AHC: Chinese as an official language in the US

Exactly what it says on the tin. With a PoD any time after September 3, 1783, and with the United States having at least the territory of the OTL Continental US, make Chinese (or any dialect of Chinese) one of the official languages within the country by 2011.
 
The USA doesn't have any official languages, is this even possible?

The USA doesn't have any official languages in OTL. The challenge is to make it have at least two official languages (Chinese and English).

Edit: In case the title didn't make it clear, the challenge was for Chinese to be one of the official languages of the US. Obviously, having it as the sole official language is ASB.
 
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Ouch.

Can't see that happening without very large-scale colonization of the Pacific coastline, and I can't see China wresting control of California from the Spanish without serious changes.

In the early-to-late 1780s Qing China is under the Qianlong emperor, who's beginning to go crazy in his old age and give his country over to corrupt officials (e.g., Heshen). Realistically the POD would have to trigger the reform of the banner army system, navy, and administration at the same time as dropping the traditional complacency of China towards foreigners before opium smuggling depletes the money supply. Given the reaction to the Macartney embassy it's unclear how Qianlong would ever do it; it would have to be his son - and said son would have to preside over a much more stable transition and have a much better idea of the danger of Western powers early in order to modernize China while Europe is busy worrying about Napoleon.
 
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Potentially with no Chinese Exclusion Act you could go for a de facto official language like how Spanish is in some areas, but the whole thing? Eh...
 
In San Francisco, all election materials are in English, Chinese, Spanish, and sometimes Russian, Tagalog and Vietnamese. I'd guess that the best way this could happen on a federal level and to be enshrined in law as an official language would be through something of a legal glitch; have a law saying the official languages of the United States were those of all the states therein, let it sit at just English (or maybe English + Spanish, or English + French, depending on how that became a law; something to do with Quebec or different terms in the Louisiana Purchase or some way of Puerto Rico or Cuba), and then fast forward several decades or more and have California add Chinese.
 

Nilesap

Banned
You'd have to likely have something happen in the ming dynasty that makes a colony in america [something that is unlikely given china's culture at the time], but that wouldn't fit the bill since you require a USA and ming colonists would make a totally different country.
 
OK... got to thinking about this, can't really stop.

The way I see it that there's a couple of hard time constraints.

First, as this has to take place after 1783, it has to take place either late in the reign of the Qianlong emperor or immediately after. Qianlong was basically the Justinian of the Qing dynasty; he left the empire at its territorial apex but killed the treasury and weakened his dynasty. Afterwards the Qing went into decline.

Arresting that decline has to take place before ca. 1817 when the British decide to smuggle in opium, which causes a terminal decline in wealth from silver exports and legitimacy culminating in the First Opium war in 1839.

Grabbing a piece of North America and populating it is also a crazy prospect with few opportunities. I think the quickest way for this to happen is for there to be a territory grab followed by a quick mineral rush. The historical mineral rushes were the Alaska gold rush, the Fraser Canyon gold rush and the California gold rush, all of which give us three candidate territories: it can either be Russian Alaska, British Columbia or California. All of these are held by European powers during the time constraints except for California, and that basically restricts a land grab to the time of the Napoleonic wars or to the Mexican war of Independence (1810-1821).

I would rate these to be in ascending order of likelihood. China would not want to antagonize Russia which also happened to be a land neighbor. Even without the TSR that would invite more problems than it would be likely to want to handle. British Columbia would be more likely, but especially to an open China, the British would be a devastatingly bad enemy. No, it has to be California, and the ripest opportunity for taking it is to take it away from the Mexican rebellion.

That leaves us with two problems: first, how to get China the capability and international credibility to do so, and second, how to get the California territories... let's call them 金山 (jinshan, more or less the OTL name for San Francisco) into the United States.

The second bit is easier than the first. There can be one of two scenarios, the first of which is a Texas or a Hawaii situation: Americans go to (a possibly independent, breakaway) Jinshan, become a strong and well-equipped minority, and then expel or displace the Chinese, possibly with the help of US troops and possibly by co-opting the revolution. Alternatively, it's a Spanish-American war situation where the US defeats China in a war and gets colonies. Either way, this would have to either be very early when China is still modernizing and can't effectively project force, or later, perhaps when China goes back into decline and American manifest destiny hysteria is at its peak.

