If the Kuomintang had won the Civil War, would China be a superpower by now?

>China before the Green Revolution
>no famine
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH

KMT believed in a mixed economy like Fascism, people often mistake the KMT for capitalism because of foreign investment, free enterprise, private property, and the like. They were as much anti-communist as anti-capitalist.

>Political situation might resemble India
No. You only proved your ignorance by saying this.
>Deng Xiaoping might not show up in this timeline which means China's economy won't get huge reform
Beyond the obvious Taiwan example, economically - Deng's reforms were still more communist than the KMT's at their most socialist.

Honestly, they would probably just install another emperor and go back to being an agrarian shithole.

It would look very similar to real life China. You'd avoid the Great Leap forward famine and all the disasters of Mao, but you'd also avoid his alphabetization campaign, the single good thing he did.

This means a less educated China, probably only by 2010 getting to 80% literacy, similar to India.

The economy would develop very slowly before the Green Revolution and GATT, but would ramp up after the 1970s, though, then again, in a world where China is capitalist and the Asian flank is secure from Communism Nixon may not feel the need to open up the American economy to them, which in real life was done to drive a wedge between Chicoms and Soviets. Ironically, USA may be more protectionist against a capitalist China.

Overall, it would be a mixed bag, I agree China would not look like a giant Taiwan, it would still be very much a developing country, just like in real life.

Non commie China would look like current Vietnam,or Malaysia at best

>Nixon may not feel the need to open up the American economy to them, which in real life was done to drive a wedge between Chicoms and Soviets. Ironically, USA may be more protectionist against a capitalist China.

Maybe not, there were huge factions within the U.S government who took a paternalist view towards the Kuomintang hoping to industrialize and Americanize it, Henry Luce and the UCR had tons of supporters, senators, lots of members of government who wanted to build up China into a "second America" of sorts. The only reason the support for this died was the loss of the civil war, Henry Luce and Time would have continued to fight off corruption allegations in his magazines.

>m-muh aggregate demand from losing millions in war

yeah no

The reason why modern China is so rich is their near seamless movement from a planned economy, allowing for rapid industrislisation in the 70’s, to a heavily controlled market economy, letting growth flourish. You’d see a much less balanced growth in the KMT, and China would still be better off than India (imo unions have been India’s main hindrance), though less quick than the PRC. The good news is it might mean China comes out as a democracy by the end. Maybe. It depends on the power transition after Chiang’s death. The delayed reunification wouldn’t do it any favours, though.

>avoid his alphabetization campaign,
The KMT did this in Taiwan, building up education, they wanted to do the same in the mainland, but it takes time, when Mao died, 30% of China was still illiterate.
>The economy would develop very slowly before the Green Revolution and GATT
China openly trading internationally two decades earlier would massively boost their economy.
>China is capitalist and the Asian flank is secure
Obviously Nationalist China will be an important ally from the Truman administration onwards.
>Nixon may not feel the need to open up the American economy to them
China would already be an important ally for the US in the Cold War by the Korean War.

>Korean War
What Korean War?

>>m-muh aggregate demand from losing millions in war
>yeah no
That wasn't even an argument. Of course China was going to recover after the war and it would have had better economic growth rates under Chiang and the KMT.

Eh, Korean war would have probably still happened, but it might have turned out a complete U.S victory without communist support.

They would honestly be worse off economically. The Kuomintang fell because of incompetence and they were much more corrupt than even the commies. China's population would have been significantly higher though because of no one child policy.

>What Korean War?
The one where Communist China supported North Korea, but since the KMT won, where the communist Koreans didn't get enough help and there's only the RoK.

Military incompetence is not the same as administrative, corruption exists in all governments, it may have slowed down progress with how bad it was, but with the victory in WW2 and the civil war and entrance to the world stage, corrupt officials would really have to slow down and keep their activities on the down low.

The Korean war started only a year after civil war ended and the PRC was proclaimed. DPRK was propped up by the Soviets primarily. There would still be a war.

>The KMT did this in Taiwan, building up education, they wanted to do the same in the mainland, but it takes time, when Mao died, 30% of China was still illiterate.
Look I'm not a commie but the reality is that communist literacy campaigns have been extremely effective, historically. The entire former communist world outside of wartorn Africa has full or near full literacy. That must mean something.

Communists can devote the entire resources of the State for literacy campaigns whereas a capitalist government can achieve the same results (or better) but more slowly because they are working with the constraints of a budget.

