General Discussion thread.

[Rocket J Squrriel]

Are there ever going to be a compilation file or files of all the posts up to a certain date? I remember the old yahoo group had some at one point.

[Bernard Woolley]

I'm working on adding things back.

[Taruskirk]

I'm working on adding things back.

Can I just say thank you for that information update and the story as a whole.

[Rocket J Squrriel]

I'm working on adding things back.

Cool. Loving the story as much as when I first ran across it.

[Bernard Woolley]

Thank you.

[jemhouston]

Got some questions about the People's Republic of China. I take it they don't want the USSR to win, but they want the west to bleed for a while. Besides staging troops on the border and a few incidents, are they do anything to hinder the Soviets?

I remember a mention of China reaching out to West Germany to help in the rebuilding and the West Germany doesn't want it. Has China reached out to anyone else?

[Jotun]

Got some questions about the People's Republic of China. I take it they don't want the USSR to win, but they want the west to bleed for a while. Besides staging troops on the border and a few incidents, are they do anything to hinder the Soviets?

I remember a mention of China reaching out to West Germany to help in the rebuilding and the West Germany doesn't want it. Has China reached out to anyone else?

IIRC, China is planning to bankroll the European reconstruction efforts, completely philanthropically of course , and I had Gazprom-Gerd be proactive and shut them out BEFORE the fact, planning to include the rest of the EU. West Germany wasn‘t approached separately.

In any case, it would be nice to see the West show the finger to China for once. If not in reality, then at least in fiction.

My two cents.

[jemhouston]

Jotun, both middle fingers to China.

[Jotun]

Jotun, both middle fingers to China.

For some reason, this comment gave me an inspiration. I‘ll run it by Jan.

[jemhouston]

Jotun, both middle fingers to China.

For some reason, this comment gave me an inspiration. I‘ll run it by Jan.

Now I'm scared.

[James1978]

Got some questions about the People's Republic of China. I take it they don't want the USSR to win, but they want the west to bleed for a while. Besides staging troops on the border and a few incidents, are they do anything to hinder the Soviets?

I think answering that question requires a deeper dive into Sino-Soviet relations in TLWverse, and Sino-Western relations as well.

Long Answer

Couple of pre-POD historic events from @:
4 February 1989: The USSR and the People’s Republic of China sign an agreement to reduce troops on their border.

15 May 1989: The USSR announces that it will withdraw its forces from Mongolia.

4 June 1989: Following orders to enforce martial law in Beijing, the People’s Liberation Army clears Tiananmen Square of protesters.

Our POD is 9 November 1989.

The PRC was already a pariah, then the USSR went and did the exact same thing. My two cents is that in late 1989 to early 1990, the USSR and the PRC got pushed together by circumstances. At that point it becomes a choose your own adventure mess and who knows where things end up.

But, I'll offer up my two cents.
The West is dealing with a USSR that just staged it's own internal crackdown, and managed to reassert control over the Warsaw Pact states, to the extent that Romania was brought back into the fold. They ended negotiations on the Treaty on Open Skies, Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, and the Chemical Weapons Convention. But they did sign the START . . . and removed Gorbachev as Premier the very next day, probably as soon as Air Force One left Soviet air space. And Premier Yakolev goes on to sign START II, START III, and the Theatre Weapons Treaty. So to some degree, the West pushed down their outrage because the Soviets were still willing to talk nuclear arms reductions. Yakolev turned out to be a decent enough guy, and pursued economic reforms similar to those in the PRC. But then he gets sick, resigns in February 1998 - and gets replaced by Renko, a Communist True Believer. Renko proceeds to undo Yakolev's economic reforms.

So while the above is taking place, what is going on in the PRC?
I don't know that the West moves past Tiananmen as quickly as in @. Just a gut feeling.
But for a window from 1990-January 1998 - the USSR and PRC may not be on the same page exactly, but they might not be far apart. They both want economic reform and growth, but aren't fans of free speech and individual freedom. And in both countries, the approach seems to be working. And then Yakolev dies, and Renko takes over. The PRC leadership probably shook the heads in disbelief as they continue on a trajectory of economic growth while maintaining internal control while Renko took a great leap backwards. After that, China starts looking more toward the West. But during that 1990-98 period, what did Sino-Soviet political and economic relations look like?