Getting to this particular POD is difficult. You basically need a modernizing emperor willing to drop the bullshit and effect a Meiji-style revolution, at least temporarily, to give China enough power to get colonies. However, the reactionary coup necessary to restore a conservative emperor would not be. Here's what I envision:

In 1792 or 1793, the Qianlong emperor is assassinated by a court faction supporting the accession of a different heir than the chosen prince Yongli during the course of the Macartney embassy. Yongli is able to escape to the British squadron at anchor outside Tianjin, which defeats the war junks sent to capture him, and before the new emperor can call up the banners a mixed force of loyalists and British marines are able to storm the palace and capture the conspirators. In gratitude, Yongli decides to liberalize trade relations and take on British advisors and observers, and has a decidedly more pro-Western outlook. He is now notably also aware of how outdated his army is. Now the Jiaqing emperor, he purges the corrupt administration of his father and recovers significant resources. Combined with port tariffs, he now aggressively studies Western methods and surrounds himself with cliques of modernizing officials while Confucian scholars are sidelined. In 1795 the Miao rebellions erupt; Jiaqing calls up the traditional banner armies which perform poorly. In response he redesigns model regiments of the Green Standard Army on British lines, which quickly and more efficiently break the rebellion and the later White Lotus rebellion. Jiaqing also begins to develop a powerful navy that begins enforcing Chinese interests in the region. Fast forward to the outbreak of the French revolution and their segue into the Napoleonic Wars, China weakly aligns with Britain, but focuses on modernization while sending token squadrons to aid in the capture of Ceylon and Java.

In 1811, China gets a taste for colonies and seizes California from rebellion-wracked Mexico, and preemptively sends a modern fleet to Manila Bay to convince the Spanish, who have other problems, to back down. ca. 1815, gold is discovered and ridiculous influx of Chinese, some of them forced laborers or prisoners, are shipped to the new colony of Jinshan to mine. A minority of Americans also join, and together they largely displace the preexisting population.

Shortly after, conservative elements in the court sidelined by modernization ally with Northern Qing banner army commanders disgruntled by their sidelining under the Jiaqing regime; they depose the Jiaqing emperor and curtail trade relations with the West, with special ire reserved for the Jiaqing's favorites the British, who are unable to intervene but retaliate with opium smuggling and open hostility. The new conservative elements in the court and presumably the new puppet emperor detest their predecessors' openness. China's modernization is halted, the new cliques executed, and the stage is set for eventual decline... but in Jinshan, the remains of the modernized Green Banner-type colonial army, there to present a credible deterrent to the Mexicans and Americans, take power and impound imperial sailing ships, creating an independent Western-facing state with perhaps tens to hundreds of thousands of Chinese forming an overwhelming majority in OTL Northern California, perhaps who turn to the British for help as a protectorate... and the stage is set.
 
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Let's say a POD of 1960, though I think we could do it later.

Maoist China fails to successfully reform, goes even further off the rails, and becomes a true "hermit kingdom" hostile to all of its neighbors and with massive internal problems. In a Falklands parallel, they try to amphibiously invade Taiwan, and thanks to poor strategic positioning on the part of the US Navy, actually make landfall and occupy some territory before being beaten back. The soldiers from the mainland, fresh from a gutting of their officer corps, are ill-disciplined and generally do not acquit themselves well either in combat or out of it.

In the US, there is a widespread outcry against the sitting President that makes Goldwater v. Carter look like a tempest in a teapot in comparison. The President (let's just say it's Carter/Mondale) and the Supreme Court are accused of abandoning "our China" to the Communists even though nothing really happened. At that point, somebody notices that Article 23 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty arguably gives the United States sovereignty over Formosa and the outlying islands, and a few rogue Congressmen take an interesting proposal to the now thoroughly panicked Taiwanese government...

After a narrow referendum on the island - helped along by the fresh memories of mainlanders looting, raping, killing, and generally making asses of themselves during their short stay - the people of Taiwan vote to be recognized as an autonomous territory of the US until such time as the situation on the mainland stabilizes. One of the conditions of this quasi-annexation is that the Chinese language is to have equal status to English in all federal government documents dealing with or concerning Taiwan, and will be the official language of the new autonomous territory. (You didn't say it had to be the official language everywhere within the country, so hopefully this meets your challenge.)
 
After a narrow referendum on the island - helped along by the fresh memories of mainlanders looting, raping, killing, and generally making asses of themselves during their short stay - the people of Taiwan vote to be recognized as an autonomous territory of the US until such time as the situation on the mainland stabilizes. One of the conditions of this quasi-annexation is that the Chinese language is to have equal status to English in all federal government documents dealing with or concerning Taiwan, and will be the official language of the new autonomous territory. (You didn't say it had to be the official language everywhere within the country, so hopefully this meets your challenge.)
If the still fresh memories of KMT soldiers looting, raping, killing, and generally making asses of themselves or the less fresh memories of Japanese soldiers looting, raping, killing, and generally making asses of themselves didn't make the people of Taiwan vote to become part of the US, why would the mainlanders cause them to? Plus Taiwan wasn't a democracy. There would be no voting. There is no way that Chiang Kai Shek's pride would let him ever agree to it.
 
