Would China be better today if the Kuomintang had won the War vs. Communists?

[hangfan91]

If the Kuomintang had won the Civil War and governed China as a more pro-western and capitalistic government than one which was led by Mao, do you think China would be better today?

I'm assuming true democracy would not be introduced until the late 1990s or 2000s as mainland China has a larger and more diverse population than just Taiwan and the party would probably need to establish its government before allowing elections to take place and they didn't introduce universal suffrage in Taiwan until the 90s with President Lee.

[dead0man]

I don't see how it could possibly be worse, even using the reddest of rose colored glasses.

[andrew_c]

Definitely.
If Mao had lost the war, mainland China would be much better off today.
There wouldn't have been a Cultural Revolution or a Tiananmen.
And most importantly, democracy would have been restored.

[politicus]

Yes, right wing dictatorships in Asia have all become democracies whereas former Communist states turned capitalist are still authoritarian one party states and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

Avoiding the Cultural Revolution would obviously be a major benefit (to put it mildly..).

[ingemann]

I'm not sure, I doubt Kuomintang could deliver the same results in China as they delivered in Taiwan, it's easier to develop a small country especially as there are a influx of capital from other countries (USA primary) and they get favourable access to American markets. So a Kuomintang China wouldn't be mega-Taiwan, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be better than the China we see today.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Probably, but I fail to see how the Kuomintang could have won.

[Beet]

Probably, but I fail to see how the Kuomintang could have won.

If Japan had not destroyed its best military units and political/economic base. The communist victory was both the culmination of modern China and the biggest tragedy in modern Chinese history.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Voted no by mistake, but yes.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Highly doubt it. China today would almost certainly not be a democracy by your definition of it.

[tpfkaw]

Probably, but I fail to see how the Kuomintang could have won.

The Truman administration not imposing an arms and ammunition embargo against them after Chiang took Yan'an would be an excellent start.

[TNF]

Rich people in China would probably have been better off from the late 1940s until the 1970s, in all likelihood, but pretty much everyone else during that period would have been way, way worse off. Illiteracy would probably still be fairly commonplace and the economy still severely underdeveloped, given the complete lack of competence that characterized the mainland KMT, which couldn't even control the country when it was in power in the 1920s and 1930s. You could also probably expect more widespread drug addiction as well, given that the CCP made a priority of wiping out that particular means of external control following the revolution.

[H. Ross Peron]

Yes (Not Maoist)

[TNF]

Yes (Not Maoist)

I'm not a Maoist either, but I then again I also don't seriously believe that the KMT would be able to unify China, eradicate illiteracy, or wipe out the opium trade, mostly because they were in the pocket of the Western powers who wanted China to remain poor, illiterate, and addicted in order to keep exploiting it via the so-called 'open door' policy.

[H. Ross Peron]

Yes (Not Maoist)

I'm not a Maoist either, but I then again I also don't seriously believe that the KMT would be able to unify China, eradicate illiteracy, or wipe out the opium trade, mostly because they were in the pocket of the Western powers who wanted China to remain poor, illiterate, and addicted in order to keep exploiting it via the so-called 'open door' policy.

The major difference for 1920/'30s China was that there were still plenty of warlords around not to mention Japan "intervening" in Manchuria and then China proper. After World War 2, the warlords were gone and with the Cold War and the "China Lobby", American aid would have been flowing to China much as it did to Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan in OTL. Considering this scenario assumes the KMT still faces off with the Communists and what Chiang did later in Taiwan, a Nationalist China would probably still implement land reform as happened in other anti-communist regimes. I may be overly optimistic, but I think China would eventually have gone with the mercantilist/Tiger Economy model like other East Asian states.

[Bigby]

It would be a rough ride, but I believe so, yes.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The answer would have been no for a while, but definitely yes today.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Probably, but I fail to see how the Kuomintang could have won.

If Japan had not destroyed its best military units and political/economic base. The communist victory was both the culmination of modern China and the biggest tragedy in modern Chinese history.

And how do you prevent that from happening?  Japan's desire to expand into China was not something the Kuomintang could change.

[The Mikado]

The former "warlords" had mostly been coopted by the Nationalists, not eliminated.  A Nationalist China would have been very prone to an extreme level of devolution bordering on having the Nationalist regime as a total paper tiger outside of wherever its army is, and renewed civil war wouldn't be out of the question.

On the flip side, and by the same token, I think there's a not-terrible chance for the continued existence of Tibet and Xinjiang (the latter as a Soviet puppet).

[anvi]

In some fairly important respects, yes.  If we can safely suppose that not only the Cultural Revolution would not have happened, but also the extent of starvation in the "three bad years" (58-61) due to terrible practices during those years, the country would have undergone a lot less unbelievably painful trauma.  Plus, assuming Jiang Jing Guo would have taken over from Jaing Jieshi as happened in Taiwan, rapid economic development may have started about the same time as it did when Deng came to power.  There would be less international tension now too, and it's interesting to think of the complicated implications it would have had for the Cold War--not easy or straightforward to fathom by any means  But other things may not have been as different as some imagine.  The Nationalists could crack down on dissent as harshly as the CCP is wont to do, the electoral process can be fairly corrupt and superficial despite the republican institutional structure, and their policies toward Tibet and Taiwan may not have been all that different. 

