Additional non-White countries which could have expanded in the 1850-1914 time frame?

I believe Khiva and Bukhara both expanded into some new territories during this period. On the other hand, their level of independence was not as high as Japan's and their expansions were not very significant. But there must be ways to turn them (the Bukhara Emirate in particular) into something bigger and more important.
 

Zachariah

Banned
Madagascar's issues are, of course, is the backwardness of the country, the low population, the relative lack of industrial resources such as coal and the complete disunity of the island before the 19th century. It's a great shame, as a Meiji Madagascar is a cool concept, just not very likely.

Really, you have to look at places with areas of high population density, as these areas would have the commercial basis to develop quickly into a capitalist economy under the right conditions. The Yangtze Delta in China stands out as the obvious candidate, with a per-capita income roughly equivalent to Britain's in the 18th century, a population of 30 million and trade links across much of China and South East Asia.

What else stand out as good candidates? Certainly, the Bengal Region could be a serious contender under the right circumstances. If the British can be prevented from gaining the area in the mid 18th century, not only with British Imperialism likely be stalled in the rest of India, but the Bengal would have a good chance to develop. Under different circumstances, Egypt could prove to be another contender, though the problem with all of these regions is a lack of industrial resources. Unfortunately, areas of the non-European world where coal is easily found tend to be relatively sparsely populated (such as Iran).

As a bonus, I would argue that the Chao Phraya Basin in Thailand could potentially be more populated in a world where the Burmese invasions are not repeated. Even today, the fertility of the area allows Thailand to be the world's biggest rice exporter. With different conditions, could it give Thailand the population density for a far more commercially focused economy? I'd definitely be interested in a scenario like that. Thailand's main problem of course, is that the areas that were taken from it were nearly all non-Thai in population. Indeed, Thailand was left with significant areas with non-Thai populations, including Muslim Malay populations in the South even today.
True, Madagascar's population base of roughly 2M in 1850 isn't much to work with; but it's still markedly more than Zanzibar. And Madagascar's actually one of the few places in Africa which had a decent shot when it came to industrial resources, such as coal deposits:
World-Map-of-Coal-Deposits.png

Not much difference between them and Japan and/or Great Britain in that regard, is there? And Madagascar also now has proven recoverable oil deposits of over 19.1 billion barrels- albeit with more than half of these locked in oil sands, and roughly 2.4 billion barrels of oil which could be utilized in the industrialization period; still, far better than the initial 400 million barrels of oil reserves which Japan had to make do with. And Madagascar is one of the most mineral abundant nations on earth, with numerous and substantial deposits of both industrial and metallic minerals, including, but not limited to: ilmenite, graphite, pyrolusite, limestone, gypsum, dolomite, silica, mica, titanium, quartz, gold, platinum group, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, cobalt, chromite, coal, oil and uranium, along with a great number of precious and semi-precious stones (with the world's richest sapphire deposits). If they'd had the political organisation and the will to do so, it's one of the few African nations which had the capacity to industrialise and 'pull a Meiji'. As for the backwardness of the country- well, given more than 2 yrs to implement his progressive policies more completely over a longer period of time, Radama II could have done something about that. And the complete disunity of the island before the 19th century wasn't so complete- the Merina Kingdom dated back to the mid 16th century, and it was widely acknowledged that the Merina monarch was the king of Madagascar from the dawn of the 18th century onward. It may not be very likely, and either an earlier POD or a significant amount of good fortune may be needed to make it plausible. But unlike several other candidates, it was possible.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
True, Madagascar's population base of roughly 2M in 1850 isn't much to work with; but it's still markedly more than Zanzibar. And Madagascar's actually one of the few places in Africa which had a decent shot when it came to industrial resources, such as coal deposits:
World-Map-of-Coal-Deposits.png

