AHC: Allied Imperial Japan in world war 2

Just a thought - IF China allies with Germany and Japan re-establishes its ties to the UK when Germany sweeps thru the Low Countries and France the UK agrees to have Japan protect and administer the Dutch East Indies and French IndoChina. This gives Japan access to the oil and resources at least in the short term. Not sure where it would go from there.
 
Just a thought - IF China allies with Germany and Japan re-establishes its ties to the UK when Germany sweeps thru the Low Countries and France the UK agrees to have Japan protect and administer the Dutch East Indies and French IndoChina. This gives Japan access to the oil and resources at least in the short term. Not sure where it would go from there.

Would the British expand North through the Raj and Burma into Tibet and Yunnan?

USSR expand into Xinjiang?
 
If Japan restricted their interests to the North (Karafuto, Kwantung Leased Territory), effectively splitting China with Britain as well as France and the USA, there would probably be a decent chance if the militarists could be more effectively controlled or at least wrangled into compliance by the civilian government.

With Manchukuo, things get a lot dicier. There would have to be an immediate and well-broadcasted crackdown on further expansionism, and the colony would have to not be governed like a massive criminal enterprise like it was OTL.
 
In this AHC how much things is needed to change in order for Japanese empire to be an Allied power in world war 2?

They still have to be their imperial Japan self with militarist in charge and their war crimes have to still happen.

Can this happen through non ASB change in history?

Given that the Wallies allied with Russia OTL.....

Yep! Why not.

In fact they wouldn't even need to ally - simply stay pro West Neutral

I can imagine a Japan that has fully committed itself to supplying Britain and France with everything from Rice to New Merchant ships for gold 'and is not invading their colonies' would be much higher up on the British and French Christmas Card list than OTL
 
Just a thought - IF China allies with Germany and Japan re-establishes its ties to the UK when Germany sweeps thru the Low Countries and France the UK agrees to have Japan protect and administer the Dutch East Indies and French IndoChina. This gives Japan access to the oil and resources at least in the short term. Not sure where it would go from there.
Why would Chin a ally with Germany? They can get more from the Allies.
 
There were German instructors in China thru most of the 30s. If you look at pictures of Chinese troops in the early war period you will see German style equipment and helmets. Several others on this board (including on this thread) have postulated it. International politics can be strange.
 

HJ Tulp

Donor
Assuming there's a fascist uprising or some pod with a new fascist monarch. Queen assassinated by commies etc

Because of pillarization it was extremely unlikely that the NSB would get significant popular support, let alone control of the government.
 
Avoid the termination of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance for one. Furthermore, let the Japanese keep Qingdao. Japan's attention proceeds to be focused on Northern China.

When WWII breaks out, Japan occupies Indochina in the name of Free France in a similar fashion to how the British invaded Syria and Lebanon. The British and Americans looks the other way as the Japanese are low-key setting the groundwork for "independent" nations following WWII.
 
There were German instructors in China thru most of the 30s. If you look at pictures of Chinese troops in the early war period you will see German style equipment and helmets. Several others on this board (including on this thread) have postulated it. International politics can be strange.
Yes, but it's not enough to bother joining the Axis.
 
Probably the easiest way is to have Germany allied to the Chinese and the UK allied to Germany. :)
For stronger Anglo-Japanese and Sino-German Alliances, perhaps the key would be greater Soviet Aggression in China. Have Japan's civilian government reign in the Fascists/Militarists, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance renewed but on the condition Japan leave the Chinese Mainland (including Manchuria) alone, and Taishō living on and continuing Taishō Liberal Democracy. Also delay the 1934 Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang until 1937. With no Japanese Invasions of Manchuria or China and no 1937 Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, have the USSR simultaneously invade Manchuria and Xinjiang, while also having the USSR fully support the Chinese Communist Party over the Kuomintang/Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War. ATL's Soviet Invasions would strengthen both the Anglo-Japanese and the Sino-German Alliances. With the USSR in Manchuria sharing a border with Korea under Japanese rule, the USSR supports a Korean Communist Revolution. Due to the Franco-Soviet Alliance, France would probably not condemn Soviet Aggression in China, preferring to draw Chiang Kai-Shek and the KMT's attention away from French Indochina. The Soviets later back-stab the French by jointly invading Poland with Nazis and by supporting the Việt Minh.

A Soviet military intervention during the first phase of the Chinese Civil War would probably result in an earlier victory for the CCP. Chiang and the KMT flee in exile to Japan. Despite Chiang and the KMT's previous alliance with Nazi Germany, Japan welcomes them. The Japanese later transfer Chiang and the KMT to Taihoku, where they allow them to function as a government-in-exile. A Pan-Asian propoganda campaign tells of how China tragically fell to Communism/Soviet puppets. The USSR has territorial disputes with Japan over Karafuto/Sakhalin and the Chishima Archipelago/Kuriles, while the PRC has territorial disputes with Japan over the Diàoyú/Senkaku Islands, Taiwan, and Penghu. Following World War II, the United Kingdom and United States remain allied to Japan as a bulwark against both the USSR and the PRC. The US obtains its OTL bases in Japan and Korea via Lend-Lease.
 
