A German-Chinese-American entente.

The U.S. isn't going to want to involve itself in this particular strain of Euro-Asian high jinks, and I doubt public opinion would permit it.
 
For one it would require a pre-1900 POD so the US and UK weren't friendly and China wasn't in such a bad spot. Second you'd need to kill the isolationis sentiment in the US. Third, China would need a lot of help to become an effective partner against Japan in such an alliance.

Assuming all of that happens, then WW1 gets a bit more global if the UK still joins in against Germany.
 
I think that you would need a pre1900 PODs where Chinacreforms and modernize. Then the US becomes frosty to Britain and France. Maybe from strains from the ACW. Add to it Germany winning the Franco-Prussian War. Once you have all these in play you might see an alliance to offseta competing Alliance.
 
Like most I see several very significant PODs being necessary:

1. Much more stable and modern China.
2. Much frostier relations between the US and Great Britain for whatever reason.
3. Much friendlier relations between the US and Germany, again for whatever reason.
4. Much more stomach for international activism in the US.
 
I could not say for certain, but IIRC, around this time was the more or less unofficial beginning of Sino-German cooperation; where Germany, hoping to gain influence in a modernizing China, undertook to supply China with arms, training, investment, and technology, etc. This was briefly interrupted by China's entry into WWI on the side of the Entente, but resumed very quickly in the 20s.
 
A useful POD would be a Chinese victory in the Sino-Japanese War; their OTL defeat discredited the Self-Strengthening Movement, which slowed their modernization IIRC. Actually, a well-publicized Chinese win may attract German interest earlier, since if they prove themselves a credible military force they may be seen as a counterbalance to Russia. Likewise, the USA may reach a similar conclusion once they start getting wary of the Japanese.
 
So we have a bit to work with. There are a multitude of threads dedicated toward the US in the CP to pull from. So let's get that part out of the way:


  • The UK and US have frostier relations due to no rapprochement in the late 1800s. We'll say this happens due to border disputes with Canada, the Venezuela Crisis, and the ACW.
  • There was a large Irish and German population in the US so creating an atmosphere that is more pro-German isn't unheard of.


Now that THAT is out of the way let's look at China. Britain has a strong hold on China due to the Opium trade and using the Opium Wars and Boxer Rebellion as an excuse to increase their presence. This is in tandem with Britain's alliance to Japan.


China needs to honestly be stronger to avoid giving the British such a strong foothold and give the Germans a bigger opportunity. For this you either need the Republic of China to pop up earlier or you need to make the Qing Dynasty not so mismanaged in foreign relations.


Thoughts so far?
 

raharris1973

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An Entente could be plausible, but for only limited diplomatic purposes.

The Kaiser was proposing it while worried about encirclement by an Russo-French-Anglo-Japanese Quadruple alliance, that would, among other things, partition China leaving it with only the short end of the stick.

Had a partition of China by those four powers appeared more likely in the era from 1907 to 1914, parallel or coordinated diplomatic protests by Washington or Berlin would have appeared more plausible, as would even financial cooperation to the same end. Naturally, Beijing would endorse diplomatically American and German efforts on behalf of Chinese territorial integrity.

Now, this is all diplomatic cooperation well short of war. I also think that Taft would have been more amenable to it than TR, because TR was less sentimental about China than others of his time.

If the Quadruple Entente powers called their bluff in China, neither Germany nor America would go to war over it.
 
The Kaiser proposed a Russian-German alliance in 1905. He was largely the driving force in forging the Ottoman alliance in 1914. He even proposed French and German cooperation against Britain in 1910. And he routinely prodded the British on the subject. In his mind, spur of the moment alliances were a thing, and one that could actually work. He actually got the Tsar to sign the Russian one in private - it's just his advisers in St Petersburg balked. Heck, if the Goeben hadn't sailed off and bombarded Russia, even the Ottomans wouldn't have come around.

Alliances are not and can not be the work of a moment or even of a year. They are long-term constructs that require gradually building relationships and trust. King Edward understood this, and did it expertly in France and Russia. Kaiser Wilhelm did not.

It's also funny to imagine him offering the Chinese an alliance in 1907, when just a few years earlier he had sung a different tune while sending troops to China:

"You know full well that you are to fight against a cunning, brave, well-armed, and cruel enemy. When you encounter him, know this: no quarter will be given. Prisoners will not be taken. Exercise your arms such that for a thousand years no Chinese will dare to look cross-eyed at a German."

Edit: Whoops. That was the official paper version of the speech. He embellished a bit when he actually read it:

"Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German."
 
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A US-German alliance is possible with a post-1900 PoD, but good luck with a Chinese alliance. The US was crazy-racist against Chinese people at this point, and I'm pretty sure Wilhelm specifically endorsed the murder of Chinese rebels who had already surrendered to European forces.
 

raharris1973

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The US was crazy-racist against Chinese people at this point

against Chinese in America. Chinese in China could be a different story. Crazy racism didn't stop American sponsorship of Liberia, or naval participation in anti-slave trade patrols.
 
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against Chinese in America. Chinese in America could be a different story. Crazy racism didn't stop American sponsorship of Liberia, or naval participation in anti-slave trade patrols.

Nor did it stop the U.S. from being absurdly pro-China between the world wars.
 
Nor did it stop the U.S. from being absurdly pro-China between the world wars.

And the West Coast racists weren't necessarily anti-Chinese. They were anti-Chinese immigrants. They wanted to business with China, just not compete for jobs. If you read the literature of the period you can find weird (and even then not especially convincing) attempts to justify this by pretending Chinese merchant-traders and working-immigrants were actually different races.
 
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