Chapter 23
Japan had succeeded in Korea.
The
Yangban- the educated Buddhist middle class who Japan had cultivated as a Korean equivalent of the Mexican Criollos- were a minority, but there were other groups. There was a large segment of the population for which either they or at least one member of their family had made it into the political class of Imperial Democracy- usually through military service. These ones lacked the unquestioning loyalty of the
Yangban and were dissatisfied with many aspects of Korea’s relationship to Japan, but Japan had freed Korea from Russian rule, granted it greater autonomy than it had known in a very long time, and given they themselves at least some sort of voice. As a result, they were loyal- if not to Japan then to Pan-Asianism and its ideals- and expressed their dissatisfaction largely through peaceful calls for the empire to be reformed so as to give Korea more cultural autonomy and a greater say in how the empire was run. Beyond them was the largest portion of the Korean people who were neither supportive of nor hostile towards Japanese rule and were generally apolitical. The percentage of Koreans who actively supported independence was barely in double digits, the percentage of Koreans willing to seek independence through violence was a number that could be expressed with the fingers of one hand.
That had the potential to change if the hopes of reform-minded Koreans were dashed and if the Japanese bungled their response to the more violent Korean Nationalists, but for the time being Korea was a largely quiet, productive, asset to the Japanese Empire.
Manchuria was not as generally integrated, there was an active Han Chinese resistance, but the Manchus were even more enthusiastic about Pan-Asianism and being loyal to the empire than the
Yangban and the Chinese Buddhists were mostly ambivalent. Mongolia had suffered particularly heavily under heavy-handed Russian rule that had deliberately obliterated much of the traditional Mongol culture, followed by scarcely more tolerant rule on the part of the Tiandao, and so the Mongols were still pretty happy about the autonomy the “Mongol Empire” had within Japan. (The Japanese themselves were still a bit torn- did the Mongols even count as Asians? - but they weren’t being stupid about it) The directly-ruled parts of China- Hainan, Taiwan, the coastal cities- had been annexed to Japan directly without any autonomy and were very much not-with-the-program but they were relatively modest pieces of territory to police and control.
It was nowhere near as idyllic as the above picture of course, but things in Korea and Mongolia were more like OTL Ireland in 1900 in terms of how okay they were with their imperial rulers. A better analogue for Manchuria would be Russian Finland from around the same time.
In short, Japan of the Separate-verse had done a far better job of getting its subject peoples on-board with being co-operative than had OTL Japan. The combination of Pan-Asianism and Imperial Democracy offered an ideology reserved enough to satisfy the traditionalists and sufficiently open to sate the demands of reformers (even if only temporarily). These successes had left the Japanese government (thoroughly controlled by the Pan-Asians now) convinced that the political unification of Asia under the Japanese Emperor was an achievable goal. Anti-western sentiment had been rising in Dai Nippon Teikoku since late ‘teens and there were growing calls for the for the country to move forward with that grand project. But the unification of Asia (however ultimately impossible it might be) meant the liberation of America’s territories and protectorates in the east, and that meant locking horns with the United States. To be sure Japan’s leaders weren’t fools- they knew how dangerous the US could be and they grasped the massive base of population and industry that was the backbone of the (albeit crumbling) New Order for the Ages. To have any chance at defeating the New World Colossus first they would need China, and second they would need allies.
China had been badly mismanaged under the theocratic rule of the Tian Dynasty, failing to modernize even more than it had in OTL and avoiding outright colonization by the European powers only because Britain and Russia hadn’t wanted to go to war with each other over who got the Chinese prize (America also advocated in favor of Chinese independence). Despite this it remained economically important, with a massive population and vast resources. If Japan could successfully incorporate China as it had Korea (good luck) then it would have what it needed to face the United States as an equal.
The problem was that the United States refused to co-operate.
While China remained comparatively backwards against the rest of the world (note rickshaws) it remained an important market for American goods (note the use of English by Tian authorities on the Customs Office).
