AHC: Make the British Empire survive into the modern age.

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The trick of the Russian, Chinese and American empires was to have contiguous colonies which they then called called part of the coloniser's state. No. We don't have colonies. Siberia/Tibet/California etc. are just Russian/Chinese/American provinces like all the other provinces.....
 
The trick of the Russian, Chinese and American empires was to have contiguous colonies which they then called called part of the coloniser's state. No. We don't have colonies. Siberia/Tibet/California etc. are just Russian/Chinese/American provinces like all the other provinces.....


I am not sure what you mean by American empire but an important issue is that Russia, China and Rome had a king. To the king, it made little difference to turn many of his subjects to citizens, the British though had a limited democracy and the electorate did care. A whole lot of poor black, Chinese and colored people is not what they want as citizens.
 
Whilst the USA did not have the formal trappings of empire it took over adjacent lands and declared them part of the USA. IOTL the electorate increasingly simply had enough of the empire game in Britain as the 20th century progressed. I don't know what POD will change that.
 
For Britain – or any other colonial power – to retain its empire to the present day, it needs to do the opposite of what it did IOTL, especially in regard to India.

To rule India, or any other large colony in the long term, the easiest way would be to refrain from ‚uplifting’ it, but to keep it underdeveloped, rural, feudal, divided, and its population uneducated. Don‘t build any major infrastructure other than what is needed to extract resources, don‘t build hospitals, schools, or universities for the natives, don’t unify its territories into a single entity, don‘t build up an educated native elite, don’t destroy existing feudal structures, and don‘t let natives travel to Britain to study there and bring liberal ideas back home.

In essence, leave India, or any other colony, more or less as it is, without the kind of political, economic or cultural penetration of Africa and Asia by western countries that we‘ve seen IOTL. This would likely prevent the development of national consciousnesses, in which case i could see Britain and other western countries dominate their colonies to this day, unless they begin to modernize on their own.

All the other suggestions that usually come up in topics like this wouldn‘t work in the long term, but would actually ensure the eventual loss of colonial empires. Granting India and its population legal equality and political representation within the empire would mean that the British empire would eventually turn into an Indian one. Other solutions, like some kind of ‚imperial federation‘, wouldn‘t really be an empire as such, just as the EU is not an empire.
 

Jack1971

Banned
The British give American revolutionaries such as George Washington royal titles, tying them to the crown, thereby the revolution fails and the British retain the 13 colonies. With them still in British hands, they expand westward faster than in OTL, as the British have nothing to gain from stopping them from moving West and they're now supported by British guns.
Mexico hands over territory hand-over-fist, the Spanish-American war becomes the Anglo-Spanish war, therefore Cuba and The Philippines get ceded to Britain. Also, when the scramble for Africa comes around, the British get more as they have much more manpower. I know they'll get Liberia but not sure what else.

With Britain still being an unrivalled hyperpower (For the record, they'll probably have Tibet at this point), the Germans probably wouldn't risk British wrath in WW1 so they wouldn't attack France - just not worth it. WW1 goes very differently and probably isn't even called a world war.

No WW1, no Vimmy Ridge so places like Canada and Australia don't get full independence. Also, no Versailles treaty so no WW2, so no decolonisation.

To this day, the sun still doesn't set on the British empire.
Imperial capitol will need to move to North America, or split the empire into two parts, like Rome. You can't have a little island running America
 
1-no WW1 or WW2
2-Divide and rule as much as possible and/or give all citizens (or at least the middle class and wealthy non whites) equal rights
3-Let the countries who want to go most leave-and then hurt them economically and give the other countries the choice of being in the Empire or watching their economy get messed up (the EU is-sort of-doing that to us in rl.)
4-Don't try and hang onto everywhere at once. Keep the parts deemed most important and let other bits go.
 

RousseauX

Donor
For Britain – or any other colonial power – to retain its empire to the present day, it needs to do the opposite of what it did IOTL, especially in regard to India.

To rule India, or any other large colony in the long term, the easiest way would be to refrain from ‚uplifting’ it, but to keep it underdeveloped, rural, feudal, divided, and its population uneducated. Don‘t build any major infrastructure other than what is needed to extract resources, don‘t build hospitals, schools, or universities for the natives, don’t unify its territories into a single entity, don‘t build up an educated native elite, don’t destroy existing feudal structures, and don‘t let natives travel to Britain to study there and bring liberal ideas back home.

In essence, leave India, or any other colony, more or less as it is, without the kind of political, economic or cultural penetration of Africa and Asia by western countries that we‘ve seen IOTL. This would likely prevent the development of national consciousnesses, in which case i could see Britain and other western countries dominate their colonies to this day, unless they begin to modernize on their own.

All the other suggestions that usually come up in topics like this wouldn‘t work in the long term, but would actually ensure the eventual loss of colonial empires. Granting India and its population legal equality and political representation within the empire would mean that the British empire would eventually turn into an Indian one. Other solutions, like some kind of ‚imperial federation‘, wouldn‘t really be an empire as such, just as the EU is not an empire.
But the problem is European colonial rule was always dependent on the cooperation of local political elites in the first place, I think we suffer from a misconception that India before Britain was some dark barbaric place which the British civilized. In reality British rule over India resembled imperial rule by past entity in the near east and Asia, which is to simply put themselves at the top of a pre-existing political hierarchy. The alternative would have being direct rule over a continent which destroys the cost-benefit analysis of colonialism which was always done on the cheap. Britain didn't create the local ruling elite so much as it depended on a local ruling elite for control in the first place.
 

RousseauX

Donor
The trick of the Russian, Chinese and American empires was to have contiguous colonies which they then called called part of the coloniser's state. No. We don't have colonies. Siberia/Tibet/California etc. are just Russian/Chinese/American provinces like all the other provinces.....
Geographical contiguous really helps but more to the point the Russians, Chinese, and American empires all expanded into thinly populated territory relative to the core of the empire. The problem with the maritime colonial empires is that they are outnumbered by the colonial subjects.
 
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