I say this as somebody who has had multiple-hour long debates with people on whether China would have been better off under the Nationalists. Despite ambivalenc

I say this as somebody who has had multiple-hour long debates with people on whether China would have been better off under the Nationalists. Despite ambivalence toward the Nationalists mixed with loathing for Chiang Kai Shek, I've always passionately advocated that China would be better off if the Nationalists had triumphed. With that said, I can think of two (good) reasons people might think that China's current rise could not have happened under the Nationalists. 1. The Nationalists were extremely poor at stamping out corruption and warlordism. China appears to have been too large a region for them to competently exercise control. Their success in Taiwan therefore may be partly attributable to a smaller landmass over which they were more capable of exercising competent hegemony. 2. Taiwan's success is partly a result of their gradual liberalisation. It's hard to say whether this same liberalisation could have taken place on the mainland. That said, like I mentioned, I think it's hard to argue that China wouldn't have been better off. Certainly in the short term. Without the Communists taking power you avoid every atrocity under Mao. That alone is hard to offset with any later (pseudo-)unity and progress.