I'm not saying China wouldn't have achieved full literacy under the KMT, I'm saying it would have taken a bit more time.

>China openly trading internationally two decades earlier would massively boost their economy.
It would be an important boost, I'm not sure how massive though. China started opening up at the same time the world economy at large did, so it's hard to filter out each effect. Instead of a Chinese economic boom in the 1980s, we might have it earlier, in the 1970s, but that's provided the US keeps its economy open to China which is a big IF.

>Obviously Nationalist China will be an important ally from the Truman administration onwards.
That doesn't automatically mean full trade openness. Many American allies had to endure protectionism and tariffs from them.

A tsunami of trade from China is a much more bitter pill to swallow than a small flood from Japan or a trickle from Taiwan, and by the late 1970s and 1980s the world was already growing scared of Japanese export growth.

Without the incenctive of defeating communism, I'm not sure the US would be interested in opening up to China so easily.

Forgot literacy map for reference.
Even today China is not at full literacy.
The idea that the KMT would do better on this particular front it is ridiculous IMHO.

The nationalists were a corrupt bunch of idiots who put personal glory over winning the war. It is a shame they that they were able to escape to Taiwan instead of all hanging by the neck.

>Turned China from a wartorn backward literal feudal farming shithole into a industrial power house
>Brought democracy to the Chinese
>Dramatically Improved life expectancy and educated hundreds of millions of Chinese
>United China under one banner and stopped the warring warlords
>Brought gender equality for the first time in it's history to China
>Kicked western fags out of Korea pushing them all the way back so much America thought dropping nukes on Manchuria and all along Korea was a feasible idea
>Most powerful economy in the world
>The long march proves them worthy of spirit against the weak corrupt nationalists, just check out how much infighting they had
>Perfected guerilla warfare so much every insurgent in the modern period uses it

Mao did nothing wrong, sparrows deserved it.

>communist literacy campaigns have been extremely effective,
Any modern literacy campaign initiated by the state for decades will become successful.
>Communists can devote the entire resources of the State for literacy campaigns whereas a capitalist government can achieve the same results (or better)
The KMT are not capitalists. They will have an easier time, because they will have more resources at their disposal(wealthy and educated people stay and foreign investment) as well as being less concerned with balancing budgets.
>It would be an important boost, I'm not sure how massive though.
It would be enough that China's economy booms in the 1960's instead of 1990's. Seriously, how can you not understand such simple, concrete things? The Republic of China will continue trading and getting foreign investment from 1950. A unified China is is openly trading in 1950 instead of the trickle it did in 1972, more than twenty years earlier than the PRC.
>China started opening up at the same time the world economy at large did,
The world economy did not start opening up in the 1980's, there was only a decrease in tariffs.
>That doesn't automatically mean full trade openness.
What makes you think the PRC got full trade openness without tariffs? There were many tariffs on the PRC, the same thing the RC would get.

>The Korean war started only a year after civil war ended and the PRC was proclaimed. DPRK was propped up by the Soviets primarily.
Perhaps you are forgetting the part where more Chinese fought in that war than both Korea's, the USSR, and the USA. There were five times more Chinese fighting than the Soviets and communist Koreans combined. Maybe you should know more about the war before you try a rebuttal.
>There would still be a war.
A war where the DRPK loses in less than a year.

ok

Let's take a look.
>population
Much higher without 1-child policy and communist-related deaths. Likely to reach two billion without birth-rates sinking, though would plateau and sink eventually.
>economy
Much higher without communist-related retarding, emigration of educated people, and inclusion of Taiwan. In between Taiwan's and modern PRC GDP per capita: $15-25,000 most likely. China would be the largest economy in the world by 2000.
>politically
Most likely be with strained relations with the US by indirectly competing for superpower status. Friendlier relations with most neighbors like Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, but still poor relations with India over territorial dispute.

> Much higher without 1-child policy and communist-related deaths. Likely to reach two billion without birth-rates sinking, though would plateau and sink eventually.

There would be no one child policy, but there also wouldn't have been a "have more kids" policy in the 50's and 60's. Chinese fertility was 3-4 in the 30's, dropped to 1-2 during the war, then spiked up to 6 in the 1950's.

>Chiang was not smart
Let me guess, you think Stilwell was a great officer.

It spiked because of the end of the war, true for the post-war period, and the major decline in birth rates would be avoid.

