WWII China really a minor?

[Denkt]

Italy had a much smaller army, airforce and navy if you count how many people that served in it and had much less military casulties then Japan and Germany, you had much better hope of surviving in the Italian army then in the German or Japanese armies.

But the definition of a major power is a nation who can project power to pretty much any area on the earth and this is why Italy is a major power and China is not.

Japan was one of the nations that did sign the naval treaties, it did have one of the worlds most powerful navies and that by itself is enough for major power status.

 

[Chukada]

Nobody said Japan would go toe to toe with USSR.

I am talking about Japanese intervention in 41' during Germany's invasion of USSR, when USSR was running out of tanks.

 

[AmpsterMan]

Okay, so let's define what a major is in this game by what they get. Majors get their own unique planes, ships, and tanks. And Majors get their own unique National Focuses. Furthermore, they get unique corporations that they can hire (like Standard Oil for U.S. and stuff)

With regards to Ships, Planes, and Tanks, China is most definitely NOT a major. It developed no unique vehicles through out the war. As far as standard corporations and the like, I can't think of any either. Where China DOES behave like a Major, is in it's national focuses though. China should definately have a national focus to : Get rid of PRC, or Ally PRC, Conquer Manchuria, or Release Manchuria, Conquer Korea, or Release Korea. It should also have a focus for Getting Closer to Germany, Great Britain, or Soviet Union. It should have a generic build forts focus on the border with Manchuria. It should also have generic Improve Infrastructure/Factories decisions.

Overall, I think China is a good candidate not for major status, but for a future "unique national focuses" patch/dlc.

 

[Killerrabbit]

During the war, there were 4 major allied powers: United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and China. This is what the Allies talked about during the war, and showed in their wartime propaganda.

After the war, these big four + newly liberated France was set up as the major powers of the world by virtue of the UN, holding veto rights in the security council. Due to it's major contribution and sacrifices during WW2, China went straight from being divided and abused by the colonial powers, to being recognized as a peer, and one of the five major powers in the world.

 

[Maizel]

I think the discussion about treating china as one of major powers in the game is kind of moot. I like flavour as much as the next guy, but what tanks did China make? What ships, airplanes, or other innovations? If we gave China her own research tree, it would turn out to be a very small one.

I can totally see them getting their own national foci tree in a DLC, though.

 

[Dessertspoon]

I think the discussion about treating china as one of major powers in the game is kind of moot. I like flavour as much as the next guy, but what tanks did China make? What ships, airplanes, or other innovations? If we gave China her own research tree, it would turn out to be a very small one.

I can totally see them getting their own national foci tree in a DLC, though.

Production is one thing, but development and design is another. China may have had some decent defence designer bureaux that came up with decent indigenous tanks or planes, but lacked the IC to put them into production on a mass scale

 

[UKHEIC]

Production is one thing, but development and design is another. China may have had some decent defence designer bureaux that came up with decent indigenous tanks or planes, but lacked the IC to put them into production on a mass scale

In the real world, both Communists and Nationalists were not able to design their own weapons until 1960s, not even rifles. As for production capability, Qing dynasty used to be able to produce rifles and (really crappy) unprotected cruisers, and this capability was severely damaged after 1911. The Shanxi Clique made their off-brand copy of foreign infantry weapons with appalling cuts on materials, such as using tin for the ammunition for their off-brand Thompson SMG. As for the Communists... Well, they could win the war a lot earlier if they had enough rifle ammunitions.

 

[Killerrabbit]

Production is one thing, but development and design is another. China may have had some decent defence designer bureaux that came up with decent indigenous tanks or planes, but lacked the IC to put them into production on a mass scale

For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_X-PO

But it would be kind of ridiculous to spend a ton of money to develop and build own fighters when they could get american ones cheap or free. And they had no problems building things like artillery on large scales.

Tanks? What do they need them for? Only in Manchuria and the plains between the Yangtze river and the Beijing area would tanks be any useful. And those areas were occupied very early in the war. (They had foreign tanks at that point, but did not buy any more later) The Japanese didn't use much tanks either in the mountains and rugged hills of Southern China.

Like somebody else said in this thread, China only 1% of the allied lend lease. So, unlike other countries, they fought mostly alone. (The Burma road was only operational for a short period, and airlifting equipment and supplies via the Hump over the Himalaya mountains was costly and very inefficient.)

Edit:
They also not only fought in China, but held entire fronts in Burma. And just about five years after the war, in Korea, they encircled and nearly totally destroyed entire american divisions and sent the americans on a long retreat deep back into South Korea. That's not something that even the Germans or Japanese managed to do during WW2. Infact, it has never happened before or after in US history (not counting the war of independence or the US civil war) Oh, wait - they didn't use tanks there either. Then my entire argument fell apart...

