沒有國民黨就沒有中國, Without the Kuomintang there would be no China, A Republic of China Story

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In late 2003, Iran was actually trying to come to a peaceful settlement on Iraq. Iran was open to the idea of allowing a divided Iraq like how Korea was (at the time) still divided. A meeting was set to be held in Muscat in Oman in March 2004 to discuss the division of Iraq and the fate of Kuwait. But on January 2, 2004, Iranian President Akbar Rafsanjani was assassinated in the Iraqi town of Al Kut. There was a breakdown of negotiations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. More hardline forces in Iran exerted an increasing amount of influence over the government. Meanwhile, fighting in Iraq continued. Pro-Iran and pro-Saudi forces clashed as they both entered the remaining Republic of Iraq strongholds. Turkey and Syria both agreed to help Iran deal with Kurdish rebels in the North of Iraq.

The Battle of Babylon became the catalyst for the escalation of the conflict. Babil Province had been one of the final remaining areas where the old Iraqi Army still held control. From December 2003 to January 2004, Iranian and pro-Iranian forces won a decisive victory against both the Republic of Iraq and new Saudi-backed Kingdom of Iraq. Pro-Iran forces, heavily outnumbering their pro-Saudi counterparts, launched a series of mostly victorious offensives across the front line. All-out war had broken out between Iran and Saudi Arabia. In February, Fallujah fell and Iran began its invasion of Kuwait. Saudi Arabia and its allies had little hope of keeping control of any part of Iraq unless they received foreign help. Fortunately for Saudi Arabia, it had a lot more friends than Iran.

The Saudi-backed Kingdom of Iraq was gaining international recognition. By February 2004, it had won the recognition of the UK, China, Japan, Russia-Belarus, most of the Islamic world, and dozens of countries in Africa and Latin America. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates were directly involved in supporting the Kingdom of Iraq in some way or another. The Iran-backed Islamic Republic of Iraq had the recognition of Pakistan, Syria, and Turkey. Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia recognized the Islamic Republic of Iraq, though more out of a desire to appease Iran therefore and prevent Iranian aggression against themselves. Switzerland and Italy decided to recognize both. Much of the world was undecided, notably India, the United States, and France.

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt were actively engaged in an undeclared war against Iran. China had been blockading Iranian ports since the previous year, but was not engaged in combat. Nevertheless, China did send thousands of soldiers to Saudi Arabia. In March, Kuwait City fell, and anti-Iranian forces continued to lose ground in Iraq. Saudi Arabia was under threat. The United States and Britain both issued strong condemnations of Iran, and the United Nations voted to officially condemn Iran’s “war of aggression” in Iraq. In the United States, this led to some criticism of the Al Gore administration for its previous support of Iran. However, the US media was able to spin Iran’s actions as the work of Shia extremists in Iran taking over the formerly reasonable government. The United States, Canada, Australia, and Britain deployed troops to Saudi Arabia.

In late March, airplanes launched from Chinese aircraft carriers bombed Iranian military targets. Admiral Ma Yingjiu gained immense popularity from this war. Pro-Iran forces understood to not enter Saudi Arabia, but some Shia militants did rise up within Saudi Arabia itself. Saudi Arabia, the US, China, and their allies began to launch air raids into Iraq in April. Pro-Iranian forces were devastated. The Iranian Air Force could not compete. Ramadi, one of the last remaining major cities held by the Kingdom of Iraq, repelled the pro-Iranian attacks. The Allies would then start to push back. Syria had mobilized its troops for possible joint action with Iran, but was now discouraged from joining. A coalition of Saudi, Emirati, Jordanian, Royal Iraqi, Egyptian, Chinese, American, British, Canadian, and Australian forces launched offensives against Iran in May. Minor support was given by Russia-Belarus, France, New Zealand, Poland, Mongolia, South Korea, Colombia and Mexico as well.

