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The Ryukyus were a vassal of China long before they bevame part of Japan. How can they end up as part of China or Taiwan to the present day? Is it possible for the islands to end up under ROC administration rather than the US after WWII? What would their government look like?

Not sure if this requires a pre-1900 POD, but as we know, concepts of race and ethnicity are rather unscientific and arbitrary. In the US Census today, we can see this (Chinese and Indian are both lumped together as "Asian," etc) and we can see the constantly-changing definitions of the past...

All of the ancient languages of the Italian peninsula, apart from Latin and Greek (the Griko dialect in the fringes of southern Italy) died out after the Roman Empire. The Etruscan language survived up until 50 CE at least, and the Etruscans as a cultural identity apparently still existed at the...

Is it possible in the long-term? The argument of proximity to the major NATO powers doesn't hold up for Cuba, so what about Ireland?

Mainland Chinese came to dominate Taiwan and formed substantial minorities in many parts of Southeast Asia. What would it take for some parts of Asia outside of the Japanese islands to have a similar presence of overseas Japanese, to the extent that Japanese is an important language there...

Indian vegetarians find protein sources in lentils, various beans and peas, yogurt, and paneer, but despite the widespread consumption of tofu in neighboring China and southeast Asia, tofu was never incorporated into traditional Indian diets. Paneer, on the other hand, managed to spread to...

The story of the Greeks in Central Asia and northern India focuses on the development of Buddhism - The synthesis of northern Indian Buddhism and Hellenic aesthetics and philosophy gave rise to a more colorful and outward-looking form of Mahayana Buddhism which helped Buddhism spread beyond its...

Why didn't Christian Western Europe develop significant Muslim minorities in the Middle Ages, in the same way that the same region had Jewish communities, or how the Islamic World maintained Christian, Jewish, Mandaean, Yazidi, Zoroastrian, and Druze minorities? How could Muslim communities...

In modern cultural and geopolitical terms, we often use the term "Western Civilization" (and Western food, Western people, Western art, Western music, Western philosophy, Western entertainment, Western culture) to describe the developed countries of Western Europe and other countries in North...

Here in Xinjiang, the various minority ethnic groups are very proud of their traditional cultures and keep their musical traditions alive. Uyghur, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz people love their ancient dances, their ancient instruments, and their ancient folk songs today just as much as their ancestors...

With a POD after 1650 CE, create a world in which neopaganism or, at least, practices explicitly acknowledged as pagan in origin, is widespread in the Western World. Bonus points if such neopaganism becomes the majority religion in most Western countries. I'm thinking the Romantic era could...

I just returned from a trip to Tashkorgan, Xinjiang, which is the main settlement of China’s Tajik minority. The town is close to the Pakistan border and has a constant stream of Pakistani businessmen passing through. At the local youth hostel, I spoke with some Pakistani guests who come from...

European Christianity of the pre-modern was very much intertwined with extra-biblical superstitions that Church officials detested but were often forced to turn a blind eye to. Some were not so apparent, like the simple juxtaposition of Jesus' birth on top of the winter solstice and hence the...

With a POD no earlier than 1950, make a community of ethnic Japanese born in the People's Republic of China large enough to be recognized by the government as the 57th ethnic group (日本族/RiBenZu), in the same way that ethnic groups from most of China's other neighboring countries (Koreans...

What could prompt the government of the USSR to create an ethnic homeland for communities of Han, Hui (Dungan), and Manchu minorities along the Chinese border and in Central Asia, under the policy of national delimitation? It seems as if the Soviets all but ignored the Chinese in their borders...

With a POD no earlier than 1500 AD, make it so that in the modern day, China has territory overseas other than Taiwan. The later your POD is, the better.

What steps would need to be taken so that eventually, all or part of the Hebrides (perhaps the Outer Hebrides) might feel a common identity with the people of Ireland and sympathize with some form of Irish nationalism. Perhaps they come to be seen as part of a greater Ireland and end up as part...

Indonesia is the world's fourth largest country, but to most people, it is a complete mystery. Of other large Asian countries, there's at least some awareness of their cultures in the collective popular imagination of the West. Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Thai restaurants can readily be found...

With a POD no earlier than 1900, how can we make Macau as successful as Hong Kong in OTL?

Is it possible to have the entire peninsula of Jutland assimilated and incorporated into a southerly German-speaking nation (whether it be Germany as we know it depends on how early the POD would be, of course)? The islands might remain independent or instead ruled by Sweden (or whatever power...