AHC: Mao Zedong's 1936 Vision of East Asia

[pa_dutch]

In 1936, American journalist Edgar Snow travelled to the base of the fledgling Chinese Communist Party in Yan'an, Shaanxi to speak with its charismatic leader, Mao Zedong. During his interview, Snow asked Mao about the issue of former Chinese territories, particularly those in the hands of the Japanese Empire at that time:

QUESTION: Is it the immediate task of the Chinese people to regain all the territories lost to Japan, or only to drive Japan from North China, and all Chinese territory above the Great Wall?

ANSWER: it is the immediate task of China to regain all our lost territories, not merely to defend our sovereignty below the Great Wall. This means that Manchuria must be regained. We do not, however, include Korea, formerly a Chinese colony, but when we have re-established the independence of the lost territories of China, and if the Koreans wish to break away from the chains of Japanese imperialism, we will extend them our enthusiastic help in their struggle for independence. The same things applies to Formosa. As for Inner Mongolia, which is populated by both Chinese and Mongolians, we will struggle to drive Japan from there and help Inner Mongolia to establish an autonomous state.

The relationship between Outer Mongolia and the Soviet Union, now and in the past, has always been based on the principle of complete equality. When the people's revolution has been victorious in China the Outer Mongolia republic will automatically become a part of the Chinese federation, at its own will. The Mohammedan and Tibetan peoples, likewise, will form autonomous republics attached to the China federation.

If Mao had stuck with this vision, then the China we'd see today would be a looser federation similar to the Soviet Union, perhaps comprising the following:

- Chinese Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (China Proper and Manchuria)
- Inner Mongolian Soviet Socialist Republic
- Outer Mongolian Soviet Socialist Republic
- East Turkestan Soviet Socialist Republic
- Tibetan Soviet Socialist Republic

In addition, a united Korea and an independent Formosa (Taiwan) would also exist as seperate countries.

My challenge to you is to determine how to make this set of affairs possible, and how it would alter history up to the present. The system of government in Korea and Formosa - communist or otherwise - is up to you.

Source:

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1936/11/x01.htm

 

[Alexniko]

In 1936, American journalist Edgar Snow travelled to the base of the fledgling Chinese Communist Party in Yan'an, Shaanxi to speak with its charismatic leader, Mao Zedong. During his interview, Snow asked Mao about the issue of former Chinese territories, particularly those in the hands of the Japanese Empire at that time:





If Mao had stuck with this vision, then the China we'd see today would be a looser federation similar to the Soviet Union, perhaps comprising the following:

- Chinese Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (China Proper and Manchuria)
- Inner Mongolian Soviet Socialist Republic
- Outer Mongolian Soviet Socialist Republic
- East Turkestan Soviet Socialist Republic
- Tibetan Soviet Socialist Republic

In addition, a united Korea and an independent Formosa (Taiwan) would also exist as seperate countries.

My challenge to you is to determine how to make this set of affairs possible, and how it would alter history up to the present. The system of government in Korea and Formosa - communist or otherwise - is up to you.

Source:

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1936/11/x01.htm

For the most part, this is what actually happened in OTL.

Tibet became part of the PRC as an autonomous region after the Seventeen Point Agreement. In 1965 the autonomy was reformed, and remains in place to this day.

Inner Mongolia became an autonomous region of socialist China in 1947 (even before the PRC was founded). Its borders were enlarged to include traditional inner mongolian territory.

Xingjiang (the majority-muslim north eastern province) was transformes into the "Uiguric Autonomous Region of Xinjiang" in 1955.

Yet Mao was wrong when it comes to Outer Mongolia. True, the region had been part of China for a long time, however by 1950, the mongolian people had a strong national identity and therefore preffered to remain an independent nation. Thats difficult to change after the events of the 30s and 40s, and I honestly don't know enough about mongolian history to state if it was possible at all.

Formosa (or Taiwan) was transferred to the Kuomintang after the defeat of Japan. It became the last bastion of Nationalist China, and remains independent to this day. Yet Mao could have never predicted this turnof events in 1936. Taiwan could have become part of the PRC if the retreat of the nationalists was somehow prevented or failed.

Last but not least, the chinese communists amd the USSR actually supported the korean communists and leftists in general in their struggle against japanese imperialism and later the US backed Rhee Syng-man regime. In the end only the northog the peninsula became socialist, yet if the DPRK had won the Korean War, or if the souther communists had succeeded in the years before (In OTL, by 1950, South Korea was actually in a state of open civil war between communist guerillas and the capitalist government).

I hope my post was helpfull.

 

[David T]

In 1936, American journalist Edgar Snow travelled to the base of the fledgling Chinese Communist Party in Yan'an, Shaanxi to speak with its charismatic leader, Mao Zedong. During his interview, Snow asked Mao about the issue of former Chinese territories, particularly those in the hands of the Japanese Empire at that time:





If Mao had stuck with this vision, then the China we'd see today would be a looser federation similar to the Soviet Union, perhaps comprising the following:

- Chinese Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (China Proper and Manchuria)
- Inner Mongolian Soviet Socialist Republic
- Outer Mongolian Soviet Socialist Republic
- East Turkestan Soviet Socialist Republic
- Tibetan Soviet Socialist Republic

In addition, a united Korea and an independent Formosa (Taiwan) would also exist as seperate countries.

