AHChallenge/Plausibility Check: China and Japan Both a Part of the Axis

[AtriumCarceris]

I've seen Timelines about an Axis China, and I've seen threads discussing the overall pros and cons of Germany siding with one over the other.

But is there any way, any way at all, for Nazi Germany to end up with both as allies? Any possible way, even if it takes an extreme amount of luck or effort?

I have a few ideas on this, but I'm stupid so I don't know how feasible they are and would like to do some brainstorming. So far my ideas are:

1 - From the very beginning Germany heavily supports China over Japan, and it's known that if Japan goes too far, Germany will go to war to support China. Nevertheless Germany sees Japan as a good ally and wants to mediate.

2 - Subsequently, China is more industrialised and would be a harder target for Japan anyway than in OTL.

3 - Early discovery of oil in Russia.

4 - Germany actually works to cooperate, help, and coordinate with its allies, frequently trading techs and advisors and such.

Putting it all together I'm thinking it'd be possible for Germany to get Japan to back off China in order to expand and gain resources elsewhere. There are plenty of other countries that Germany and Japan agree are enemies or worth taking colonial possessions from, and Germany is a good ally to have. There'd also be more motivation for Japan to focus elsewhere to get oil and resources.

On the side of China, if it industrialises and modernises enough, it could perhaps try to grab pieces of Tibet, take Hong Kong, and other South/West Asian western colonial holdings (Germany would probably have an interesting time negotiating non-conflicting goals for Japan and China, but I think it could be done)

So, anybody else have any thoughts on this subject? Ideas, comments, criticisms?

 

[lionhead]

I don't think Japan attacked China for oil and resources. China didn't have any oil so it was definilty not for that and it had plenty of raw materials coming from Manchuria.

They just saw chinese as below them and needed to be exterminated. I don't think Germany can change Japan's mind on that.

Making China more industrialized makes it only a more appelaing target for Japan, not scare them off. They thought they could force Chinese surrender within weeks.

If the Koumintang doesn't destroy the communist rebels Germany is never gonna be friendly to them and exchange technology or resources. Though Japan recieved plenty of advisors, scientists and blueprints from Germany by submarine in OTL.

You have to go back all the way to the First Chino-Japanese war where Japan gained Korea. Thats where the hatred started.

 

[AtriumCarceris]

I was always under the impression Japan wanted to take all of China's resources and labour. Japan was resource starved, and China seemed like easy pickings. Of course I'm not expert so I could be wrong.

China already received advisers and significant industrial help from Germany even before the Nazi's came to power. And once they did, the Nazi's helped even more. It only stopped in 1937 when Germany decided to ally with Japan at the start of the second Sino-Japanese War.

I suppose a more heavily industrialised China is a better conquest, but it's also a harder conquest, especially if Germany backs China.

 

[Enigmajones]

Not hard. Well in one sense, have Japan's man take control and unify China, as opposed to the Kuomintang or Guominjun.

 

[lionhead]

I was always under the impression Japan wanted to take all of China's resources and labour. Japan was resource starved, and China seemed like easy pickings. Of course I'm not expert so I could be wrong.

Japan became resource starved during the war against china and the USA oil embargo. But before that it was mostly greed. Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan(Formosa) where good enough to provide food and raw materials. Certainly the latter.

China already received advisers and significant industrial help from Germany even before the Nazi's came to power. And once they did, the Nazi's helped even more. It only stopped in 1937 when Germany decided to ally with Japan at the start of the second Sino-Japanese War.

True, but only advisors. Not real exchange of technology or gifts of military equipment. Japan did.

I suppose a more heavily industrialised China is a better conquest, but it's also a harder conquest, especially if Germany backs China.

Not neccesarily. A better industrialised China would mean a China with better infrastructure. That would only work in the advantage too the Japanese who relied heavily on speed. Also, only if Germany would indeed upgrade China's military force with better weapons and tanks then a bigger industry would have any real advantage. Can make more tanks, but if they are inferior too the Japanese then they are just as irrelevant. China worked with numbers and guerrilla. Much like Finland. More industry for Finland in the Winter war would be as much use to them as a baking oven too a butcher.

 

[mcdo]

They just saw chinese as below them and needed to be exterminated. I don't think Germany can change Japan's mind on that.

