What if Nationalist China won the Chinese civil war?

[Calimera II]

Impossible to know.

[Pingxiang]

If the Nationalist had won then Nanjing would today be the Capital City of China.

China during Imperial times, which is most of its history, was under Civilian rule and bureaucrats. With the fall of the Empire, they set about looking for a new political system to copy. One that would better unite China.

In the end, Militarism won. Seeing how many Western nations and Japan had taken control of Chinese territories could explain why they went this route. So thousands of years of Civilian rule was tossed out. The military became important and was more powerful then even Chang's political party which he headed. But Chang had all the power since he was at the head of all the military. Chang even tried to instill the military way of thinking and lliving into the people. But it was not really accepted. When Mao took over he generally continued Chang's militarism but with a communist flare. During the cultural revolution, Mao (who himself was at the head of the military which was more powerful then even the political party he ran) tried to instill the military way of thinking and living into the people. This period is called the Cultural Revolution Period. He tried to instill it in people via art, plays and so on. You could say he went much further then Chang. But in the end, it caused too many problems. With Mao no longer around, the new leaders toned down the militarism and in a few decades China started to bloom economically.

The Soviets helped the Chinese create the Kuomintang (Nationalist party) and then the Chinese Communist party. Both were left leaning.

I should point out that since Sun Yatsen, the father of China, to today that science and engineering have been put first The humanities, which had been important during Imperial times was pushed to the bottom. Back during Sun Yatsen times some wanted to eliminate it all together from Universities. It is only today in China that it has started to make something of a come back. But still engineering is number one. Many of the leaders of the Central Government studied engineering. Seems they only have one who studied law.

One thing is for sure, China under whatever political party would have Xinjiang and Tibet has part of China.

[Lydenburg]

China would be a corrupt and developing country, same as it is now.

But much more successful economically. I've seen what Chinese entrepreneurs can do. Their business acumen is impressive.

Now imagine if they'd been allowed the freedom to do as they do much earlier, without the diehard era of Mao.

[Soviet Haaregrad]

Right wing dictatorship, left wing dictatorship. Either way, China would be a miserable place to live.

Capitalist dictatorship is better than Communist dictatorship.

Yes, capitalist shit tastes better than communist shit, I'm sure.

[Greater Weselton]

China would be in a better place today.

[Ardoki]

Right wing dictatorship, left wing dictatorship. Either way, China would be a miserable place to live.

Capitalist dictatorship is better than Communist dictatorship.

The Kuomintang back then were not capitalist. They favoured socialist-leaning hybrid economics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_ideology_of_the_Kuomintang

[Novus America]

Capitalist dictatorship is better than Communist dictatorship.

The Kuomintang back then were not capitalist. They favoured socialist-leaning hybrid economics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_ideology_of_the_Kuomintang

True, but that is basically what the Chinese government moved to after Mao, while it has become less and less socialist over time, it still uses a mixed hybrid system, particularly in natural resources. The post-Mao Chinese Communist party pretty much became the old KMT. So I do not think China would really be much different if Chiang had won. Chiang would love modern China.

[Calimera II]

I have to ask this guy for a good answer.
https://www.youtube.com/user/alternatehistorypt

He will make a video soon if I ask.

You are not able to think by yourself?

[Ardoki]

The Kuomintang back then were not capitalist. They favoured socialist-leaning hybrid economics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_ideology_of_the_Kuomintang

True, but that is basically what the Chinese government moved to after Mao, while it has become less and less socialist over time, it still uses a mixed hybrid system, particularly in natural resources. The post-Mao Chinese Communist party pretty much became the old KMT. So I do not think China would really be much different if Chiang had won. Chiang would love modern China.

No, it is quite different.

Both are mixed systems. However the KMT one is more similar to social democratic policies implemented in Europe and other places (such as India). The Communist Party (post-Mao) model is unique.

[FutureAmerica]

Chiang Kai-Shek was a corrupt leader and most Chinese despised him. If he had won, he would have ruled China with brutality. The Soviets would have funded communist rebel groups to try to destabilize China. China would have had to sign a mutual defense treaty with the US in order to contain the Soviet threat or the Soviets would have invaded. The Korean and Vietnam wars would not have happened. There would have been another Chinese civil war that could have lead to a nuclear WWIII.

[Socialist Czechia]

Chiang Kai-Shek was a corrupt leader and most Chinese despised him. If he had won, he would have ruled China with brutality. The Soviets would have funded communist rebel groups to try to destabilize China. China would have had to sign a mutual defense treaty with the US in order to contain the Soviet threat or the Soviets would have invaded. The Korean and Vietnam wars would not have happened. There would have been another Chinese civil war that could have lead to a nuclear WWIII.

