That's what I'm gunning for.
Maybe an Aragon that's hostile to Castile, just as Primorye to the Spanish colonies IYTL.
Several things:
- Aragon needs to have an access to the Atlantic Ocean as well as the Mediterranean Sea, which is easily achievable. Aragon could expand into parts of southern France while Navarra and Aquitania could be incorporated into Aragon.
- Spain as a nation CANNOT exist since there will be some Hispanic statelets that will linger around. Additionally, you can throw in a surviving Al-Andalus due to a failed Reconquista.
- Primorye was only hostile to Spain because Russia had actually conquered the islands and the two cultures of the Great Powers were totally different from each other. Aragon and Castille had similar cultures, so comparing Primorye to Aragon would be impossible.
- The trick with having Russia reach the Pacific a lot sooner is due to earlier access to the Baltic plus an earlier exploration of Siberia and development of good Arctic sailing techniques that proved useful in the Russian exploration of Alaska. Having a good maritime tradition also works, but only if a nation in question has access to several seas.
- One other empire that is not located in Western Europe could also have seized the OTL Philippine islands, and that is the Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately, they could only do that by creating a proxy empire (ie: Aceh, Malacca or Brunei).
One other thing that I wished to point out is that IOTL there were two examples of a possible, realistic, sovereign "Primorye": Green Ukraine and the Far Eastern Republic.