DBAHC: Make the Chinese Economy the World's largest

[SinghKing]

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with an ATL where China regains its historical place as the world's largest economy (with the largest GDP, by PPP) by the present day, with a POD after 1900. So the Boxer War may still potentially be averted; perhaps if the Empress Dowager Cixi had been inclined to change her long policy of suppressing the Boxers, easing the pressure by legitimizing them and preventing the whole situation from exploding like a powder keg. That way, might it have been plausible to prevent the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and China's descent into the warlord era in the 1900's? And even if it had, could it have potentially been capable of achieving the desired result (averting the rise to power of the Communists in China, and enabling them to pull off their own Meiji Restoration, as proposed by Yuan Shikai in “Principles for a Constitution”)? After all, China does have the largest population of any nation on earth by some margin, with a population of over 1.5 billion people; surely it's not too much of a stretch for it to have the largest economy as well?

 

[TFSmith121]

Not at all, but it requires a 20th Century pretty different,

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with an ATL where China regains its historical place as the world's largest economy (with the largest GDP, by PPP) by the present day, with a POD after 1900. So the Boxer War may still potentially be averted; perhaps if the Empress Dowager Cixi had been inclined to change her long policy of suppressing the Boxers, easing the pressure by legitimizing them and preventing the whole situation from exploding like a powder keg. That way, might it have been plausible to prevent the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and China's descent into the warlord era in the 1900's? And even if it had, could it have potentially been capable of achieving the desired result (averting the rise to power of the Communists in China, and enabling them to pull off their own Meiji Restoration, as proposed by Yuan Shikai in “Principles for a Constitution”)? After all, China does have the largest population of any nation on earth by some margin, with a population of over 1.5 billion people; surely it's not too much of a stretch for it to have the largest economy as well?

Is it a stretch?

Not at all, but it requires a 20th Century pretty different, in terms of great power politics, than what came about historically...

And a different China, as well; the issue that strikes me immediately is that while Japan pulled off industrialization, that effort also led, ultimately, to Japan's attempt at hegemony in northeastern Asia and the Western Pacific, which was destined to fail, for a variety of reasons...

But it also shows that Japan, a centralized archipelago that did not offer a whole lot to entice overt European intervention, was able to adapt to Wesern technology and organization, in part because Japan is - in comparison with China - fairly small, both in population and territory.

Lot more challenging to bring a huge continental nation, with its share of ethnic and cultural divides, into the "Western World" in the same period.

One thing I have always thought is that a (relatively) smaller "China" might have had a better shot at modernization in the Nineteenth Century than a nation state with China's historical borders, from Central Asia to the Pacific ... certainly would be easier and cheaper to focus on certain regions (presumably the historic heartlands) in terms of internal development, infrastructure, educaton, political reform, etc.

Best,

 

[Tom Colton]

The last time this came around, everyone mocked me when I said that the Communists might have been on to something, so I'll keep my big mouth shut now.

 

[Dunning Kruger]

Chinese nationalists win the war, preferably with someone other than Chiang now running the show. China adopts an economic model similar to the Japanese and Koreans (not too dissimilar from their current economic model minus the name of the political party). Given the success of the Japanese and Koreans post WWII and the Chinese in the last 20 years, this isnt that far fetched.

 

[TFSmith121]

I think it has to be earlier than that, though...

Chinese nationalists win the war, preferably with someone other than Chiang now running the show. China adopts an economic model similar to the Japanese and Koreans (not too dissimilar from their current economic model minus the name of the political party). Given the success of the Japanese and Koreans post WWII and the Chinese in the last 20 years, this isnt that far fetched.

I think it has to be earlier than that, though... there are some pretty deep structural problems in a "Nationalist" China by 1945 or thereabouts.

Plus, the obvious question is if the KMT "could" have won the civil war.

Best,

 

[SinghKing]

The last time this came around, everyone mocked me when I said that the Communists might have been on to something, so I'll keep my big mouth shut now.

Well, I kind of understand that standpoint- you tend to have increasingly socialist governments in more populous countries, because it becomes increasingly harder to sustain the bureaucracies needed to support these massive countries without becoming either more socialist (tending towards communism, like Nehruist India), or more authoritarian (which isn't so great when it comes to building an economy). I mean, yeah, it hasn't worked out great for India- they're the world's third largest economy, but they've still only got just over half the GDP (PPP) that China does (i.r.o 45% of the US GDP), in spite of having a population almost as large as that of China- but that doesn't mean that a similar system would have similarly poor results in China, does it? Especially when you consider that, unlike in India, anti-secularist religious groups would have basically been a non-issue in China.

