Xi'an Incident kills Chiang Kai-Shek

[EasternRomanEmpire]

The Xi'an incident took place in Xi'an when generals Chang and Yang from the North-Eastern Army took hostage Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek because they disagreed with Chiang's policy of trying to defeat the CCP before focusing his attention on Japan and since he repeatedly refused their request to change policy.
The "Anti-Japanese Comrade Society" wanted to execute Chiang, but Chang and the CCP wanted to keep him alive to maintain the possibility of an United Front against the Japanese.
Chiang was held in house arrest from 12 to 26 December 1936, he was freed when he promised to end the Chinese Civil War and to resist the Japanese together with the communists. He later repudiated the promises he made at Xi'an but in the end he did make peace with the communists and formed the Second United Front.
The Japanese were provoked by this as they considered this an act against them and they launched their invasion of China shortly after.

But what if Chiang had died either by mistake during his capture or because of stronger influence of the "Anti-Japanese Comrade Society"?
Would the Japanese invade China sooner due to the instability caused by Chiang's death or would the invasion be delayed?
In the case Japan still invades how much worse would the war go for China?
What would happen to the CCP?
Would the US and Japan still go to war?

 

[Beanstalk]

The Nationalist government would lose its greatest leader and would be weakened, but would turn violently against the Communist Party.
The Japanese will not immediately invade China, but will more likely seek to increase their influence through proxies/warlords.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

The Nationalist government would lose its greatest leader and would be weakened, but would turn violently against the Communist Party.
The Japanese will not immediately invade China, but will more likely seek to increase their influence through proxies/warlords.

If China is greatly weakened how can they "turn violently against the Communist Party" if an unified China failed to defeat them?

 

[Beanstalk]

If China is greatly weakened how can they "turn violently against the Communist Party" if an unified China failed to defeat them?

Once their leaders are killed, even if they cannot defeat the Communists, they will continue their encirclement campaigns.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Once their leaders are killed, even if they cannot defeat the Communists, they will continue their encirclement campaigns.

Assuming they don't outright collapse as a consequence of Chiang's death, seeing that warlords still held a lot of influence I would say that it's a possible option.

 

[Gillan1220]

But what if Chiang had died either by mistake during his capture or because of stronger influence of the "Anti-Japanese Comrade Society"?
Would the Japanese invade China sooner due to the instability caused by Chiang's death or would the invasion be delayed?
In the case Japan still invades how much worse would the war go for China?
What would happen to the CCP?
Would the US and Japan still go to war?

Without Chiang, KMT suffers infighting. The corruption and incompetence of the KMT was astounding.

Maybe we'd have warlord Yang Xishan take over as the leader of the KMT? Who knows.

The Japanese would probably still invade the same way as OTL. The war would be much worse without a unified command. The CCP would also suffer casualties since there will be no United Front or an equivalent. But the CCP at this period were insurgents and could simply escape into the interior of China which not even the Japanese would pursue.

I think the U.S. and Japan will still go to war at some point because Japan was already planning on expansion since the end of WWI.

 

[SirCecil]

Without Chiang, KMT suffers infighting. The corruption and incompetence of the KMT was astounding.

Maybe we'd have warlord Yang Xishan take over as the leader of the KMT? Who knows.

The Japanese would probably still invade the same way as OTL. The war would be much worse without a unified command. The CCP would also suffer casualties since there will be no United Front or an equivalent. But the CCP at this period were insurgents and could simply escape into the interior of China which not even the Japanese would pursue.

Assuming Japan invades China on a timetable roughly similar to OTL they could actually roll through the country, take the most valuable parts, and declare victory since there wouldn’t be a central government of China to negotiate with. Such an outcome would have huge butterflies on the rest of WWII since now Japan isn’t sanctioned and has a lot more men to spare for a campaign somewhere else. This makes Kantokuen much more attractive.

 

[LeX]

The main guy in the Chinese army after Chiang seemed to be He Yingqin. Probably him and a vaguely pro-Japan junta would take over, while the KMT in general would lose cohesion as the pro-communist elements leave to join the CCP and the warlord elements exercise even more autonomy than they did IOTL.

Japan would keep expanding in Northern China and probably see more success in co-opting local warlords. The KMT and CCP would fight a civil war. The CCP would probably enjoy similar advantages (better political organization, influence in the rural area) to those they did IOTL. Instead of Japan directly invading China it would be more likely that the Japanese Army goes there to take part in escalating "anti-Communist" operations. They would aim to co-opt and eventually puppet the mainstream KMT.

EDIT: A technical Japanese victory is possible in this scenario.

