Chiang Kai-Shek

[unmerged(44784)]

The Nationalists were doing much better in the Civil War before the Japanese invasion. What made the Communists so powerful was being handed Manchuria from the USSR, and getting direct assistance.

 

[unmerged(5110)]

The Nationalists were doing much better in the Civil War before the Japanese invasion. What made the Communists so powerful was being handed Manchuria from the USSR, and getting direct assistance.

The Soviets were providing limited aid to the Communist Chinese. Actually, during the Sino-Japanese war, Stalin supported the Nationalists rather than the Communists because he felt that the Nationalists were a stronger bulwark against the Japanese - Stalin was a pragmatist before a Communist.

Again, my opinion is that the Communists didn't necessarily win the Civil War - just that the Nationalists won it for them. Chiang was well aware that Communists were likely to reach Manchuria first, but instead of letting the local warlords, who were right beside Manchuria to take it, he insisted on getting his elite divisions flown in from Yunnan/Sichuan and led by (IMHO) less than competent leaders, where they quickly got trapped and annihilated in the cities.

The Nationalists also chose this pivotal moment in history to do a massive reorganization of their forces (of which a large part was, of course, to reorganize the forces out of warlords' hands), which meant that their C3I infrastructure was broken in a time where it was needed most.

The US played a major role in the outcome of the Chinese Civil War. The USA were providing large numbers of arms to the Chinese armies, with their rather excellent Garand rifle. However, because the US was partial to the Communist Chinese, they insisted that Chiang and Mao get together and try to decide things peacefully.

Both the Nationalists and the Communists knew that any sort of peaceful situation would never materialize, and so prepared for the inevitable war.

However, the Nationalists were 'indebted' to the USA, who used the arms supplies as a carrot and stick to try and get the Nationalists to bargain. The Communists, who had no such restrictions were free to do as they please. The subsequent arms embargo of China during the Civil War hurt her chances greatly. This came as a bit unexpected to the US, who expected it to be a huge stalemate because of Chiang's superior military forces and the Communists' popular support.

So in response to your post, I would counter-argue that it's not getting Manchuria that made the Communists so powerful (Manchuria's industry had already been raped by the Soviets), but having the popular support, having the Nationalists practically hand Manchuria and their strongest armies to them on a silver platter, and the Communists having enough goodwill in the US to convince the US to try to force both sides to the negotiation table.

(I'd also argue that it's not that the Nationalists were doing better pre-Sino-Japanese war, but that the Communists were doing much better post-Sino-Japanese war, and that it's not necessarily that one gains to the other's loss)

 

[Hulaoguan]

That doesn't entirely make sense as the communists and nationalists didn't actuall resume hostilities until after the war. I mean, that famous photo of Chiang and Mao toasting victory over Japan is from 1945, isn't it?

Hostilities between the KMT and CCP reseumed very early on. In 1939, after the fall of Wuhan and and the end of Japanese sustained military offensive, Chiang stated his policies to "dissolve", "defend against", "set limit" on the CCP at a KMT confence. He then proceeded to act against CCP controlled organisations in KMT ruled areas.

Military clashes flared up in late 1938, with open but undeclared fighting going on in many parts of China between KMT forces, their warlord allies, and CCP forces. The worst clash was in Jan 1941 Wannan Incident, when most of the CCP's New Forth Army ( a force of about 6000 strong), was ambused and annhilated by KMT armies after being ordered to redeployed north of the Yangtse. Subequently, diplomacy papered over these differences and prevented an open break. But essentially, the second KMT-CCP alliance was only on paper from in 1941 onwards. That was even before the outbreak of the Pacific War.

 

[unmerged(57215)]

Another problem facing the Nationalists was the power structure. I mentioned the village leaders, landlords and local warlords who, on a small scale, basically ruled rural China. Sure these leaders and warlords paid lip-service to Chiang, but basically they could loot and plunder their people as they pleased - Chiang's government was in no position to really contest this, as the government structure wasn't strong, infrstructure wasn't good, and many of these people also provided the Nationalists with support. Plus, corruption is difficult to uncover.