If the still fresh memories of KMT soldiers looting, raping, killing, and generally making asses of themselves or the less fresh memories of Japanese soldiers looting, raping, killing, and generally making asses of themselves didn't make the people of Taiwan vote to become part of the US, why would the mainlanders cause them to? Plus Taiwan wasn't a democracy. There would be no voting. There is no way that Chiang Kai Shek's pride would let him ever agree to it.
Two reasons. First, in this case, there would still be a clear and present threat from the mainland that needed to be defended against in the future lest this happen again; not so with the remnants of Imperial Japan, which at this point consists of a couple of guys running around the Philippines and the North Korean propaganda department. Second, it takes the wind out of the sails of those who hope to reunify with the mainland in the near term; in the eyes of the Taiwanese, mainlanders are less "our wayward Communist brethren" and more "those bastards who came to our houses and killed our sons and daughters."

And Chiang would be dead by the time I'm envisioning this happening (late '70s/early '80s, coincident with the real Falklands war) so the OTL transition to democracy would have already started. With a PoD of 1960, we could easily set things up so there is thus even more of a power vacuum than there was historically; maybe Chiang Jr. is killed in the invasion attempt.
 
Two reasons. First, in this case, there would still be a clear and present threat from the mainland that needed to be defended against in the future lest this happen again; not so with the remnants of Imperial Japan, which at this point consists of a couple of guys running around the Philippines and the North Korean propaganda department. Second, it takes the wind out of the sails of those who hope to reunify with the mainland in the near term; in the eyes of the Taiwanese, mainlanders are less "our wayward Communist brethren" and more "those bastards who came to our houses and killed our sons and daughters."

And Chiang would be dead by the time I'm envisioning this happening (late '70s/early '80s, coincident with the real Falklands war) so the OTL transition to democracy would have already started. With a PoD of 1960, we could easily set things up so there is thus even more of a power vacuum than there was historically; maybe Chiang Jr. is killed in the invasion attempt.
In the eyes of the Taiwanese, "those bastards who came to our houses and killed our sons and daughters" were already on the island and had entrenched themselves in the government and ousted the native Taiwanese elite from their former positions. The mainland was already viewed as a threat. The communists don't have to do anything to get Taiwan to see them that way. In fact, an invasion would probably just rally the native Taiwanese to support the KMT in their struggle to retake China. In 1960, the 228 Massacre was still fresh in the minds of the Taiwanese and the KMT government. Taiwan was still in the White Terror, and anyone who didn't support the KMT party line would have been imprisoned and probably killed. An invasion by the communists would have justified the paranoia of the KMT and allowed them to crack down even harder on the population. Martial law in Taiwan would probably last even longer with no hope of democracy in the short term, much less a vote to join the US.

Also, Mao did try to invade Taiwan in 1949 IIRC, but in preparation for moving into the southern provinces, his troops were decimated by schistosomiasis. By the time his troops recovered and reinforcements arrived, the Korean War had begun, and the US had entered the area in full force. Taiwan is not an easy place to land troops on. Aside from 2 or 3 natural harbors, the western coast is a string of mud flats and salt marsh up to 5 miles wide at low tide. The communists lacked any sort of amphibious craft and would have been forced to wade in from offshore, where they'd be perfectly exposed as they slog through the mud.
 
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In the eyes of the Taiwanese, "those bastards who came to our houses and killed our sons and daughters" were already on the island and had entrenched themselves in the government and ousted the native Taiwanese elite from their former positions. The mainland was already viewed as a threat. The communists don't have to do anything to get Taiwan to see them that way. In fact, an invasion would probably just rally the native Taiwanese to support the KMT in their struggle to retake China. In 1960, the 228 Massacre was still fresh in the minds of the Taiwanese and the KMT government. Taiwan was still in the White Terror, and anyone who didn't support the KMT party line would have been imprisoned and probably killed. An invasion by the communists would have justified the paranoia of the KMT and allowed them to crack down even harder on the population. Martial law in Taiwan would probably last even longer with no hope of democracy in the short term, much less a vote to join the US.

Also, Mao did try to invade Taiwan in 1949 IIRC, but in preparation for moving into the southern provinces, his troops were decimated by schistosomiasis. By the time his troops recovered and reinforcements arrived, the Korean War had begun, and the US had entered the area in full force. Taiwan is not an easy place to land troops on. Aside from 2 or 3 natural harbors, the western coast is a string of mud flats and salt marsh up to 5 miles wide at low tide. The communists lacked any sort of amphibious craft and would have been forced to wade in from offshore, where they'd be perfectly exposed as they slog through the mud.
Well, hm. I still think doing something with Taiwan during the Cold War is about the only way to get something like this passed in the notoriously-Sinophobic United States, though. (Also keep in mind I'm envisioning this as happening about 20 years after the PoD I mentioned, because we would need to build all sides up to this state of affairs; China has to have time to put together a fleet worthy of the term, for instance. Don't know how much that changes your mind.)

Could we perhaps do something with the White Terror? Maybe Sun Li-Jen actually is convinced by the CIA to lead a coup against the government, but fails. This provokes Chiang to start purging the "Western-influenced" to a much greater degree than we saw OTL, prompting the US to intervene based on the claim to sovereignty previously mentioned?
 
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