It was an American ultimatum delivered to Kyoto after Japan had first imposed its protectorate over China that prompted Japan to formally withdraw from the Grand Alliance, and the United States refused to relax its insistence that Japan make no more inroads against Chinese sovereignty. There remained major American business interests in China that Japan was actively threatening, and New York was determined to protect them. As a result Japanese plans for the Middle Kingdom remained on hold, although that didn’t prevent efforts (of very limited success) to foster Pan-Asianism within China proper. The Empire of the Rising Sun couldn’t win a war with the United States without integrating China, and it couldn’t annex China without going to war against the United States. Frustrated, the Japanese turned their focus towards the diplomatic front.
They lobbied the other countries of East Asia hard…
… and reaped a significant harvest.
American hegemony was far kinder than British rule, but it was too easy to draw parallels between the United States and the old United Kingdom. The nations of Asia had not forgotten their treatment at British hands and were determined that no foreign country- especially not a “European” country of Christian English-speakers- should ever dominate them again. Nam Viet, Malaya, and Borneo, all of which had fought bloody insurgencies to end their status as American protectorates, remained unwilling members of the Grand Alliance and the ITO, and all agreed to secret treaties with Japan. They had no desire to lose their sovereignty as part of a Japanese-ruled union, but their governments wanted a powerful ally to help them end their ties to the United States and preserve their subsequent independence. The idea of a bloc of Asian countries that could deal with the Grand Alliance, the Pan-European Pact, and Drakia-plus-friends on an equal footing was attractive, and they convinced themselves that the Pan-Asians could be redirected to such a goal. Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma were as concerned about Japanese imperialism as they were American imperialism and so remained within the Grand Alliance, but even there Kyoto made inroads. There were active Pan-Asian movements among the three Buddhist-majority countries and their governments were… open to possibilities.
If Japan’s star was truly ascendant, and
if they could prove that they were actually a more valuable (and viable) ally than the United States…. Well then let’s just say that things could happen.
But Dai Nippon’s greatest diplomatic success came in Delhi.
The Indian military was large, but it struggled to keep up with its own logistical demands and wasn't quite
caught up with everyone else technologically.
Pan-Asianism, with its emphasis on Buddhism and Confucianism as unifying factors among the peoples of Asia, had little support in Hindu Nationalist India. India had over 350,000,000~ people by 1937, more than the United States with 191,000,000~, Japan with 158,000,000~, or Drakia with 130,000,000~, and while it had less industry and more internal divisions than Japan (a lot of unhappy Muslims and Buddhists) it was a great power in its own right. It did not need protection, and when it resolved to withdraw from the Grand Alliance and the International Trade Organization India’s foreign policy was as self-directed as Japan’s. President Krishna Mirchandani had ambitions to turn his country into a global force as powerful as the United States itself, forming plans to crush the Drakian Empire and divide its territory into a collection of independent African states that would be guided by India. The Non-Aggression Pact that Mirchandani signed with Speaker Ishihara Kan of Japan was intended to help pave the way for that glorious future. India did not require Japanese help to defend its sovereignty the way that Nam Viet or Malaya did, but Japan could be a vital ally when it came to removing the American obstacle from India’s path, and could be again when it came time to deal with the gangrenous vestige of the British Empire that ruled from Aurica.
Together Japan and India were a force to be reckoned with.
Sri Lanka remained committed to the Grand Alliance thanks to its rivalry with India, the Maldives didn’t really have a choice, and Indonesia could never countenance an alliance with the Islamophobic Pan-Asians (Malaya and Borneo had held their noses in the interest of finally breaking out of America’s sphere and potentially settling their revanchist claims against Singapore and Sabah respectively) and opted for a prickly neutrality. Insulindia was still genuinely friendly to the United States and while the Filipino rebels might have had been quite Pan-Asian (of the “bloc of countries and Christianity is okay” sort of Pan-Asian) the puppet Filipino Republic was still staunchly loyal to New York.
Of course, the United States was acutely aware of what was going on in Asia.
An Australian garrison in New Guinea, Australia's totally-not-a-colonial-possession-we-don't-do-that-anymore-thing.
