AHC: European settler state in Asia

SpaceGeek

Excluding Russian-controlled areas of Northern/Central Asia, and the state of Israel, devise a scenario in which European settlers become a majority or even a sizeable minority in an Asian colony.

Given the large populations of Asia, this would obviously be very difficult and require some creativity to imagine. It's pretty difficult to imagine any European-majority state larger than a city-state. Could any of the colonial city-states in India have gained a European majority (or even a sizeable minority)? Could the Portuguese have created a settler-state in Portuguese Timor?
 

wtw

A purge of the population of a small island or groups of islands. That is all I could think of. Done by well name a European power.
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
There is one dystopian scenario in a Jack London scenario written in 1910-it had probably have yellow peril trope you could think of-you see the evil Chinese were planning on conquering the world and had the numbers and technology to do so-take place in the 1970s.

It ends with the European powers using biological weapons and then sending in armies to exterminate the remaining Chinese population and then it's states the country would be settled by European colonists.

It was shockingly racist and vile of course-I just so happened to stumble on it while looking at Jack London anthologies online.
 

Arkenfolm

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are retained by Britain/made a Dominion where Anglo-Indians/Anglo-Burmese are settled. Many local Indians are "repatriated" while the indigenous peoples are given reservations akin to Indian reservations in the US/Canada. Other European descended ethnic groups in India and Southeast Asia are also given offers to settle the islands.

So assuming worse conditions in post-colonial Asia and a friendly government giving numerous benefits to white immigrants, it's possible to make a majority white state in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Although since many of these groups have partial descent from local people and others were married to local women, whites would probably only be a plurality at best, with significant mixed-race populations as well as a sizable minority of Indians and local peoples. Later, many white Rhodesians and Kenyans settle there, as well as some Anglo-South Africans starting during the later days of Apartheid.
 
Zachariah

Zachariah

Banned
SpaceGeek said:
Excluding Russian-controlled areas of Northern/Central Asia, and the state of Israel, devise a scenario in which European settlers become a majority or even a sizeable minority in an Asian colony.

Given the large populations of Asia, this would obviously be very difficult and require some creativity to imagine. It's pretty difficult to imagine any European-majority state larger than a city-state. Could any of the colonial city-states in India have gained a European majority (or even a sizeable minority)? Could the Portuguese have created a settler-state in Portuguese Timor?
Click to expand...
I imagine that we're also excluding Australasia, Polynesia and Melanesia then? Although, Timor's part of Melanesia too, so it technically isn't Asian. How about a surviving Kingdom of Sarawak then- perhaps one where its antimony and gold mines are mined by and earlier-established Borneo Company from the off, instead of being discovered and mined initially by Chinese syndicates, who imported large numbers of Chinese workers? In 1841, Sarawak only had an indigenous population of about 8,000; if the government of Sarawak had gone to greater lengths to create incentives for European settlers to immigrate there, instead of focusing primarily on encouraging the migration of Chinese settlers instead, its ethnic demographics could easily have been more similar to those of New Zealand (with a similar population to OTL's Sarawak, i.r.o 2M, and roughly the same population density as NZ). In TTL's Sarawak, a European plurality by the present day would be more than plausible, and a European majority would easily be possible, with the Sarawak's Dayak community effectively becoming the equivalent of NZ's Maori community.
 

Urcea

This might be cheating but let’s say for the sake of argument one of the European powers that missed out on Hong Kong or Portugal’s possessions decides to take a piece of coastal China that’s uninhabited but has favorable enough geography and subsequently begins settling it. After the end of colonialization it becomes independent although dependent on China. The only problem with this is you would have to find out a way to prevent them from just importing a lot of cheap Chinese laborers
 
SealTheRealDeal

SealTheRealDeal

SpaceGeek said:
Excluding Russian-controlled areas of Northern/Central Asia, and the state of Israel, devise a scenario in which European settlers become a majority or even a sizeable minority in an Asian colony.

Given the large populations of Asia, this would obviously be very difficult and require some creativity to imagine. It's pretty difficult to imagine any European-majority state larger than a city-state. Could any of the colonial city-states in India have gained a European majority (or even a sizeable minority)? Could the Portuguese have created a settler-state in Portuguese Timor?
Click to expand...
Perhaps China better enforces its seclusion and prevents its population from working for the Europeans, and the UK decides to supplement the Malayan and Indian labourers on Singapore by establishing a penal colony there. Perhaps then the Straits Settlements become a settler colony.
 
English Nationalist

English Nationalist

I know a lot of people from Macau have a lot of Portuguese ancestry with some people having more "European" features. For whatever reason you have a greater influx of Portuguese into the port leading to a rapid development of a Cantonese/Portuguese culture. Come the Civil War period, the territory expands further around the delta and becomes de facto Portuguese land. Today the region remains Portuguese territory by law but in almost every regard is practically a sovereign state only maintaining it's European connection due to fear of Beijing and therefore having N.A.T.O. protection.
 

Arkenfolm

English Nationalist said:
I know a lot of people from Macau have a lot of Portuguese ancestry with some people having more "European" features. For whatever reason you have a greater influx of Portuguese into the port leading to a rapid development of a Cantonese/Portuguese culture. Come the Civil War period, the territory expands further around the delta and becomes de facto Portuguese land. Today the region remains Portuguese territory by law but in almost every regard is practically a sovereign state only maintaining it's European connection due to fear of Beijing and therefore having N.A.T.O. protection.
Click to expand...

Actually, it would not fall under the NATO umbrella per Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty, unless TTL's is expanded to Asia for some reason.
 

telynk

I'm thinking Central Asia could be a good spot for a settler colony based upon displacing nomadic hordes throigh superior technology (the same way OTL's USA settled the Westby displacing nomadic Native Americans). The problem is that no European power other than Russia has access to central Asia.... Maybe a wanked PLC dominates the Black Sea and builds a Don-Volga canal to gain access to Central Asia???
 

Intransigent Southerner

telynk said:
I'm thinking Central Asia could be a good spot for a settler colony based upon displacing nomadic hordes throigh superior technology (the same way OTL's USA settled the Westby displacing nomadic Native Americans).
Click to expand...
The Mongols alone (in both Inner and Outer Mongolia) had a population of around 3.5 million in 1800.

Six times the indigenous population of the entire territory of what is now the United States in 1800.

There’s no comparison at all. There were lots of nomads.
 

cmakk1012

And now for something completely different, get rid of the political instability of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and you’d have a settler state* in Central Asia from the third century BC on.

The challenges facing a surviving Bactria are admittedly massive, mostly stemming from the fact that the region was a regular nomad migration route. However, as an optimist I’d argue that anything is possible given a distant enough PoD. I’d also point out that the prompt never specified that the nation would stay independent in perpetuity—you could hypothetically see Bactria incorporated into various nomadic empires over the centuries but retain a Greek character.

*Alexander intentionally brought Greek settlers into the cities that he founded in Central Asia, and the Greek language and identity persisted for centuries; I’d argue that culturally at least Bactria was a settler state.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Adding to the "east part of Russia" - Manchuria.
It was very empty pre-1860.
Had it been grabbed in 1858 or 1860 it could had been settled by white immigrants.
 
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