Another thing is that, a country's economic development is NOT a simple thing. People may point to Taiwan as an example of development done right, but it is one of the "East Asian Tigers", a special case, and to this day economic development agencies like the IMF are trying to replicate their successes (this is actually a whole other thread topic). One thing, though is that the USA and the western world pumped in funds to these land-poor manpower-rich countries, which helped them develop a lot. It's one thing to develop a place like Hong Kong (small, compact, lots of people, generally homogenous environment), and quite another to develop a massive country that had just lurched out of a civil war like China.


One other factor that I'd like to note, is that China is, at least at the moment, found to be quite resource-poor. USA is, as I said the Juggernaut of the world, and this is no accident by any means. USA is actually a really rich country - grain in the middle, lots of nice iron and coal deposits, lots of minerals, oil in the south, fruits and vegetables in the temperate regions, and a big population. The USA is really quite blessed with all these things (By similar account look at how much land the Soviet Union had and it could only at best compete with the USA in resources). China on the other hand, because of its recent development has had to import all of these resources like oil, metals, etc. from abroad and because of this sudden mass importation, prices of these commodities are going up.

Going back to these corrupt local warlords and village leaders -- I am almost 99% certain that Communist China, in the civil war no longer had its policy of killing the landlords, but most likely kept existing power structures (I'd surmise these local power structures were overseen by local party cadres). I'm kind of speculating here so feel free to correct me. If you guys are following my line of thought, that means that the corruption that was endemic throughout the Nationalist era under Chiang would have *persisted* under the Communists, do you agree?

In fact, you can see right now in modern-day China this fact rearing its ugly head. The corruption in Communist China is mainly on the local level. I think Chiang would have had actually quite a similar problem, if not worse.

To answer the issue of the pseudo-feudal system going on, I personally believe that the only reason this managed to stay alive as long as it did was because of the disunity in China. Imagine Chiang beats Mao, uniting China- suddenly the warlords under him fear for their position and are afraid of losing their power, so they come face-to-face with the nationalists in armed conflict. With no other side tracks, that is, no communists, no Japanese, it seems like Chiang would've just crushed them. They weilded considerable power within their own little estates but if something bigger, better trained, and better-equipped were to come, it'd just roll over them, and once the warlord is gone, what he used to control isn't going to continue to resist. However I would agree that this would be a serious problem, had the KMT won the civil war, and would've probably led to a smaller-scale yet prolonged conflict.

As for economic developement, you're right that it isn't simple, but it's not a good idea to compare the East Asian Tigers to China because the Tigers saw growth in the last few decades that nobody would've thought possible because of massive foreign investment- of course, this caused them to be hurt the moment the currency showed signs of instability because a lot of foreign investors pulled out.

I can't see any way that China could be developed soley by foreign investment the way the Tigers were- for one, it's much bigger and less concentrated, it takes much more loss or gain to effect the economy significantly, and it has much more potential for solid industrial and agricultural backing than the Tigers did, meaning it's more likely to rely to be self-reliant.

China isn't exactly resource-poor. It might not be as rich as the USA, but it's not like the soil is barren. I decided to cheat and look at the CIA world factbook, which says that China's natural resources include "coal, iron ore, petroleum, natural gas, mercury, tin, tungsten, antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminum, lead, zinc, uranium, hydropower potential (world's largest) "
Now for all I know, it might produce the smallest amount of these in the world, but the fact that so many diversified resources can be found in China, along with the fact that many areas of China are very good for farming points to a land which is anything but barren. China may be driving up oil prices from importing oil, but the US and Europe both do the same.

As for corruption, perhaps the communist takeover actually prolonged it's existence- after all, the worst corruption during the 20th century in a major power occurred under Brezhnev, and the way hard line communists like to govern is a way of extreme micromanagement, which, again, is impossible on such a large scale, inviting inefficiency and corruption. Of course this is mostly speculation on my part and is very difficult to prove.

