AHC: Japanese Empire plus economic miracle and cultural liberalization of the 60s?

Not a specific pod but could you have the Japanese Empire survive and westernize to the same levels as otl by no later then the 50s and 60s but you can do earlier if you think you can give a reasonable pod for it. Everything by the 50s should at least be on comparable level to otl japan development.

To be clear it does not have to be as democratic at otl at least on paper but it should be comparable to otl japan socially and economically freedom wise more so then politically. The emperor can still have power but he might not use it often and will often leave decisions up to elective and appointed people in domestic affairs and let military handle a lot of foreign affairs if they aren’t as radical as otl. Or it is a “benevolent” or “enlightened” emperor. Whatever you think fits best.

But the economy of Japan by the 80s on homeland island and preferably Taiwan and Korea too should be where they were at in 80s. This should continue into 90s and next century like otl. Just to be clear if you go for a large or co prosperity sphere empire you don’t keep to have the whole thing be as liberal or as advanced as Japan. They can be their sweatshops or puppets or whatever.

Japan on home islands is the big part. Have Japan as a surviving Empire develop anime, cars, and high end technology like otl by the point they did in otl. The more details bits can be different but that is the main point of this AHC.

Bonus points for this being spread across Asia under a really successful Japanese Co prosperity sphere in a way. Japanese militarism mixed with American capitalism. The Co prosperity sphere might have cities long Singapore and Hong Kong spread all throughout it but closer to core have a thriving home islands and a somewhat assimilated but well off Korea. Taiwan basically becomes an extension of home island. Japan controls multiple Chinese ports and strips of land directly and have much of the rest as puppets under their control. How each is ran is up to you but if each can at least have large modern capitalist urban cities even if the country isn’t democratic or filled with stuff like sweatshops and child labor that is a bonus for this challenge.

The major influence in Japanese becoming what they are is American influence. I don’t see why more friendly or social relations with the US would not lead to Japanese unintentionally being influenced by American style capitalism like otl and develop some similar trends. American influence doesn’t have to be introduce like otl. It could happen naturally due to trade. Trade is huge for Japan and maybe a reform minded emperor realizes the benefits of American trade and friendly relations. They can get more food and other needed goods from US while US gets access more to markets in Far East without actually having to involve themselves as much. Japan might actually get away with more in China and expansion wise if they are giving Americans generous trade offers after taking stuff.

This leads to Japanese adopting American capitalism like otl but more like a second Meji then what we saw after ww2. How could a situation like this happen?
 
Hmmm... The main problem would be the military dictatorship. Not sure how to get them to step down peacefully...
Do they need to? At least completely? A military industrial complex could form in Japanese Empire. Japanese would adapt American capitalism to its own desires. Industrialist and military often did work with each other in Japan or go hand and hand. A more corporatist model maybe? The emperor does command a high level and respect and could be a good mediator between groups. Maybe the emperor in 20s is healthier and lives longer?
 
Do they need to? At least completely? A military industrial complex could form in Japanese Empire. Japanese would adapt American capitalism to its own desires. Industrialist and military often did work with each other in Japan or go hand and hand. A more corporatist model maybe? The emperor does command a high level and respect and could be a good mediator between groups. Maybe the emperor in 20s is healthier and lives longer?

You'd need to give the entire military leadership personality transplants (as well as the entire junior and mid officer corps to stop them from killing all the suddenly sane flag officers).
 
You'd need to give the entire military leadership personality transplants (as well as the entire junior and mid officer corps to stop them from killing all the suddenly sane flag officers).
Yes, but aren’t many of more hardline elements in military also super loyal to emperor? What about a more “benevolent” or reform minded emperor? Could he keep them in check somewhat regarding domestic affairs? Also the Japanese could still be very militaristic and imperialist when not dealing with Europeans.

What if that becomes the method to convince Europe or at least US to let Japan take more especially in China? They just become more open to trade especially free trade with them? The military gets what it wants and domestically Japan still shifts towards American style capitalism and free trade?
 
