Chiang had to work with various warlords and bore most of the fight against the Japanese, while Mao gathered strength and let ROC to bleed itself. Even if ROC won and the CCP got destroyed, we don’t know if factionalism and warlord-ism will emerge since ROC had been weakened severely. Or, in another alternative time, Chiang and KMT had somehow pulled a miracle, and somehow made the entirety of China industrialised as quickly as post-war Japan and never had to resort to dictatorship and hence had always been democratic after World War 2.
Chiang Kai Shek already oversaw a China beset with hyperinflation, pervasive corruption, and famine. That, too, is history.
It’s why the Maoists were able to launch a popular revolution in the first place. Chinese people had literally nothing to lose but their chains.
Chiang had to work with various warlords and bore most of the fight against the Japanese, while Mao gathered strength and let ROC to bleed itself. Even if ROC won and the CCP got destroyed, we don’t know if factionalism and warlord-ism will emerge since ROC had been weakened severely. Or, in another alternative time, Chiang and KMT had somehow pulled a miracle, and somehow made the entirety of China industrialised as quickly as post-war Japan and never had to resort to dictatorship and hence had always been democratic after World War 2.