Not to mention most of their modern fighting force was expended in 1937 to humiliate Japan by holding Shanghai and Nanjing for long periods of time rather than just being pushovers like the Qing. That was the reason the Rape of Nanjing happened.
tl;dr: A half-modernized military went up against a fully modern one, most of the time without supplies.
Oh, and it doesn't help that most Guomindang generals were incompetent.
>>267977
>Oh, and it doesn't help that most Guomindang generals were incompetent.
Except based fucking Xue Yue and Sun Liren though.
>>267984
And coincidentally, Xue Yue had strained relations with the rest of the Guomindang to the point where he was rarely supplied while Sun Liren was foreign-trained. Sun Liren was also the guy in charge of that modern army defending Shanghai in 1937.
But yeah, the Nationalists did have their fair share of talent as well; they had just destroyed a lot of public faith in them with things like the bursting of the Yellow River dams and the White Terror. After all, "[...] it was better to kill a hundred innocent people than to have a truly guilty one at large."
>>267586
He also gave China Jiang Qing, Lin Biao (before he got killed off) and purge a bunch of his wartime buddies (like He Long).
Chains is so lucky he only send Deng to a labor camp instead of starving him to death like Liu Shaoqi.
>>268035
Based Zhou Enlai had Deng's back. Not even exaggerating, that is a large part of why Deng survived without TOO much abuse through the Cultural Revolution.
>>267819
It was also observed my Joseph Stillwell while he as working with the NRA. There was exactly one general he had any respect for; the rest were corrupt people who'd rather steal their troops pay for themselves than pay them.
>>268146
A lot of Americans sympathized with the Chinese communists pre-1949
>>268164
[Citation needed intensifies]
>>268173
Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China was immensely popular.
>>268182
You're such a cunt it's unreal.
>>268164
The man who was the American commander in the CBI theater, the guy who got the job of rebuilding Chiang's army into something worth a shit...was a Communist sympathizer. Really.
>>267819
Nah, it was corrupt bro.
But I agree with your conclusion anyways. I think corruption is better than what Mao created, which was disaster.
>>268592
The Party is corrupt too. It's China, they have a long history of what the West considers corruptions.
Probably, I imagine Western powers would have been very kind to them post WWII
>>267658
well mao had as much to do with the break as khrushchev. i think the ideological differences were too great. iirc the break came in 56 when khrushchev crushed the hungarian uprising and mao pissed him off by siding taking the hungarian's side.
great leap forward i think would have happened then cause the great leap forward came from internal reasons, namely mao's distaste for all things bureaucratic and intellectual. mao was already becoming unhinged with the hundred flowers bloom let a hundred schools contend. he allowed for open discussion of the party's problems and tons of people voiced their concerns and frustrations and mao got pissed off and felt betrayed and purged everyone who had complained rofl. so he already had the idea in his head that he wanted to shake up the system, because again, he hated the bureaucratic turn of things from 1950 to 58, which he retardely didnt realize was quite successful. but noo he had to constantly shake up the system to be edgy the fucker
>>266255
If the nationalists won it probably would've turned into a democracy eventually. So yeah, way better.
>>266255
Always better. The rest of Europe had problems similar to Russia's before the advent of the USSR. Imagine if Russia had remained a part of the greater European community and evolved along with them naturally?
Is Taiwan better then China?
>>269155
In terms of what?
Somebody asked about the Warlord Era Osprey MMA book in the big Civil War thread recently. It just got uploaded on /tg/ in the /hwg/.
>>>/tg/43735165
>>269173
In general. Its not like the Nationalists just up and vanished, they are in Taiwan.
So is Taiwan a better place than mainland China? Most people would say yes.
>>266431
>the Korean and Vietnam war.
None of these would even have taken place without the PRC.
>>269421
Wow. It's like a time traveler from the 1950s, when people still listened to the China Lobby.
>>266255
Look at Taiwan.
>>269189
>Chang T'sung
>>270262
Kek
>yfw Zhou Enlai could've went with the KMT after San Yat Sen's death
>But didn't
>yfw no Emperor Zhou
>>266255
Under the rule of kek kai-shek? Hell no. If he can't even keep his wife from slutting around, how the fuck is he going to manage millions of chinamen?
>>266334
>Peng Dehuai
>tfw
Sun Yat-Sen dying worst day of my life
>>269242
>Monkey in wild
>Take monkey out of wild
>Put monkey in zoo
>Monkey lives longer who would've guessed?!?
KMT is not the reason Taiwan is where it is now.
America, Japan, and a small well-positioned trading island are.
The KMT rule of China 1920-1935 was an absolute shit show.
I don't want to get all reactionary, but I think that being dirt poor and happy under a weak and corrupt central government would be better than the completely insane levels of bullshit the Chinese people have gone through in the last seventy years.
Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Tibet would all be better of.
The Nationalists did a decent enough job of turning Taiwan into a decent place to live.
Wouldn't be a nuclear weapons power.
Population would probably be an issue. Since no Mao to kill tens of millions of Chinese through famine and purges. No one child policy.