Yes, but aren’t many of more hardline elements in military also super loyal to emperor? What about a more “benevolent” or reform minded emperor? Could he keep them in check somewhat regarding domestic affairs? Also the Japanese could still be very militaristic and imperialist when not dealing with Europeans.
Having the February 1936 coup catapult the Sakurakai to national government could give Hirohito enough power to keep the more militarist-imperialist elements of the Japanese government and officer corps in check.
 
Have the junior officers and a few key leaders agree about modernization/Westernization, start the process by encouraging investment in the most obvious places and having senior leadership make money, and when the 'old guard' is out of effective power shift into higher gear. Perhaps the biggest obstacle is including the juniors of the GEACPS in the process so that they want to stay in the Sphere instead of go their own way, or expand to make it geographically cohesive not just politically cohesive.
 
Have the junior officers and a few key leaders agree about modernization/Westernization, start the process by encouraging investment in the most obvious places and having senior leadership make money, and when the 'old guard' is out of effective power shift into higher gear. Perhaps the biggest obstacle is including the juniors of the GEACPS in the process so that they want to stay in the Sphere instead of go their own way, or expand to make it geographically cohesive not just politically cohesive.
Didn't the junior officers explicitly reject Westernization?
 
Do they need to? At least completely? A military industrial complex could form in Japanese Empire. Japanese would adapt American capitalism to its own desires. Industrialist and military often did work with each other in Japan or go hand and hand. A more corporatist model maybe? The emperor does command a high level and respect and could be a good mediator between groups. Maybe the emperor in 20s is healthier and lives longer?

Japan was rapidly industrializing from 1929 onwards and by the 1940s actually had a larger machine tool stock than the USSR. After the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact and the formalization of the growing relationship with Germany, licensing agreements and technical assistance saw a massive rate of heavy industry coming into being in particular.
 
Didn't the junior officers explicitly reject Westernization?

Some did. Mostly its was a spread across the spectrum, with some extremists dragging others along. Assassination had become common in Japanese politics & the threat intimidated many people.

Years ago a Japanese I talked to about this subtly indicated the core of leaders among the 'renegade' army officers were members of the families that controlled the Zaibatsu. The implication was these guys were acting out a unofficial imperialist policy of the Zaibatsu, their uncles or grandfathers, and not a bunch of wild eyed nutcases. There was also a implication in the conversation these 'jr officers' had more complicity with the senior Army officers than is popularly supposed in the English language narrative.
 
The Chinese and the Japanese nearly came to an agreement on the status of Manchuria in 1934, which would've also given Japan an opening to restore amicable relations with the Anglo-Americans. To quote an old SHWI post by @David T:

In 1934 it seemed that a Chinese-Japanese rapprochement (based on Chinese
*de facto* recognition of Manchukuo and Japanese promises not to move any
further south) was a possibility. In Japan the key figure supporting such
a policy was Hirota Koki, who either as Foreign Minister (as in 1934) or
as Prime Minister was the most important civilian politician in Japan in
the mid-1930s: "cooperation among Japan, Manchukuo and China" was his
slogan. Hirota appreciated Chiang Kai-shek's efforts to destroy the
Chinese communists. Hirota also wanted reconciliation with America and
Britain--provided of course that they would recognize the new realities in
East Asia. (After all, shouldn't the US realize that Japan was seeking no
more in East Asia than the US enjoyed in Latin America with the Monroe
Doctrine?) According to Akira Iriye, "Japanese aggression and China's
international position, 1931-1949" in the *The Cambridge History of China,
Volume 13: Republican China 1912-1949, Part 2* (edited by John K.
Fairbank and Albert Feuerweker (Cambridge UP 1986), pp. 510-511 (all
references in this post are to this book, unless otherwise indicated):

"Hirota was not without success in 1934. At least outwardly, the Japanese
military endorsed the strategy of using peaceful and political means to
consolidate Chinese-Japanese ties and promote Japanese interests in China.
There were, to be sure, those in the Kwantung Army and the Boxer Protocol
Force in Tientsin (the so-called Tientsin Army) who were already plotting
to penetrate North China. The South Manchurian Railway, anxious to keep
its monopoly in the economic development of Manchuria but coming, for that
reason, under increasing attacks from non-business Japanese expansionists,
was also interested in extending its operations south of the Great Wall.
At this time, however, these moves were not crystallizing into a
formidable scheme for Japanese control over North China. Certainly in
Tokyo the government and military leaders were content with the
achievements of 1931-3.

