Deleted member 94708
There’s a question... how and when is Qingdao decolonized? How about Hong Kong and Macao?
Surely not up to the present?
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There’s a question... how and when is Qingdao decolonized? How about Hong Kong and Macao?
Surely not up to the present?
sorry should have worded it better what is the general situation of the german pacific territories politically and the future? Will germany keep the pacific islands, what about Qingdao will it remain german or handed back to china? Will german qingdao turn into a german version of british hong kong? How is its development?
Remarkably cordial. Germany combines the desirable feature of being a minor colonial power, like the USA, whose crimes are easier to overlook and, unlike the other minor players, a major industrial power. Also, Germany has its own decolonisation struggle, but it is nowhere near as wounding as that of Britain, France or Portugal. Britain defined its very position in the world by being an Empire. France believed its future depended on bestriding the Mediterranean. Portugal's wounded national pride hung on its colonial might. Germany had colonies, but they never mattered all that much. The big questions of its future were decided in Europe. Having Ostafrika or Samoa was nice, but not existential. German politicians could take a much more sanguine approach to anticolonial rebels and coloured people in government because outside of Continental Europe, Germany's foreign policy is exports. That is it.
That makes the Germans good partners. The French, the British, the Dutch or Portuguese may come to you looking for influence, to score points off each other, or in the hope of filling vacant positions as colonial rulers. the Germans want your money or raw materials, and they offer you industrial goods in return. There are no (well, fewer) strings attached. They even managed to arrive at a reasonable accommodation with their own former colonies based on agreed-upon lies.
All of that produces the impression that the Germans had been 'good colonisers'. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but they happily believe it.
Qingdao is returned to China early, as part of the accommodation between the Chinese Empire and the German Empire at the end of the Chinese Civil Unrest. China agrees to pay to Germany a moderately fantastic sum in return which is then recalculated into market access privileges. Hong Kong and Macao like Weihaiwei and Guangzhouwan are returned on expiration of their respective leases, with everyone pretending that was what they had always been meaning to do (yes, there never was an expioration date for Macao, but everyone agreed to pretend there was). Hong Kong was the last to go back. The Kwantung territory is also returned early, to Manchuria, but that's really just a piece of diplomatic sleight-of-hand.
No, but well into the 1960s.
Qingdao is returned to China soon after the end of the civil war there. The Germans need good relations with China more than they need a treaty port. The development in all of Shandong under German protection was quite positive, with significant industrial growth and cordial political relöations. Largely because Berlin knew they couldn't afford a war in China and thus did not try to push Beijing around like the Japanese, French and British did.
As to the other Pacific territories - I could see some of them staying nominally German. The Solomon and Bismarck islands make a nice, sleepy overseas territory like Martinique. So might Samoa. Their chunk of New Guinea is liable to be merged with the Dutch bit on independence, though.
Good point.
I assume they'll be doing fine, generally speaking. Silesia is prospering, at least until post-Fordist deindustrialisation, and though the city will gain a stronger Polish minority than it had, it will not be anywhere near as tense and riven as e.g. Prague. The university enjoys imperial protection, and it's liable to end up among the leading institutions in Prussia. But I don't foresee anything exceptional happening.
Not really. The standoff between Britain, France, Germany and the United States beforehand is the better analogue.
About the Lithuanians, I thought they were considered as loyal as Germans, since they had been in Prussia from the start. Like how the referendums in East Prussia had the Protestant parts want to stay in, or something.
yboxman
Banned
My apologies if this was adressed earlier, but how will German GDP per capita compare to that of France, Britain and the U.S around the 1970s? At some point you compared Germany to the "New York of MittleEuropa", with Poland, the balts and the Balkans the equivalent of flyover country. Is German GDP per capitain any way comparable to that of New York/ California?
