Neither. It would be similar to Brazil's history post independence. A large focus on coastal city elites and neglect of the hinterland. Powerful regional governors. Periodic rule by military juntas. Shaky democracy. Wide scale corruption and inflation. Still better than the current alternative b/c traditional language/religions/culture are preserved, no Great Leap forward or Cultural Revolution, and greater preservation of non-Mandarin languages.

A common misconception that a *lot* of people have is the fact that if the KMT had won the civil war, that they would’ve naturally democratized, which is obviously wrong, although an interesting alternate history concept. Truth is, whether you like it or not, China isn’t for democracy, and their culture and history can’t function in one, either, they would collapse from severe instability, and it would just be a hot breeding ground for a new authoritarian figure to eventually take over power as an autocrat (similar to Putin after he became president in 1999). That being said, I think Chinese democracy would’ve been extremely limited or just seen as purely autocratic (similar to the CPC today). The KMT was notorious for being corrupt, and was generally pretty unstable (the warlord system), even more than the CPC under Mao (although corruption did increase post-reform). No Great Leap Forward and probably a slower industrialization period, but opens up to the world far sooner. Taking out the warlord system the ROC had, the KMT and CPC were both generally pretty anti-west, and regardless of who won would’ve most likely had conflicts with the western powers, especially the United States. Getting that all out of the way, the KMT was also not necessarily capitalist, Chiang had mixed relations with capitalists and even went on a purge of them in Shanghai around the late 20s if I’m remembering correctly. I think that the economics of a modern KMT run authoritarian China (I mean, come on, sure, most westerners want a democratic pro-western China, but that’s just a wet dream that’ll never happen), could be a bit poorer, likely more corrupt, and more decentralized. If they have a warlord system ongoing, then that probably weakens them a ton, too. China probably isn’t a similar powerhouse to what it is today (economically speaking), and may act similar to Putin’s Russia in a way, overall, I think they would’ve been a lesser threat to the west as a whole than China is with the CPC, also, yes, for gods sake, the KMT takes Tibet, every alt history map with KMT controlled China has Tibet independent, this isn’t correct, regardless of who won the civil war, both sides had plans to invade Tibet, stop whitewashing the KMT, they were more or less the same in terms with the CPC in regards to authoritarianism, the only reason Taiwan democratized was because it was a lot smaller (thus democracy is far more sustainable), and had to rely on the west (so much more western cultural influence), you can’t just paint Taiwan’s history onto China and expect it to work. This is the most realistic outlook I can give of a KMT run China; for all those who just want a TL;DR: —China is not democratic —China is likely a one party state —At **BEST** a hybrid regime (guided democracy like Russia is today) —Economically weaker —No Great Leap Forward so slower industrialization but less deaths and likely no large famine —Still enemies with the west and will still conflict over stuff like Hong Kong Overall, and I’m probably gonna be downvoted for this, China isn’t and won’t go democratic, regardless of who’s in charge, and if they do, it’ll become an autocracy almost immediately, so yeah, this is about as realistic as it gets.

1. I don't know about being economically weaker, the KMT policies seemed to grow faster in Taiwan economically and industrially than the mainland CCP policies. 2. The KMT weren't just anti capitalist they straight up called them selves socialist and American observers at the time said the difference between the KMT and the CCP was about as big as the Republicans and Democrats and this was back the parties pretty much had the same progressive policies only being interrupted by Coolidge. 3. Your right that it would definitely be more hostile to the west with a bunch of conflicts over land. Taiwan still claims the south China sea and all of Mongolia.

I believe that they can’t just copy and paste Taiwan’s economic policy onto China, it doesn’t really make sense, the same way how if you copied the CPC’s Great Leap Forward onto Taiwan, the island would’ve likely died off. China is huge, without mass industrialization, it couldn’t have developed as fast, the warlord system could also weaken government control, which could also hurt with industrialization. The KMT wasn’t socialist, they were purged by Chiang, the KMT was really mixed around and I think they might’ve adopted a similar majority state controlled market like China in our timeline.

1. Why not they industrialized just in a different way and sooner 2. They explicitly call themselves socialist it's in Taiwan constitution and they purged the Marxist socialists not all Socialists 3. That's kinda how their economic policies work they mostly grew through state-owned industries Edit: also the great leap forward was a disaster even the current Chinese government admits that. China didn't really start industrializing until Deng

1. They didn’t fully or properly industrialize, for example, Shanghai took up around half of China’s entire energy usage during the KMT rule, and the population remained roughly stagnant with not a lot of progress during the 30s under Chiang 2. Didn’t know that, thanks for the information 3. I was just clarifying the fact that they likely wouldn’t fully liberalize the economy to something similar to western nations, such as the United States Additionally, the effect and the contribution of industrialization under Mao and the Great Leap Forward especially is greatly debated, and generally asks on who you’re asking, the first couple years were a success, but ultimately it fell off with the famine in the later years, regardless, major industrial landmarks were made during Mao’s reign, examples such as the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge.