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In this AHC how much things is needed to change in order for Japanese empire to be an Allied power in world war 2?

They still have to be their imperial Japan self with militarist in charge and their war crimes have to still happen.

Can this happen through non ASB change in history?
That's really hard because the simple way relatively is for GB not to abrogate the 1902 treaty, and that probably undercuts the militarists rather severely.
If the UK supports a militarist Japan involved in mainland china and the rape of Nanking etc this will probably push the US to an at best hostile neutrality towards the UK, a worst the USA and Germany grow closer and actively support the KMT making war between German and the USA very much less likely. Indeed the Germans may not need USW as with the UK supporting Japan there could well be a US trade sanction against the UK anyway, at the least the UK will not be getting any help from the US administration. that it cant pay cash on the nail for. On the other hand with the UK and France supporting Japan, Japan will not need to attack the East Indies for oil. so at least a direct head to head UK-Us war can probably be avoided, unless the UK tries to sink US ships trading with Germany, which would be ironic
 
A few ways it could perhaps happen (all separate)
  • America doesn't join WW1 and that doesn't allow the rise of the Anglo-American alliance, allowing for the Anglo-Japanese alliance to remain strong. They see each other as allies they can rely on and the British banks give the Japanese loans at a decent rate.
  • Hitler declares them "Untermenschen" and refuses to allow them to join.
  • USSR joins Axis.
  • Alternatively, have communism grow stronger, perhaps starting with a Communist Germany. After communism starts scoring some more victories in other countries (e.g. Spain or an even easier Chinese communist victory) and Germany and the USSR start strengthening relations with each other, the Allies pretty much panic and communism becomes the centre of the war instead of fascism.
This could happen but Japan would still in this be the pro-British non-militarist government. IMHO it is possible to have Japan stay sane and allied to the UK or go buggy and militarist I cant see how you get both Unless you somehow have both a Germany totally invested in the KMT AND an isolationist USA doing nothing about it, which requires major changes to both German and US politics. In fact it virtually requires removing the US as an international factor. To do that one probably needs something like the Business coup to happen and kick off a civil war, as even US isolationists were interested in China.
 
I might be thinking about this wrong, but my question here is what would Japan have to offer the Allied powers in this case? Without their militaristic expansion, the Pacific Theatre is effectively a nonissue (discounting China for the moment). It'd simplify supporting the Soviets with Lend-Lease equipment (cancelling the Arctic Convoys and instead shipping everything to Vladivostok and west via the Trans-Siberian Railroad), but that's about all I can think of.

The China question is...you'd need a much more defined timeline and PoD to get any useful answers there. Does Japan still seize Manchuria and Korea? Does the West support the communists or the Nationalists? Either way, that throws a considerable wrench into western involvement with the Chinese Civil War (neither side was happy with occupied Manchuko, but an Allied Japanese occupation strains things between the western powers and the KMT). And then this whole scenario spirals off into alternate versions of the Chinese Civil War that either split the Soviet-Anglo alliance or creates a very weird position of both supporting and not supporting Communist forces in Asia simultaneously, which turns into a complete and total hairball of three-way dealing that I can't even begin to imagine.

Hell, if you play it right this could end up with an east-west alliance of Japan, the western Allied nations and KMT/Nationalist China against a Central Asian Communist bloc of the PLA and Soviet Union. And that has...interesting implications for the European war as well if the Soviets break off.
 
Changes major enough to keep Japan aligned to Britain are large and early enough to butterfly away WW1 as we know it, but here goes:
- Ōkuma Shigenobu survives the assassination attempt of 1899 without injuries, and the assassins are caught and executed, discouraging further attempts of assassinations as a form of politics.

- Surviving and healthy Ōkuma Shigenobu alters the inner dynamics of 'Sat-Chō' hambatsu seven towards more cooperative policy towards China.

- Yamagata Arimoto and Itō Hirobumi strike a bargain after the tensions in Manchuria and Korea are solved by a deal with Russia.
- Japan and Britain, eager to counterbalance Russia, come to agreement for defence of Raj as was suggested in OTL.
- The following decades steer Japanese military mindset towards cooperation with a major international ally, raising a generation of officers who view Japan and her armed forces in a very different light without the victories of 1905 and 1914.

- When Britain gets involved in a major war in 1930s, they can rely on their key allies in Asia to respect their treaty obligations.
 
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