America’s top priority was the insurgency in Central America, but it learned about Malaya’s secret alliance with Japan (via a Malay officer concerned about Japanese hostility towards Muslims) and suspected the possibility of betrayal from Nam Viet and Borneo. The Indo-Japanese Non-Agression Pact was public, and anyone with half a brain could tell that Japan’s expansion of its army and navy was a direct threat to the United States. So New York diverted enough resources to match Kyoto in the naval race (with many of the new vessels being turned over to the US Coast Guard for its East Indies Fleet instead of the US Navy) and it invested substantially in the defenses of its possessions in the region. Garrisons increased in size and an American military presence was stationed either in or adjacent to Borneo, Nam Viet, and Malaya who could hardly say no as they were still officially part of the Grand Alliance. Contingency plans were written up. Japan had scored significant diplomatic victories but the United States….
… was hardly lackadaisical on that front. Australia and New Zealand were
terrified of the “Yellow Peril” that Japan and India presented and their terror overcame their monarchist distain for the American Republic. Britain might have looked to Drakia as its patron, but its Oceanian dominions were functioning Westminster democracies a majority of whose citizens were unfriendly towards Societism, and the “Australasian Pact” wasn’t confident about its ability to defend itself alone. When the Tasman Siblings formally signed a mutual defense agreement with America and the Grand Alliance it triggered a minor international crisis as Britain flirted with the possibility of ending their dominion status unilaterally as punishment, but the efforts of monarchists in both countries and the monarchy of the aging King Edward VII himself prevented any such proposals from coming about. The forces of English Societism were unhappy with that, but in 1936 the Prime Minister (and future High Chancellor) Lancelot Susan was not yet secure enough in his position to move against the still-beloved institution of the monarchy directly.
As Japan backed rebels in the Philippines the United States armed and funded Chinese Nationalist insurgents in Tian China and Manchuria against the Empire of Japan, and Muslim insurgents against the Union of India. There were confrontations between national militaries, assassinations, attacks against Chinese and Indian Christians, hostility towards Japanese and Indian communities outside of their homelands, a myriad of violent incidents that threatened to spiral out of control.
Is it any wonder that- as Europe fell into the dark wells of Rex and Societism- what attention the USA could spare from Central America was focused firmly on Asia and the Pacific?
Even before Japan formally annexed China there were many Chinese who were hostile towards Japanese imperialism within their Tian puppet. As an answer to Japan's support for anti-American rebels in the Philippines (and to a lesser extent Insulindia and American Borneo) the United States reached out to such Chinese with guns and money. The largest Chinese Nationalist organization in 1938 was the Chinese Republican Army with 50,000 fighters spread across a dozen provinces.
There is a case to be made that the Great Pacific War was in fact a kind of second World War. True there was little, if any, fighting associated with it in either Europe or Africa (they had their own wars), but the involvement of most of the New World, non-Geoist or Societist Asia, Oceania, France, and Ireland gave it a global shadow. Certainly, the army and naval forces involved on both sides would reach a scale beyond that of even the World War itself. Indeed it may be no more than Euro-centrism that limited it such a title, but the war was unquestionably great and it certainly revolved around control of the Pacific. Separate-verse Japan was much stronger than OTL Japan. It was larger, more industrialized, had greater support from its non-Japanese citizens, powerful allies who were actually in-theatre, wasn’t exhausted by a long Sino-Japanese War, and (perhaps crucially) possessed a far healthier political and military culture. On the other hand was a United States without European distractions (at the moment at least), a similarly greater population and industrial base than OTL, an economy unaffected by the privations of the Great Depression, a far more extensive military than it did in the OTL late ‘30s, and quite a few important allies of its own. Japan had no technological advantage ITTL- if anything America held a small technological edge- nor could it count on the advantage of surprise.
On March 2, 1938, when Japan finally announced the formal annexation of China and (recognizing that such a move would inevitably start a war between it and the United States) launched a general pre-emptive strike against America’s possessions in the West Pacific, no one could have predicted what it would lead to.
Let’s see. USA gets +3 for its industrial base, another +1 for its preparations, naval superiority cancels out with organization and morale issues, -1 for the numbers disparity India brings to the fight, other allies cancel out, +1 for technology and the fact Japan will still be trying to annex all of China without even the fig leaf of a puppet government, -1 for the Centroamericanos, +1 because the fighting will start in Japan’s end of the Pacific and the Empire will have a lot of heavy lifting to do if it wants to bring the fight to USA…. Let’s roll it. USA: ??, Japan: ??. Aw fudge nuggets. Do we keep the fumble or do we re-roll? Serious question readers, what do we do here?