 

[raharris1973]

EDIT: A technical Japanese victory is possible in this scenario.

By when, relative to the timing of the European War's outbreak in 1939? Could Japan have well puppet'ed the Nanjing government and its Whampoa Clique led Army under the command of He Yinqin, and be satisfied it has pretty thoroughly destroyed Communist Armies and bases in China proper, and recalcitrant anti-Japanese warlords like Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, all by about September 1939 or May 1940?

If Tokyo feels they've accomplished that, do they focus on developing Manchukuo and China as economic vassals, or look to expand south into Southeast Asia? Or north toward the Soviet Union? If not perhaps at moments that might make it seem inopportune like after a defeat at Nomonhan, or a Nazi-Soviet Pact, but perhaps after a Nazi invasion?

 

[LeX]

By when, relative to the timing of the European War's outbreak in 1939? Could Japan have well puppet'ed the Nanjing government and its Whampoa Clique led Army under the command of He Yinqin, and be satisfied it has pretty thoroughly destroyed Communist Armies and bases in China proper, and recalcitrant anti-Japanese warlords like Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, all by about September 1939 or May 1940?

If Tokyo feels they've accomplished that, do they focus on developing Manchukuo and China as economic vassals, or look to expand south into Southeast Asia? Or north toward the Soviet Union? If not perhaps at moments that might make it seem inopportune like after a defeat at Nomonhan, or a Nazi-Soviet Pact, but perhaps after a Nazi invasion?

I think that puppeting the Nanjing government is easy enough. The book I'm reading now, The China Quagmire, portrays the central KMT leadership of this period as being willing to accede to most of the Japanese political demands; it's just that the Guandong Army kept undermining all efforts by the IJA and broader Japanese government to reach a halfway reasonable arrangement. They would initiate a battle somewhere and then claim the Chinese were being dishonest in their negotiations and then keep pressing the attack.

Chiang Kai-shek may have been a staunch Chinese patriot but even he was okay with leaving Manchukuo be for the time being and I suppose many of his staff and their underlings would care even less if it meant they could enjoy authority over China proper and keep their own interests intact. Honestly if the Japanese were smart or coherent this would have been their strategy all along instead of endless mission creep.

With Chiang dead in 1936, this process may have been possible even with the Guandong Army/IJA's meddling. I think it would be done by 1940, perhaps even earlier.

The "technical" part of the victory is that the further west and south the Japanese try to extend their influence, the more resistance from the Chinese they will run into. The Nanjing government wont be doing itself any favors on the popular approval front by becoming Japan's running dogs. Literally the only way that they could redeem themselves is if being Japan's puppet could bring prosperity to eastern China, but as OTL shows the Japanese were mainly interested in China as a bottomless pool of slave labor.

So ITTL by roughly 1942-44 you'd have the areas that IOTL were under Japanese occupation being controlled by pro-Japan warlords (Nanjing govt), with the CCP and allied warlords (maybe its official name is something like the "Revolutionary United Front of the Kuomintang" to achieve maximum national appeal and borrow Sun Yat-sen's legacy) waging a guerrilla insurgency across basically the whole country.

Manchukuo is probably fairly secure ITTL. But it's also going to have the problems of left-wing insurgency finding currency among its disgruntled masses, and unless the Japanese make some kind of Herculean effort to assimilate the entire population while raising their living standards significantly, Manchuria would be as risk as well should the puppet regime in China proper be overthrown. Adding the fact that the Japanese would have to run a similarly successful program in Korea at the same time, that means lifting around 60-70 million out of poverty AND convincing them to be loyal to an invading culture. Not easy.

RE: Southeast Asia, I think it depends on how difficult managing China ends up and how much external pressure the Japanese feel from the West and Soviet Union. There's also always the factor of "why did we build this gigantic navy if we're not going to use it?" which could still lead to a Pacific War of some sort. If the Japanese are content to stay in China there might not be a US embargo.

 

[raharris1973]

The "technical" part of the victory is that the further west and south the Japanese try to extend their influence, the more resistance from the Chinese they will run into.

