Crude timeline of "The Second Year of Jianfeng: A Uchronia of the New China"

This is a timeline partially based on the book "The Second Year of Jianfeng: A Uchronia of the New China" authored by Chinese writer Chan Koonchung, which details an alternate history where the Nationalists won the Chinese civil war instead of Communists.

Timeline
April 1946: Chinese KMT general Sun Liren destroys the armies of opposing commander Lin Biao in Manchuria, where the communists had been consolidating their military and logistical base with Soviet assistance. Point of divergence.

1949: Mao Zedong's communist army is defeated. Surviving members went into exile in Soviet Russia.

1950: The Korean War starts, with the eventual reunification of the whole Korean peninsula under Republic of Korea.

1955: Rocket Scientist Qian Xuesen returns to China from America, although he will go back and forth between the two since he is a dual citizen of both China and the United States. He is received personally by KMT leader Chiang Kai Shek and his son Chiang Ching Kuo upon arriving at the Nanking Airport.

1957: Soviet Russia sent the globe's first satellite Sputnik I into space.

March 1961: US sent the first human into space on a suborbital flight.

April 1961: Soviet Union sent the first human into orbit.

1962: Qian Xuesen furthers the development and work of his spaceplane design in both China and USA.

1966: In this TL the X-20 program is not cancelled. As such USAF astronaut James Wood flew the maiden flight of the orbital spaceplane.

1968: A serious border clash occurs between USSR and China.

1969: US lands a man on the Moon. China starts its space program by launching a satellite into orbit.

1970: With help of America, the Sino-Soviet war comes into a peaceful resolution although USSR would have to cede some of its lands to China.

1973: China sent its first man into space.

1979: By this year China comes under Chiang Ching Kuo's rule. Shanghai, Tianjin, or Guangzhou are on par with OTL's Hong Kong and Japan.

1980: First flight of Chinese prototype spaceplane, thanks to Qian Xuesen.

1982: The British began to develop the HOTOL spaceplane with the Americans.

1984: China lands a probe on the Moon.

1986: U.S. President Reagan called for "a new Orient Express that could, by the end of the next decade, take off from Dulles Airport, accelerate up to 25 times the speed of sound, attaining low earth orbit or flying to Tokyo within two hours."

1989: USA began to return to the Moon with the Lunar Outpost plan.

1990: China sent a space probe to Mars.

1991: USSR collapsed by itself. As a result Finland gets Karelia back while Siberia declares its independence, meanwhile the HOTOL spaceplane is operational.

2000: Russia elected Mikhail Kasyanov to become its leader.

2001: The Americans return to the Moon, however the 9/11 attacks befell upon them. China won the bid to host the Olympics at Nanking.

2002: NASA begin setting up a new lunar habitat with the Chinese.

2003: The U.S. invades Iraq as in OTL. The European space agency commissioned the spaceplane Hermes. The Chinese Assembly votes to accept the fait accompli that Outer Mongolia is an independent territory.

2004: Civil unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang region demanding a referendum of independence. Calls for federalism in China grew stronger day by day.

2005: The NASA lunar habitat is finished. Russia joins the European Space Agency

2006: The lunar habitat greets its first visitors from China and Russia.

2007: The lunar habitat renamed to "International Lunar Base".

2008: The Summer Olympics is hosted in Nanjing.

2009: Referendum in Tibet and Xinjiang where the former votes for secession while the latter votes for "remain". Tibet then became independent later that year. Qian Xuesen dies of natural causes as in OTL.

2010: Another set of referendum to reorganize China into a federal state is held which most of the population votes "yes".

2011: The Republic of China is reorganized into the United States of China, its capital moved to Beiping/Beijing.