"The powers, on their part, were generally acquiescent in the Japanese
position in Manchuria. They even showed some interest in investing money
in economic development there. With Japan stressing cooperation anew, the
confrontation between Japan and the Anglo-American powers was
disappearing. There were irritants, to be sure, such as the Amo [Amau]
statement of 17 April 1934, in which the Foreign Ministry spokesman
strongly rejected other countries' military aid to China as well as such
economic and technical assistance as had political implications. The
statement was ambiguous, and when Washington and London sought
clarification, the Foreign Ministry immediately backed down, reiterating
its adherence to international cooperation. No amount of rhetoric, of
course, could hide the fact that Japan perceived itself as the major East
Asian power. However, it was ready to re-establish the framework of
international cooperation on that basis..."

As for Nanking, some personnel changes suggested that it too was ready to
deal:

"T. V. Soong, the outspoken denouncer of Japanese aggression, when he
returned from London in late 1933, had been replaced by H. H. Kung. Wang
Ching-wei [Wang Jingwei] stayed on as foreign minister, and T'ang Yu-jen,
a Japanese educated bureaucrat, was appointed vice foreign minister. Kao
Tsung-wu, another graduate of a Japanese university, was recruited to
become acting chief of the Foreign Ministry's Asian bureau. Underneath
these officials, there were many more who had been trained and educated in
Japan. Unlike more famous diplomats such as Alfred Sze and Wellington
Koo, who were almost totally Western-oriented, these officials had
personal ties with Japanese diplomats, intellectuals, and journalists.
Matsumoto Shigeharu's memoirs, the best source for informal Chinese-
Japanese relations during 1933-7, lists not only Wang, T'ang, and Kao, but
scores of businessmen, military officers, intellectuals, and others with
whom he had contact at this point, most of whom, he reports, expressed a
serious desire for accommodation with Japan." (p. 512)

Those who felt this way had various motives. Some thought that the
Communists, both Chinese and Russian, were a more serious threat to China
than Japan was. Others wanted Japanese help in the industrialization of
China; they looked to the Western powers as well for capital and
technology, but they believed that such enterprises could not succeed if
Japan was excluded. Finally, of course, they all wanted to stop further
Japanese aggression, and felt that only by recognizing what Japan had
already achieved and co-operating with the relative moderates in the
Japanese government could the expansionist extremists in Japan be checked.

"This was the background of the talks Minister Ariyoshi Akira held in 1934
with Chinese officials, including Foreign Minister Wang Ching-wei. The
atmosphere was so cordial that Wang issued only a perfunctory protest when
the Amo statement was published. A series of negotiations was
successfully consummated, covering such items as mail and railway
connections between Manchuria and China proper, tariff revision, and debt
settlement. Toward the end of the year Japan expressed its readiness to
raise its legation in China to the status of embassy, symbolizing Japan's
recognition of China's newly gained position as a major nation...[A
rapprochement] would entail at least tacit recognition of the status quo,
China accepting the existence of Manchukuo as a separate entity and Japan
pledging not to undertake further territorial acquisitions southward.
China would also promise to suppress anti-Japanese movements by students,
journalists, politicians and warlords, in return for which Japan would
assist its economic development." (pp. 512-13)

