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Long pepper was also in vogue before chillies.

The trouble is that letting local interests run the place completely undermines the captive market and British profits. What happens when the acculturated Indians decide to promote industry in Bengal instead of obediently focusing on cash crop production for the mills of Birmingham? You're...

Eh? There was little nationalist movement in Singapore (and in Malaya as a whiole). Britains failure to defend Singapore created a generation of young intellectuals who realised that they couldn't depend on the Empire. Once again why would they free a region which wasn't showing much...

Why on earth would they do this in the richest port of one of the parts of the Empire that was turning a profit and didn't have much in the way of nationalism?

Well, they're essentially developments of Medieval concentric castles, except lower to make artillery less effective. So presumably easier to storm than an actual concentric castle, but not as difficult to defend as a star fort.

No ones saying they would be utterly useless. But they'd be expensive and much less effective than actual mediaeval fortifications.

Even if the Party fragments somewhat I suspect the core ideology will keep the cadres working somewhat in concert whereas all the forces within Chiang's regime will be pulling against each other. It's a recipe for another decade of warlordism.

This still precludes a stable Nationalist China. And decades of guerilla fighting is likely (simply by natural selection) to throw up at least a few competent leaders.

One thing that just occurred to me. Even if the KMT smashes the CCP in conventional warfare doesn't a KMT "victory" just mean the cadres melt away into the sea of the people and start from scratch with low-level guerrilla warfare? This, to me, is an issue that the KMT would have that OTL's PRC...

So where does the profit come from? The entire point of (non settler) colonies was to lock down cheap resources and captive markets for the products of he metropole.

What's the incentive?

It would be a hell of a lot easier to storm than an actual medieval wall.

An almost ASB scenario but if we handwave it into existence... Depends on how the Indian Nationalists work things out. Subhas Chandra Bose will likely be in ascendance. The maharajas are likely to be irrrelevant- the vast majority of them were overt opponents of the Indian nationalists and...

Actually Lee Kuan Yew isn't the issue. He was perfectly happy to work with the British when it meant consolidating his own power. The British, however, were more interested in stabilizing Singapore against a perceived Communist threat and then getting the hell out. This is why they rejected...

Inposing physical distInguishers on a subject population is a lot easier than trying to impose an entirely new writing system on the existing bureaucracy and intelligentsia you need to actually run your newly acquired Empire.

I think the real tell is the shabby way Britain kept many Hong Kongers in a very vague status about their citizenship. Even today there are Hong Kongers who are British Overseas Nationals but not British citizens.

In addition, a preemptive British strike likely means zero cooperation from Congress in India. They were willing to support the war effort to a point but Britain dragging Asia into an aggressive war would lead to massive resistance in India.

Mea culpa.

Competition in the Caribbean is likely to be a bit expensive for the Irish. You need slaves and your white guys are gonna die in droves. Up North is a better bet, especially since the Irish have a good chance of getting there early.

Very good point- New Hibernia, Land of Fur, Cod, and Whale Oil!