 

[Arilou]

To answer the issue of the pseudo-feudal system going on, I personally believe that the only reason this managed to stay alive as long as it did was because of the disunity in China. Imagine Chiang beats Mao, uniting China- suddenly the warlords under him fear for their position and are afraid of losing their power, so they come face-to-face with the nationalists in armed conflict. With no other side tracks, that is, no communists, no Japanese, it seems like Chiang would've just crushed them.

Except that, given how lousy his support was, that isn't entirely probable. The most likely outcome (barring foreign intervention, which would throw things out of whack) would probably be a divided country, with lots of the warlords simply "going to ground" and Chiang being unable to follow....

Remember, Chiang's forces were to some degree made up of "Warlord forces" or former warlord forces. Chiang could probably clobber any warlord into submission, but I doubt he could change the system, because he was a part of it, sort of.

 

[unmerged(57215)]

Except that, given how lousy his support was, that isn't entirely probable. The most likely outcome (barring foreign intervention, which would throw things out of whack) would probably be a divided country, with lots of the warlords simply "going to ground" and Chiang being unable to follow....

Remember, Chiang's forces were to some degree made up of "Warlord forces" or former warlord forces. Chiang could probably clobber any warlord into submission, but I doubt he could change the system, because he was a part of it, sort of.

Ah, you have a good point there- Chiang's power was weakened by both the Civil war and the Sino-Japanese conflict, but he wasn't truly a warlord himself- despite the fact that the KMT wasn't democratic until 47, he did carry the banner of the Republic of China, and, in the view of the common person, that would've set him above warlords- Chiang's popular support may have been waning, but it was still more powerful than that of the warlords, and the KMT's constitution in 47 proves that he was willing to accept change and allow democracy (which he hadn't had much interest in since his rise to power) in order to win.

In a situation wherein a nation is struggling with a phyrric victory almost as bad as defeat, it falls down to the character and ability of the leaders to bring about triumph- in a situation where the KMT wins the civil war, I believe Chiang could've turned things around eventually, but the odds were just too far stacked against the KMT to allow them to win the civil war in the first place- but now we're all just speculating on alternate histories .

 

[Thistletooth]

Ah, you have a good point there- Chiang's power was weakened by both the Civil war and the Sino-Japanese conflict, but he wasn't truly a warlord himself- despite the fact that the KMT wasn't democratic until 47, he did carry the banner of the Republic of China, and, in the view of the common person, that would've set him above warlords- Chiang's popular support may have been waning, but it was still more powerful than that of the warlords, and the KMT's constitution in 47 proves that he was willing to accept change and allow democracy (which he hadn't had much interest in since his rise to power) in order to win.

In a situation wherein a nation is struggling with a phyrric victory almost as bad as defeat, it falls down to the character and ability of the leaders to bring about triumph- in a situation where the KMT wins the civil war, I believe Chiang could've turned things around eventually, but the odds were just too far stacked against the KMT to allow them to win the civil war in the first place- but now we're all just speculating on alternate histories .

The KMT wasn't democratic until the 70s, at the earliest, when they ceased being Taiwan's only political party. Chiang wasn't a democrat/republican (lower-case), not in the slightest. Not even the flight to Taiwan in '49 changed that.

 

[Registered]

China isn't exactly resource-poor. It might not be as rich as the USA, but it's not like the soil is barren. I decided to cheat and look at the CIA world factbook, which says that China's natural resources include "coal, iron ore, petroleum, natural gas, mercury, tin, tungsten, antimony, manganese, molybdenum, vanadium, magnetite, aluminum, lead, zinc, uranium, hydropower potential (world's largest) "
Now for all I know, it might produce the smallest amount of these in the world, but the fact that so many diversified resources can be found in China, along with the fact that many areas of China are very good for farming points to a land which is anything but barren. China may be driving up oil prices from importing oil, but the US and Europe both do the same.