One thing that caused Chinese officials to favor rapprochement with Japan
was that the Chinese were disappointed with how other nations were acting.
The international ostracism of Japan which the Chinese had hoped for had
not come about. The US under the Silver Purchase Act was buying up silver
at a price above world market rates. [1] "The immediate result was a huge
drainage of silver from other countries, notably China, causing severe
shortages and monetary crises. Banks closed and shops went out of
business. Resentment of the United States mounted, matched by a belief
that China might have to live with Japan. Britain stood ready to help put
China's finances back in order, but it was unlikely to undertake large-
scale projects without Japan's endorsement..." (p. 513)

In 1935, the Nationalist government did crack down on anti-Japanese
boycotts and demonstrations, and Japan did raise its legation to an
embassy, an elaborate ceremony being held in Nanking on June 15. However,
that same year saw the beginning of the end of the reconciliation.
According to Iriye, General Doihora Kenji, head of the Kwantung Army's
special affairs division, was the man most to blame for undermining the
incipient accommodation. Doihara argued that Chiang Kai-shek and Wang
Ching-wei should not be trusted; they were not true friends of Japan but
were simply acting as such because China was so weak. The only correct
policy was for Japan to consolidate its power in northern China by bold
moves. He aimed to remove Kuomintang power in northern China, establish
separatist "autonomous" puppet regimes there, and integrate the area
economically with Manchukuo.

If Hirota was serious about reconciliation, he had to suppress Doihara's
separatist moves in North China. These moves coincided with the coming to
East Asia of the British economic mission led by Frederick Leith-Ross,
aiming at Anglo-Japanese cooperation for the development of China:

"By rejecting the British offer to cooperate, the Japanese government
showed a complete lack of flexibility and imagination. Now more than ever
before such cooperation should have been welcomed, but this was the very
thing the army expansionists were determined to oppose. International
arrangements to rehabilitate China not only would restrict Japan's freedom
of action, but also would strengthen the central government at Nanking.
These very reasons might have convinced Foreign Minister Hirota to take a
gamble and work with Leith-Ross, but he utterly failed to grasp the
significance of the mission and did nothing to encourage it. Nor did he
do much to oppose separatist moves by the army in China..." (p. 515)

China's leaders could not remain conciliatory while the Japanese army was
stripping China of its northern provinces. Chiang might have preferred to
postpone a showdown with the Japanese until he had destroyed the
Communists (the former to Chiang were a "disease of the skin" whereas the
latter were a "disease of the heart"); but however authoritarian Chiang's
government was, it could not ignore public opinion. Students held massive
demonstrations in defiance of government bans. The Chinese Communists
began to agitate for a new United Front. Pro-Japanese officials like Wang
Ching-wei lost influence; Wang was the target of an assassination attempt
in late 1935. Meanwhile, the Japanese, having alienated both China and
the "Anglo-Saxon" powers, turned to Germany and joined the "anti-Comintern
pact"--but all this did was to encourage the USSR to strengthen China's
defenses and press harder for a KMT-Communist united front. This
culminated in the Sian (Xi'an) Incident, which left China united as it had
not been for decades. At the same time, the hope for a self-sufficient
Japan-Manchukuo-China economic bloc proved illusory: In 1936 Asia
accounted for only 38.2 percent of Japan's total imports and 50.9 percent
of its exports. There was a heavy balance of payments deficit with the US
(which provided more than 30 percent of Japan's imports and took more than
20 percent of its exports) and the UK.

The interesting thing is that by the spring of 1937 the Japanese
government actually realized that its policy was not working. The key
documents in its self-appraisal were "Implementation of policy toward
China" and "Directives for a North China policy," both adopted on April
16, 1937 by the four ministers' conference (the foreign, finance, war, and
navy ministries. As Iriye summarizes them (p. 517) "The documents
stressed 'cultural and economic' means to bring about 'coexistence and
coprosperity' between the two countries, and the need to 'view
sympathetically' the Nanking government's effort to unify China. It was
decided not to seek North China's autonomy or to promote separatist
movements...The economic development of North China...should, according to
the new directive, be carried out through the infusion of Japan's private
capital as well as Chinese funds. Third powers' rights would be
respected, and cooperation with Britain and the United States would be
promoted." It was a remarkable reversal of policy, but made too late:
Nobody in China trusted Japan any more, and Chiang Kai-shek's authority
depended on taking a strong anti-Japanese stand. The Western powers too
were less inclined to appease Japan than they had been a few years
earlier. Any chance for reconciliation was destroyed by the Marco Polo
Bridge Incident--which, incidentally, might plausibly have been avoided;
unlike many of the "incidents" of the prior years, it seems to have been
an accident, not something premeditated by the Japanese Army--and
subsequent Sino-Japanese War.

