AH Challenge: Have Japan as a US state!

The challenge is that the POD has to be after 1960, and Japan has to ask for statehood by 2000.

Can it happen given 40 years? If so, how?
 
Excluding a major catastrophe, maybe after a (anti-Chinese, anti-Soviet) Communist Revolution, America would'nt want it's major ally/base in the area going over to the enemy, so America invades and eventually annexes it, and if it's an anti-China and anti-Soviet regime the PRC and USSR may not do anything beyond verbally condemn it.
 
The only somewhat realistic chance I see for statehood is Okinawa. Okinawa, and maybe other parts of the Ryukyu islands, was under US administration until 1972, when it was returned to Japan. I think statehood for Guam would have to come first, setting a precedent for Okinawan statehood.

If all of Japan was admitted to the Union, there would be more than one state, I would assume. And then you get the problems of how many new senators and representatives will be coming into Congress. American domestic politics may not allow a large new population into the Union.
 

Krall

Banned
ASB, but it would probably have been for the best. The Japanese could have been saved from themselves.

"Saved from themselves"? What?


I seriously doubt this would ever happen, realistically. Admitting Japan into the union would add half of the USA's population to the union, leading to Japan being a ridiculously powerful state when it comes to votes in the House of Representatives and in Presidential elections. In addition to this, the cultures of the two countries are too different for this to last, or to even be seriously considered.
 
Maybe if Japan continues its depopulation, it will let the U.S. administer the islands when all of its people die of old age. That probably means "Japanese statehood" around the year 2200. :p
 
I'd say the pod Has to be earlier

I can see a POD in the mid-war years, especially if Japan formally anexes some of its conquests as a propaganda move. ""Manila is now the capital of the Easten Prefecture, not a conquered foreign land!" "Singapore joins the Empire" etc. The attempt is made to try to make the conquests look secure to both foreign and domestic sources. They appoint members to the diet, etc, to create a fiction of everything being part of one big happy empire.

The responce is for the USA to do the same on conquering some pieces of Japan--especially if the USSR does the same in Europe as it moves into Germany.

Once the American flag goes up, it's not known for coming down all that often...
 
Cuban missile war, of the "US loses a few cities, Eurasia gets plastered" variety.

The US eventually (after dealing with problems at home) occupies parts of Asia and Europe as a humanitarian effort: later, as part of the general "Part of the US/US allies/demonstrably harmless/radioactive parkinglot" theory of US international relations (the US took the loss of Manhattan rather worse than it would have in, say, 2004) the 5 million surviving Brits, 4 million surviving Germans, and 10 million surviving Japanese were incorporated as US states.

(Nuclear genocide. Is there anything it can't do? :D )

Bruce
 
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ASB, but perhaps if there is a hari-kari mentality that applies to those following it "helping" civilians (i.e. soldiers killing civilians) following an invasion, throw in a few more nuclear bombs, perhaps Japan would be so depopulated that the fact it was a society drastically different that the West's before wouldn't matter.
 
I doubt that in this senerio that Japan would enter as a single state. Probably several. Toyko as a single state?

Beyond that, this is very difficult.

Nuclear war certainly comes to mind.

A unified and very aggressive Soviet/China block threatening them along with very closely allied economies...

Frustrations with Japan's political process and lack of reform,

Or maybe a Charismatic leader pushing the idea of a utopian world if the two largest economic power unitied to stabilize a dangerous world.

Japan saves world from instablity and nuclear war by "sacrificing" itself and in the process becomes a huge (largest?) ethnic group in the world's most powerful nation with undenable access to it's markets?
 
"AH Challenge: Prevent Nuclear Bombs from ever being used"...:rolleyes:

Well, that only specifies nuclear genocide, not genocide involving nuclear bombs. So...

Later development of nuclear energy (no Manhattan project)
Nuclear power plants developed first
We get some Chernobyl type incident on the Manhattan Island Fusion Plant in the early 70s, right as nuclear bombs start getting developed
Two million New Yorkers and tourists die
Horrified at the disaster, the US, Soviet Union, and Japan (no nukes dropped on Japan lead to butterflies with it keeping its military, and it obviously wouldn't be so anti-nuke ITTL) form a pact not to use nuclear warheads. Their respective nuclear programs are ended and prototypes are dismantled over the next few years.
Peace and love reign over all
 
This could only happen if you killed off all the actual Japanese, then ship in settlers of the USA to colonize the islands.
 
First, the first 2 nukes don't make Japan surrender. Emperor is a nut case and declares that he will fight on. Numerous extra bombs are loosed on Kokura, Tokyo, and other cities. Japanese population slaughtered.

Next, the Korean War is turned into the Japanese War when Communist China and Korea (unified by USSR) invade West Japan. Population slaughtered again.

Finally, the war is won by USA and allies. Numerous USA settlers come to Japan to establish thriving businesses, and the islands are taken in a manner similar to the annexation of Hawaii, because American settlers become a majority or significant minority.

Sounds ridiculous and ASB, but so does the idea of Japan as a state.
 
Japan as _a_ US state is an impossiblity without genocidal die-off or ASB intervention. [1] Sans Very Major Dieoff Japan as multiple US states requires a non-racial US that actively incorporates other states, which probably requires a pre-1900 POD or is a future speculation (wasn't there a anti-Decades of Darkness TL started someways back? Decades of Light or some such?). Japan and US both as parts of some sort of multi-national superstate - hmm, alternate 1984-type scenario?

Bruce


[1] Unless the US goes in for giant-sized "states" like the CNA in "For Want of a Nail." Then, it's a variant on the second case.
 
They are right. Only with a depopulated Japan would the US even consider annexing Japan.

Some say thats why the US gave the Philippines its independence even after having fought the Filipino-American war from 1899 to 1902. They knew the population of the Philippines was increasing very fast. A Filipino state today would make up 25% of the US population. With population comes power.

Of course some argue that a Filipino State would have an higher standard of living so less people. But then you must calculate that they would be getting plenty of illegal immigrants from the poorer nations near them.

This on the war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine-American_War
 
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