Much of China is quite barren. Not much grows in the east and North, the Gobi is not exactly a fertile place. There is a good reason China is importing large amounts of food (though curiously it exports fruit). There is also a good reason China is making huge efforts to secure a steady supply of natural resources from all over the earth. It's diplomatic efforts in befriending African regimes dwarfs anyhing the west is doing. China just does not have anywhere near the natural resources it needs to fuell it's economy. Except for coal maybe.

As for corruption, perhaps the communist takeover actually prolonged it's existence- after all, the worst corruption during the 20th century in a major power occurred under Brezhnev, and the way hard line communists like to govern is a way of extreme micromanagement, which, again, is impossible on such a large scale, inviting inefficiency and corruption. Of course this is mostly speculation on my part and is very difficult to prove.

Corruption under Brezhnev proves absolutely nothing about corruption under Mao. The CCP has in the past made some very violent crackdowns on corrupt officials. This was seen as stealing from the state. Something that Mao, apparently, took rather personal. Of course, without rule of law corruption is almost impossible to effectively contain.

Ah, you have a good point there- Chiang's power was weakened by both the Civil war and the Sino-Japanese conflict, but he wasn't truly a warlord himself- despite the fact that the KMT wasn't democratic until 47, he did carry the banner of the Republic of China, and, in the view of the common person, that would've set him above warlords- Chiang's popular support may have been waning, but it was still more powerful than that of the warlords, and the KMT's constitution in 47 proves that he was willing to accept change and allow democracy (which he hadn't had much interest in since his rise to power) in order to win.

Really? He cannot have been all that democratic. The Taiwanese weren't too pleased with him at least. They rebelled and were put down in a very bloody manner. Untill recently teaching the native Taiwanese tongue was forbidden. Untill (IIRC) the 80s there were still people in the Chinese pariliament who's constituancies were on the mainland. (where, obvioulsy, no elections could be held)

 

[unmerged(57215)]

The KMT wasn't democratic until the 70s, at the earliest, when they ceased being Taiwan's only political party. Chiang wasn't a democrat/republican (lower-case), not in the slightest. Not even the flight to Taiwan in '49 changed that.

Actually, the Chinese National assembly, which kept getting created and disbanded since 1913, was elected in 1947 (real elections), and they voted to elect Chiang as President under a new KMT constitution. The reason you may be confused is because, when the KMT fled to Taiwan, they decided that the 7-year terms of the Assembly members would be continued until the mainland was reclaimed and nationalist authority re-established. Since that never happened, elections didn't occur again until 1991, meaning that the KMT had become quite undemocratic since 1947 as the members of the Assembly had retained their seats for the better part of half a century.

 

[unmerged(7537)]

The KMT wasn't democratic until the 70s, at the earliest, when they ceased being Taiwan's only political party. Chiang wasn't a democrat/republican (lower-case), not in the slightest. Not even the flight to Taiwan in '49 changed that.

Indeed. AFAIK, the KMT also conducted some purges after it found refuge in Taiwan.

 

[Zaleukos]

The man was a horrible judge of character and nepotist. He didnt get rid of some (incompetent) pet generals even after they were proven to be communist moles. He also (unlike Mao) cared a bit too much about his son who (like Mao's) was kept in Moscow as a bargaining chip/hostage. I think he would have wiped out the red forces with his "annihilation expeditions" in 1934 if Stalin hadnt bent his arm to let them escape northwards.

 

[Governor Port]

Well, if we observed the policies of Chiang during the 1930s, I am very sorry to say he was trying to turn KMT into a rather 'fascist' party, by promoting his 'New Life Movement'. Loyalty was promoted, and personal freedom, to a certain extent, was suppressed. (I may be mistaken, please tell me immediately if I made any mistake.) Democracy? Unlikely.