(American planes)​

The United States soon stopped sending weapons to the Kurds, though Israel would continue to smuggle weapons to them. American, British, and Chinese ground forces were small in number and stayed in Saudi Arabia. The West and China used their navies and air forces to attack Iran and Iranian-backed forces in Iraq. There were some exceptions, notably the joint Anglo-Sino-Saudia-American invasion of Kuwait, which restored Kuwaiti independence after 20 years of Iraqi occupation. The Kingdom of Iraq was upset by this but it was not about to oppose its allies. The UAE took control of some disputed islands in the Persian Gulf. Pro-Saudi forces began to regain lost territory as the Iranian air force could not compete with its enemies. Iran was exhausted and on the retreat. The flow of oil to the West and to East Asia was secured.

 

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The 20th century saw a remarkable rate of technological development, and the 21st century continued this trend. Electronics played an increasingly important role in both the global economy and in daily life. Computers went from taking up entire rooms to being portable within a relatively short period of time. America led the way in computer development, and was responsible for the creation of Globalnet, which would revolutionize the world in the 21st century. The first personal computers would appear in significant numbers in the United States in the 1970s. Europe and Japan soon followed. From the 1970s to the 1990s, there was a multi-continental race in computer research and production. Tech companies and those who knew technology would be greatly enriched.

International Business Machines, or IBM, dominated the market early on. But it had several European competitors. The British had ICT, International Computers and Tabulators. France had Leonord. West Germany had Siemens. All of these countries had other companies manufacturing computers but these were the biggest ones. Europe was well behind the US when it came to market share, but it still played an important role. Of the European companies, Italy’s Olivetti was the biggest. Olivetti’s computers were not only popular in Europe but also in Asia. Olivetti’s Mario Tchou was born in Italy to Chinese diplomats. During the 1970s, he helped design computers compatible with Chinese characters. These Olivetti computers were then distributed by Minkuo Electronics. Another overseas Chinese businessman in the computer industry was An Wang, who founded Wang Laboratories in America in 1951.

(Mario Tchou)​

Minkuo saw the value of getting into the computer market. Computing in Chinese was significantly more difficult than computing in the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets. The Chinese language has tens of thousands of characters. Eve though the vast majority of them are rarely used, it was impossible to put all of the commonly-used characters on a keyboard. One creative work-around to this problem was to assign four-digit numerical codes to characters. Eventually, the Zhuyin keyboard was developed. A keyboard based on the Wade-Giles system was developed as well, but was considerably less popular. In the late 80s, Minkuo (at this point privatized) produced personal computers, but struggled against American and Japanese competitors. Their foray into PCs were mostly unsuccessful. Hitachi and Panasonic outcompeted Minkuo in the computer market even within China itself. Other Chinese companies would start to manufacture computers in the 1990s and Minkuo ceased production of PCs that decade.

By the 1990s, more and more people around the world were being connected to Globalnet. It was originally developed by the United States for military purposes. Several other countries had their own versions in the late Cold War. Eventually, Globalnet was used by civilians as well, starting with universities. China had developed Shihlien, its own online network for civilian purposes that also connected to Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore. It lasted from 1989-1996. The Globalnet would be dominated by the United States for the next few decades. English would be the language of the Globalnet. Chinese websites would have domain names in the Latin alphabet. Domain names in China have .cn at the end.

In addition to making computers portable, phones were being made portable as well. In the 80s and 90s one could buy a cellphone, but it would be big. As the 90s gave way to the 2000s, cell phones became smaller. Eventually, “smart phones” were produced. These phones could connect to the Globalnet. People could communicate through text messages. While Chinese companies produced few cellphones during the 2000s, Minkuo produced many of the parts used by Japanese and Korean companies. This was a result of Samuel Gou's [1] efforts as CEO (he took over the company after Louis Kung’s retirement in 1992). These parts were also used in portable music players made by the United States. Minkuo was proving that even without government support, it could still be a major player in the world of electronics.