They were by 1936 facing a lot of resistance, or desire for it, in the northwest - from the warlords who kidnapped CKS, Yang Hucheng and Xiang Xueliang, and Fu Zuoyi, who in 1936 inspired even more resistance sentiment by successfully repelling a Japanese probe deeper into his own part of Suiyuan province, Inner Mongolia. Yan Xishan at this time was in a bit more of a feisty, resistant mood. A murder of Chiang Kai-shek by the Chinese resistance patriots *might* alienate him, and realign him with Nanjing's He Yinqin and Chiang's Whampoa Clique officers and units, Chiang's widow and rich sister-in-law Madame Kung and Mr. "Bank of China" Kung. Those northwesterners would be the warlord core, along with the Communists, of the opposition coalition to a Nanjing regime collaborating with Japan. TV Soong would hate the Hobson's choice. He might fly west to join the resisters. Or, as a diehard capitalist, he might go into Hong Kong/western exile to avoid choosing between pro-Soviet, quasi-Socialist/Communist adjacent left, and too cozy with Japan right. Wang Jingwei, although historically a man of the left, would collaborate within a pro-Japan Nanjing made mostly of right-wing KMT.

Now would regional leaders in the south be guaranteed to be anti Japanese? The Guangxi clique Generals like Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, Zhang Fakui? The Guangdong Tiger, Hsueh Yueh? Perhaps - it would be popular with youth and intellectuals and guarantee them autonomy, and Japan and Nanjing would be far, at least at first. But perhaps not. Sun's widow, Qingling, and his son, Sun Fo, who had more symbolic value than real political power, would definitely favor a CCP-Left Warlord resistance coalition and go out to join them if they could.

RE: Southeast Asia, I think it depends on how difficult managing China ends up and how much external pressure the Japanese feel from the West and Soviet Union. There's also always the factor of "why did we build this gigantic navy if we're not going to use it?" which could still lead to a Pacific War of some sort. If the Japanese are content to stay in China there might not be a US embargo.

Well, it just seems to me that if Hitler has won the battle of western Europe in 1940, Indochina just looks so *ripe and easy* for the occupation. And the DEI nearly so. If southern, southwestern warlords are already reduced to puppets......it's even easier. If they are hotbeds of the guerrilla resistance coalition, taking advantage of the rougher mountainous southwestern terrain, and possibly foreign from across international borders, well...occupation of Indochina helps seal that up.

 

[LeX]

They were by 1936 facing a lot of resistance, or desire for it, in the northwest - from the warlords who kidnapped CKS, Yang Hucheng and Xiang Xueliang, and Fu Zuoyi, who in 1936 inspired even more resistance sentiment by successfully repelling a Japanese probe deeper into his own part of Suiyuan province, Inner Mongolia. Yan Xishan at this time was in a bit more of a feisty, resistant mood. A murder of Chiang Kai-shek by the Chinese resistance patriots *might* alienate him, and realign him with Nanjing's He Yinqin and Chiang's Whampoa Clique officers and units, Chiang's widow and rich sister-in-law Madame Kung and Mr. "Bank of China" Kung. Those northwesterners would be the warlord core, along with the Communists, of the opposition coalition to a Nanjing regime collaborating with Japan. TV Soong would hate the Hobson's choice. He might fly west to join the resisters. Or, as a diehard capitalist, he might go into Hong Kong/western exile to avoid choosing between pro-Soviet, quasi-Socialist/Communist adjacent left, and too cozy with Japan right. Wang Jingwei, although historically a man of the left, would collaborate within a pro-Japan Nanjing made mostly of right-wing KMT.

Now would regional leaders in the south be guaranteed to be anti Japanese? The Guangxi clique Generals like Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, Zhang Fakui? The Guangdong Tiger, Hsueh Yueh? Perhaps - it would be popular with youth and intellectuals and guarantee them autonomy, and Japan and Nanjing would be far, at least at first. But perhaps not. Sun's widow, Qingling, and his son, Sun Fo, who had more symbolic value than real political power, would definitely favor a CCP-Left Warlord resistance coalition and go out to join them if they could.

I'm not as familiar with the warlord dynamics of the ROC as I would like to be, but that seems more or less plausible. Definitely the southern warlords would probably choose to split off rather than follow the Nanjing/Central Army clique of "traitors to the Chinese nation." Whether they would accept the CCP's Marxism-Leninism out of hand is uncertain (I lean towards no), but at the very least they'd work with the CCP/Left warlords of the northwest in a united front.

With the likely axis of Japanese and puppet interventions, this probably means the southern warlords and their troops get driven out of their base in Guangdong/vicinity and are forced into the likes of Guizhou and Sichuan where the logistics are worse for Japan and they will be closer to their northwestern allies. The center of the anti-Japanese resistance could very well end up in Chongqing, just as IOTL. The rough contours of which side controls what would probably also be similar.

But where the Japanese really gain an advantage is in not having to directly fight the ROC central government. The extremely bloody battles of Shanghai, Xuzhou, and Wuhan will not happen. Where there are large engagements they will be fought much further west, and probably be less costly.