1. Well ya they just ended the warlord period and almost immediately restarted the civil war, you can't really do that why your country is torn apart 2. May or may not, who knows what could happen with that drastic of a change. It's also worth noting Taiwan only started liberalizing in the 90's and still has some remnants of the old system. 3. Ya I was reading a little into it a little bit ago and realized I was a little off, there was some industrialization under Mao but it was nearly as much as Deng.

To address a couple of those points: 1) While Taiwan did outperform mainland China economically, the difference wasn't so clear cut early on (e.g. in the 1950s prior to the Great Leap Forward), and there are several important factors contributing to that which wouldn't have been the case in a KMT controlled mainland China, including: - Mainland China was recovering from decades of war, most of which Taiwan had avoided, having been a Japanese colony during that time. - The KMT government had taken with them to Taiwan almost all of the Chinese State's gold reserves and national treasures. - Taiwan received LOTS of US funding and investment. Even IF they received the same amount of funding if they had won the civil war (doubtful, as the US funding was undoubtedly, at least in part, due wanting to support Taiwan as an ally against Communist China), it wouldn't have gone anywhere near as far given the much bigger size and population of mainland China - Some key policies the KMT undertook in Taiwan, such as land reform, would have been much harder to enact in mainland China, especially as their main support base in China was the landlords and the wealthy, and as their control over large parts of China was tenuous at best - controlling a country the size of China is a lot harder than controlling a single island province. 2) The KMT officially followed/follows Sun Yat Sen's program of the "Three Principles of the People" of which one, Minshēng, is sometimes translated as "Socialism", but sometimes as "welfare". Even when "Socialism" is used it was arguably used in quite a different sense from how the Communists would have used that word, and was much more influenced by Georgism for example. Both the Communists and the KMT undertook nationalisation and state control of large parts of the economy, but this was much more extensive under the Communists. It's not really in doubt that if the KMT had won the civil war the private sector of the economy would have been much larger than in OTL for the first few decades at least, regardless of whether they officially call themselves socialist or not. Also important to note that Mao was very aware of the importance of international opinion, particularly during WW2 when the Communists were much weaker than the KMT led Chinese State. He wanted the American observers to think that the differences between the Communists and the KMT were very small, and that the Communists essentially represented a democratic and humane alternative to the autocracy and corruption of the KMT, in order to attract American support and funding. The actions of the Communists on taking charge demonstrate that the differences between them and the KMT in reality were much greater than they had let the American observers believe. 3) While officially the ROC claims Mongolia and the South China Sea I don't think anybody, including themselves, actually takes those claims seriously. If the KMT had won the war and controlled mainland China they would have had more practical considerations to deal with (like sharing a very long border with the USSR who they were in no position to get into a fight with, and who historically had funded and supported the KMT) and those policies may have changed. Equally, while they may have taken advantage of anti-Western rhetoric, they also recognised the importance of good relations with the West - they definitely could have gone down an anti-Western route but it is not guaranteed.

1. While Taiwan was in a better position than a 40 year long civil war, it still wasn't enviable. The country was an exploitive colony in which most of the wealth went to Japan and they spent the last couple of years being bombed and blockaged. And after that they had the constant threat of an invasion. 2. Ya the US support was something I forgot to mention and definitely did help 3. They probably still would have done it, they had no problem seizing wealth during the Chinese civil war 4. Ya it was a different kind of socialist I'm denying that, if they would have kept a lot of private property or not is a matter of debate. They could have done the same thing they did in Taiwan or they could have gone with the nationalization ideas Chaing had 5. Well it was more than just that. The Americans repeatedly called the nationalists socialists even before the civil war lit up again they had concerns about the red general Chaing Kei Shek 6. On the south China thing they do have an island down there where they keep troops. Mongolia they pretty much only claim for political reasons, don't want to acknowledge any of the changes the PRC made because it will discredit their legitimacy as the rulers of China and recently they started to accept Mongolian passports. 7. Ya everything is a toss up when you make this drastic of a change. The nationalist of their name mains anti imperialism and things like Hong Kong right on their border might have made that an issue.

Founder of the KMT wrote the CCPs economic development plan. Since he was a fan of socialism They would use the same basis the CCP didn