So the question is: Can we imagine either a Hirota willing to stand up to
the Kwantung Army back when doing so might have made a difference (1935)
or alternatively a Kwantung Army led by someone less rabidly anti-Chiang
than Doihora? With regard to the former possibility, Japanese civilian
politicians who defied military pressure in the 1930s risked their lives,
so perhaps the latter hypothesis is more worth exploring. I don't think
it inconceivable that an alternate leadership of the Kwantung Army might
have concluded that at least a temporary reconciliation with Chiang was
desirable so as not to distract Japan from a possible future war with the
Soviet Union. Surely in the event of such a war it would help to have at
least a neutral (if not actually favorable) China, US, and UK; and
certainly the last thing that a Japan concerned about the Soviet Union
should want would be to get bogged down in fighting in China. (A problem
of course is that even in 1937 the Japanese did not believe they ever
*could* get bogged down in China; after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident,
they expected at most a short, victorious war, limited to North China...)

One other thought: If Sun Yat-sen had lived, what would be his attitude?
(Of course if he had lived, all sorts of other things might have changed--
for example, it is possible that the Kuomintang-Communist break might
never have occurred, but I will deal with that question in another post
some day...) Sun seems to have had a sentimental attachment to Japan and
the idea of pan-Asianism throughout his life, even when he had to concede
that Japan was behaving worse than the "white" powers. Even as late as
1924, when Sun had decided on an "anti-imperialist" alliance with the
Soviet Union and a United Front with the Chinese Communist Party, he still
appealed to Japan for help--perhaps hoping to reduce his one-sided
dependence on the Soviet Union. (As one might expect, the appeal fell on
deaf ears; Japan, like the western powers at that time, preferred to deal
with the warlords of Beijing.) Wang Ching-wei and other advocates of
reconciliation with Japan loved to refer to all the pro-Japanese
statements Sun had made throughout his life. In fact, when Wang later
became head of the Japanese puppet government in China, he had an
anthology of Sun's pro-Japan and pro-pan-Asian writings and speeches
published under the title *China and Japan: Natural Friends, Unnatural
Enemies.* (Shanghai: China United Press, 1941). It is indeed possible
that Sun would have acquiesced reluctantly in the loss of Manchuria.
According to Marie-Claire Bergere, *Sun Yat-sen* (Stanford University
Press 1998), pp. 265-6, "In January 1914, Sun Yat-sen gave his blessing to
Chen Qimei's expedition to Manchuria. Not much is known of this
expedition, but the plan probably involved having the revolutionaries make
contact with Prince Su's monarchists and help establish the separatist
kingdom of Manchuria that some Japanese leaders already had in mind. It
is known that unlike Song Jiaoren and a number of the other revolutionary
leaders, Sun had never evinced any passionate nationalism with regard to
these regions of the northeast. Perhaps this was because they had
formerly been the territory of barbarian tribes, only annexed to China at
the beginning of the twentieth century. Sun considered that these
territories were 'not all of China,' if they were lost, 'the true China,'
the China of the Han, would still remain." Also, in 1915, worried about
the negotiations between Yuan Shih-kai and the Japanese, Sun wrote a
letter to the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs "in which he offered
the Tokyo government even greater concessions than those claimed in the
Twenty-one Demands." Bergere, p. 264. Wang has often been criticized for
his opportunism, but perhaps in this respect he was being more faithful to
Dr. Sun's memory than is usually believed...

Thoughts?