I think this would have an influence on Japan's overall China policy. With an easier road to seizing northern and eastern China, it might mean the Japanese are less overtly brutal against the occupied population, at least limiting its slaughters and destruction to the restive countryside as opposed to looting and raping cities. This would inadvertently give the Japanese and puppet authorities more flexibility in governance since they have not completely ruined their reputation.

Well, it just seems to me that if Hitler has won the battle of western Europe in 1940, Indochina just looks so *ripe and easy* for the occupation. And the DEI nearly so. If southern, southwestern warlords are already reduced to puppets......it's even easier. If they are hotbeds of the guerrilla resistance coalition, taking advantage of the rougher mountainous southwestern terrain, and possibly foreign from across international borders, well...occupation of Indochina helps seal that up.

There is always the likely possibility that the Japanese will feel the need to do something extremely stupid that makes the situation end up somewhere similar to OTL 1945.

It might well be the case that for Japan not to drink the Southern Strike kool-aid, there needs to be an external change.

Maybe the death of Chiang has a knock-on effect of spooking Stalin into bolstering the USSR's overall defenses and being more wary of Hitler, which leads to slight changes in the dynamic in Europe that in turn bring about a "blunted sickle" scenario during the German invasion of France. This forces the Japanese military leaders to reconsider messing with Indochina, while the Soviet buildup along its borders compels the IJA to invest more in its northern-facing land forces as well. Maybe we'll see the IJA get a real medium tank.

 

[raharris1973]

But where the Japanese really gain an advantage is in not having to directly fight the ROC central government. The extremely bloody battles of Shanghai, Xuzhou, and Wuhan will not happen. Where there are large engagements they will be fought much further west, and probably be less costly.

I think this would have an influence on Japan's overall China policy. With an easier road to seizing northern and eastern China, it might mean the Japanese are less overtly brutal against the occupied population, at least limiting its slaughters and destruction to the restive countryside as opposed to looting and raping cities. This would inadvertently give the Japanese and puppet authorities more flexibility in governance since they have not completely ruined their reputation.

This is completely imaginable. The Japanese don't rape Nanjing, they line up and pay their fees at tow/city red light district brothels like (relatively) civilized men.

There is always the likely possibility that the Japanese will feel the need to do something extremely stupid that makes the situation end up somewhere similar to OTL 1945.

It might well be the case that for Japan not to drink the Southern Strike kool-aid, there needs to be an external change.

Maybe the death of Chiang has a knock-on effect of spooking Stalin into bolstering the USSR's overall defenses and being more wary of Hitler, which leads to slight changes in the dynamic in Europe that in turn bring about a "blunted sickle" scenario during the German invasion of France. This forces the Japanese military leaders to reconsider messing with Indochina, while the Soviet buildup along its borders compels the IJA to invest more in its northern-facing land forces as well. Maybe we'll see the IJA get a real medium tank.

All these alternatives are conceivable. They may seem a little strange to us, but stranger things have been proposed, and have happened. The last option you described might end up leading to an eventual three bloc Cold War with a Japanese led pole in the Far East.

I think if the Japanese stupidly over-reach, either through joining global war through a strike south (dipping their toes in with a peaceful occupation of vacant French Indochina - provided France goes Vichy, does not by itself guarantee the suck-in effect but gets you close), or through escalating their northern frontier guarding into an assault on the USSR and Outer Mongolia, could well lead us to a place where the defeat of Japan and end of the war in the Asia-Pacific theater sees mainland China almost completely occupied by Soviet forces aligned with Chinese Communist forces (and allied warlords and Left KMT factions), with the latter soon getting "salami-sliced" out of the government in the early post-war years as happened in Central-Eastern Europe.

Only in this alternate reality, the late right-KMT, Nanjing regime known for collaborating with Japan would not be very lamented in the USA nor have a potent lobby dedicated to it. Because it never had the propaganda advantages of resisting Japan, and had long lost the propaganda advantage of having Chiang's leadership. I don't think his widow, who was a great connection with the west, would retain a lot of significant influence in Nanjing long after his death and a major increase in Japanese influence. So the "who lost China?" debate in the USA would probably be less bitter. To an extent, China might be listed as another country "given away" at Yalta, like the Central and East European ones, but it would not be the special case for outrage and regret Nationalist China was, nor something that commits the US to a rump KMT regime on Taiwan. An independent Taiwan under US guidance however, would be completely possible.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

The Nationalist government would lose its greatest leader and would be weakened, but would turn violently against the Communist Party.
The Japanese will not immediately invade China, but will more likely seek to increase their influence through proxies/warlords.

