Manchurian Survival: 1948

In 1946, the Nationalists in China tried to invade Manchuria. However, none of them were able to reach Manchuria, thanks to the work of the Chinese Communist Party troops by Mao Zedong. With weapons from the former Imperial Japanese Army in China and Manchuria (the regime in Changchun simply kept the weapons of the Manchukuo Army), and the means to reproduce some of them, the CCP have conquered all of Inner Mongolia by 1947 and started to attack Ma Bufang's forces in Gansu, Qinghai, and Ningxia. Meanwhile, the East Turkestan Republic finished off the Kuomintang from Xinjiang, the KMT forces trying to reinforce the beleaguered forces in Qinghai. It didn't work, and the ETR have all of Xinjiang in its hands.

Responing to a "request" by Tibetan Communist Phuntsok Wangyal, the Mongols, Uyghurs, and the Soviets then recruited local Tibetans, Mongols, and Soviet Siberians to form a "Tibetan People's Revolutionary Army, officered by Tibetan communists, but the rank and file were non-Tibetan and the majority are Tuvan. As a matter of fact, it was basically the former Tannu Tuvan Army, down to the uniforms used by the Tannu Tuvan republic before being annexed by the Soviet Union in 1944. The medals and insignia used are nearly identical with the former republics, only that they are in Tibetan. To hide the fact that they are mainly non-Tibetan, Wangyal had the non-Tibetans use Tibetan nom-de-guerre. Basically the future People's Republic of Tibet is said by many to be the "second coming" of Communist Tannu-Tuva, in its first years, many officials are Tuvan, some even choosing to stay over going back to the USSR. And so with the approval of the Mongolian leader Choibalsan, as well as former Tuvan leader Salchak Toka, Wangyal's army marched from the ETR.

The Tibetans in Lhasa only found of this invasion three days later, and it was too late, anyway. The Dalai Lama's armies and militias are demoralized by the superior equipment and training of the Tibetan People's Revolutionary Army. It would not be long before the TPRA marched through Lhasa.

In North Korea, the regime of Kim Il-Sung strengthened itself. It is now preparing for the independence their Soviet patrons have introduced.

The Soviets conquered all of South Sakhalin, and for reasons only Soviet specialists speculate, the South Sakhalin oblast was transformed into the Karafuto-Japanese Soviet Socialist Republic. The Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Yoshida, is not amused, though he welcomed the flight of communists and fellow-travellers, which he thought made his job running Japan a bit easier.

Manchuria itself is now sending enough industrial material and minerals to the Soviet Union for "reparations". It won't be long before Manchuria gets back to its pre-1945 economic levels. 

Meanwhile, Mao is waiting for his time to crush Chiang. He would later deal with the Manchus and the Uyghurs. An Asian Soviet Union would be viable for him.

The map was taken from and from Diamond from Alternatehistory.com.