How would China have turned out if the KMT had succeded in putting down Mao before or after WWII?
Would it be an even greater economic power than today, without having gone through Mao's great jump forward?
I don't think the Cold War would have been as long or intense. The commies originally had nice intentions but went to shit after a bit, my grandpa even fought for them. The KMT also had some unpopular warlord support. Perhaps initially KMT China would not have been very successful, but with western support and influence it would be a nice place to live today.
>>3630
The KMT was a corrupt and authoritarian shit. It was only the reforms of Lee Teng-hui that allowed it to be successful today.
China would likely be worse for wear, or even balkanized now. The Kuomintang was entering the stage with a new ideology, uniting all different races in China at the time, which most weren't receptive to.
The Kuomintang was also a pretty weak government, and China would likely still be a backwater because of it.
>>5187
So how were the communists able to do it?
Mismanaged garbaje that barely functions as a state would likely be the result. The only reason they survived WW2 was because they threw 22 million peasants into the meat grinder
Mismanaged garbaje that barely functions as a state would likely be the result. The only reason the KMT survived WW2 was because they threw 22 million peasants into the meat grinder
It would probably look like India.
>>8282
The KMT were fairly authoritarian too though. If they fixed their corruption, they would probably have had enough political and military power to keep local rebels down.
>>8282
I said that because both the KMT and Gandhi's party believed in similar economic policies, as in having a mixed economy , so the end results would probably be similar.
>>8617
Didn't India spend decades after independence trying to achieve quasi-socialist autarky?
>>8699
Yes. India and USSR were best buddies.
Only after they got over that, India has been able to start lifting itself from poverty.
If Chiang had been able to take out Mao in the 1930s, it's possible the Communists would have been eliminated as a threat for awhile. However, the Japanese would have still caused substantial defeats on KMT forces and as a result the KMT's legitimacy would have been questioned by Chinese citizens. It's probable that the Communists would have reconstituted themselves in the war years and probably would have begun fighting the KMT again, but if Mao was not around its unlikely that they would have been able to receive Manchuria from the Soviets after 1945 and as a result they probably wouldn't have been able to establish a significant territorial foothold in China from which to conquer the rest of the country. Either way WW2 was going to fuck the KMT whether the communists were still around or not.
>KMT wins
Well China would be gone, but West Japan will be strong and thriving. Japs would have taken over China, WWII would be extended with possible Japanese victory/stalemate
>>10304
Not sure how you figure that. Japan still would have gotten bogged down in the interior by 1938, they never had the manpower or resources to fully subdue China, whether the Communists were still around or not wouldn't have made a significant difference. Arguably the KMT would have been more of an effective fighting force, since they could concentrate their efforts at fighting just the Japanese instead of constantly wasting resources against the Communists.
>>8388
Corruption wasn't the real issue, it was the mismanaged economy. They didn't know what they were doing and paid the ultimate price.
I went to both China and Taiwan over the summer and the latter is much superior to the former, so...
>>11875
well that is a dumb comparison.
Taiwan is floated by america and has far smaller population.
its like comparing singapore to thailand.
Present-day China under the KMT would basically be the same as the situation with Communists in charge: massive wealth ineqaulity, with wealth concentrated in the coastal cities and massive poverty in the countryside, capitalist/state capitalist exploitation of workers and the environment, massive corruption and police state, etc. There probably wouldn't be all that much difference for the common Chinese person. Geopolitically there would be much more peace between the region's nations and NK would have disappeared by now.
Would be worse probably.
>>3630
It would have a more developed economy so it would be better by this point.
>>3630
More important than the economic details, is that the right side would have won and we could have avoided this present nonsense.
History would not need to have been corrected on this point.
>>5168
That was the communist propaganda. They were no more corrupt than the Communists.
>>5168
It was corrupt and authoritarian because much of the state had been destroyed during the Sino-Japanese War leaving the worst elements intact. The recent Mitter book at least illuminates to me that the changes in social policy and the very relationship between the people and the state that was carried over in both Taiwan and the mainland was due to the Nationalists.
>>5959
>So how were the communists able to do it?
The Communists survived the war largely intact in Yannan. They had stockpiles of arms captured from the surrendering Japanese turned over to them by the Soviets as well as Japanese Army officers pressed into their service. The Nationalists were dealing with American weariness (due to several issues including corruption) and lack of support as well as their decimated ranks (Chiang's elites units had all been) and collapsing support amongst the populace.
>>16731
Do not forget that Americans actively support the communists because most agents "on the ground" in China were communist spies like Owen Lattimore and Edgar Snow. That had a huge influence in American policy, these were the guys that convinced the American public that the KMT was corrupt while the Communists were just agrarian reformers.
>>16834
This is because what Edgar Snow was selling what Americans wanted to head. People pulling themselves up from their bootstraps not stories of famines and people impoverished by the war and fleeing military service or that the American military leaders had wasted Chinese forces on quixotic quests that resulted in entire divisions being lost . This ultimately ties in with America's pre-war vision of building China into America 2.0, which instead you could argue probably ended up happening to Japan instead.