Oh hell, yes. Eugenics is alive and well. In many Western countries, it is a tad controversial, seen as a good thing that can definitely be abused and that our forebears didn't really proerly understand, causing some unfortunate side effects. An uneasy alliance of Socialist and Catholic activists oppose it as a policy principle, but most people, while they may admit that forcible sterilisations were a bit much (they don't know about the mandatory abortions of mid-century), generally don't see a problem with ensuring future generations are born healthy. It isn't a high-profile thing any more. It was in the first half of the twentieth century when it was married to all kinds of half-baked racial theories, but as its defenders make clear, that was not 'real' eugenics. 'Real eugenics' is based on a solid understanding of genetics. It is studied both as a field of medicine and of social studies. "Humangenetik und Populationseugenik" is a Facharzt qualification that students come from all over the world to obtain. Berlin, Marburg, Göttingen, Tübingen and Dresden are the leading research centres (Tübingen was where DNA was first isolated). Social workers have a mandatory course in eugenics and can qualify as "FamilienberaterIn" with nurse-level training in child care, general medical practice, and practical eugenics. Many other countries have similar systems.
ITTL, the face of eugenics in Germany is not a sadistic SS officer vivisecting Jewish children, it is a smiling lady (social work is overwhelmingly a female occupation) explaining to hopeful couples what financial aids are available for starting a family, where to apply for maternity leave, what medical tests should be taken prior to and during pregnancy, and what medical interventions are indicated should ("We do all in our power to prevent it in advance, but there are so many things we do not know yet.") the fetus show abnormalities or worse, if the defect went undetected until birth. It looks nice, many people think it is. Many practitioners generally try to be helpful. Most eugenicists get into the field because they love children and want to see them healthy and happy. They have spent years perfecting the ability to talk hesitant mothers-to-be into abortions or relatives into euthanasia. They are 'good people'.
By the early 21st century, genetic screening is a routine procedure early in the pregnancy, abortion in the event of abnormalities is covered by health insurance, and this has reduced the number of child euthanasia to a very low figure (all euthanasia requests must be made through a medical doctor and screened by a commission). That is what progress looks like, I guess.
AFAIK the Lithuanian minority was never actively combated or 'denationalised' the way the Poles and French were. It makes sense - the Germans have long had a collective soft spot for the people of 'the North' and tended to romanticise them. That said, they would only be considered German if they actually assimilated culturally and linguistically. No doubt many will - many members of minorities did IOTL and the German government honoured the deal (then). You will see loads of Lithuanian families adopt German names, speak German at home and send their children to German schools. But Lithuanian identity will no doubt remain, and grow in the course of the twentieth century as people become a tad less nationalistic.
Those are two different questions.
Bavaria is doing fine. It is not comparable to the stellar economic success story that the Cold war made it IOTL, but it is a thriving part of Germany with excellent universities, large industrial towns with both traditional and future-proof manucaturing, a major urban centre in Munich, significant tourism appeal, and the reputation of being the 'nicer' part of Germany. More 'gemütlich', more soulful, less of the hard edges of Prussianism. Berchtesgaden draws droves of German families from the Ruhr and Berlin longing to escape the moloch, skiing and mountain hiking are popular upper-middle-class sports, and the Oktoberfest is one of Germany's biggest tourist attractions, bigger than Karneval in Cologne or Sedanstag in Berlin. The Bavarians know how to party.
Of course it's not all sweetness and light. Many rural areas are still underserved and poor. Traditional cliques of landowners, industrialists, priests and officials (often from the same families) monopolise political decisionmaking. Education is patchy: excellent universities and top-tier Gymnasien coexist with rickety village schools for the rural poor. The influence of the Catholic church on social life outside the cities was long-lasting and often pernicious. Yet for all the justified criticism of the 'black stranglehold', it also saved Bavaria from some of the more egregious abuses of the twentieth century eugenic movement.