 

[UKHEIC]

Being a Chinese national myself, I hate to say China was not really a major power back then. True, the Allied war posters always portrayed China as the mainstay in Pacific Theatre, the Communists and the Nationalists endlessly boasted their contribution to the Allied war effort after 1945, combining with China's size, casualty and its major power status after the war, it is easy to let people to believe we were a major power during World War II. However, the fact is, China, neither Nationalist nor Communist, was not even invited to Yalta conference. During this conference, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to let USSR to keep its privileges in some Chinese habour cities obtained in late 19th century, as the reward for Stalin declaring war on Japan. Even Czechoslovakia was allowed to sit outside the door of Munich conference, that's how China was treated at that time, as anything but a major power.

 

[scottpd]

According to "Economics of WWII", the GDPs are as follows:

Italy - 141bn
"UK Dominions" - 115bn (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa)
Poland - 77bn

So Italy was quite a bit more than Canada, which might have been around 60bn or so as the most populous and developed of the dominions.

China's GDP was 320bn, which is of course a lot, but per capita only $780, compared to UK $6,000, German $5,000, Japanese $2,400. Most Chinese GDP was subsistence agriculture, so couldn't be diverted to war purposes.

fwiw, the book has six chapters dedicated one each to the Great Powers, which it has chosen as UK, US, Germany, USSR, Italy, and Japan. There's no chapter for China and it isn't listed on most of the tables. France is presumably not included due to its limited participation in the war, but based on pre-war GDP and military strength it was a larger power than Italy or Japan, which are included.

China was not a purely agricultural economy. It was very very much an economy in transition with heavily regionalized economies. The area around Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou (Jiangnan region) was quite heavily industrialized and capable of quite a bit of industrial output. Hankou, Guangzhou, and much of Manchuria were industrialized as well.

Combined, the industrial regions of China were likely the economic size of some of the majors listed (e.g. Italy). Combined with their vast population and resource base, China did have a lot of potential should the KMT somehow manage to root out the massive corruption, lack of political centralization, and poor military doctrines. That's a lot, but it is something that can absolutely be realistically achievable in the HOI4 timeline.

Should it be a major? Perhaps not, but that shouldn't be an issue given that who is major / miner is dynamic.

Does China deserve a level of attention like the majors? Absolutely. China was not powerful in WW2, but it had enormous potential for power. To simply see evidence of this, just look at how the PRC performed only a few years after WW2 in the Korean War against the International UN coalition.

 

[UKHEIC]

China was not a purely agricultural economy. It was very very much an economy in transition with heavily regionalized economies. The area around Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou (Jiangnan region) was quite heavily industrialized and capable of quite a bit of industrial output. Hankou, Guangzhou, and much of Manchuria were industrialized as well.

Combined, the industrial regions of China were likely the economic size of some of the majors listed (e.g. Italy). Combined with their vast population and resource base, China did have a lot of potential should the KMT somehow manage to root out the massive corruption, lack of political centralization, and poor military doctrines. That's a lot, but it is something that can absolutely be realistically achievable in the HOI4 timeline.

Should it be a major? Perhaps not, but that shouldn't be an issue given that who is major / miner is dynamic.

Does China deserve a level of attention like the majors? Absolutely. China was not powerful in WW2, but it had enormous potential for power. To simply see evidence of this, just look at how the PRC performed only a few years after WW2 in the Korean War against the International UN coalition.

No, those areas was not heavily industrialised at all, they were sparsely industrialised at best. By the way I am from Guangzhou.

Yes, most of China's industry concentrated in those areas, but very few of them were heavy industry. Those industries include fabrics, wheat/rice mills and other walmart products. The Nationalists can produce limited amounts amounts of rifles, and nothing beyond that, not even bayonets.

The real industrialisation of China began in early 1950s after Korean War, when USSR somehow decided to help China with hundreds of factories and technologies, including their own copy of V2 missile and nuclear fission.

Mao admitted himself (on a diplomatic occasion) that China was not one of the major power in the war. Sacrifice and casualty do not equal to contribution. While war in China was insignificant in military sense, it was extremely significant politically. It basically defined what happened and what would become of China and Asia after 1945, all the way to nowadays, as well as how Chinese governments and people think and behave.

My opinion is to make a unique focus tree for CHN and CHC, let China play a bigger role after 1945, and allow China to have a go on major power status. Perhaps even make a dedicated scenario for Korean War, that war has the most political influence on China than anything else after 1949, well maybe with the exception of nuclear bomb.