So while the above is going on, at what point does the West say "eff it, there's money to be made!"? We know that in TLWverse 2005, the West has not de-industrialized to @'s extent, so I'd guess that the TLWverse 2005 PRC might not be the industrial/economic equal of the @ 2005 PRC. If Sino-Soviet relations are close, I'd bet that any technology or arms sales to the PRC were seen as good as giving it to the Soviets. And the Soviets are likely to jump in to offer more modern weapons once the cooperation/co-development the PRC had with western companies pre-Tiananmen gets cut off.

Next one is a Bernard level question. Does the @ 1995-96 Third Taiwan Strait Crisis still happen?
If it does, who has a doctrine and array of weapons that never stopped evolving designed to counter US aircraft carriers and might be willing to help out for cold hard cash? Yakolev might hesitate, but the Renko led USSR is one less concerned with what the West thinks and is focused on reasserting Soviet power throughout the world.

I'm going to jump back to the Theatre Weapons Treaty for a moment. Would the USSR had signed that treaty unless they were either highly confident they could handle the PRC conventionally if relations turned sour, or, they had reached an understanding with the PRC such that the PRC wasn't seen as a treat? Say, perhaps, a drastic reduction in PLA ground forces in favor of air and naval forces to prevent future humiliations at the hands of the US Navy? And should some future conflict see the USSR and PRC in common cause, well, the Pacific would be a mighty interesting place.

Short Answer:
I think the PRC leadership see the war for what it is. The last gasp of an economically failing USSR.
They don't need to put troops on the border or stage incidents. All they have to do is sit back and wait to see what happens.
If the USSR loses, the PRC can swoop in to collect the brains behind the Soviet MIC and space programs along with as much hardware as they can haul away. If the USSR falls apart, the Soviet Far East may be in need of "peacekeepers".
If NATO loses, well, there are a lot of possibilities there.
The wild card is what the PRC does if the DPRK looks to go down and get occupied. They may not like the Kim Dynasty, but I doubt they want to share a border with a unified and US-aligned Korea. Not saying they'd fight to save North Korea, but supporting/orchestrating a coup and being invited in to maintain order . . . maybe.

I know Mark Bailey has some thoughts on the PRC in TLWverse. So hopefully he sees this discussion and jumps in.

[drmarkbailey]

Hi James.

This could go any way with China.

That said, the central event here seems to be Deng Xiaoping's southern tour of Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Guangzhou and Shanghai, from 18 January to 21 February 1992.

The talks and remarks made by Deng during the tour resumed and reinforced the implementation of his "Reforms and Opening-up" program in mainland China, which had come to a halt after the military crackdown on 1989 Tiananmen Square protests ordered by Deng himself. So that reform process PREDATES Tiananmen Square.

The US and EU both issued arms embargos post-Tiananmen while the World Bank and Asian Development Bank stopped issuing loans to the PRC.

The 1992 Southern Tour was a critical point in the modern history of China. It saved the Chinese economic reform process as well as the capital market, and preserved societal stability while reassuring foreign countries and their investment programs.

This will probably continue.

This was the era of the ascendancy of Jiang Zemin. 'Jiang was appointed as the mayor of Shanghai in 1985, later being promoted to its Communist Party secretary, as well as a member of the CCP's Politburo, in 1987. Jiang came to power unexpectedly as a compromise candidate following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, when he replaced Zhao Ziyang as CCP general secretary after Zhao was ousted for his support for the student movement crushed at Tiananmen. '

I think this will hold in TLW. I really can't see enough variation in TLW to not have Tiananmen and the natural flow would seem to lead to the Southern Tour.

Following Tiananmen, the involvement of the Eight Elders in Chinese politics steadily declined in OTL, and I can't really see drivers to change that much. Jiang consolidated his hold on power from 1989 to become paramount leader. A big driver for this is Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992, Jiang officially introduced the term "socialist market economy" in his speech during the 14th CCP National Congress held later that year, which accelerated the policy of"opening up and reform".

Under Jiang's leadership, China experienced substantial economic growth with the continuation of market reforms.