Wait a sec, why do the Chinese turn violently against the Communists when the Nationalist North-Eastern Army mutinied and killed their leader?

 

[Melochromac]

Chiang wasn’t a very good leader. But were any of the alternatives likely to be less incompetent and corrupt?

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Chiang wasn’t a very good leader. But were any of the alternatives likely to be less incompetent and corrupt?

Maybe if some revolutionary like Sun Yat-Sen joined him in creating the KMT and took power after his death?
IOTL I doubt there would be any leader that would be very different than him.

 

[Gillan1220]

I wonder what happens to the China Lobby in the U.S. Congress at this period? What would also be the U.S. Navy doing in China's rivers? Will they continue their riverine patrols to protect American citizens and diplomats?

 

[Remitonov]

Maybe if some revolutionary like Sun Yat-Sen joined him in creating the KMT and took power after his death?
IOTL I doubt there would be any leader that would be very different than him.

Wang Jingwei was with the KMT from the beginning, and is a rival to Chiang due to his leftist leaning. He might be able to lead it.

Of course, he also became a Japanese puppet leader IOTL, so the danger of him falling under their sway ITTL is there.

 

[LeX]

Wang Jingwei was with the KMT from the beginning, and is a rival to Chiang due to his leftist leaning. He might be able to lead it.

Of course, he also became a Japanese puppet leader IOTL, so the danger of him falling under their sway ITTL is there.

My impression is that Wang Jingwei joined the Japanese out of a combination of desperation and bad blood with Chiang Kai-shek. I've always thought that in a TL where Chiang is dead or removed, he would easily become the leader of a left-wing KMT or at least serve as a senior cadre.

EDIT: In 1935, Wang Jingwei had been the victim of an assassination attempt, which left him in worsening health for the rest of his life. I think he would probably not serve as the leader of the KMT after this incident but he could probably assume an important political role nonetheless.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

My impression is that Wang Jingwei joined the Japanese out of a combination of desperation and bad blood with Chiang Kai-shek. I've always thought that in a TL where Chiang is dead or removed, he would easily become the leader of a left-wing KMT or at least serve as a senior cadre.

EDIT: In 1935, Wang Jingwei had been the victim of an assassination attempt, which left him in worsening health for the rest of his life. I think he would probably not serve as the leader of the KMT after this incident but he could probably assume an important political role nonetheless.

It certainly had an influence but reading the Wiki it seems he was keen on appeasing Japan regardless of his situation:

While being opposed to any effort at this time to subordinate China to Japan, Wang also saw the "white powers" like the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States as equal if not greater dangers to China, insisting that China had to defeat Japan solely by its own efforts if the Chinese were to hope to maintain their independence.[16]: 234–235  But at the same time, Wang's belief that China was too economically backward at present to win a war against a Japan which had been aggressively modernizing since the Meiji Restoration of 1867 made him the advocate of avoiding war with Japan at almost any cost and trying to negotiate some sort of an agreement with Japan which would preserve China's independence.[16]: 236  Chiang by contrast believed that if his modernization program was given enough time, China would win the coming war and that if the war came before his modernization plans were complete, he was willing to ally with any foreign power to defeat Japan, even including the Soviet Union, which was supporting the Chinese Communists in the civil war. Chiang was much more of a hardline anti-Communist than was Wang, but Chiang was also a self-proclaimed "realist" who was willing if necessary to have an alliance with the Soviet Union.[16]: 215  Though in the short-run, Wang and Chiang agreed on the policy of "first internal pacification, then external resistance", in the long-run they differed as Wang was more of an appeaser while Chiang just wanted to buy time to modernize China for the coming war.[16]: 237  The effectiveness of the KMT was constantly hindered by leadership and personal struggles, such as that between Wang and Chiang. In December 1935, Wang permanently left the premiership after being seriously wounded during an assassination attempt engineered a month earlier by Wang Yaqiao.

In 1936, Wang clashed with Chiang over foreign policy. In an ironic role reversal, the left-wing "progressive" Wang argued for accepting the German-Japanese offer of having China sign the Anti-Comintern Pact while the right-wing "reactionary" Chiang wanted a rapprochement with the Soviet Union.[16]: 237–238  During the 1936 Xi'an Incident, in which Chiang was taken prisoner by his own general, Zhang Xueliang, Wang favored sending a "punitive expedition" to attack Zhang. He was apparently ready to march on Zhang, but Chiang's wife, Soong Mei-ling, and brother-in-law, T. V. Soong, feared that such an action would lead to Chiang's death and his replacement by Wang, so they successfully opposed this action.[17]