Nah,

KMT China was barely unified. After Mao, the KMT would probably spend years running its own version of the Cultural Revolution (i.e. a bigger version of the White Terror) to stamp out dissent, even valid (non-communist) ones. And also trying to keep the warlords in line.

We already saw in our own timeline a preview of this during the Fan Meifuri movement. Nationalist Chinese students called for the KMT to condemn the USA because the USA let the Emperor and many other Japanese War Criminals scott free. The KMT instead called them commie and cracked down on them. People who had literally nothing to do with Communism.

The one where South Korea invaded the North with Sino-American Equipment and Chinese volunteers.

This. If China is united by the KMT, then Korea and Vietnam would both be non-communist,

>(imo unions have been India’s main hindrance)
Wat. Out of all indias problems you choose fucking unions to place the blame on?

Even without 1-child policy, there would be a more or less successful attempt to slow their birth rates eventually. India tried that.

>near seamless

>had literally nothing to do with Communism
>Defaming the USA
They sound like Communists to me.

It was. Imagine if someone in the Gang of Four took power.

no, and it would be a fool's mistake to assume that what happened in taiwan would have happened in China; taiwan democratized because the inherent weakness of the KMT required them to grant relative autonomy to local industries and derive their authority from cooperation with local leaders; plus, their dependence on the United States made an authoritarian regime relatively neutered, even moreso as the cult of personality around Chiang Kai-shek did not extend to his son.
In China, the communist party has had a strong membership and grasp on power and were thus able to create and enforce large-scale program that the KMT couldn't.

Unrelated to the topic but, anyone know why Zimbabwe is so literate?

>Protest against the USA for nationalist reasons.
>Hurr gommie.

Althistory is for fags. We know for sure that the communists were more competent, because they did win the Civil war from highly inferior position.

The whole reign of Chiang was one big economic failure, and there were at least a couple famines during his time. Cultural revolution had a very minor impact on the economy.

ZIMBABWE’S secret to attaining high literacy rates has been revealed after a recent survey showed that Zimbabwean parents prioritises school fees for their children above everything else.

A survey titled, Financial Wellbeing Survey Report: Priorities of the Zimbabwean Employee, revealed that most Zimbabwean employees prioritise school fees ahead of everything else including food and groceries which came second on the list.

“Regardless of how much an individual earns, school fees, food, rent and accommodation still remain the most important things that employees consider when spending their money,” said the report.

“The implications of these findings for human resources practitioners is that employers who ensure that their employees have a house, cater for school fees and pay enough for people to be able to afford the basic food stuffs are likely to be able to attract the talent they require.”

UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics estimated that 83,6% of Zimbabweans aged 15 and older were literate in 2011.

Since independence in 1980, the Zimbabwean government has always prioritised education by giving it the highest allocation in its national budgets

Huh, that's interesting, thanks user

There's a Chinese joke about Mao and Chiang touring modern China and Mao is crying while Chiang laughs, make what you will

>Look I'm not a commie but the reality is that communist literacy campaigns have been extremely effective, historically. The entire former communist world outside of wartorn Africa has full or near full literacy. That must mean something.
This.
My grandma, who was a teacher in commie Romania, despises communism with a vengeance, and even she believes the literacy campaigns were the best thing they even did.

>If the Kuomintang had won the Civil War, would China be a superpower by now?
The Kumintang, as it existed historically, had no chance of winning the Chinese Civil War. They lacked even the most basic levels of soft power as to administrate areas their troops were in control of; they usually preferred to set up a mostly independent warlord and occasionally levy tribute from him.

To ensure a KMT victory of the Chinese Civil War, you need to majorly change the KMT. And once you've done that, it's kind of hard to predict what they'd do with China once they had it. But at the very least, you're almost certain to get a bloodbath of massive proportions as they step on the necks of the various warlords they used to have accommodations with.

I'm disappointed we don't have a resident Chiangboo to blame everything on the British and Zongren. We already have a Nickyboo, dozens of Wehraboos and more than enough Tankies but no Chiangboos

But most of Koumintang factions except Chiang himself have already sided with the Communists (or considered switching sides).
So, a major change in the KMT (overthrowal of Chiang's government) would already equal Mao's victory, and at least an end to the civil war, perhaps, on a less overpowering terms with other parties and factions in China.

That's assuming the point of divergence is somewhere in the mid 30s when you had the very unstable base of loyalties among the various cliques and warlords. An earlier one resulting in a different KMT almost from the beginning was more what I had in mind. Maybe I didn't get that across clearly.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Shirts_Society

>>No economic failures and famines
you think Chiang Kai-shek didn't have famines under his rule? He had like two.