And I am quite surprised no one mentioned the role of hyper-inflation and corruption to the downfall of KMT in Mainland China. The food prices for example went up by 1000% per year during the 2nd Sino-Japanese War. (In 1945 to 1946, some regions such as Canton pushed up by 10000 times) Corruption was rife, including the government officials. Supplies for army, infrastructure and goods left behind by the Japanese army were sold by officials to merchants illegally. I can give you one case: one electricity plant in central China (as far as I can remember) was pulled down by the government officials without the permission of the government, and that officers sold the machineries in the plant and kept the money for himself. Was Chiang able to tackle these problems? I don't think so.

 

[unmerged(5110)]

Well, if we observed the policies of Chiang during the 1930s, I am very sorry to say he was trying to turn KMT into a rather 'fascist' party, by promoting his 'New Life Movement'. Loyalty was promoted, and personal freedom, to a certain extent, was suppressed. (I may be mistaken, please tell me immediately if I made any mistake.) Democracy? Unlikely.

And I am quite surprised no one mentioned the role of hyper-inflation and corruption to the downfall of KMT in Mainland China. The food prices for example went up by 1000% per year during the 2nd Sino-Japanese War. (In 1945 to 1946, some regions such as Canton pushed up by 10000 times) Corruption was rife, including the government officials. Supplies for army, infrastructure and goods left behind by the Japanese army were sold by officials to merchants illegally. I can give you one case: one electricity plant in central China (as far as I can remember) was pulled down by the government officials without the permission of the government, and that officers sold the machineries in the plant and kept the money for himself. Was Chiang able to tackle these problems? I don't think so.

Actually, I did mention it (post #15), but it certainly deserves mentioning again.

And I agree about loyalty being the "bottom line" of advancement. Although, you could say that it was a product of the times -- China in the early 20th century was an era of warlordism, where the most powerful constantly backstabbed one another when the opportunity was ripe. No wonder why loyalty was such a valuable commodity.

It's also no wonder that the 'best warlord of them all', Chiang Kai-Shek also tended to emphasize these qualities in the men under him. After all, some of his best generals were warlord leaders, and it doesn't help things that Wang Jingwei, who wasn't an insignificant figure, decided to turn coat and serve the Japanese. How can one not be paranoid in an environment like that?

 

[mib]

Mostly agree with Xie Chengnuo, especially on what would have happened if Chiang won the Civil War.

People like me (one side capitalist pig-dog entrepreneur-landlord, other side KMT general) would probably have come out of it rich, fat and evil. But for the majority of the people, things might not be as good as they would be under the PRC.

 

[Thistletooth]

Mostly agree with Xie Chengnuo, especially on what would have happened if Chiang won the Civil War.

People like me (one side capitalist pig-dog entrepreneur-landlord, other side KMT general) would probably have come out of it rich, fat and evil. But for the majority of the people, things might not be as good as they would be under the PRC.

Worse than the Great Leap Forward/Cultural Revolution? Ouch!

Those were pretty legendary periods of suffering, weren't they? Do you think that the cronyism and corruption of Chiang's government would have led to famine or political repression anywhere near as bad as what the Chinese people actually experienced? Are you aware of any such suffering in the lands under Chiang's control in years before the war?

Also, and I'm probably overstating things, Chiang at the very least would have kept open that door to the West. Economically, I really don't see how that would have hurt a China in deperate need of outside investment and access to technology that might have helped their agricultural sector, which was still very much at the heart of China's economy, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[unmerged(5110)]

Worse than the Great Leap Forward/Cultural Revolution? Ouch!

As much as I'd love to comment on this, this is a whole other chapter of Chinese History that has a great deal of other factors involved. It doesn't really have that much to do with Chiang, but we'll go more into that later...

Those were pretty legendary periods of suffering, weren't they? Do you think that the cronyism and corruption of Chiang's government would have led to famine or political repression anywhere near as bad as what the Chinese people actually experienced? Are you aware of any such suffering in the lands under Chiang's control in years before the war?

