Recent content by mcdo

Well, there was this treaty, in which Mongolia and Tibet recognized each other. According to Wikipedia, there was some doubt about whether or not the Dalai Lama's representative had the legal authority to negotiate such a treaty, but I would say the treaty constitutes both a country recognizing...

If you want to explore the impact on the British balance of trade, I think one potential PoD would be for the British to not control the parts of India where they had farmers grow opium. If Britain can't export huge amounts of opium to China, then they lose a massive revenue stream in silver...

Somewhat counter-intuitively, the best chance for this happening is if Japan doesn't get engaged in a total war. If she is, then it makes sense to favor tried-and-true weapons that you can mass produce easily to equip the army. If Japan is at peace, or is only engaged in small-scale battles...

White Castle has been a thing since 1921... Perhaps they could become the model for the fast food industry?

While I don't doubt that the US occupation carried with it a lot of cultural influence, I have long held that the "Japan/Japanese people/Japanese culture is so weird!" même comes down to two main things. One, Japan was the first non-Western culture to become wealthy in modern times. Being a rich...

It might be worth mentioning that there is a limited form of this in English, too. One of the reasons we spell "meet" and "meat", or "see" and "sea", differently is to help distinguish between words that sound the same. It's not strictly necessary--I can't think of a context where it would be...

IIRC, in Japan in the 1940s, bulk commodities, like rice and coal, were mainly shipped by barge via the canal network. The rail net was for people, and for more expensive goods. In the last few weeks of the war, the USAAF started air-dropping mines into these canals, which was already hampering...

IIRC, both Hokkien and Cantonese have seperate written forms. Are they the only Chinese languages, aside from Mandarin, that do ? Why, in your mind, did not written "vernacular" forms develop for other Chinese languages? If you don't mind, I will try to provide an example. This is the Japanese...

I'm cheating a bit, but how about a bomber converted to a night fighter powered by the Aichi Ha-70? Like the German DB-606, it was an experiment to couple a pair of engines to a single driveshaft for more power. I have no idea how plausible it is, but if you could somehow stuff the thing into...

If you don't mind, I'll quote what I said one of the other times the idea of Nazi Germany allying with China instead of Militaristic Japan came up on here: To sum up, I don't think Nazi Germany would ever choose to ally with China over Japan if it has to choose one or the other. However, if...

It's an intriguing idea, no doubt. I could see the UK coming to terms with Japan, and even agreeing to try to broker a peace between China and Japan (which probably wouldn't work, but still). The government could sell it to the public as "we must do whatever it takes to prevent our involvement...

It depends on a lot of factors, obviously, but my instinct is to say that Militaristic Japan will not strike south in 1941 if they can get the resources to continue the war in China on the world market. The priority will be on the fighting in China, and the Army was keen to keep a large force in...

To be fair, according to my Osprey book on the Ki-44, it was only pilots who had flown the other Japanese fighters who tended to dislike it. It required different tactics than the ones that they were used to, and they disliked the high landing speed required. Pilots who went straight from...

On the topic of the growth of GDP per capita in Japan, this may be relavent: As you can see above, the growth rate of GDP per capita in Japan has outpaced all other developed nations in the past 18 years. If that rend continues, than Japan should start to catch up to the level of the US...

Here's a brief sketch of a TL idea I've been playing around with for years. Parts of it are a bit implausible, but overall, I think it's workable. The crux of the idea is a worse Dogger Bank Incident. The Russian Navy fires on some British ships, leading to a brief firefight, with loss of lives...