1: Terry Gou. His TTL name is Guo Shengming instead of Guo Taiming as the "Tai" in his OTL name was given because he was the first in his family to be born in Taiwan.

 

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In October 1996 the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was destroyed by South Korea and China. North Korea was not immediately incorporated into the Republic of Korea, however. The North was still much poorer than the South, which was becoming a major player in the world economy. This wouldn’t have been a huge problem in the past, but South Korea had been a democracy since 1978. Much of the South Korean public was opposed to reunification. The main reasons for their opposition came from the wealth disparity between North and South. Reunification meant that Southern taxpayers would need to fund the reconstruction of the North. In addition, impoverished North Koreans could flood into South Korean cities. While few people argued that reunification should never happen, there were many who argued that reunification needed to be delayed until the North caught up with the South economically.

Supporters of reunification appealed to nationalism. Some Koreans were claimed that if reunification was delayed for too long, North Korea might become ruled by China. A small number of Chinese soldiers stayed in North Korea after the war ended. An unofficial Chinese embassy opened in Pyongyang and Chinese businessmen soon followed. Older generations were firmly in favor of reunification, while the younger generations were more divided. In North Korea, opposition to reunification was virtually nonexistent. The government of the North, a council of military officers, was fully committed to reunification. Their nationalist tendencies meant that they were eager to curb Chinese influence in the country. In order to prepare the country for reunification, the Northern government introduced some capitalism and allowed local elections in 2000. South Korea provided economic assistance to the North.

In 2002, South Korea held presidential elections. Former President Paik Sun-yup returned to politics to unite the forces of immediate reunification. He was very popular because he finished South Korea’s transition to democracy. Paik won his election and pledged to reunify Korea before leaving office. In 2003, Northern and Southern leaders met for a reunification deal. It was decided that North Korea would become an autonomous region of the Republic of Korea, and that this arrangement would last for ten years, after which time the Northern provinces would be no different from the Southern provinces. On January 1, 2005, North Korea ceased to exist as a country. Korea was a unified country once more.

(Paik Sun-yup)​

 

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In 2003, a series of bills known as the amnesty laws were passed. These coincided with the 50 year anniversary of the official end of the Chinese Civil War. Communists were officially given the right to return to China, given that they renounced Communism. High-ranking Communists were not given this opportunity, and would have to stay in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc for the rest of their lives. The people who benefited from this were mostly the children and grandchildren of those who defected, though some who claimed to have been conscripted into the red army in the 40s and 50s were also allowed back into China. The Kuomintang also sent directives to lower-level officials to purge the criminal records of the majority of those who committed political crimes between 1945 and 1990.

Tibet was mostly unaffected by these amnesty bills. In November 2003, the KMT-aligned Tibet Improvement Party won a close gubernatorial election. Some Tibetans believed that the election had been stolen and took to the streets to protest. In Lhasa, protesters were also angry over the influx of Han Chinese (and other non-Tibetans) who had settled in the city. The majority of these new arrivals could not speak Tibetan and made no attempt to learn (this phenomenon was almost entirely confined to Lhasa). They opposed what they saw as an attempt by Nanking to transform Tibet into just another Chinese province through migration. The protests turned into a riot, and there were clashes with the police. One rioter was killed and more were wounded while one police officer was severely injured. That the Lhasa police force was still 90% Tibetan in 2003 helped the police control the situation.