[1] The extent to which the Silver Purchase Act actually hurt China has
been debated. "Brandt and Sargent (1989) and Rawski (1993) challenge
[Milton] Friedman's (1992) view that the Chinese economy suffered from the
US silver purchase program and the ongoing rise in silver prices and
China's exchange rate, however. Given that there is no argument that China
endured severe deflation between 1932 and 1934,2 these revisionist views
imply that not only was a silver-based country not hurt by a rising world
silver price but also that the real economy remained robust to double-
digit deflation. But, after large-scale silver purchases got underway, US
exports to the rest of the world rose between September 1934 and September
1935 rose while exports to China fell by 38% (Westerfield, 1936, p. 112).
Longer-run time series analysis by Bailey and Bhaopichitr (2004) suggests
that the world silver price appears to have had a significant effect on
China�s own exports over the 1866-1928 period. Meanwhile, a plethora of
accounts by both Chinese and western contemporaries and observers echo the
view that China was significantly hurt by the rising silver price in the
1930s and that the accelerating deflation had severe effects on the real
economy." http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/econ/papers/2005-07.pdf
Regardless of the extent of damage to China, US silver policy was of
course indefensible. The only mitigating factor that could be cited in
FDR's favor is that after all it was the Founders, not FDR, who provided
that each state, large or small, would have two senators--with the result
that "a minor industry, employing in 1939 less than five thousand persons,
the silver industry, in effect, held the government to ransom" through its
control of fourteen Senate seats in sparsely populated Western states.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., *The Coming of the New Deal,* p. 252.
http://books.google.com/books?id=mj3VmJ38tHIC&pg=PA252
 
I'd also add they could've discovered, and exploited, the extensive Manchurian Oil deposits:

Manchurian Oil
Japan entered the Second World War in large part due to its need for oil. The Empire actually used relatively little oil – about 32 million barrels in 1941 (for the whole year, and a good part of that went into Japan’s strategic reserve) compared to 4.8 million barrels per day in 2012, down from Japan’s peak of 5.71 million barrels a day in 1997. The Empire produced almost none of this, relying on imports, chiefly from the United States.

Japan went to war against the Western powers in large part to secure the rich oil fields of the Dutch East Indies, which produced about 55 million barrels a year. The United States embargoed exports of oil and gasoline to Japan in August 1941, following the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, itself a reaction to American aid to the Chinese. Negotiations with the Americans to restore the flow of oil in exchange for a withdrawal from China came to nothing, as did negotiations with the Dutch to replace American oil. If the Japanese wanted oil, they would have to fight for it.

All along, they were sitting on top of more oil than they could possibly have used at the time.

The mysterious Manchurian oilfield uncovered by the Good, Bad and Weird actually exists: Daqing Field, discovered by legendary Chinese geologist Li Siguang (left) in 1959, is now China’s largest field and the fourth-largest in the world. Another legend of the Chinese oil industry, wildcatter “Iron Man Wang” Jinxi, opened the field in 1960. For decades most of the field’s rich petroleum was allowed to simply spill onto the ground; it produced so much that massive waste was considered an acceptable loss.

Under the rule of Chairman Mao Zedong, Daqing became a symbol of what China could accomplish on its own with Li Siguang and Iron Man Wang feted as heroes of the new age. Here was one of the greatest oil fields on Earth: discovered by a Chinese Communist, opened by a Chinese Communist, and worked by Chinese Communists. No capitalists had even known the field existed, and Soviet assistance played no part in its development. Across China, posters and pamphlets urged workers and peasants to model their efforts on those of the heroic Daqing oil workers.

Daqing currently produces about one million barrels a day. During the 1930’s, teams of Japanese geologists had scoured Manchuria in search of oil and other vital minerals. They found vast treasures of iron ore, high-quality coal, oil-bearing shale and other useful industrial resources. But they failed to locate the Daqing Field.

What if they’d found Daqing (or the treasure map spirited away by The Weird)? With Manchuria supplying eleven times as much oil as Japan previously required, the effects on the Empire’s economy and military as well as its foreign policy would be profound. Could Japanese discipline ward off the effects of what economists call Dutch Disease – the often-observed decline in manufacturing and/or agriculture that follows a boom in natural resource extraction, usually oil or natural gas?

