jemhouston wrote: ↑Thu Nov 14, 2024 1:21 pmGot 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.