With these kinds of questions, it's impossible to say of course.  But if the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward alone could have been avoided, the trade would be way, way more than worth it.

[jaichind]

As someone who is a diehard supporter of the KMT, I voted yes for today but do feel for 50 years from now I would actually vote no.  If the ROC armed forced managed to defeat the Communist bandits in the post 1945 conflict (I actually could conceived several realistic scenarios with the KMT avoided certain blunders where this would have taken place) then a united China today would be a very large Turkey, somewhat more advanced than the PRC today but still having large amount of social conflict in terms as well as conflict with minorities.  In that sense this alternative future is superior than today.  The most obvious improvement relative to today is that my home province of Taiwan Province would still be politically united with the Mainland China.  On the other hand, for me it is critical that the CCP win power and totally fail in their egalitarian program.  This would pave the way for a total rejection among us Chinese to completely reject the goal of social progress as a goal and in term would remove on the long run obstacles to a true far right free market economic strategy.  The Chinese are bettor off on the long run with a policy of "a government that rules least rules best."  Having the CCP win and fail and ruining the reputation of the Leftist policies is the best way to get there.

[Mr. Smith]

Given how horrifically corrupt the KMT was, given how much in-fighting Chiang Kai-Shek allowed even during WWII, and given how low the quality of life for the poor was before the Maoists...No.

The country would probably just fall into serious collapse in 70's and eventually just be a pawn in the Cold War.

I suspect it being no different than the Middle East if KMT won and I cringe at what kind of exploitative things Nixon would've gotten away with.

Not gonna shill for Mao, but Chiang Kai-Shek does not deserve any vindication.

[Foucaulf]

Let me play the devil's advocate here:

-I have no idea why people think the KMT would be "capitalist"; I guess you're extrapolating that from their offensive against the CCP. The KMT, and indeed the Chinese republican movement, is grounded in socialism and a faith in revolutionizing Chinese society. Hell, ROC Taiwan in the 20th Century was very much a state-driven economy. Relabelling the KMT as capitalists and bourgeois, however, both benefitted the CCP (who can now add ideological gloss to their enemy) and American hawks.

-Instead of maintaining a stable set of alliances, as the CCP did minus a few years, the KMT would likely be shifting back and forth between whichever power could support them. Chiang is on the record for diplomatic visits to the Allied forces, the Soviets and the Germans. Likely facing blowback from warlords and peasant revolts, a KMT China in my world would be mired in violence with no great power committed to supporting them.

-I will concede that a KMT government would not engineer something like the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward. But I'll make an analogy to a KMT China with India; famines will arise out of supply distortions, technological growth would have been less concentrated, militancy would eventually arise in certain interior regions and a corrupt elite would explicitly maintain their power through rhetoric and patronage. Not to mention that PRC China's economic, literacy and life expectancy growth has exceeded India's.

Would there be a lower number of deaths for which the central government would have been accountable? Yes. Does that imply welfare over time will be strictly better? No.

Yes, right wing dictatorships in Asia have all become democracies whereas former Communist states turned capitalist are still authoritarian one party states and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

You realize N=3 here, right? (Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan - two of which had much higher GDP per capita than China today at transition, and the one remaining instigated by a financial crisis)

[politicus]

Yes, right wing dictatorships in Asia have all become democracies whereas former Communist states turned capitalist are still authoritarian one party states and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

You realize N=3 here, right? (Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan - two of which had much higher GDP per capita than China today at transition, and the one remaining instigated by a financial crisis)

Having a high GDP was a function of choosing capitalism from the start. South Korea was poorer than the north from the outset and it took two decades to overtake the north.

You are forgetting the Philippines, Thailand is also still a much free-er country than its ex communist neighbours and much more likely to become a stable democracy despite its current reversal.

The party state in its communist version is an extremely efficient vehicle for oppression and after concentrating all the "goodies" in the state the party elite has no economic incentives to loosen control. There is too much loot to be shared and protected.

The sample on the communist side (China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea) is of equal size.

(Burma is a special case as it never was a genuine party state)

[Foucaulf]

Having a high GDP was a function of choosing capitalism from the start. South Korea was poorer than the north from the outset and it took two decades to overtake the north.

Sure, but that wasn't my point. It's uncontroversial to think state economies are more resilient regarding political change; it's controversial to state any set of necessary conditions for a democratic transition.

We are getting closer to some sufficient conditions for transition. A rising middle class seems to be one (this is a basic fact of political economy). In Indonesia's case, a consumption shock added to Suharto's frailing credibility worked. Adding in the Philippines, a country with a powerful central metropolis are also more susceptible to transition (Manila, Seoul, Java... one reason for this could be fewer transaction costs between protesters)

But your claim was "right wing dictatorships in Asia have all become democracies." To claim that alone is necessary is very strange. To claim that any right wing dictatorships has a higher probability of transition than any left wing dictatorship is also strange. Think about how much different China is relative to South Korea or Taiwan; it does not have a central metropolis, it is vastly larger and has a larger labour pool to extract. Could those effects not also affect the feasibility of transition?

None of this also contradicts my claim that the KMT wouldn't be "right-wing", but more devoted to a state-controlled economy with maybe less property seizure than the CCP.

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As much as I think this theory makes sense, when looking at the data you have to control for other factors.