Japanese heavy industry – the backbone of a nation’s military output – showed strong growth from 1929 to 1937, and then began to increase very rapidly as German investment and licensing agreements took hold. The Japanese labor force paid the price for this, taking home pitiful wages in exchange for long hours – an average of 56 hours per week for industrial workers even before the war (compared to 35 hours per week for the average American factory hand).

Assuming that Japan could continue her industrial growth, the availability of cheap and abundant oil would completely change the Empire’s capabilities. The vast efforts poured into synthetic fuel development could be channeled into other sectors. Motor vehicles, rare in Japan, would become commonplace. The Imperial Army would become a mechanized force, the Army Air Service and Navy could train far more pilots, and the Navy could grow as well.

The Daqing Field lies in Heilongjiang Province in north-central Manchuria (hex 1208 on the Great Pacific War map), conveniently close to the Chinese Eastern Railway. That would ease the transport of workers and materials to exploit the field (as it did in the early 1960’s) and to lay a pipeline to the refineries then under construction near the coast of the Yellow Sea to handle the output of southern Manchuria’s shale-oil beds. Those refineries would require expansion, but the Japanese already had oil infrastructure projects under way that could be expanded rather than having to start from scratch.

With a secure supply of petroleum, would Japan have gone to war with the Western powers? The need to seize the oil fields of the East Indies would no longer exist. Replacing that would be the need to protect the Manchurian oil field from the Soviet Union. Even if the Soviets did not have designs on Manchuria, they would have to respond to an even greater Japanese build-up there, making war far more likely. A major oil find in Manchuria would definitely strengthen the “Strike North” faction. Similarly, does the possession of massive oil reserves take away the Japanese incentive to attack China in 1937? Probably not; if anything, the ability to field large mechanized forces would have made the Japanese more confident of victory and thus more likely to invade China. Giving the Imperial Army plentiful tanks and personnel carriers and trucks – and two large foes to turn them against – would also upset the delicate political balance between the Army and Navy factions at the imperial court.

How this changes the balance of power in East Asia depends on when the discovery is made. If the oil is uncovered in the early 1930’s, soon after the 1932 Japanese takeover of Manchuria, then the Japan of 1941 is a formidable opponent well able to fight the United States on even terms – at least until the much greater weight of American industry and population can make itself felt.

In terms of Great Pacific War, access to the Daqing Field makes great changes to the Japanese position and force pool. There’s less chance of war with the United States (though still a pretty good chance – Japan’s aggression in China and alliance with Germany would remain as points of conflict) and a greater chance of war with the Soviet Union. The Kwangtung Army garrisoning Manchuria would have more armored units, and its infantry would be motorized.

The Imperial Navy would likely have completed its gigantic Yamato-class battleships a little faster, though it’s doubtful that these huge ships would have done them much good. The Japanese already had built to the limits of the Washington and London naval treaties, and only after these limits expired in 1936 could their new-found wealth have an impact. The Shokaku class of aircraft carriers might, for example, have numbered four ships rather than two but there would be no huge increase in naval construction. With the supply of fuel limited only by refinery capacity, the real impact on the Imperial Navy would be in its air service. Many more planes and especially trained pilots would be available, greatly enhancing Japanese striking power.

What the discovery of Manchurian oil would not have done is bring Japan to military parity with the United States. While the shortages of oil no doubt crippled Japanese capabilities, particularly in pilot training, the real shortfall was in industrial capacity and that could not be mended in just a few years. That comparison of weekly hours worked up above is one of the key disparities: Japan was already working at full blast well before the war broke out. The Americans had plenty of slack.

You could've kept everything as IOTL and this one change alone would be sufficient, as the oil makes any embargo of Japan by the United States have no effect and American political willpower was insufficient to support direct confrontation without a suitable casus belli.
 