The ruling Kuomintang and Lien Chan remained generally popular. Lien didn’t have a following like the Chaings, but people were generally satisfied with him and the 2002 elections showed this. In some regions, however, there was growing dissatisfaction with the government. Tibet was drifting away from the KMT’s partner, the TIP. In both Tibet and Xinjiang, the Chinese Federal Party made inroads, arguing for greater autonomy. Northern China had been a difficult region for the KMT ever since democratization, even though some areas remained blue. Lien Chan’s second term saw a major shakeup in this region. The Liberal Party continued to decline, despite (or perhaps because of) Li Ao’s refusal to retire from politics. The Chinese left was ascendant. Though the New Democratic League suffered from infighting and was widely viewed as extremist, the China Democratic Socialist Party was more aggressively promoting progressive politics. In addition to their traditional working-class base, they were increasingly attracting well-educated middle-class youth. More and more Liberal Party seats in the North were flipping to the CDSP. The CDSP had much less success trying to flip seats in the deep blue South.

 

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The 2000s, while not necessarily bringing entirely new social concerns to the forefront, increased social awareness in China. Feminist and LGBT rights movements existed before 2000, but activism for both causes grew during the decade. The former had some success in already existing law, while the latter sought to introduce new anti-discrimination laws (and saw some success at the local level). Ethnic minority groups engaged in activism. The most visible were the Tibetans, Mongols, and Uyghurs. Much of their activism was for local political autonomy and cultural preservation. This activism was tolerated, as long as it did not cross the line into separatism. While the MBIS no longer monitored critics of the KMT, they still took the threat of separatism very seriously.

In the 2000s, Chinese movies and TV shows increasingly showed ethnic minority characters as protagonists. In 2005, the Chinese government began a campaign to promote the idea of China as a land of many ethnicities. This was part of a wider international advertisement campaign to encourage tourism to China. Uyghur-majority Xinjiang, as well as Mongol Chahar and Xingan sought to convince foreigners to give their provinces a chance (As many people remembered hearing about ideological, ethnic, or religious violence in these places on the news in the 80s and 90s). Tibet would always be a popular tourist destination, particularly for those interested in Buddhism. China heavily promoted the “Out of Taiwan” theory of Austronesian origins in order to have the people of Southeast Asia and the Pacific see themselves as connected to China.

One issue that would only continue to grow in importance was the environment. By this point China was the world’s biggest polluter. Smog was a common sight in many of China’s cities. Provincial governments made some attempts to curb pollution, but many Chinese thought their governments were not doing enough. The Green Party of China was founded in 2004, though it saw little success at the ballot. The national government would begin to consider taking serious action on the environment. The difficulty was finding the right balance. While most people wanted a cleaner environment, they also didn’t want to sacrifice China’s GDP growth. Environmentalism became a rallying cry for anti-Chinese sentiment in Mongolia as Chinese companies descended upon Mongolia to extract its natural resources.

(smog)​

 

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From the 70s to the 90s, Uyghurs fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets and in internal conflicts after the Soviet withdrawal. This was part of Chen Lifu’s strategy of using Islam to break the Soviet Union and world Communism. Chen Lifu, Chiang Ching-kuo, and Wang Sheng hailed them as heroes (though Li Ao ignored them). At the beginning of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, part of Xinjiang was still ruled by a widely unrecognized Soviet puppet state of East Turkestan. Some of these fighters returned to East Turkestan to fight the Communist government. In 1987, East Turkestan was destroyed and Xinjiang was unified. Some of these fighters laid down their arms and became law-abiding citizens of China. Others decided to continue their struggle, now against China.

At first, most of the anti-China resistance in Xinjiang was pro-Communist or secular nationalist. Islamist resistance groups were much smaller. But by the late 90s the Communist groups operating in Xinjiang had almost entirely disappeared. In 1999, an intelligence report said that separatist violence of any variety in Xinjiang was a very minor threat, and that Tibet would probably be more dangerous than Xinjiang in the coming years. This changed when two Chinese policemen in Urumqi were killed in 2001. In 2002, Xinjiang independence activists protested in Nanking, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, cities where many foreigners and foreign media were present. The activists getting arrested hurt the image of China in the world. Human rights organizations, who had praised China’s progress, went back to criticizing China.