 

[Seleucus]

OoC: Not quite sure what the PoD was, but given the original prompt, I'm assuming that it involves a continuation to some degree of the Mao era without liberalization.

Let's say that Mao and Lin Biao avoid their falling out, such that Lin Biao succeeds Mao and promptly purges all his rivals.

The last time this came around, everyone mocked me when I said that the Communists might have been on to something, so I'll keep my big mouth shut now.

I think the events of the 20th century have thoroughly discredited the utter disaster that was "Socialism with Chinese characteristics." I say this as a person with parents who are extremely short thanks to stunted growth in childhood, as they were born shortly before the "Great Leap Forward" (more like "Great Leap off a Cliff.")

However, there is no intrinsic reason why Communism had to lead to the disasters of the Mao/Biao or Stalin era. Although the Soviet Union is still considerably less wealthy than the United States, it is catching up in terms of GDP per capita (thanks partly due to high commodity prices.) What you need is a Chinese version of Kosygin to achieve that, and I'm not quite sure who would fit the bill.

 

[SinghKing]

OoC: Not quite sure what the PoD was, but given the original prompt, I'm assuming that it involves a continuation to some degree of the Mao era without liberalization.

Let's say that Mao and Lin Biao avoid their falling out, such that Lin Biao succeeds Mao and promptly purges all his rivals.



I think the events of the 20th century have thoroughly discredited the utter disaster that was "Socialism with Chinese characteristics." I say this as a person with parents who are extremely short thanks to stunted growth in childhood, as they were born shortly before the "Great Leap Forward" (more like "Great Leap off a Cliff.")

However, there is no intrinsic reason why Communism had to lead to the disasters of the Mao/Biao or Stalin era. Although the Soviet Union is still considerably less wealthy than the United States, it is catching up in terms of GDP per capita (thanks partly due to high commodity prices.) What you need is a Chinese version of Kosygin to achieve that, and I'm not quite sure who would fit the bill.

OOC: the POD, as hinted in the OP, is that unlike IOTL, the Empress Dowager Cixi doesn't change her standing long policy of suppressing the Boxers ITTL's January 1900. As such, the Boxer Rebellion (universally known as the Boxer War ITTL) is delayed for another couple of years; but when it does happen, it's more violent, more prolonged and covers a larger area, with the Eight Nation Alliance managing to force the Qing government to sign an even harsher Boxer Protocol ITTL. This in turn leads to the Qing dynasty weakening more quickly, and China entering its Warlord Era around 5 years earlier, which lasts for longer ITTL than it did IOTL.

 

[TFSmith121]

And this works out WELL for China?

OOC: the POD, as hinted in the OP, is that unlike IOTL, the Empress Dowager Cixi doesn't change her standing long policy of suppressing the Boxers ITTL's January 1900. As such, the Boxer Rebellion (universally known as the Boxer War ITTL) is delayed for another couple of years; but when it does happen, it's more violent, more prolonged and covers a larger area, with the Eight Nation Alliance managing to force the Qing government to sign an even harsher Boxer Protocol ITTL.

And this works out WELL for China?

Is your thinking a "worse" result in the Boxer conflict would result in lasting reforms in Imperial China? Kind of a "shock treatment" sort of result?

Best,

 

[SinghKing]

And this works out WELL for China?

Is your thinking a "worse" result in the Boxer conflict would result in lasting reforms in Imperial China? Kind of a "shock treatment" sort of result?

Best,

OOC: Take note: DB= Double Bluff. We're discussing this as if we're from a TL where China's economy isn't the largest in the world by GDP-PPP (which it now is IOTL, and has been for roughly the past year). The point is that this POD resulted in China's economy becoming markedly smaller ITTL, albeit not by a huge amount (10% or so smaller ITTL than IOTL by the present day). Okay?

 

[TFSmith121]

Okay ....

You sort of lost me, but okay - damn this time travel!

Best,

 

[Jeb Bush]

The last time this came around, everyone mocked me when I said that the Communists might have been on to something, so I'll keep my big mouth shut now.

I'm interested, what do you mean the Communists may have been on to something? Do you mean the attempted policies of Liu Shaoqi in the late 1950's?