The Wittelsbach now - that is a different story. The royal family made the unfortunate decision to try and base their continuing political influence on traditional rural elites and the church. That backfired as Bavaria increasingly industrialised and urbanised, and the kings did not deal well with the situation. They failed to align themselves with democratically legitimated factions the way the Hohenzollern and other ruling houses did. Politics in Bavaria were characterised by decades of confrontation between town and country, liberal pro-democratic and Catholic royalist, and the Wittelsbach family's image suffered badly as a result. They were one of the dynasties that did not abdicate responsibility gracefully. The king still reigns in Bavaria, but he does not rule and has few enough friends. Even the church is increasingly divided between conservative hardliners and squishier moderates, the villages that were the favourite recruiting ground for police and army are shrinking or turning into suburbs, and even many very conservative Bavarians see the (distant, mighty) emperor rather than the (embarrassingly close and often impotent) king as the focus of their loyalty these days.
New York City? Not even close, but that is not really a fair comparison. Much of Germany is semi-rural and there is no comparable concentration of wealth and its attendant high-cost services.
Germany is wealthy, but not hugely so. In the 1970s, with decolonisation proceeding and the crisis of vertical integration yet to come, it looks comparatively good, about on par with Metropolitan France and only slightly below Britain. Per-capita GDP everywhere in Europe is lower than that of the United States, though not by as much as it was IOTL. Part of that is because the USA structurally has so many more things counted in, but part of it is also that the USA is a more resource-rich country.
In terms of standard of living, Germany in 1975 is about comparable with the industrial heartlands of the United States, though Americans still enjoy some significant advantages. In terms of GDP per capita, it lags. There are no cities in Germany that compare with NYC or LA as services centres and banking hubs, which skew the numbers heavily. I think you would be about on par with Illinois, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania at that time - good, but not world-beating.
It will get better for the Germans in the years following. Decolonisation hits especially France badly, and Britain depends heavily on banking and investment to keep up its numbers. Germany is going to be on par or better in raw numbers, and with a more equitable distribution. Not the richest country in the world, but among the wealthiest in the big countries club.
As with so many things in your timeline, this is all too believable.
The event that, more than any other, triggered the creation of China's modern constitution was the Manchuria Treaty of 1938. General Wang Soochee had initially been content to make his claim to rulership on the traditional basis of the Mandate of Heaven, displacing the Dowager Empress as the power behind the throne and keeping Emperor Guangxu as his puppet. The creation of the first constitution in 1913-15 was an afterthought, designed to curry favour with Western public opinion and appease domestic leftist intellectuals to garner support for the imperial centre. No real deviation from the traditional patterns of power was intended.
It was only after the re-establishment of Peking's power through much of the core provinces in the aftermath of the disastrous rebellion that the need for a real constitutional settlement became obvious. The division of the empire into spheres of influence had created something that China had not seen in many centuries: a meaningful comparison of styles of government. While many welcomed an end to the fighting, citizens who had come to appreciate the stability of the Treaty Port territories were hesitant to embrace imperial rule wholeheartedly. Peasants in many areas met imperial governors with demands regarding 'fair' taxation and expected services. China's government needed to reckon with interest groups and voters.
At this vulnerable time, the Japanese government, concerned at the increasing consolidation of China and mulling the possibility of a unilateral invasion, presented their ultimatum. Aging General Wang was able to prevail and forced the acceptance, giving China safety from Japanese aggression in return for recognising the cession of all of Manchuria as a state under a separate branch of the Manchu dynasty. Despite all propaganda painting this as the expulsion of a foreign body from the Han-Chinese state, the move was seen as a stinging defeat among China's intelligentsia. While Japan created what it glowingly referred to as the 'Harmony of the Three Suns' between the emperors of Japan, Korea and Manchuria, the Peking government struggled to assert its legitimacy in the face of continued weakness in foreign policy.