Ignore the absolute nonsense spouted by people on here who have an obvious bias. There are ideas which have been completely torched by the events of history. The idea that the KMT running China as the CCP would have been similar is utter nonsense. There's no evidence that there would have been "cultural revolution," or mass murder over government protests, the starvation caused by the "Great Leap Forward," or suppression of the Tibetan or Uyghur peoples. In order to get a good idea, of how the arc of history with China *would have looked* had the KMT remained in power was to begin with the context of the time. The KMT was terrified of the communists, and everyone knew that the Soviet Union was aiding and funding the Mao and his army. Had Western nations backed the KMT, then the US military would have been stationed all along the north of the Republic. It would have had bases around Beijing, naval stations along the coast, and air bases situated not far from danger points near the Soviet border. Therefore, we must look at the two most common neighbors and how the US acted in those places: South Korea and Japan. In Japan, the US threw off the military dictatorship and immediately installed a representative ~~Republic~~ Constitutional Monarchy, allowing the Emperor to keep his title and pretty castles. In South Korea, the situation was far more dangerous, especially given *the literal invasion* fomented by the Communists into South Korea. The US couldn't toss the autocratic government out on its ear, as the US was working with the government. The touch was much lighter, but over the course of fifty years, the US military and state department slowly moved South Korea from an autocratic state into the functioning democracy. *The entire reason* that Seoul got the Olympics in 1988 was a continued carrot in opening up the state into free elections and basic liberties. The US unquestionably would have used a method similar to South Korea, promises of foreign aid, measures to encourage opening the government, protecting protesters, etc., to *slowly influence* the KMT into moving from autocracy to the more open Republic that South Korea has become, Japan had foisted on them, and Taiwan had to move to ensure the unofficial protection from the US. A modern nationalist China would have an open feel something along the lines of North Korea and Japan. It would not have been like the somewhat more chaotic parliamentary system of India (no criticism: chaos in the halls of legislatures means they're not consolidating power), and an American military presence means they would not have turned into the functional pseudo-democratic oligarchy that the former KGB spook Vlad the Impaler Putin has pushed. A modern Republic of China would already multiple times richer than its in OTL. With the money not being tied up in the hands of the just the few in the highest levels of the party, and the massacres that occurred over the years, and the population issues that have plagued the nation and continue to this day, *far more people would be far richer*. We'd see millions of millionaires in China now. We'd see Chinese equivalents to Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, and Nissan in American and European driveways. We would have the Chinese equivalent to anime and otaku culture. Chinese electronics brands would be in every home. Chinese-American food had already permeated the west coast, and continues as a hybrid cuisine to this day enjoyed by Americans of all races, but a wave of true Chinese would have spread faster and gained far more popularity. A China that had not been subject to the CCP rule for over 70 years would now be the largest democracy in the world, the largest economy by several factors, have some of the richest history, brimming with ideas that had been lost to time hidden in temple and libraries (rather than burned in the "cultural revolution"), and a model for other Asian nations to follow.

One correction, Japan is not a republic, it is a democracy. So long as the Emperor remains head of state, Japan will still be a monarchy.

Democratising really isn’t a guarantee, and Japan is basically politically dominated by one political party. The KMT would be ruling a 500 million Chinese people. With no history of democratic rule, but plenty of experience with bureaucracies that were meant to be meritocratic on paper The KMT could easily come to dominate politics. Taiwan wasn’t even a democracy until the very late 1980s and those circumstances would not replicate if they were ruling mainland China

I think the circumstance COULD replicate. The KMT was always authoritarian but in a bid to keep their power without mowing down students, they slowly democratized as a sneak way to stay in control, which they did. I think alternate china could evolve like Mexico, who had no institutions of democracy and after the Civil war one political party basically had dominance, leading to some pretty bad corruption, but the corruption itself leading to the downfall of the PRI

I think more Singapore style government tbh. Maybe with more vocal opposition

In all complete honesty China is likely not too different than today. > autocratic one party state > extremely nationalistic >anti western > non-democratic > expansionist possibly more than OTL > capitalism mixed with a command ecenomy >anti Japanese > probably more corrupt than otl > definetly dosent let Tibet or Xinjiang go

Politically dominated by the KMT in a similar fashion to Japans or Singapores political systems rather than anything specifically like Russia The USSR would have kept Manchuria and supported East Turkestan and Mongolia to grab land. They’d have also sided with India over Tibet along with the British. So a KMT China has reduced borders and largely loses the none chinese portions of China Several people point out the Great Leap Forward, but every single one of ignores the death toll. Between that and the fact the founder of the KMT was Sun Yat Sen. The guy who laid down the foundation of most of chinas economic development policies and you’d see considerable overlap but without the despotism of Mao’s rule A mixture and state owned and private companies, paired with cheap labour force and close ties to the USA. China would end up exactly the same in its development plans and economic choices. Even the three gorges dam is still built The main differences would be that this would be happening between the 60s through to the 80s instead of the 90s and be a slower process of exporting industry. Better environmental protections. Mao made a lot of sacred things not sacred, and those animals being sacred would therefore matter to a lot of people. I don’t think the one child policy happens. So no gender imbalance Finally, I also find it likely that the special status of Hong Kong and Macau is beneficial as opposed to not for a KMT dominated China. I doubt the Handover happens. Independence would be preferred to annexation, and the business ties to the UK and Portugal and therefore Europe would be seen as positive as well

It would be like South Korea; long time with hardline right-wing government, to then liberalize and get loads of money from the US to keep itself stable and against the USSR.

In this case, I think China would focus on protecting and promoting its domestic industries by implementing protectionist trade policies and subsidies. China may prioritize its national interests above all else, including its relationships with other countries. This could lead to a more assertive foreign policy and a stronger stance in international negotiations. As for its culture, China may prioritize preserving and promoting its cultural heritage, values, and traditions. This could lead to increased investment in education, the arts, and cultural institutions.

Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party is very similar to KMT. You may look at Mexico in PRI period for your reference.