 

[fuzzymanbowb]

China is a very good regional power but doesn't have much power outside of its area. A major power can possibly impact the entire world. China didn't and only resisted Japan and I doubt that China would be taking colonies in the pacific or Africa. China is regional power sorry

 

[Spartanlemur]

There will probably be a future DLC giving the Chinese factions plenty of flavour, and it will be a lot better than if they tried to shoehorn something into their game now.

 

[The Nothing]

China was not a purely agricultural economy. It was very very much an economy in transition with heavily regionalized economies. The area around Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou (Jiangnan region) was quite heavily industrialized and capable of quite a bit of industrial output. Hankou, Guangzhou, and much of Manchuria were industrialized as well.

Combined, the industrial regions of China were likely the economic size of some of the majors listed (e.g. Italy). Combined with their vast population and resource base, China did have a lot of potential should the KMT somehow manage to root out the massive corruption, lack of political centralization, and poor military doctrines. That's a lot, but it is something that can absolutely be realistically achievable in the HOI4 timeline.

Should it be a major? Perhaps not, but that shouldn't be an issue given that who is major / miner is dynamic.

Does China deserve a level of attention like the majors? Absolutely. China was not powerful in WW2, but it had enormous potential for power. To simply see evidence of this, just look at how the PRC performed only a few years after WW2 in the Korean War against the International UN coalition.

You're underestimating the hardness to build military quality stuff. Even if these regions were heavily industrialized. Let's admit it. It won't be enough to build military stuff like tanks.

Building good design of tanks by your own requires years of developpement unless you receive some technology help, which didn't happen. China could have tried to retro engineer some tanks it bought anyway, but retro engineering is generally speaking, doing a bad copy of a thing. When you don't know why the armor is sloped, or why there are suspensions, when you never built any AT guns and don't know how a HEAT shell works, same thing it's hard to build your own. Even today, with all the things we have on the internet, designing (not building, just designing on paper) your own tank would be a colossal task should you have no experience in that field, even as an engineer.

So, without internet and no know how.... it's highly debatable wether or not China would have been able to build its own tanks design. For planes that's different, a since civilian ones can be used for military use with some changes. For tanks, there's nothing like that that exists in the civilian industry, so you need to create everything from scratch. Yet even the fighter prototype you're talking about failed.

 

[Hikuran]

You're underestimating the hardness to build military quality stuff. Even if these regions were heavily industrialized. Let's admit it. It won't be enough to build military stuff like tanks.

Building good design of tanks by your own requires years of developpement unless you receive some technology help, which didn't happen. China could have tried to retro engineer some tanks it bought anyway, but retro engineering is generally speaking, doing a bad copy of a thing. When you don't know why the armor is sloped, or why there are suspensions, when you never built any AT guns and don't know how a HEAT shell works, same thing it's hard to build your own. Even today, with all the things we have on the internet, designing (not building, just designing on paper) your own tank would be a colossal task should you have no experience in that field, even as an engineer.

So, without internet and no know how.... it's highly debatable wether or not China would have been able to build its own tanks design. For planes that's different, a since civilian ones can be used for military use with some changes. For tanks, there's nothing like that that exists in the civilian industry, so you need to create everything from scratch. Yet even the fighter prototype you're talking about failed.

I think both u and him agree that China has no tank or plane designer that time, Chinese DID have tank and plane production in Manchuria before it fell into Japanese hands but they were all authorized production of foreign schematics (like I mentioned before, French Ft-17, German Pz I and Soviet I-15).

The best ships CHI had was 1 Cruiser built by Japanese in 1920s and a sister ship by themselves, one HMS Aurora class Cruiser (renamed Chongqing) and three self-designed and made Cruiser, one of them is Yat Sen (Literal-Name of CHI Founding father) . All of them were destroyed in Shanghai by Japanese CV Kaga. Other ship CHI had were just some recommissioned merchant-ships.

Tech-Tree was basically almost blank except for the infantry and cavalry

 

[Gethsemani]

Building good design of tanks by your own requires years of developpement unless you receive some technology help, which didn't happen. China could have tried to retro engineer some tanks it bought anyway, but retro engineering is generally speaking, doing a bad copy of a thing. When you don't know why the armor is sloped, or why there are suspensions, when you never built any AT guns and don't know how a HEAT shell works, same thing it's hard to build your own. Even today, with all the things we have on the internet, designing (not building, just designing on paper) your own tank would be a colossal task should you have no experience in that field, even as an engineer.