Friendship with Chiang would totally destabilize western democracies too, sooner or later, because extermination camps for 'communist scum' and their families, included many totally innocent people, would be quite common in Nationalist China for decades There would be revolutions in 1960s or 1970s all over western europe.

[DaQinguo]

If sixty million died, China could be slightly less stringent with the one-child policy.

[Glorious Freedonia]

If Nationalist China won, China wouldn't have had the Great Famine, and other things.

China would be a democracy, so no Tiananmen square massacre or Hong Kong protests.

Let's admit that Chiang Kai-Shek was a better leader than Mao. Mao's personal army of brainwashed teenagers killed millions of people, killed teachers, abolished any form of education, and after his death, he left hundreds of thousands if not millions without any skills to get a job. That kind of crap didn't happen in Taiwan!

The Great Leap Forward was a huge failure, destroyed China economy, and killed tens of millions of people.

China would had great relations with the U.S so China would have been a member of NATO.

Chiang Kai-Shek encouraged industry, so China's economy would have been waaay better than it is right now.

I agree with everything you said except for China being part of NATO. China just has no connection to the Atlantic Ocean. It is not even close to it.

[Free Detroit]

Just so it's clear to everyone:

The KMT has never supported democracy. They enacted one of the longest terms of martial law in world history to maintain a military dictatorship, then only grudgingly allowed elections after 60 years because of massive unrest and the threat of revolution. They would happily suspend elections for another 60 years if they thought they could get away with it, and to this day a lot of senior KMT officials publicly maintain an ambivalent view of democracy.

[Senyosu]

Japan and South Korea would be irrelevant.

[Socialist Tera]

It would be worse, before Mao came into power, there was mass illiteracy.

[Republic of Coldwater]

It would be worse, before Mao came into power, there was mass illiteracy.

Because of the war and the economic ramifications of previous wars.

Taiwan, after the KMT went there eventually developed and blossomed into a Capitalist Republic like the west, and currently, Taiwan is a relatively rich nation with a strong economy and no such thing as mass illiteracy.

[Tuthina]

It would be worse, before Mao came into power, there was mass illiteracy.

Because of the war and the economic ramifications of previous wars.

Taiwan, after the KMT went there eventually developed and blossomed into a Capitalist Republic like the west, and currently, Taiwan is a relatively rich nation with a strong economy and no such thing as mass illiteracy.

Which has roughly 5% of the population of China (23 million versus 1,300 million), benefited from heavy investment from Japan on infrastructure and education as a showcase colony for its ill-fated colonial empire and then heavier investment from both USA and whatever wealth KMT can bring to Taiwan because using Ping Pong balls to do diplomacy was not a thing yet, not to mention the whole cold war thingy.

Well, I suppose if someone muster 20 times the resource, wealth and time on the mainland instead of a relatively small island, it can become a "relatively rich nation with a strong economy" as well. Just that it would have bankrupted Japan (who had trouble not getting rebels all over the place when it tried) and a rather unnecessary expense for mighty US as well. Before KMT was sent packing to Taiwan and thus has to rely on US support, KMT was the largest Lenin-style left-leaning party in east Asia, and possibly the entire world apart from the one ruling USSR, and thus it is more likely that a KMT-led China would resemble more like Tito's Yugoslavia than a supersized South Korea (or Taiwan) during the Cold War.

[Republic of Coldwater]

Because of the war and the economic ramifications of previous wars.

Taiwan, after the KMT went there eventually developed and blossomed into a Capitalist Republic like the west, and currently, Taiwan is a relatively rich nation with a strong economy and no such thing as mass illiteracy.

Which has roughly 5% of the population of China (23 million versus 1,300 million), benefited from heavy investment from Japan on infrastructure and education as a showcase colony for its ill-fated colonial empire and then heavier investment from both USA and whatever wealth KMT can bring to Taiwan because using Ping Pong balls to do diplomacy was not a thing yet, not to mention the whole cold war thingy.

Well, I suppose if someone muster 20 times the resource, wealth and time on the mainland instead of a relatively small island, it can become a "relatively rich nation with a strong economy" as well. Just that it would have bankrupted Japan (who had trouble not getting rebels all over the place when it tried) and a rather unnecessary expense for mighty US as well. Before KMT was sent packing to Taiwan and thus has to rely on US support, KMT was the largest Lenin-style left-leaning party in east Asia, and possibly the entire world apart from the one ruling USSR, and thus it is more likely that a KMT-led China would resemble more like Tito's Yugoslavia than a supersized South Korea (or Taiwan) during the Cold War.