My challenge to you is to determine how to make this set of affairs possible, and how it would alter history up to the present. The system of government in Korea and Formosa - communist or otherwise - is up to you.

Source:

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1936/11/x01.htm

I doubt that there would be a separate Chinese (Han) Republic on analogy with the RSFSR. The difference is that the population of China as a whole was overwhelmingly Han whereas in the USSR in 1926 Russians were less than 53 percent of the All-Union population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_All-Union_Census_of_the_Soviet_Union Having both a Chinese Federated Republic and an all-China government would just involve too much duplication. Even in the USSR the RSFSR never had many of the institutions the other Union Republics had, their functions being handled instead by All-Union institutions. (For example there was no RSFSR Academy of Sciences, and until almost the end of the Union no RSFSR Communist Party with its own Central Committee, though Khrushchev did set up a "Bureau for the RSFSR.")

Mao did seek to get Outer Mongolia after his 1949 victory, but Stalin would have nothing of it. Just a few years earlier, the Outer Mongolian leader Choibalsang had tried to get Outer and Inner Mongolia united as an independent state. For a while, Stalin seemed to support this, but as I wrote:

***

When Choibalsang launched the unification drive in August 1945 he may not have been aware of how opportunistic Stalin's support for the drive was, and how short-lived it would be once China ratified the treaty with the USSR. Choibalsang has often been characterized as a mere puppet of Stalin's (I have so characterized him myself in some soc.history.what-if posts) but this may be a bit of an oversimplification. There was a genuine nationalist streak in Choibalsang, who seems to have been embittered by Stalin's betrayal of his unification dream; he even refused to attend Stalin's December 21, 1945 birthday celebration, and when he did travel to the Soviet Union in 1946 he took a train rather than (as in July 1945) an airplane, perhaps thinking that in view of his deteriorating relations with Stalin, trains were safer....However,

"Eventually Choibalsang's relations with Stalin improved and as Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated, Stalin even encouraged Choibalsang in his dream of unifying both Mongolias. In 1947 at a dacha at Lake Ritsa in the Caucasus, where Choibalsang had gone for a rest cure, Stalin concluded an informal exchange about Mongolian affairs with a toast to the unification of all Mongols under the leadership of Marshal Choibalsang. And on September 29, 1949, at another informal meeting at Sochi on the Black Sea, Stalin tested Choibalsang's reaction to Mao Zedong's recent request to Moscow that Inner and Outer Mongolia be unified as an autonomous part of China. Choibalsang protested that he supported unification but only with the resulting united Mongolia as an independent state. Stalin agreed, but asked Choibalsang to be patient; Lenin had allowed Finland and Poland to become independent, but Mao Zedong was no Lenin. In any case, he assured the Mongolian leader, the Bolsheviks would always stand for the unification of nations. The idea of unification had become just another topic of idle political speculation." Atwood, p. 157. https://books.google.com/books?id=BoWGituXr8MC&pg=PA157

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/unificaton-of-outer-and-inner-mongolia-1945.338036/

***

Of course, the strangest-looking part of Mao's statement in retrospect is his advocacy of Taiwan as an independent nation. But this is consistent with the CCP's position from 1928 to 1943, which viewed the Taiwanese as a "nation" or "nationality" (minzu) distinct from the Han--and frequently grouped the Taiwanese together with the Koreans as one of the weak nationalities oppressed by Japanese imperialism. (The CCP even listed the Taiwanese in Fukien as one of the national minorities in China.) See https://www.jstor.org/stable/2757657?read-now=1&seq=22#page_scan_tab_contents for a discussion.

 

[pa_dutch]

For the most part, this is what actually happened in OTL.

...No, not at all. Did you actually read the interview?

Autonomous regions are not republics. OTL Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia are nowhere near the level of autonomy that the Soviet republics had. They're just glorified provinces.

Taiwan's present-day situation is the exact opposite of what the interview suggested. In the end, Mao Zedong did not respect Taiwanese independence and the PRC continues to claim Taiwan as a province to this day.

 

[Alexniko]

...No, not at all. Did you actually read the interview?

Autonomous regions are not republics. OTL Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia are nowhere near the level of autonomy that the Soviet republics had. They're just glorified provinces.

Taiwan's present-day situation is the exact opposite of what the interview suggested. In the end, Mao Zedong did not respect Taiwanese independence and the PRC continues to claim Taiwan as a province to this day.

In the interview, Mao actually spoke of autonomies (weather you call them "autonomous republics" or "autonomous provinces" is not the point in the end. The point is how they are structured). Mao also used the terms "autonomous state" and "autonomous republic" as synonyms. And, for example, Tibet had a lot of autonomy. The Dalai Lama remained head of government untill 1959. From 1951 to 1959, traditional Tibetan society with its lords and manorial estates continued to function unchanged.

Thats as if the soviet government had left the nobility in power in the Ukrainian SSR.

And yes, when it comes to Taiwan, the prediction was wrong.