Designing was never China's problem in WW2, as it had plenty of allies that were ready to send it all kinds of aid (the USA in particular) and would undoubtedly have made deals to let China license-build Shermans or P-40's or what have you. The problem was that building tanks, aircraft and naval ships requires not only specialized industrial plants and tools (which China didn't have), it also requires highly educated engineers (which China didn't have) and educated, specialized workers (which China didn't have) and that's on top of all the rare materials needed to actually manufacture the materials needed for all these vehicles (which China sort of had but couldn't exploit). Setting up a national arms industry is a massive effort and there's a reason why most countries still didn't have one during WW2.

 

[Lttobi]

YOu're right, except for the Major seven powers, there were only a few, mostly european nations which possed an national arms industry:

- Tschechoslovakia (which was annexed and became really important to Germany)
- Poland (Yes they had tanks and planes, just not enough of them, one or two years more and it could have become really ugly for germany)
- Belgium and Holland (Also small but present)
- Sweden (well its sweden)
- Romania ( a little bit)
- Canada
- Australia
- Austria (also some stuff before they got annexed)
- Switzerland (also a little bit)

of those only Tschechoslovakai, Poland and Sweden had enough capacity to arm both its army export that stuff.

China had a few factories build by the germans in the early 30s and some factories spread across the country. But even if it would ahve been able to combine all of this, they still alcked the infrastructure and education to rely establish themself as a major nation.

 

[Praetonia]

Nobody said Japan would go toe to toe with USSR.

I am talking about Japanese intervention in 41' during Germany's invasion of USSR, when USSR was running out of tanks.

The USSR was never running out of tanks. The Soviet army in the Far East never dropped below 1.3 million men and over two thousand tanks and SPGs during the worst years of 1941 and 1942. This force, garrisoning a quiet border, was considerably more powerful than the whole Chinese army.

Combined, the industrial regions of China were likely the economic size of some of the majors listed (e.g. Italy).

Can you provide some documentary evidence of that? I for one can't find any references to China producing AFVs or artillery at all, seems to have depended to a great extent on imports for things as simple as helmets and rifles.

The real industrialisation of China began in early 1950s

China didn't become an industrial nation until the 1990s. In 1990 China was still less urbanised than the UK in 1870 and did not exceed UK WWII productivity levels until the late 2000s

 

[Sir Garnet]

It was stated that minors can get the label "major" if they meet certain requirements. And thats really all what it is, a label. The only way how it affects gameplay is with the Fascist CB, where you can just declare war on every nation if you are at war with a major. And I'm sure we don't want that Japan is able to attack everyone as they wish in 1936, do we?

The label is less important than substance - how the regional and factional interests are represented and interact, including the civil war, is a big one.

So is reflecting the organization of the Chinese armies.

I link to the thread below which details how the KMT armies were organized and suggests how they should be represented in the game, as their divisions, corps and armies in the field did not correspond in size to Western or Japanese ones. Chinese divisions were of strength comparable to a Western or Japanese regiment or brigade and operationally worked closely together within the corps as Western regiments would as part of their division.

In turn the Army was functionally equivalent to a Western corps-level formation, and the Army Group equivalent to the Western Army. So logic suggests that Chinese army unit templates should generally represent the roughly 100 corps of the early game period, rather than focusing on the label "division" and starting with several hundred small divisions of around 3 or 4 bns on the map that operate independently rather than as part of their corps, and each with its tiny associated support elements (how small can those be?).

More pieces on the map means added clutter and more burden on the player, and I'm sure opposing asymmetric unit sizes across the board, even if of equal total strength, has strategic and tactical effects as well through the game mechanics, but I don't know the mechanics.

It would be good to know the thought behind the current approach and its effects on game mechanics. Do swarms of small units hurt or benefit the Chinese forces? Pros and cons? Create gimmicks and exploits, or avoid them?

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...al-organization-of-the-chinese-troops.907568/

 

[UKHEIC]

The USSR was never running out of tanks. The Soviet army in the Far East never dropped below 1.3 million men and over two thousand tanks and SPGs during the worst years of 1941 and 1942. This force, garrisoning a quiet border, was considerably more powerful than the whole Chinese army.


Can you provide some documentary evidence of that? I for one can't find any references to China producing AFVs or artillery at all, seems to have depended to a great extent on imports for things as simple as helmets and rifles.


China didn't become an industrial nation until the 1990s. In 1990 China was still less urbanised than the UK in 1870 and did not exceed UK WWII productivity levels until the late 2000s

And I did not say China became industrialised in 1950s, I said it was the beginning. The process was very painful and lengthy, and still is today.

After the First Five Year Plan, China had heavy industry capabilities for the first time thanks to the aid from USSR. More accurately, USSR helped to build 156 basic industry plant (IC lol) in 1950s during the First Five Year Plan.