>>275596
duur i can't into a few miles of difference between shanghai and taiwan.
duur i can't into taiwan was never historically a major trading center.
I have no idea how the KMT managed to maintain Taiwan, but I'll eventually find out, and it probably has to do with the gangster elements staying on the mainland to infect the Commies from within and create modern PROC.
>>275667
With even slightly-improved agriculture, China could have easily supported several times its population of 400 million at the time. No killing needed.
>>275758
Not true. The majority of agrarian output went to paying back Soviet debts and ensuring the development of heavy industry during the period of substantial deaths. China desperately required modernization from Western sources
>>269242
>>275596
Taiwan represented a big evacuation of skilled personnel. Lots of the top engineers, scientists, artists and even chefs fucked off to Taiwan because Mao looked about to kill anyone with a degree or a brain.
Same reason Cubans in the US are such a disproportionality powerful group. The elite of an entire country got smart and left.
Not saying that's the only reason or even a major reason, but having some of the best and brightest concentrated into a small area contributed.
>>267841
When Northern troops overran the South in 1975, they were shocked at finding refrigerators and TVs in regular people's homes. They proceeded to expropriate everything down to the smallest entrepreneur, but by the next decade had realized wow, this sucks ass and we're just poor, turns out they had it right in the south, and now basically they're hypercapitalists.
>>268042
I wish the KMT had won, but thank god for Zhou. I just have the feeling that he realized Mao was insane and just tried to stop the horror where and when he could, like when he posted the PLA to guard the Forbidden City when little Red Guard shits were on the way to burn it down.
>>269155
Having lived in both, yes, infinitely so in terms of living standards, politeness, personal and political rights, and just...well they're like the Japanese or South Koreans, first world Asians. Meanwhile many Mainland Chinese behave like fucking apes thanks to Mao genociding his own traditional culture and shutting down all higher education for an entire decade, because hurr lets all be equal peasants. Vietnamese people too are way more polite and have preserved their traditional culture far better than the Chinese because at least their commies didn't actively genocide their own culture.
>>266255
I'd much rather live in Taiwan than the Mainland these days, but I really doubt the nationalists could have maintained development over the whole area.
>>275896
>Mao looked about to kill anyone with a degree or a brain.
>Mao is Pol Pot.
Uh, No? Not all of them to begin with, just those suspected of being Anti-CCP and those intellectuals were merely imprisoned/sent to labor camps for reeducation.
Otherwise, the likes of people like Deng Xiaopeng and many of China's current leaders wouldve died earlier.
>>268146
>>268173
>>268283
>he is not familiar with Bircher literature
I recommend “Wedemeyer Reports” by Albert C. Wedemeyer. Here’s his take on Stilwell:
>Until now I had regarded Stilwell as a romantic fighting man, and the best-informed U.S. officer on China. It would be a long while before I finally pierced his legend to discover his gullibility concerning the Communists and his prejudiced view of Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalist Government of China, whose problems he never seemed to understand.
>Everywhere Stilwell went there was a photographer present to catch him in brave poses: peering between leaves at the enemy, or snuggling close to a gun, always giving the appearance of being a field soldier, which was the role in which he so loved to be presented.
>His description of Chiang Kai-Shek remains etched in my memory although soon I was to realize how unjust, uninformed, and prejudiced it was. My notes confirm how he castigated the Chinese President as coolie class, arrogant, untrustworthy, and absolutely impossible to get along with.
If not a commie, he was a sympathizer.
You have to realize that a lot of strange shit was going on during this early period of the Cold War. The State Department was infiltrated by communists right up to the top, specially the Pacific division (see the Amerasia case) and Stilwell's biography was written by the suspected Soviet agent Barbara Tuchman. James Forrestal, who was the only prominent anti-communist (his policy during the Greek Civil War was what recommended by Wedemeyer in China, to no avail) during this period was probably assassinated etc
>>275667
>Tibet
The modern day CCP and Mao actually treated the Tibetans a lot better than they deserved to be treated. They are literally the nignogs of China. WE WUZ LAMAS N SHEET NIGGA
The Nationalists would have fucked their asses and forced them to completely adopt Han culture, unlike the shitshow today where they still worship their primitive religion that uses human skulls as drinking cups.
>>276047
But either way, many intellectuals did flee to Taiwan and concentrated in that one island because they were able to see what was coming. And I'm sure anyone faced with a normal life in a lovely place like Taiwan or "merely" imprisonment/reeducation camps would choose Taiwan. Interestingly enough, that post mentioned chefs and yes that's one reason Taiwan is often called the world's best food tourism spot, because chefs who were masters of China's specific regional cuisines all fled to Taiwan and set up restaurants there. When the maoist shit subsided in the 1980s, the mainlanders had to pay them to come back and set up schools and restaurants to teach them how to cook the meals of former Chinese haute cuisine, many of which had long been forgotten due to fucking Maoism genociding their own culture and outlawing eating much besides plain rice or buns because it's "decadence".