China had good relations with Saudi Arabia, but there was many in Saudi Arabia who resented China. For one, China had been stationing mostly non-Muslim Chinese soldiers (though China did make an effort to send Hui and Uyghur officers in disproportionate numbers to the Middle East). China also had good relations with Israel. One Saudi man who had once benefited from Chinese military aid had by the early 2000s come to loathe China. That man was Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden hated both China and the West, and wanted to strike against both of them. It was determined that China would be an easier target, and that a strike should be made against China first. Factoring in his decision was the hope that the Uyghurs in Xinjiang would rise up against the Chinese government.

(Osama bin Laden)​

In July 2005, one Saudi and eleven Chinese nationals, trained in Afghanistan, carried out an attack in Shanghai. The militants bombed the city’s subway system, causing hundreds of casualties. After the bombings, the militants opened fire on fleeing survivors and police before being killed. At the same time militants in Xinjiang carried out coordinated attacks on the police, military, and civilians. They hoped to spark a province-wide revolution. But only a small number of Uyghurs joined in. Order was restored within a few days. When everything was done, over one thousand people had been killed. China was shaken. The world sent its condolences. The people of China wanted revenge.

 

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China was united in its desire for revenge for the Shanghai Subway attacks. The quest to find who was responsible and to bring them to justice began immediately. One militant was apprehended and gave information to Chinese intelligence. It was quickly discovered that the attackers had been trained in Afghanistan. Various terrorist groups were considered to have been responsible for the attacks, mostly located in Afghanistan. The MBIS presented a list of names of whom it believed were responsible to President Lien Chan. China demanded that Afghanistan hand over the suspects, which it refused to do. Lien Chan gave a speech the week after the attacks saying that those who harbor terrorists will be punished. By the end of July, Chinese government officials were referring to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as a terrorist state. Troops were massed in Xinjiang, especially in Tashkurgan near the border. An invasion seemed imminent.

On July 5, 2005, the day before the Shanghai attacks, Afghanistan received a shipment of weapons from the United States. Afghanistan was a rival of Iran (and Iran funded anti-government rebels in Afghanistan), and thus helping Afghanistan would hurt Iran. When China went to the UN to pass a resolution against Afghanistan, the US and UK vetoed it (Russia-Belarus and France abstained). This put a huge strain in Sino-American relations, though the two countries still worked together in Iraq. America, for its part, did attempt to convince the Afghan government to hand over the terror suspects, but to no avail. Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan all rejected allowing China to move soldiers through their countries. Any invasion would need to be by air or through the Tegermansu Pass.

(Afghan Army)​

China had something of an international coalition of its own. Russia-Belarus was not eager to send troops back to Afghanistan, but was 100% in support of China destroying their former enemies. Mongolia and Laos, sometimes described as Chinese client states, pledged a small number of troops to the invasion. Other nations pledged to send some sort of help, whether military or humanitarian, after the invasion. China wanted to make its coalition truly global, and sought to get allies from every continent. This coalition included Singapore, India, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Kenya, Macedonia, and Guatemala. Most of these countries would contribute hardly anything, but they improved their relations with China and some countries secured development aid. China wanted to get at least one Western country to aid in its plan for Afghanistan. The closest it got was moral support from the Spanish government. At the same time Basque and Catalan separatists increasingly aligned themselves with Uyghurs and Tibetans.

In late August the invasion of Afghanistan began. One army invaded the Tegermansu Pass, experiencing little opposition. At the same time Chinese and Lao troops were airdropped to areas controlled by anti-government forces. Most of Northern and Eastern Afghanistan were taken by China. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s cause was hopeless, and they desperately called on the Uyghurs to rise up but to no avail. Most of the country’s leadership (and most of the Shanghai terror attack suspects) escaped and went into hiding and Kabul fell by the end of September. China and the coalition would spend the next few months mopping up Islamic Emirate forces and some other extremist groups. Militants would continue to pose a problem for the coalition, hiding in Afghanistan and Pakistan. China would then get to work on government-building.