Could 1945–46 mediation have produced a coalition China?

The short answer

• Why Manchuria mattered. Manchuria offered the industrial complex, ports, railways and grain with which an army might sustain a long campaign, as well as a border with the Soviet Union. Mao sent his best cadres and about 100,000 troops from other theaters in autumn 1945 under the direction “develop the north, defend the south”. Chiang also had a powerful reason to recover the northeast: its loss in 1931 had damaged his legitimacy. Wedemeyer and Marshall warned that supplying his armies there would be difficult. Both leaders understood the prize; holding it would test the resources each could bring to the region.
• Stalin's two policies. Stalin made a formal agreement with Chiang while leaving opportunities open to the Communists. The August 1945 friendship treaty secured concessions associated with Yalta concerning Port Arthur and the railways, as well as recognition of Mongolia’s independence. Soviet forces removed machinery, but as they withdrew in spring 1946 Communist troops gained access to Japanese stocks and positions near vacated cities. Moscow sought advantage in a weak, divided China and did not expect a Communist victory outright.
• Why mediation was difficult. A coalition required the two parties to place their armies within a common state. For each, that meant risking the one protection it had against the other. The 1927 purge described in Chapter 5 had given both reason to remember what a broken alliance could mean. They used truces to reposition: Nationalist historians have argued that the 1946 ceasefires helped Lin Biao recover after Siping, while Chiang’s victories strengthened his belief in force. Marshall could obtain signatures and pause the fighting. He could not provide the security each side demanded before surrendering control of its army.
• The return to the coast. The return to the coast gave the Nationalists an opportunity to turn victory into public support. Instead, corrupt takeover officials seized assets, currency conversion harmed people holding puppet-issued money, and former collaborationist industry went to favored hands. Hyperinflation added to urban hardship. In villages the government recovered, landlords returned with it. The manner of recovery weakened the support the state would need for the war ahead.

What it changed

Land and the war in the countryside. From May 1946, Communist policy in northern base areas moved beyond wartime rent reduction to outright redistribution. The process was sweeping and often violent. It also gave millions of families land they had reason to fear losing if the Nationalists returned. Land reform helped mobilize recruits and support; at Huaihai in 1948 civilian porters pushed barrows to supply the armies whose victory mattered to the land they held.

An army rebuilt after Siping. Lin Biao’s retreat across the Sungari was not the end of his army. North of the river he rebuilt it as the Northeast Field Army, using Japanese equipment, absorbed puppet troops and conscripts from villages affected by land reform. Winter offensives wore down Nationalist garrisons. By 1948 the force outnumbered and outgunned the government’s best troops, an unprecedented material advantage for a Communist army in this period.

The end of Marshall's mission. Marshall left in January 1947 and blamed both parties for the failure of mediation. Aid to Nanjing continued: it tied Washington to the Nationalist cause without securing the government’s survival. Already, Americans were beginning to ask “who lost China”. That question assumes a power over China’s future that deserves examination.