The KMT under US Influence would likely not following Leninist policies, as the US had substantially helped the KMT in the war, and the KMT probably wouldn't want to betray the US. There was a left wing in the KMT, but there was also a Right Wing, and the Right Wing did prevail and oppose Communism. The South Korean Government wasn't very Capitalist or Free in the beginning either, but through eventual market liberalization and the implementation of Democracy did South Korea become a prosperous nation.

The KMT, even in Taiwan did in its earlier years did have an authoritarian government, but in the 1970s, Chiang Ching Kuo did some market liberalization and implementation of Democracy, thus creating the Taiwan we have today. That is replicable in China, and would've likely happened, thus resulting in a strong China by the 1970s.

[Tuthina]

The KMT under US Influence would likely not following Leninist policies, as the US had substantially helped the KMT in the war, and the KMT probably wouldn't want to betray the US. There was a left wing in the KMT, but there was also a Right Wing, and the Right Wing did prevail and oppose Communism. The South Korean Government wasn't very Capitalist or Free in the beginning either, but through eventual market liberalization and the implementation of Democracy did South Korea become a prosperous nation.

The KMT, even in Taiwan did in its earlier years did have an authoritarian government, but in the 1970s, Chiang Ching Kuo did some market liberalization and implementation of Democracy, thus creating the Taiwan we have today. That is replicable in China, and would've likely happened, thus resulting in a strong China by the 1970s.

Yes, the USA that had substantially helped the KMT in the war, mostly by dropping support for its currency and tanking the Chinese economy, while the main material help being bomber squadrons that are garrisoned in the inland that eat up whatever fuel left to bomb Japan once a month and left the Chinese military struggling to keep its few equipments running. I am sure KMT would never want to betray USA after all these things even if it is not living on USA's support.

I also like how the prosperity of South Korea and Taiwan is contributed solely by liberalising the economy and implemented (mostly flawed) democracies in the region. It is as if the ballot boxes can conjure gold of the same weight of theirs, and the fact that USA and the West in general threw a lot of money to these countries naturally did not play a major role in their prosperity. And of course, the fact that Taiwan has a population that is both a lot smaller and much better educated (for the most part) means that any policies that can be implemented in Taiwan can be implemented in China as well. I suspect under the same logic, maybe the entire world should adopt Lichtenstein's finance-based economy to make them even more prosperous.

[Syndicapolis]

I genuinely don't think there would have been much of an improvement. The Nationalists did not seem much more economically competent than the "Communists," when it comes to not only producing enough wealth, but making sure that people other than Party officials and tycoons have access to it, and they were just as corrupt as the "Communists," if not more so.

[Densaner]

Chiang Kai-Shek was a crook. China would probably be what it is today. Corrupt and authoritarian. But with fewer public posters of Mao and more of Chiang.

[Novus America]

True, but that is basically what the Chinese government moved to after Mao, while it has become less and less socialist over time, it still uses a mixed hybrid system, particularly in natural resources. The post-Mao Chinese Communist party pretty much became the old KMT. So I do not think China would really be much different if Chiang had won. Chiang would love modern China.

No, it is quite different.

Both are mixed systems. However the KMT one is more similar to social democratic policies implemented in Europe and other places (such as India). The Communist Party (post-Mao) model is unique.

The Post Mao model is hardly unique. See Vietnam. The KMT was only Social Democratic on paper, in reality it was corrupt, self-serving and authoritarian. Obviously Chiang's KMT and the post-Mao CCP have a different ideological origin. But in practice they are the same. Just like the end of Animal Farm, the Pigs and the Humans are really the same in the end. The modern KMT is only marginally better, it is still very corrupt, and it should be noted has very good ties with the CCP. The "Communists" are now run of the mill pragmatic, corrupt, authoritarian nationalists, just like Chiang was.

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

[Omorov-Nier]

China wouldn't be much better off, if that's what you think. The Nationalists weren't a cohesive functional state, they were a loose alliance of corrupt warlords. The transition to democracy was only possible in Taiwan due to the smaller scale.

[Pope Joan]

China could be under the hegemony of Great Britain. They might be hemmed in by Russian puppet states, maybe even Tibet. I suppose the US would try to exercise control through support of the KMT. There might be a resurgence of regional "warlords".