"My understanding is that at the end of the Burma campaign, some 9,000 ROC troops retreated, in various detachments, west into India (many other retreated north into China, but set that aside); if the US had chosen not to set up the US mission to the Chinese forces in India (so no Ramgarh training center, no effort by Stillwell and his subordinates to train and re-equip the ROC forces, no airlift from China of additional personnel, etc.) what happens?
9,000 veteran soldiers with knowledge of Burma and experience against the Japanese, and some respectable commanders – Sūn Lìrén and Liào Yàoxiāng appear to be well-regarded, for example – doesn't seem like an asset that would be simply set aside.
Historically, the agreement between the ROC government, the Americans, and the British was tripartite; Ramgarh was a British installation, of course, and the British (and Commonwealth, etc.) provide material (both from British sources and re-directed L-L) to the Chinese, etc., which suggests the British certainly "could" have set up something roughly similar to the US mission … and they had a tradition of supporting various "exile" armies, from the Free French to the Ethiopians, during WW II and before. Of course, that being said, Anglo-Chinese relations were not especially close, for multiple reasons…"
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Armand
