A Sane Japanese Empire

[Doug M.]

So, what if Takahashi or someone of like mind had pioneered his quasi-New Deal approach back in '27,

That's not completely daft, but it needs some spadework. What Takahashi did in '31 and after was very bold, and the only reason he got away with it was because the government was utterly desperate. In 1927 it would have been far outside the bounds of acceptable orthodoxy. Just going off the gold standard for a couple of years (which they did) was considered pretty risque; it was accompanied by loud and firm proclamations that they'd go back on it just as soon as things stabilized. Fiscal stimulus and deliberate inflation... whoo. Very heady stuff indeed.

With no invasion of China (in the form of occupation, looted/raped cities, carved off puppet states--but lots of Japanese business enterprise, )

Well, there was lots of Japanese enterprise in China OTL.

The tricky bit here is getting a stable Chinese government that (1) isn't actively hostile to Japan, and (2) is acceptable to Japan. Chinese nationalism is going to resent Japan as an imperialist foreign power taking advantage of China; Japanese military and economic elites are going to be reflexively nervous of a strong centralizing Chinese government.

Maybe not impossible, but harder than it sounds.


Doug M.

 

[abc123]

The tricky bit here is getting a stable Chinese government that (1) isn't actively hostile to Japan, and (2) is acceptable to Japan. Chinese nationalism is going to resent Japan as an imperialist foreign power taking advantage of China; Japanese military and economic elites are going to be reflexively nervous of a strong centralizing Chinese government.

Maybe not impossible, but harder than it sounds.


Doug M.

To achieve that is allmost impossible.

 

[eltf177]

As I see it, the two biggest problems are rampant militarism and the quagmire of China.

Somehow the Emperor needs to maintain control over the Army and Navy, perhaps the emperor declares himself more than just a figurehead?

Avoiding China helps reduce tension with the US. But Japan needs resources and, as mentioned, the west held the territory with these. Perhaps a "Asia for the Asians" propaganda movement with under-the-table support for separatists?

But getting an empire _without_ alienating the west is going to be just about impossible...

 

[Mostlyharmless]

I find myself nodding with approval to all the things that Doug M is saying about how difficult were the problems faced by Japan after around 1927. One can add a few extra details. The emergency help for banks following the Great Kantō Earthquake also led to some accusations of corruption against politicians (I once tried to suggest no earthquake as a POD for the survival of Taisho Democracy https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=2780959#post2780959). More generally accusations of corruption were a frequent weapon of anti-democratic forces and Hiranuma Kiichirō used the Teijin Scandal (see a book by Richard H. Mitchell http://www.amazon.com/Justice-Japan...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245919169&sr=8-1) to weaken the remaining civilian parties in the Mid-Thirties.

However, the initial question asked for a “Sane Japanese Government” rather than a democratic or peaceful or pro-Anglo-American one. The two really crazy features of Japan during the 1928-41 period were firstly that relatively junior military figures, starting with Colonel Komoto Daisaku, made far reaching political decisions and secondly that the central government almost never predicted correctly how other governments would behave. A classic example of the second problem might be when Matsuoka Yōsuke argued in 1940 that Japan needed to sign the Tripartite Pact or the Germans and Americans would divide up the world. I think that he was arguing that they were basically the same race! The interesting point is that Matsuoka was a professional diplomat.

 

[Tyr]

Give Japan a better deal post-WWI. Maybe give them some or all of the German colonies in the Pacific. Japan's fall to militarism and ultra-nationalism was partly due to getting a bum deal from the Great War.

Unfortunately a POD like this would probably require a lot of miniature alien space bats to mitigate the inherent racism held by Europe's great powers.

Despite the butt-kicking that Japan handed to Russia during the 1904-05 war, the Japanese were still seen as an inferior race by most Europeans. Give Europe a greater respect for the "yellow man" and you have a much saner Japan with her own colonies (outside of Korea, of course) and thus less of a military Napoleon complex.

At least, that's my opinion.

Then Australia would be really pissed though. And they did more for the war than Japan.

There may well be some truth in what you say about western attitudes to Japan- though I would see these not being so much racism as them having been a medieval country within living memory- but the main reason for them not getting much out of the war is that there really wasn't much for them to get. Their role in the war was small and the asian/pacific front was tiny. There wasn't really much they could be given.

 

[Wendell]

There may be a counter-intuitive way to do this, but it might involve a point of divergence allowing a moderate though popular military figure to run the country in a nominally "democratic" fashion. The nice thing about the 1920's and 1930's in Japanese history is that there are plenty of available candidates from which to choose if there can be justification found for their rule.

 

[Mostlyharmless]

There may be a counter-intuitive way to do this, but it might involve a point of divergence allowing a moderate though popular military figure to run the country in a nominally "democratic" fashion. The nice thing about the 1920's and 1930's in Japanese history is that there are plenty of available candidates from which to choose if there can be justification found for their rule.

Perhaps Tanaka Giichi? Does anyone know why he died? Was stress a factor? It is just possible that Hirohito could have supported him in 1928-9 or, alternatively, the assassination of Zhang Zuolin might not have occurred (the easiest POD might have been if a KMT supporter had killed Zhang first).

 

[Wendell]

Perhaps Tanaka Giichi? Does anyone know why he died? Was stress a factor? It is just possible that Hirohito could have supported him in 1928-9 or, alternatively, the assassination of Zhang Zuolin might not have occurred (the easiest POD might have been if a KMT supporter had killed Zhang first).

He probably died because he was old. He was born in the 1860's, remember.