Yes, these are pretty legendary periods of suffering, but if you notice modern Chinese history, they're pretty used to suffering -- remember that China had gone through the bloody and tumultuous Sino-Japanese war, in which her most populus cities were bombed and her people were starved, stabbed, manipulated, taxed and conscripted. This is coming AFTER a period of warlordism, where the people didn't fare that much better. Which came after the Taiping rebellion which was arguably bloodier than the entire First World war and on par with the Second... frankly China hasn't had much luck in past hundred and fifty years or so!

In addition, we have a whole variety of factors, such as the fact that Taiwan had a much smaller population to work with, and Taiwan certainly had its own political repressions and massacres. Chiang was essentially given a chance to "start fresh" with Taiwan, without the huge and complex burdens of managing an absolutely enormous country with enormous geo-political difficulties and an incredibly large population. Case in point, Chiang never had to consider a "One-Child Policy" that the mainland did.

Also, and I'm probably overstating things, Chiang at the very least would have kept open that door to the West. Economically, I really don't see how that would have hurt a China in deperate need of outside investment and access to technology that might have helped their agricultural sector, which was still very much at the heart of China's economy, if I'm not mistaken.

It's interesting because, the Americans actually liked the PRC and considered their governing policies to be a lot better than Chiang, but because of various diplomatic issues and such, they stuck with Chiang (but notice how they tried to broker a cease-fire instead of outright supporting the Nationalists during the Civil War). The Nationalists, because of their poor governing policies kind of became a dead weight to American policy (and clout) in the region. Because of this, the Americans kind of 'fell between two stools', by supporting the Nationalists while putting an embargo on them at the same time.

Would the Nationalists have caused such a "legendary period of suffering"? I have good reason and evidence to believe that, there would have been massive unrest and indeed, a lot of suffering. In fact, you could say that the the massive unrest took its form in the Communist Chinese. I have to say that the people picked Mao. Chinese peasants flocked to the Communist Armies, Nationalists soldiers defected -- if Chiang had set a democracy at the end of the war, where the peasants could vote, they probably would have overwhelmingly supported Mao, putting him out of power anyway, and likely leading to the same fiascos.

One thing that I do have to note, however, that I am almost dead certain that, if Chiang managed somehow to retain control of China, the USA would be pumping materiel and money into China for 50 years, considering that it had such a long frontier with the country, and the vast countryside with many people had huge potential for industry investment and the like. This may have swayed things towards the Nationalists side and made China a more prosperous, albeit still quite corrupt country.

One final thing that we have to consider -- I'm betting that you're using as the model for miraculous growth the 4 Asian Tigers and war-stricken Europe. As we well know, war-stricken Europe already had a well-educated populace who just needed an infusion of money to build their economies. The 4 Asian tigers were all characteristically dictatorships who did engage in political repression, and, by taking advantage of their relatively small size and large population, making it a good manufacturing-exporting country, these four countries were able to modernize relatively quickly.

China didn't have this type of brainpower. Yes, they had some pretty brilliant people, but on the whole the people were illiterate and uneducated. One of the testaments to the Communist party is that they embarked on a nation-wide education and literacy program which allowed the Chinese economic base to get to the point where it can compete -- now Chinese engineering firms are putting feelers out to go abroad and develop. But in the 50's they didn't have that. In addition, China had a huge population over a large amount of land, which was not the same conditions that the tigers had. Finally, as mentioned before, China didn't have the benefit of American aid and Western Trade.

Could Chiang overcome all these barriers? I'd have to say that I doubt it...

 

[Faeelin]

In addition, we have a whole variety of factors, such as the fact that Taiwan had a much smaller population to work with, and Taiwan certainly had its own political repressions and massacres. Chiang was essentially given a chance to "start fresh" with Taiwan, without the huge and complex burdens of managing an absolutely enormous country with enormous geo-political difficulties and an incredibly large population. Case in point, Chiang never had to consider a "One-Child Policy" that the mainland did.

On the other hand, Mao was partly responsible for the population explosion.