Threads like these are made by people who want to talk about how horrible communism is, and because they don't feel secure enough to bash communism on its own shittiness, they have to glorify everyone who was anti-communist, no matter how fuckawful they were. It's the same phenomenon behind all that Tzar Nicholas dicksucking you see here.

It would be a lot stronger than present day China no doubt, maybe even the equal of the US, but extrapolating Taiwain’s success to the whole of China doesn’t add since Taiwan was boosted by all the best-and-brightest who fled there to get away from the dipshit communists.

A world where Asia didn’t hobble itself in the 20th century with idiotic communist ideology is one where the centre of the world truly is east Asia.

>It would be a lot stronger than present day China no doubt, maybe even the equal of the US
So in debt to the tune of several hundered trillion dollars?

>Any modern literacy campaign initiated by the state for decades will become successful.
Communist literacy campaigns eliminated literacy within a few years. This is the worst possible critique to come up with

>eliminated literacy
Damnit Mao

Woops illiteracy*

To be honest, Li Zongren's disability to compromise with Chiang is the main reason why KMT lost

>Communist literacy campaigns eliminated literacy within a few years.
True that dickhead.

Most likely yes. Like imagine Taiwan but with a population of over a billion.

>KMT China
>superpower

How would he bring the warlords to heel? He had had zero luck doing that up to that point. China was effectively a fucking feudal autocracy under KMT rule. They're not becoming a superpower until they centralize the government and the KMT was up that point unable to do that.

>They're not becoming a superpower until they centralize the government and the KMT was up that point unable to do that.

New to Chinese history. Why could he not bring the warlords to heel, but Mao could?

Well with the threat of communist insurgency gone along with japanese invasion, dont you think they could have gone through a large centralization effort?

1928-29: The KMT (which was stuck in Southern China) gets its shit together and goes up North to fight the warlords. They were successful: the Zhili and Fengtian Cliques (the two biggest warlord groupings up north) were BTFO. Even their Japanese advisors couldn't help them.

Problem: a lot of the warlords - with their armies still intact- saw the writing on the wall and promptly switched sides to the KMT. Though victorious, KMT and Chiang's hands were tied by this development and they had to rely on their supposedly new friends to keep the peace up north.

Mao had the benefit of the Japanese war BTFO northern warlords, and the CCP BTFO the KMT and along them, the remaining warlords that stood with Chiang.

Completely different government ethos. Chiang's KMT was merely a warlord coalition with him as the biggest warlord, while Mao was a revolutionary seeking to change how the Chinese government operated. That's not to say that Mao didn't enlist warlords onto his side (Long Yun is just the one who immediately springs to mind), but unlike Kai-Shek he made sure they knew they were subservient to the CPC and Beijing.

Why would he? He hadn't bothered up to that point. He was perfectly happy to let the warlords rule their fiefs as long as they paid him their tribute, and a big part of that was because he *couldn't* bring them to heel effectively without starting yet another warlord war.

Because they take education serious as fuck after realizing how important it is to achieving national goals and combating brain drain.

The problem is the current administration maintains power by giving land/resources to incompetent but powerful military figures.

>implying china broken up into warlords wouldnt be better for the world

>So in debt to the tune of several hundered trillion dollars?
In debt to itself.

This is what drives me crazy about debt arguments. 20% of the US's debt is actually held by anyone besides the government itself, and its current debt equals one year of GDP.

The government could mint a 20 trillion dollar coin and drop it in a bank and there wouldn't be anything anyone could do about it. The fed has already made noises they're considering it too, so it'll be fun watching supply-side economists and China collectively sperging out that it isn't fair or doesn't make sense. Which is particularly hilarious considering how cozy China's been sucking up on the dollar's nut with currency manipulation

>>implying they're not headed for another breakup in the next 20 years

The kuomintang was definitely not socialist. When the first agreements between the USSR and KMT were happening, the clause to support immediate land reform and redistribution were blocked by the KMT delegates.

That already exists. It's called the PRC, at least the on the coastal cities

It depended on who you asked in the KMT. Chiang's wing was definitely right wing, but there were leftists in its ranks even after all the Communists had been purged from the rolls.

Well yeah but the Chiang side was in charge, and got their way. For some fucking reason they were given membership in the communist international, even while they were in the process of purging the CCP from the country.