The return of Hong Kong in 1997 and Macau in 1999, then entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, were the landmark moments of Jiang's era. All of this saw China improving relations with the outside world, while the Communist Party maintained tightening control over the people.

Jiang faced criticism over genuinely horrendous human rights abuses, including the crackdown on the Falun Gong movement and the charming policy of murdering Falun Gong to order to feed the international organ transplant industry.

Jiang's contributions to party doctrine, known as the "Three Represents", were written into the CCP constitution in 2002. Jiang gradually vacated his official leadership titles from 2002 to 2005, being succeeded in these roles by Hu Jintao, although he and his political faction continued to influence affairs until much later.

more later

[drmarkbailey]

Pt 2

Now we have to roll back a little to look at the structure of the CCP factions.

Following Mao's death in 1976 (an event to genuinely be celebrated) there was your usual communist power struggle between CCP chairman Hua Guofeng and vice-chairman Deng Xiaoping.

Deng won the fight, and became China's paramount leader in 1978. There were the usual murders, massacres, purges and other commie stuff.

It was Deng, alongside Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, who spearheaded the reform and opening-up of economic policies. He introduced the ideological concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and the opening of China to global markets. This reversed some of Mao's autarkic policies.

Deng argued that a socialist state could use the market economy without itself being capitalist. He thought that the political power of the CCP could be maintained while generating economic growth.

The CCP justified on the basis that "Practice is the Sole Criterion for the Truth", a principle reinforced through a 1978 article that aimed to combat dogmatism and criticized the "Two Whatevers" policy.

The new ideology was contested on both sides of the spectrum, by Maoists to the left of the CCP's leadership, as well as by those supporting political liberalisation. It was as early as 1981 that the CCP adopted a resolution which assessed the historical legacy of Mao and the future priorities of the CCP.  It was these assessments which tangled with various social factors forming internal conflicts which culminated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. With that crushed and the reformist party general secretary Zhao Ziyang under house arrest, Deng's economic policies resumed and by the early 1990s the concept of a socialist market economy had been introduced.

In 1997, Deng's beliefs (officially called "Deng Xiaoping Theory") became embedded into the CCP's constitution.

There were further reforms under Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.

CCP general secretary Jiang Zemin succeeded Deng as paramount leader in the 1990s and continued most of his policies.

In the 1990s, the CCP transformed. All of the veteran revolutionary leadership which had lead militarily and politically retired or died, and a new 'technocratic' political elite started to increasingly renew the institutionalised norms in the civil bureaucracy.

This new leadership was largely selected based on rules and norms on promotion and retirement, educational background, and managerial and technical expertise. There remained a largely separate group of professionalised military officers, serving under top CCP leadership largely through formal relationships within institutional channels.

'The CCP ratified Jiang's Three Represents concept for the 2003 revision of the party's constitution, as a "guiding ideology" to encourage the party to represent "advanced productive forces, the progressive course of China's culture, and the fundamental interests of the people."

These theories legitimised the entry of private business owners and "bourgeois elements" into the CCP.

Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin's successor as general secretary, took office in 2002. Unlike Mao, Deng and Jiang Zemin, Hu laid emphasis on collective leadership and opposed one-man dominance of the political system. This created the "Three Factions", a deliberate power balance within the CCP.

The insistence on focusing on economic growth led to a wide range of serious social problems. To address these, Hu introduced two main ideological concepts: the "Scientific Outlook on Development" and "Harmonious Society". Hu resigned from his post as CCP general secretary and Chairman of the CMC at the 18th National Congress held in 2012, and was succeeded in both posts by Xi Jinping.

make no mistake, this was a coup which wrecked the "Three Factions" balance and took them back to Maoist centralisation of power in one absolute leader.

So the PRC actually did in reality what happened in TLW in a way.

In TLW, I think the PRC is on the same path as OTL, but that the economic boom there will be much smaller than in OTL. Basically, the neocons and economic rationalists do not (cannot) have the free reign they had in OTL. There's still a bipolar world and everyone has the same old Cold War strategic issues. No western government is going to accept de-industrialisation.

This alone will drastically reduce the extent of the Chinese economic boom.

The real question here is does the situation in the USSR trigger Xi Jinpeng's takeover early? I don't think so, but it might.

Cheers" Mark

[jemhouston]

Thanks