The initiative to produce a new constitution, we now know, came mainly from Emperor Guangxu. In the light of recent events, the original intent to model it on the Japanese system carried little appeal. Instead, the decision was made to design China's political future along German lines, with a strong executive headed by a hereditary monarch, but circumscribed by laws and an elected legislative body. With the advice of the current Assembly and a body of German legal scholars, the Chinese Constitution of 1939 was put to a vote and passed, though narrowly. A planned referendum was delayed and ultimately scrapped out of fear it would produce unwanted results. There was, at that point, no reason to foresee the lasting success it would have or the way it would become woven into China's political culture. Unlike Japan's celebrated Teikoku Kenpo, it was not initially loved, but, like Siam's 1927 British-inspired Crown Law, it became a powerful focus of patriotic identification especially for the minorities of China.
Westbrook, J.L.: Noncolonial Constitutionalisms. Constitutions and Power in the Far East 1856-1979, Cambridge MA 1984
It was only after the re-establishment of Peking's power through much of the core provinces in the aftermath of the disastrous rebellion that the need for a real constitutional settlement became obvious. The division of the empire into spheres of influence had created something that China had not seen in many centuries: a meaningful comparison of styles of government. While many welcomed an end to the fighting, citizens who had come to appreciate the stability of the Treaty Port territories were hesitant to embrace imperial rule wholeheartedly. Peasants in many areas met imperial governors with demands regarding 'fair' taxation and expected services. China's government needed to reckon with interest groups and voters.
At this vulnerable time, the Japanese government, concerned at the increasing consolidation of China and mulling the possibility of a unilateral invasion, presented their ultimatum. Aging General Wang was able to prevail and forced the acceptance, giving China safety from Japanese aggression in return for recognising the cession of all of Manchuria as a state under a separate branch of the Manchu dynasty. Despite all propaganda painting this as the expulsion of a foreign body from the Han-Chinese state, the move was seen as a stinging defeat among China's intelligentsia. While Japan created what it glowingly referred to as the 'Harmony of the Three Suns' between the emperors of Japan, Korea and Manchuria, the Peking government struggled to assert its legitimacy in the face of continued weakness in foreign policy.
The initiative to produce a new constitution, we now know, came mainly from Emperor Guangxu. In the light of recent events, the original intent to model it on the Japanese system carried little appeal. Instead, the decision was made to design China's political future along German lines, with a strong executive headed by a hereditary monarch, but circumscribed by laws and an elected legislative body. With the advice of the current Assembly and a body of German legal scholars, the Chinese Constitution of 1939 was put to a vote and passed, though narrowly. A planned referendum was delayed and ultimately scrapped out of fear it would produce unwanted results. There was, at that point, no reason to foresee the lasting success it would have or the way it would become woven into China's political culture. Unlike Japan's celebrated Teikoku Kenpo, it was not initially loved, but, like Siam's 1927 British-inspired Crown Law, it became a powerful focus of patriotic identification especially for the minorities of China.
Westbrook, J.L.: Noncolonial Constitutionalisms. Constitutions and Power in the Far East 1856-1979, Cambridge MA 1984
I do have to say that I'm a bit taken aback by the idea of the Qing state lasting in any form all the way until 1938.
Deleted member 94708
This Qing state was less decrepit than OTL's counterpart, having been involved in a victorious war against Russia and with the prestige necessary to ram through some basic reforms as a result, IIRC.
Sure, I get that.
But the Empire was already in such an advanced state of decay by the time of the war that it was living on borrowed time. Victory in war (especially a war in which China was a very secondary theater) cannot supply the deficit of internal resources of reform. The Qing simply lacked the ability to reform itself in a coherent manner; it could and did only adopt modernity at the margins.
I could see the war buying it another decade or so of life. But not much more.
I actually agree with that assessment. My main reason for keeping the Qing dynasty is that I have no idea what a good new dynastic name would be. What I envision is the rebellious officers needing a figurehead and coopting the pliant emperor. So basically a reverse Meiji that tries to build an ethnic nation state within the remnants of a divinely appointed Empire without tearing it all down because the continuity with the Chinese state that has treaties and alliances matters in this world, and nobody needs that much chaos (it gets bad enough).