I think we need to be careful with our words here. The Empire of Japan never tried to "exterminate" the Chinese. The military certainly had no qualms about murdering vast swaths of people--even millions of people. They tried to kill Chinese civilians in bombings, they dropped bioweapons on cities, they committed the "Three Alls"/"Clean Fields" strategy. However, all of this was done with some perceived military benefit in mind, even if that was simply to break the will or ability of the Chinese people to resist.

Despite all that, Chinese people in occuppied areas did survive. Oh, they would kill anybody suspected of being disloyal, and in certain areas even kill people for "scientific" research. But there was never an overall plan or intent of extermination, like there was in Nazi Germany. In the later years of the war in Nazi Germany, the leadership proved willing to take vital resources away from the war effort (eg trains) to give to the extermination machine. The Empire of Japan had nothing to compare to the Holocaust, or even really to Generalplan Ost. There was never any master plan to kill all of the Chinese people they could catch.

I think this is an important distinction. Too often you hear people say that the Empire of Japan committed exterminationist policies along the same lines as Nazi Germany. If some person was to hear this, and later learn that it was an exaggeration, they might come to believe that the very real atrocities committed by the Empire of Japan were also exaggerated. That is why I beleive this kinds of generalizations are so dangerous.

 

[imperialaquila]

Japan attacked China because they saw it as a threat for dominance in East Asia. As long as China is industrializing, Japan will see it as a threat and try to stop it before it becomes too large. If Japan allows China to fully industrialize, it will be buried and it knows that. Thus, the Second Sino-Japanese War.

 

[Shogo]

I thought they attacked China for the prestige of having a colonial empire that could rival the West, and to them China was an "easy" target.

 

[imperialaquila]

I thought they attacked China for the prestige of having a colonial empire that could rival the West, and to them China was an "easy" target.

That, too, but mostly because they wanted to nip a potential rival in the bud. Nationalist China had started a series of industrial programs with German help during the early 30s, and had started to modernize its military. Left alone, they would certainly try to retake Manchuria and the other areas of northern China held by Japan, and Japan would be defeated through sheer weight of numbers. The Japanese acted while China was weak, and they still had a chance if victory. They didn't act out of envy of the West, or to exterminate the Chinese, but to ensure their dominance of East Asia for the future.

 

[AtriumCarceris]

Perhaps Germany could coordinate a mutually agreed upon set of goals between the two. Let Japan keep Manchuria and such, so long as it doesn't go for any more from China. China isn't allowed to expand into the Pacific.

China gets to be left alone by Japan in return, and maybe gets to expand West.

Basically give Japan control of the Pacific. Give China control of the mainland. Could something like this be agreeable to both parties?

 

[Cook]

it's known that if Japan goes too far, Germany will go to war to support China.

Yes, I can see that really worrying the Japanese; a nation on the other side of the world, with no navy to speak of and an army that, while rapidly growing, is still far smaller than the armies of its two neighbours, both of whom are its sworn enemies.

 

[AtriumCarceris]

Yes, I can see that really worrying the Japanese; a nation on the other side of the world, with no navy to speak of and an army that, while rapidly growing, is still far smaller than the armies of its two neighbours, both of whom are its sworn enemies.

Okay, so it's a bad idea. Got any suggestions that are good ideas?

 

[Cook]

Okay, so it's a bad idea. Got any suggestions that are good ideas?

For starters have Neurath remain Reich Foreign Minister. Ribbentrop keeps his little political advisory group to play with writing reports that Hitler never bothers to read but foreign affairs remains in the hands of a professional. It was Ribbentrop’s ham-fisted efforts to secure an alliance with Japan that ended what had been a growing relationship with China’s Nationalists. It was a costly split to say the least; China provided Germany with its Tungsten Ore.

A more professional negotiator may have been able to arbitrate the ‘Spheres of Influence’ of the two sides and redirect the efforts of both against the Chinese Communists (and the threat of the Soviets.)

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Not hard. Well in one sense, have Japan's man take control and unify China, as opposed to the Kuomintang or Guominjun.

The problem will be the perception of this figure though, the kind of support Japan would really have to give to one group or another would cross well beyond the pale of reasonable doubt and thus make it clear who this individual or faction's patron is...

