China divided in half during Cold War

[vuun]

WI Chinese Civil War ends in stalemate. China is divided roughly in half between ROC in the south and PRC in the north, I'm thinking roughly along the Yangtze river. Is this possible without decades of violence?

Does Tibet remain independent in such a scenario?
How does this affect Korean War?
Communist side of Cold War weaker in the long run?

 

[Thanatos]

Does Tibet remain independent in such a scenario? Yes
How does this affect Korean War? American's use west allied Chinese as proxy against commies
Communist side of Cold War weaker in the long run?Yes

 

[imperialaquila]

I don't think there would be a Chinese intervention in any Korean war; the Communists would be in a much more precarious position relative to OTL, and so would probably be more cautious about attacking the US when the US's main proxy in Asia is strong and on their doorstep.

In the long run, the Communist world is probably weaker, but substantially more unified; Mao will not be making up with the US with a large and threatening Nationalist China to his south, and there is very little threat of a Sino-Soviet split as OTL.

 

[LostCosmonaut]

I doubt this is possibly without some amount of violence, at least in the short term. From what I remember, both Mao and CKS were pretty keen on uniting the country, so you'd probably have to shunt them away somehow. Also, you'd probably have pro-communist insurgencies of some kind in the south, and vice versa in the North.

As an aside though, what kind of government would an independent Tibet have today? I've had a couple of TL ideas kicking around in my head, one of which involves an independent Tibet existing until the present.

 

[Plumber]

Both Mao and Chiang took an "all or nothing" approach, "nothing" being either Taiwan or Manchuria. That makes this rather hard. Maybe if Patton lives and goes to China like he was supposed to...

 

[EternalCynic]

A good POD would be a KMT victory in the Huaihai Campaign in late 1948. Both sides are exhausted and before either side can muster strength, relations between the two superpowers take a plunge, forcing a ceasefire along the Huai River and Qinling Mountains (the same north south boundary when China is divided on that lines).

As Chiang recuperates, he realizes his plans to tackle corruption after the Commies are defeated are wrong-headed, and immediately centralizes military payment systems to undercut the warlords and boost public support. He then sends a token expedition force to Tibet (which he had always intended to) where the Dalai Lama retains de facto self rule while recognizing the RoC. Tibet itself is divided between the Dalai-controlled U-Tsang, the KMT-controlled Kham, and the Communist controlled Amdo. Stalin would still kill off his puppet leadership in Xinjiang and hand it over to the CPC, safe in Mao's ideological loyalty.

Meanwhile, the People's Republic of China is proclaimed with the capital of Beijing, declaring the southern half of China as "awaiting liberation". Both Chinas declare the other to be illegitimate puppets of the other superpower.

And finally, any Chinese Communist will eventually chafe at being a Soviet surrogate. There will still be a North Sino-Soviet Split. If (big if) Lin Biao or Deng Xiaoping take power after the split, the inner-Chinese detente could well happen by the 1960s. Chiang will also be careful to avoid being seen as a US puppet and will probably model his foreign policy after de Gaulle's. Unless Mao mismanages North China worse than in OTL (if that's even possible), a detente will still occur. The end of the Soviet Bloc will remove the last big obstacle to reunification, especially if both sides are poor one-party dictatorships of different color. By today the DMZ is replaced with a fence and both sides have in principle agreed to reunify. The confusing details are still an obstacle.