AHC/WI: European Settlers Flock To European Colonies In Asia

[Intransigent Southerner]

Yes, there were extremely fertile areas of India and China, just as there were elsewhere. The result was that the population grew until some event triggered a crash- war, plague, crop failure.

This is rightfully a particularly controversial book, but I urge you to check out One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000 by Lee and Feng.

Either way, the standard of living was lower in the main centres of population than in Europe

Have you read Pomeranz's The Great Divergence or other books of the genre (eg ReOrient by Frank, which is admittedly much inferior to Pomeranz)?

 

[Alon]

I believe famine and overpopulation is the same with Tokugawa Japan as well.IIRC,there were a lot of talk about population control in Japan during the period and that population growth stagnated as a result.

Actually, Japan underwent substantial population growth between 1600 and 1750. It was followed by stagnation, but by then living standards were high for a premodern society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Japan_before_the_Meiji_Restoration

 

[Pesigalam]

For whatever reason, everyone seems to be focused on "European settler colonies in East Asia" forgetting that Asia is not limited to China, Japan and Philippines.

What about European settlement of the Middle East? Say as a result of a much earlier Ottoman collapse or more successful Crusader Kingdoms?

 

[Alon]

For whatever reason, everyone seems to be focused on "European settler colonies in East Asia" forgetting that Asia is not limited to China, Japan and Philippines.

What about European settlement of the Middle East? Say as a result of a much earlier Ottoman collapse or more successful Crusader Kingdoms?

There was, in fact, European settlement in the Middle East, from the late 19c to about 1947. There were hundreds of thousands of emigrants, and yet all they got was one small country.

EDIT: it's worth mentioning that even in that one small country, Europeans were never a majority, except possibly in the period from 1948 to 1950; the population right now is only about 40% European, and that's after another European migration wave in the early 1990s.

 

[Arkenfolm]

For whatever reason, everyone seems to be focused on "European settler colonies in East Asia" forgetting that Asia is not limited to China, Japan and Philippines.

What about European settlement of the Middle East? Say as a result of a much earlier Ottoman collapse or more successful Crusader Kingdoms?

Greeks have been settling in the Middle East and North Africa since before Alexander the Great even. Most of them left due to instability in those areas in the past 70 years or so.