Bearing the mark of being a Japanese collaborator even before the Second Sino-Japanese War is something from which you really just don't recover in China.

Japan's best chance in China was to play divide-and-conquer and take what they needed but nothing more (Manchuria is about the biggest they could have reasonably held for any significant portion of time, barring foreign intervention) but they of course pissed that away.

 

[AtriumCarceris]

A more professional negotiator may have been able to arbitrate the ‘Spheres of Influence’ of the two sides and redirect the efforts of both against the Chinese Communists (and the threat of the Soviets.)

What would be the Japanese's motivation for going after only the Chinese Communists?

 

[Cook]

What would be the Japanese's motivation for going after only the Chinese Communists?

Japan was acutely paranoid about the Bolsheviks and the threat that the spread of Communism posed to their Empire. Japan went into alliance with Germany initially because of concerns of the threat posed by the Soviet Union. The Chinese Communists, while weaker than the Nationalists, still controlled a large amount of territory by Japanese (and European) standards.

Chiang Kai-shek wasn’t threatened by the Bolsheviks but could have been attracted to the Anti-Comintern Pact with the judicious application of propaganda and subtle diplomatic persuasion.

 

[Faeelin]

I don't think Japan attacked China for oil and resources. China didn't have any oil so it was definilty not for that and it had plenty of raw materials coming from Manchuria.

There was cotton, iron, soy. And the Chinese market, which the Japanese like everyone else were sure would be enormous.

The real problem is that Japan thought it needed a finlandized China; the analogy that the Japanese used a lot of the time was Mexico.

Making China more industrialized makes it only a more appelaing target for Japan, not scare them off. They thought they could force Chinese surrender within weeks.

I disagree actually. The Japanese were pretty worried that China was leaving them vulnerable to the USSR and a Soviet invasion of Manchuria.

You have to go back all the way to the First Chino-Japanese war where Japan gained Korea. Thats where the hatred started.

Eh... You know, the 1920s were a nadir of Chinese power, when the country was divided by warlords. But Japan was weak and pretty handsoff in this period. What changed?

Can make more tanks, but if they are inferior too the Japanese then they are just as irrelevant. China worked with numbers and guerrilla. Much like Finland. More industry for Finland in the Winter war would be as much use to them as a baking oven too a butcher.

Finland worked with numbers and guerillas?

 

[lionhead]

There was cotton, iron, soy. And the Chinese market, which the Japanese like everyone else were sure would be enormous.

All I'm saying with it is that Japan wasn't starving on resources before the war, it wasn't the main reason. They had plenty of iron coming in(which they used extensivly).

The real problem is that Japan thought it needed a finlandized China; the analogy that the Japanese used a lot of the time was Mexico.

I agree. They wanted Japanese presence in China too suppress the Chinese before they would be able to seriously outmatch Japan.


I disagree actually. The Japanese were pretty worried that China was leaving them vulnerable to the USSR and a Soviet invasion of Manchuria.

A more industrialised China i think would mean more industry for Japan as they would haul it over too the Japanese islands much like the Germans did with many industry. Bigger industry, more equipment, better logistics. USSR was always a threat, but with better buffers they might be able to defend Manchuria better.


Eh... You know, the 1920s were a nadir of Chinese power, when the country was divided by warlords. But Japan was weak and pretty handsoff in this period. What changed?

I'm talking relations between the ethnic groups. I think the Chinese really resented the fact Japan got ahead of them and was now the stronger one. Though they did not yet hate eachother openly and only in maybe the start of the 20th century. Nationalism and Imperialism took it too another level for both countries.


Finland worked with numbers and guerillas?

Not numbers. But the Finns definitly used guerrilla tactics to combat the Soviets. Like stealing weapons, using ambushes, molotov cocktails. All very successfully too.

Good points though.

 

[AtriumCarceris]

Have a few more questions before I let this thread die.

So okay, assuming that a skilled Negotiator under the Nazi government manages to bring both Japan and China under the Nationalists into the Anti-Comintern Pact for an Axis China in addition to Japan and the other OTL Axis members.

What sort of world-wide political situation does this create, and what sort of changes will this make to WWII?

 

[Sumeragi]

Does this China have to be the unified China?