Not much difference between them and Japan and/or Great Britain in that regard, is there? And Madagascar also now has proven recoverable oil deposits of over 19.1 billion barrels- albeit with more than half of these locked in oil sands, and roughly 2.4 billion barrels of oil which could be utilized in the industrialization period; still, far better than the initial 400 million barrels of oil reserves which Japan had to make do with. And Madagascar is one of the most mineral abundant nations on earth, with numerous and substantial deposits of both industrial and metallic minerals, including, but not limited to: ilmenite, graphite, pyrolusite, limestone, gypsum, dolomite, silica, mica, titanium, quartz, gold, platinum group, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, cobalt, chromite, coal, oil and uranium, along with a great number of precious and semi-precious stones (with the world's richest sapphire deposits). If they'd had the political organisation and the will to do so, it's one of the few African nations which had the capacity to industrialise and 'pull a Meiji'. As for the backwardness of the country- well, given more than 2 yrs to implement his progressive policies more completely over a longer period of time, Radama II could have done something about that. And the complete disunity of the island before the 19th century wasn't so complete- the Merina Kingdom dated back to the mid 16th century, and it was widely acknowledged that the Merina monarch was the king of Madagascar from the dawn of the 18th century onward. It may not be very likely, and either an earlier POD or a significant amount of good fortune may be needed to make it plausible. But unlike several other candidates, it was possible.
How early of a PoD are you thinking of for this, though?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
I believe Khiva and Bukhara both expanded into some new territories during this period. On the other hand, their level of independence was not as high as Japan's and their expansions were not very significant. But there must be ways to turn them (the Bukhara Emirate in particular) into something bigger and more important.
How exactly do you avoid their de facto conquest by the Russians, though?
 
I believe Khiva and Bukhara both expanded into some new territories during this period. On the other hand, their level of independence was not as high as Japan's and their expansions were not very significant. But there must be ways to turn them (the Bukhara Emirate in particular) into something bigger and more important.

Their army just went to pieces when confronted by a much smaller Russian one, though, so they'd still need serious, serious overhauls in order to stem the tide of Russian advances. When it comes down to it, I just don't think they had the resources.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Their army just went to pieces when confronted by a much smaller Russian one, though, so they'd still need serious, serious overhauls in order to stem the tide of Russian advances. When it comes down to it, I just don't think they had the resources.
Agreed.
 

Zachariah

Banned
How exactly do you avoid their de facto conquest by the Russians, though?
IOTL, the Afghans were nominally allied with them; to tie in with one of the earlier suggestions of Afghanistan as a candidate, how about having the Afghan-backed Basmachi movement garner more official support from Afghanistan? Instead of merely supplying them with arms and offering them refuge for a brief period, as they did IOTL (due largely to the murder of King Habibullah Kalakani, their most vocal and enthusiastic ally, after only 9 months on the throne, which threw a spanner in the works), the Afghans send their own military forces across the border to intervene in this conflict directly (with the approval and financing of this effort by the British from behind the scenes) after the October Revolution and the fall of the Russian Empire to the Soviets. This results in the Afghans eventually emerging victorious against the Tashkent Soviet and the newborn Red Army, and securing the independence of the majority of formerly Russian Turkestan, along with the Emirate of Bukhara and Khanate of Khiva, under the Afghans' military leadership by the mid-20's?

Then, when the Kumul Rebellion kicks off in the early 30's ITTL, the Afghans intervene here as well, just as they did IOTL, but through direct military action here as well; they're the first to officially recognize the First East Turkestan Republic as an independent nation, and after Turkestan, Bukhara and Khiva follow suit, they manage to persuade the British, Iranians and Turks to give East Turkestan official recognition as well. As such, the Kumul Rebellion is also successful, also courtesy of the Afghans, with East Turkestan (better known as Xinjiang today) also joining Afghanistan's own established regional military alliance. And thus, by the early 1930's, King Habibullah's Afghanistan has become the undisputed 'Great Power' of Central Asia. Along with the Afghan 'mujahideen' having come into existence a full fifty years earlier ITTL than IOTL, with the Soviets as their deadly adversaries, and the Western World as their greatest allies on the world stage. Yes, I know that it'd technically be post-1914. But still, worth thinking about?
 
I do believe that if any power manages to last post-1914, they have much better chances as that's the moment European powers start to frown upon such things, see the backlash against Italy when they went to get Ethiopia.

Zanzibar could have lasted longer if they had tried to divert their economy from slavery. It's "just" a matter of avoiding one invsion pretext after another. There will always be another crisis popping up so all you gotta do is be less of a priority than any other crisis.

That means aligning in some ways with industrial powers without causing too many ripples until you're strong enough to fight back, see Japan.
 
While I can't see any other non-Western countries having the same success as Japan had in the XIX century, given that they were building over three centuries of commercial expansion, There are other non-Western countries that could have done better in the XIX century, most of them who have already been quoted here.
-Muhammad Ali's Egypt, had it avoided dthe debt it got by it's disastrous war against Ethiopia.
-Merina's Madagascar, had it avoided Ranavalona I's disastrous reign. You could make the very efficient Radama I stop drinking and make him to live a lot more (he died at 35).
-The Sikh Empire, making it avoid it's sucession crisis.
-Aceh, making it survive the colonial horse-trading.
These are, in my opinion, your best shots for other non-Western powers during the XIX century.
 
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