I could see the Ainu becoming more of a smaller quiet nation serving as a protectorate or vassal as long as they kept their autonomy and I figure once the 20th century began moving in with modernization, they can do more to be independent.
Granted, this isn’t my area of expertise (although in a timeline I created, the US actually makes an Ainu Republic out of the captured Hokkaido along with Sakhalin granted by the Russians after a more brutal Pacific War).
Granted, this isn’t my area of expertise (although in a timeline I created, the US actually makes an Ainu Republic out of the captured Hokkaido along with Sakhalin granted by the Russians after a more brutal Pacific War).