Cold War without Red China

kernals12

Banned
Mao's victory in China was probably the most important event in those early crucial years of the Cold War. Before then, it was a conflict centered solely on Europe. But when China went Communist, the Cold War went global. It also inspired communist movements in Latin America, Africa, and the rest of Asia.

So, if the nationalists win in China, does the Cold War remain mostly an event centered on the Iron Curtain?
 

walmart

South East Asia remains non-communist monarchies due to a lack of bases or supplies without a communist China. The Korean war doesn't happen due to threat from China or the Soviets decide for neutral Korea.
 

GSD310

Sino-Soviet split aside, I think having a big nation like the PRC in the communist bloc added to its credibility as a threat OTL.

Without the PRC, perhaps there’s complacency from the West because they got the USSR “surrounded” from the West through Western Europe and the East through Kuomintang, Japan, and South Korea.
 
AltoRegnant

AltoRegnant

Nathan Bernacki said:
So, the Viet Minh could lose the war. Ho Chi Minh either goes into hiding or is executed. France reinforces it's grip on Indochina, probably supported by the Americans as per the Truman Doctrine. Without the Vietnam War, Pol Pot never rises in Cambodia, so the Khmer Rouge is butterflied away. Asia is an entirely American-controlled area, aside from Mongolia.
Click to expand...
Seeing as that's among the first of the french colonies to go independant otl, with France able to put down the rebellion, how does that effect decolonization?
 

Alex1guy

Non communist china may not be western aligned remember. It may very well play the USSR and the Americans off against each other and try to carve a sphere in asia.
 

Masked Grizzly

With a non-communist China (possibly in tandem with a non-Soviet aligned India), would the Communist bloc have been forced to focus less on white elephant projects like the Stendal Nuclear Power Plant in favour of more affordable and practical infrastructure projects that would help it struggle along a bit longer?
 

A Piece of History

KingOnTheEdge said:
Seeing as that's among the first of the french colonies to go independant otl, with France able to put down the rebellion, how does that effect decolonization?
Click to expand...

I doubt there would be a war in Algeria, first and foremost. The Viet Minh's victory in the First Indochina War was a rallying cry for other native populations fighting against their colonial overlords. The National Liberation Front was made up of soldiers who had been drafted by the French to fight in Laos and Vietnam, where they mingled with the Viet Minh.

With France winning in Indochina in our timeline, then the Algerians may not be so willing to rise up against the French. Even if they did, they would probably lose, since by the late '50s in our timeline,, the French had control of all metropolitan locations and the National Liberation Front had been mostly driven under ground.

But here's the kicker. During the Algerian War, the French Fourth Republic was very unstable. Many people in the military feared that the French government would order a Indochina-style pull-out and sacrifice French honour for the sake of political expediency, so they launched an attempted coup against the government in May 1958. Long story short, it resulted in the rise of the Fifth Republic and the end of the war in Algeria with Algerian independence, despite the fact that the French had essentially won the conflict by 1959.

So France's control of Algeria depends on whether or not the Fourth Republic can stabilize itself enough for the French to completely crush the Algerian independence movement. With a French victory in Indochina, then maybe the Republic can hold itself together, but that's a bit of a unknown.
 

CountDVB

A lot of what Nathan said is true though I do wonder if this does mean the domino theory is discredited and therfore not as much action is taken. The US would still get involved in affairs, but sees it doesn’t have to. Perhaps this causes them to back off in other places
 

CountDVB

Nathan Bernacki said:
The domino theory was first proposed by Eisenhower a month before the fall of Dien Biuen Phu. His speech discussed the significance of Vietnam to the foreign policy of the United States. During the speech, he said

Had France won in Indochina, there is a slight chance Eisenhower would never have made that speech. I'm sure someone else would've (After all, Churchill came up with the concept of the 'Iron Curtain'), but had this concept never been put forward, then the US would've taken a relaxed approach to foreign policy when it comes to Asia.
Click to expand...

Also maybe the US would not be as batshit crazy as they were to Latin America >.<
 

A Piece of History

CountDVB said:
Also maybe the US would not be as batshit crazy as they were to Latin America >.<
Click to expand...

Oh dear God, yes. I'm not saying Latin America would be squeaky clean, but it would look a hell of a lot better. No Chavez in Venezuela, no military regime in Brazil, no Pinochet in Chile, etc. If Latin America was stabilized, then there would be little to no mass migrations of people trying to seek refuge in the United States.
 
okmangeez

okmangeez

Another butterfly is that North Korea may collapse and be annexed peacefully when the USSR collapses. Without Soviet and Chinese aid, combined by the fact that North Korea is now surrounded by hostile nations, the regime might collapse on itself. In OTL, North Korea went through the worst famine in recent memory and had a complete economic meltdown. A US leaning China might tip the balance and pressure the nation to accept reunification like Germany.
 

Vae Victus

Would the USSR be risking major border clashes with the KMT China if the US signaled strong support via continuous supply of arms and aid?

Hell with the USSR encircled i can see their hostile posture diminish as any major war that erupts means they'll get gangraped on all sides by the West and China/Japan. Nukes mean they can defend their own sovereignty but offensive action with such a wide border to defend is suicide. A resurgent China im sure would love to get back their old Qing era lands and swipe everything east of Lake Baikal in the process.

I can totally see this chastised USSR decide to make nice with the West and overall tensions going down as a result. Might end up a much better world as no arms races and Cold War shenanigans screwing everything up.
 
Whiteshore

Whiteshore

Are we going with KMT control of all of China or does this scenario allow for a PRC-in-Manchuria as a "reverse Taiwan"?
 

GenericAltHistorian

Two words: Massive butterflies. Without the PRC's support, France could easily win in Algeria and Vietnam. Both North Korea and the Khmer Rouge were wiped out of existence. Eastern Europe and the Middle East would become the main hotspots of the Cold War instead of Asia and South America.
 

Bluesock

Banned
China won't be pro western. In fact given China's griveamces against western imperialism, it goes without saying that they would support anti colonial movements throughout Asia and possibly Africa as well. At this point the French are hated in Vietnam There is no way that a Nationalist China would accept a colonial Indochina, they would continue to supply the Vietnamese as an act of "third world" solidarity, though perhaps trying to push them more towards their sphere than the soviet spehere
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top