AHC: 21st Century Colonialism

Your challenge is to find a way in which colonialism is still acceptable, and fairly widespread, in this century.
The PoD can be anything after 1850, but you get bonus points for doing it after the end of WWI, and extra extra bonus points for after WWII.

Hint: It doesn't have to be about 'keep the British Empire' going or whatever. Perhaps other powers could join in...
 
Sorry, should this be in before or after 1900? I probably made a mistake there. Can somebody move it please?:(
 
Sorry, should this be in before or after 1900? I probably made a mistake there. Can somebody move it please?:(
It is technically possible with a Before 1900 PoD (say, by keeping European development back by a century), but I find After 1900 quite hard.

Now, you not only said that colonialism was to be acceptable*, but fairly widespread. A lot can change with an After 1900 PoD, avoiding World War One, for one, can prolong colonialism quite a bit, but I'd still say the vast majority of colonies would be independent before 2000. There can of course be the case of colonialism being acceptable somehow, but as these independent countries would fight with tooth-and-nail for survival, with weapons back them up, it would be very implausible to see how it could be widespread again.

There is also of course the case of economic colonialism, AKA neocolonialism, but as it is both widespread and acceptable today, I'm guessing that's not what you're talking about.

*I would say imperialist states can "keep" quite a lot of colonies to the current day, with one important caveat - the colonies are an equal part of the mother nation, which isn't really colonialism.
 
You could say that China is colonising Africa at the moment.

Not really, colonialism is formal government control. If there was the Chinese province of Mozambique showing up anytime soon, that would be one thing.

If we conflate colonialism to mean any king of control one country exerts over another, then colonialism as a word has lost all meaning.
 
Butterflying away US independence and avoiding huge European wars would probably do it. Britain, France and Portugal were certainly in no mood to give up their empires until American pressure and bankruptcy came along...
 
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