Some did. Mostly its was a spread across the spectrum, with some extremists dragging others along. Assassination had become common in Japanese politics & the threat intimidated many people.

Years ago a Japanese I talked to about this subtly indicated the core of leaders among the 'renegade' army officers were members of the families that controlled the Zaibatsu. The implication was these guys were acting out a unofficial imperialist policy of the Zaibatsu, their uncles or grandfathers, and not a bunch of wild eyed nutcases. There was also a implication in the conversation these 'jr officers' had more complicity with the senior Army officers than is popularly supposed in the English language narrative.
Because the jr officers respect their seniors in Japan doesn’t mean they always fully agree with them. They just highly respect authority, hierarchy, and seniority there. But they are also very patient. Those jr officers know if they are loyal it will be them in charge one day. Because someone bow his head and does as he told does not mean he or they aren’t plotting or trying to nudge or hint their seniors the other way.

A lot of older or seniors getting assassinated or killed somehow or removed however way and replaced by the young ones might help.

They are imperialistic too but also more open to reform and change because they think that will also lead to expansion and growth too.
 
...
You could've kept everything as IOTL and this one change alone would be sufficient, as the oil makes any embargo of Japan by the United States have no effect and American political willpower was insufficient to support direct confrontation without a suitable casus belli.

You don't think that freezing Japanese accounts in the US banks thus cutting credit and international transactions by Japans business; that withdrawal of foreign flagged/owned cargo ships which carried near 50% of Japans imports/exports; cutting off the sale of chemicals, alloys, machine tools; & the other items covered by the Embargo Acts would have any effect?
 
Because the jr officers respect their seniors in Japan doesn’t mean they always fully agree with them. They just highly respect authority, hierarchy, and seniority there. But they are also very patient. Those jr officers know if they are loyal it will be them in charge one day. Because someone bow his head and does as he told does not mean he or they aren’t plotting or trying to nudge or hint their seniors the other way.

A lot of older or seniors getting assassinated or killed somehow or removed however way and replaced by the young ones might help.

They are imperialistic too but also more open to reform and change because they think that will also lead to expansion and growth too.

What my Japanese conversation implied was that the 'jr officers' were actually acting out policy from above, they were not acting independently but were part of a larger group led from the top. The cats paw to use a metaphor. I'd gotten in this conversation after reading a couple histories of modern Japan. Those made a point about much of the visible politics & government action of the era being a sort of shadow play imperfectly reflecting the actual power and struggle for decision going on out of sight & only tangentially visible in the documents, memoirs, letters, and interviews.
 
IJN seizes control of the government from the IJA after holding the USN back in a pacific war? There are ways, japanese people did like American culture back then and it was influencing Japanese culture up until the Mukden incident.
 
IJN seizes control of the government from the IJA after holding the USN back in a pacific war? There are ways, japanese people did like American culture back then and it was influencing Japanese culture up until the Mukden incident.
That would require that the USA would come to terms after such a change in government and not keep on grinding Japan into the dirt.
 
You don't think that freezing Japanese accounts in the US banks thus cutting credit and international transactions by Japans business; that withdrawal of foreign flagged/owned cargo ships which carried near 50% of Japans imports/exports; cutting off the sale of chemicals, alloys, machine tools; & the other items covered by the Embargo Acts would have any effect?

Japanese secret accounts in the U.S. alone were sufficient to carry them through to between 1944 to 1948 IOTL, but foreign reserves accumulated by oil exports would significantly extend this out. As for everything else, I don't foresee it being an issue given Japan was able to do without the same for nearly four years under total war conditions without the benefit of massive oil production.
 
I've seen this argument before. I'd never call a collapsing economy, declining production, increasing rationing, reduction in training, ect... carrying on.
 
I've seen this argument before. I'd never call a collapsing economy, declining production, increasing rationing, reduction in training, ect... carrying on.

Sure, but that was in the very specific context of OTL, with a total war going on and a Japan unable to export millions of barrels of oil per year for foreign currency accumulation and capital goods purchases.
 
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