Would the Nationalists have caused such a "legendary period of suffering"? I have good reason and evidence to believe that, there would have been massive unrest and indeed, a lot of suffering. In fact, you could say that the the massive unrest took its form in the Communist Chinese. I have to say that the people picked Mao.

Careful.

Let's remember, that in order to survive, the Guomanding would have had to carry out land reform; they tried it in OTL, and simply lacked the resources.

And that Communist China was ridiculously corrupt as well.


One final thing that we have to consider -- I'm betting that you're using as the model for miraculous growth the 4 Asian Tigers and war-stricken Europe. As we well know, war-stricken Europe already had a well-educated populace who just needed an infusion of money to build their economies. The 4 Asian tigers were all characteristically dictatorships who did engage in political repression, and, by taking advantage of their relatively small size and large population, making it a good manufacturing-exporting country, these four countries were able to modernize relatively quickly.

China didn't have this type of brainpower. Yes, they had some pretty brilliant people, but on the whole the people were illiterate and uneducated. One of the testaments to the Communist party is that they embarked on a nation-wide education and literacy program which allowed the Chinese economic base to get to the point where it can compete -- now Chinese engineering firms are putting feelers out to go abroad and develop. But in the 50's they didn't have that. In addition, China had a huge population over a large amount of land, which was not the same conditions that the tigers had. Finally, as mentioned before, China didn't have the benefit of American aid and Western Trade.

China as a communist power didn't. It's hard to see the US not supporting the guomanding if it was led by Chiang.

Especially since such aid would've been contingent on reforms to the Guomanding politic and to the economy.

And the Communist education policy was arguably unsuccessful outside of the cities as late as the 1970s; and it's not like Korea started out with a high literacy rate.

 

[Faeelin]

Well, if we observed the policies of Chiang during the 1930s, I am very sorry to say he was trying to turn KMT into a rather 'fascist' party, by promoting his 'New Life Movement'. Loyalty was promoted, and personal freedom, to a certain extent, was suppressed. (I may be mistaken, please tell me immediately if I made any mistake.) Democracy? Unlikely.

Umm. There was no democracy in Italy in the 1930s; would we say the same thing about Italy in the 1960s?

Not to say that China would've become a democracy over night. But it happened in Taiwan; it probably would've happened in China, as American loans were contingent upon reforms.

A shiny happy land of ballot boxes by 1950? Nah. But it's no worse than OTL China, and a good deal better probably.

Side note: If right, South Korea's literacy rate in 1945 was only 22%.

http://hdr.undp.org/docs/publications/ocational_papers/oc24aa.htm

 

[Faeelin]

He obviously had his areas of competence, he managed to somewhat subdue the Warlords after all (seems to me that in many ways he turned China into a semi-feudal structure, or maybe it always was, and that he never really managed to put the apparatus of state under his own control) I think that, even had he beaten Mao in the Civil War, his position in China would have been very weak. We might have been looking at a situation like in many African countries, with rival warlords more or less running the place under a central government with little or no influence, that or a complete breakdown....

You asked me to check this out, so I will.

What rival warlords were there in 1945?

 

[Faeelin]

The caveat here is that the landowners were not necessarily rich people squabbling their wealth, a lot of them too were little better than the peasants who worked their land). Some landowners and village elders, however, had powerful allies - the warlords, or those in bureaucracy who helped to maintain the corrupt power structure. This, compounded by the war, the peoples' mistreatment at the hands of the Japanese AND the Nationalists (40% of conscriptees died before even reaching the front lines) and the hyper-inflation at the end of the war all made the people very critical of the Nationalist regime. Responsibility for all of these problems, could and did squarely fall right into the lap of Chiang Kai-shek, whose cronyism exacerbated these types of issues considerably.

hold up.

How was the GMD supposed to finance the war, if not through a monetary policy that led to inflation? It's not like conditions were much better in Yan'an.

And how was the GMD supposed to carry out land reform? It couldn't simply off landowners by fiat.

The Communists were able to build a state in Yan'an, and expand from there. The GMD had to try to rule China, and build a state at the same time.