AHCWI: Make Europe Want To Carve Up China

[AltoRegnant]

Otl, other than the ports and economic freedom, the European empires didn't fancy a chinese province or two. Too many people, too expensive, too much competition between themselves...

So. That begs the question: how do we get an organized (similar to the Berlin conference) divvying up of the middle kingdom, how do we get it to be desired by the European powers, and what are the likely ramifications? POD after the berlin conference

 

[N7Buck]

Manchuria, Mongolia, and Sinkiang get influenced by Russian expansion, whereas Britain/Others takes more coastal cities. That is the most I can see of China getting carved up.

 

[dcharles]

Uh...

It was kind of an issue at the time.

 

[Hugh Third of Five]

It would help to reduce diplomatic pressure from the USA. Britain loved colonization but wanted to be on good terms with the USA, both because of ethnonationalism and because geopolitically they wanted allies against Germany.

Uh...

It was kind of an issue at the time.

Although the Europeans carved out port cities and parts of cities, China didn't get the level of colonization that characterized the Scramble for Africa.

 

[RMcD94]

No American Hawaii -> No American Pacific Imperialism (ie continues the trend of abandoning it that was occuring in 1880s) -> No American PH -> more American racial riots re: Chinese (perhaps because of a later exclusion treaty) -> no open door policy

Convention of Lhasa - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Stuff like this is not that different from how other protectorates were treated, so it's quite easy from 1895 to 1905 to have a scramble for China

In the boxer war make sure that the emperor announces the war and so southern provinces join in against europeans = full scale war.

Of course Europeans will support local proxies ala India, so you have autonomous governors/notables fighting Qing centralization

Also have Siam partitioned in 1880 so there are less independent countries, that is relatively easy minor POD

 

[Alex Zetsu]

Maybe if Europe was more conservative and reactionary they might view any fall of the Qing as the spread of a dangerous idea, just like how they viewed revolutionary France, so everyone dogpiles on China. Since there is less good faith between the rulers of China and Europe than between themselves, while the European powers were sometimes at odds, the idea of intermarrying to secure alliances for a few generations wasn't out of the question, every European power in TTL takes a slice of land and treat China like Africa?

 

[Socrates]

Britain didn't want to carve out chunks of India either. In fact they passed laws to stop the local nabobs doing it. Have the same in China - local colonial magnates seeking fame and glory and wealth, and going to war without the permission of the metropole.

 

[Fratsup]

Have China fall into a civil war that weakens the state enough for the Europeans to invade and conquer the area.

 

[Tyler96]

Have all the assorted civil wars of the mid-19th century (Taiping, Nian, Panthay, Miao, Dungan) get so apocalyptically bad that Europeans see greater intervention (and the costs thereof) by themselves as the only way to restore order (and therefore trade revenue)?

 

[AltoRegnant]

Have all the assorted civil wars of the mid-19th century (Taiping, Nian, Panthay, Miao, Dungan) get so apocalyptically bad that Europeans see greater intervention (and the costs thereof) by themselves as the only way to restore order (and therefore trade revenue)?

oof if they get that bad Europe might actually have strong ethical reasoning. on the basis of "shit's not on fire"

 

[dcharles]

oof if they get that bad Europe might actually have strong ethical reasoning. on the basis of "shit's not on fire"

Ah yes, "shit's not on fire."

Famed argument of all the major ethicists.