1. If there had been no Korean War and no "Resist America, Aid Korea" movement in the early 1950s, 171,669 young lives would not have been lost.  (According to the published data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, there were more than 360,000  casualties in total during the Korean War. The same number was recorded in the book, "The War History of the People's Volunteer Army"). In particular, Mao Anying, the son of Mao Zedong, would have survived.  If Mao Anying had survived, Mao Zedong would not have been desperate to find and cultivate multiple successors, only to eventually give them the pink slip. If Mao Anying had survived and succeeded Chairman Mao's leadership, what kind of transition to socialism with Chinese characteristics would China be undergoing right now?

     

    2. If the People s Liberation Army had conquered Taiwan in the mid-1950s, and had succeeded in capturing Chiang Kai-shek and other Kuomintang leaders, what would have been the destiny of these war criminals?  Would Chiang Kai-shek have been sentenced to death? Or would they have been pardoned following ten years in prison, as was the case for other war criminals? What would be the fate of Taiwan? Without lasting confrontation across the Strait, persistent efforts to reunify, and Taiwan's struggle to be independent, what would the landscape of China look like?

     

     

    3. If the country had not implemented "One Transformation, Three Reforms"(一化三改), but instead made progress on the "peaceful and democratic phase" advocated by Liu Shaoqi, would China's industrialization have been slowed or delayed? Would "public ownership" have become a heavy historical burden for reform and opening-up? Would the transition to the rural production responsibility system, privatization, and shareholding reform of state-owned enterprises have taken place?

     

    4. If there were no anti-rightist movement in the mid-1950s, hundreds of thousands of people would not have suffered inhumane treatment over several decades. Would the spiritual outlook of Chinese intellectuals be more positive and active?  Would their capabilities and influences be greater and more effective? Would the social morality of the Chinese people be healthier and more positive?

     

    5. If there had been no "Great Leap Forward" and "People's Commune Movement" in the mid-1960s, or if the instigators of these movements had been stopped immediately and promptly without causing a national hurricane, would "The Great Chinese Famine" have still taken place? Or would the disaster have taken place on such a great scale?

     

    6. If there had been no "Cultural Revolution," "Red Guards," and "Great Revolutionary Gatherings" (大串联), no beatings, smashing and looting, no rebel faction (造反派) and conservative faction (保守派), and no violence (武斗) during the mid-1960s,，what would China's culture, education, and overall superstructure look like today?  Who would be the current political, economic, and cultural elites?

     

    7. If Lin Biao had been loyal to Mao Zedong rather than betraying him in the early 1970s, if there were no "Lin Biao Incident," or if his airplane had not crashed in Mongolia, how would the Cultural Revolution have ended? What sort of political landscape would exist in China today?

     

    8. If Mao Zedong had not been ill and then died in the mid-1970s, would he still be the Chairman forever? Would the Cultural Revolution have continued? Would there have been a "Gang of Four" (四人帮) ？ If the coup launched by Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying had failed, would the "Gang of Four" have inherited Mao's ideals?  Would they have initiated reform and opening-up? Where would China be right now?

     

    9. Is it true or false that Mao Zedong told Hua Guofeng that "with you in charge, I'm at ease" in the middle of the 1960s? If Hua had really wielded military and political power to seriously implement the "Two Whatevers" (两个凡是) ，where would we be? If Hua had not started the "Foreign Leap Forward" ("洋跃进"), would he have stepped down?

     

    10. If Deng Xiaoping had died in the mid- or late 1960s, as did Liu Shaoqi, who was persecuted to death during Cultural Revolution, who would have led the P.R.C. forward? Would the leadership of the Communist Party still be united? Who would have been the leader to guide China's reform and opening-up? Who would ensure that China still adhere to the Four Cardinal Principles and the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics? If we did have a leader like that, would he have chosen the same path as Deng's?