>>276056
I don't wanna go full /pol/ and say it really was all due to commies in the state department, so besides that what is the explanation for the post-World War 2 arms embargo on the ROC? In the middle of the civil war? And so total that not only was the ROC cut off from ammo, even spare parts for planes and trucks, which stopped the ROC from taking Manchuria and pushing the commies off to the USSR and basically saved them. Da fuq, Truman?
>>276056
hmm, ok lets totally trust a source written at ideological heights of the cold war. how can that possibly be biased senpai?
>early period of the Cold War
this was during world war 2 mein gott this ideology.
>Barbara Tuchman
dude wat. if nobody knew you're argument might sound reasonable. but were talking about a best-selling historian you retard.
Stillwell probably sympathized with the Chinese communists for strategic purposes. He thought that the enemy was the Japanese and so he wanted Chiang to put aside his differences with the commies and form a common front. But instead Chiang was a cunt a tried to hoarded weapons, continued to skirmish with commies, and send starving troops to the front. On top of that the corruption in Chongqing was crazy considering that it was supposed to be a war of national proportions. Its not surprising Stillwell felt as he did. Please crawl back to your cave coldwarrior
>>276067
See yesterday's thread on Tibet. You are wrong.
By the way, do we have an archive?
>>276087
They were selling their arms to the Japanese, who proceeded to use them to fight the Americans, British, and KMT. This doesn't make sense until you find out all the Chinese embezzling funds lived in the United States. These are, for the most part, not the same overseas Chinese who helped pre-1911 revolutionaries.
Basically, for fifty years, a bunch of wackos took over many parts of the American executive branch and media that the KMT's censors had basically become redundant. They should have all been shot for treason, as Truman wanted.
I believe, had the United States invaded China, we would have found a sympathetic communist party that would have thrown off the literal yoke of the USSR. This was also advocated, mainly by Americans who realized the depths to which we had utterly messed up.
May-ling. wife of Chiang, lived until 2003 and died a comfy death in the United States in riches and splendor.
>>275877
Didn't know the first part. But, even so, if the currency was food, and little of China had been farmed (well, Mao desertified a bunch of it, so I'm confused there), how would killing healthy farmer-peasants increase economic output? After all, it was mainly peasants who died... Wasn't it?
>>276560
I can't speak for the particularities, but from as much as I've read from the book below - an academic who takes the most liberal estimates, with good cause - the deaths of the peasants occured from corruption in the party ladder in meeting the ridiculous economic targets the Central Party had set out.
Grain shortages were misreported, efforts to lower the national intake were disastrous, and so so many other factors that even without the hindsight of history Mao should've seen through yet didn't.
The dumbest shit is when farmers were told to melt down their tools and basic utilities into pig iron, in an attempt to increase the national output. Not only was the pig-iron so shit that they couldn't use it, the national output for agriculture suffered as farmers had to reinvest in the equipment they had just melted down.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maos-Great-Famine-Devastating-Catastrophe/dp/1408810034
>>266255
Perhaps, but Taiwan would have been worse off for sure.
>>276056
>early Cold War
Stillwell died in 1946. He had been recalled from China before Germany fell.
>suspected Soviet agent Barbara Tuchman
Oh, this is a new one. Just call a two-time Pulitzer-winning historian a "suspected Soviet agent", and you can destroy her credibility without ever having to prove anything! How'd the grave treat you, McCarthy?
This is the woman who wrote The Guns of August, you ass.
>>266255
Absolutely. Cultural revolution destroyed their culture and the top down forced industrialisation has destroyed their natural environment.
Chinese culture might actually be all but gone by the end of the century. China has fallen apart many times but could always count on highly productive local economy. Now it might not be possible.
>>266481
If you actually account for the environment destruction China is probably poorer now than thirty years ago.
>>277676
Just how much does China import?food
>>266722
All of the above.
Mao was fucking nuts and ignorant as hell.
The Sino Soviet split happened because the Russians really believed Mao wanted to start nuclear Armageddon.
>>279377
oil, gas, food, electricity, metal ores.
>>277531
You know who else won the Pullitzer Prize? Walter Durantyi.
Though I admit that my suspicions on Barbara Tuchman are personal. She did work for the Soviet infiltrated "Institute for Pacific Relations", and in the biography of Whitaker Chambers it is related that when she was in Tokyo she took the role of John Loomis Sherman, a known Soviet spy, in a communist front organization called American Feature Writers Syndicate . It's not known whether she also took on the espionage roles, I think she did, but I admit I have no proof.
>>266891
The Americans handed him the keys to Japan's richest colony.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_under_Japanese_rule#Economic
>>276047
Considering what happened to intellectuals during the cultural revolution I think it was pretty smart to flee to Taiwan.
>>279837
So, in other words, your dismissal of her biography of Stilwell is your own personal belief that she's a Soviet spy, a belief that you admit you have no actual evidence of.
Regardless, it doesn't make Stilwell a Communist either. Kai-Shek's conduct is well documented, and you can't dismiss every source as "Communist". The Communists didn't make up the NRA sacking Nanjing after liberating it from the Japanese.
