Asia after Japanese victory

Ghost8472

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So most threads deal with Europe and perhaps Africa after a Nazi victory - but how would (East) Asia look after a Japanese victory?
 
It would be a case of winning the war, but losing the peace. Sure, there would be a few countries that would look to the Japanese as liberators from European colonialism, but there are also others like the Philippines that would see the Japanese as colonialists since their independence were already assured by the Americans in 1935.

And then there's that huge drain in resources and manpower that is China.

The Japanese Sphere of Influence...and the Empire itself may as well collapse without outside intervention by 1955 (like OTL USSR in 1990). She is likely to lose Korea, but has a good chance of keeping Taiwan, Karafuto, and the Kurils...if there's no European/American intervention

How bad it collapses depends on what happened to the USSR. If Hitler manages to do the impossible and beat Stalin, then the rest of the world will likely ignore Japan and be glad that there's one less bad guy out there. But if the USSR becomes as strong as OTL, then we may see their former enemies team up with Japan to try to prop Japan up as the first line of defense against the Commies. Then it's going to be like the Francoist Spain of Asia.
 
In "In The Presence of Mine Enemies", by Turtledove, is set in an Axis victory scenario. It is stated in the book that “japan had an ocean of slave labor at its disposal, but was working on developing high technologies”. If the axis win, that is EXACTLY what Japan will have. Slave labor:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:. They will be the real life version of the Draka!!!!!:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
 
This requires as a bare minimum Japan deciding to avoid a Rape of Nanking. If it does that then it has a shot (how much of a good shot is a different question but it's at least a possibility where it never was IOTL) of securing some kind of negotiated peace and with it its hegemony in East Asia without having to be involved in a bigger WWII. East Asia under broader Japanese hegemony would see more of Japan's variant of colonialism which involved mandating use of Japanese in education and tilting local economies to favor Japanese interests, so it would be equivalent to European colonialism in Asian drag.
 
The problem is that Japan will be taking over a set of nations of equivalent or FAR GREATER (in the case of China, and theoretically India) size, all with highly developed senses of national identity. In the long run, how can Japan impose its will on half a continent? Especially given that Japan will have great power rivals- the USA, the USSR if it survives, and, if this is a Reich hyper-wank scenario, probably the Germans.
 

CalBear

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The reason that you rarely see any sort of thread on this is that, well, it is utterly impossible.

The Japanese were not capable, in the long run, of winning in China (it might have taken an addtional decade, but eventually they Chinese would have simply pled them out). They had NO chance of defeating the U.S.. They had little hope of holding their gains in the Southern Resource Area against a determined Commomwealth counter-attack or even of maintaining control of French Indochina against local revolutionary forces.

The Japanese were dead meat from the get. They lost the war shortly before 08:00 (local time) on 12/7/41
 

CalBear

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Nazi victories aren't much better, although they're more common.


True. Part of that is, of course the Luft '46 fanboy effect. The Reich had so many more (useless) toys and gee-wiz goodies (as long as you overlook the whole Greatest Evil Ever Seen on Earth thing that is).
 
It would be a case of winning the war, but losing the peace. Sure, there would be a few countries that would look to the Japanese as liberators from European colonialism, but there are also others like the Philippines that would see the Japanese as colonialists since their independence were already assured by the Americans in 1935.

It's worse than that because Japan never intended for any of the "liberated" countries to have self-determination. When Japan said "Asia for the Asians" they really meant "Japan should rule Asia." Manchukuo may have been "independent" on paper, but everything was actually decided by Japanese "advisors". Expect the same thing for any of the "liberated" countries in Asia.

While there will always be collaborators of some sort, the independence movements of those countries will all quickly turn against Japan as it attempts to control those countries. It won't just be the Philippines. Nehru, Ho Chi Minh, Sukarno, etc. will keep agitating for real independence. They won't settle for being puppets.

Japan has less economic power than Britain and France did at their height, so they would be very pressed to maintain control in their new empire. China alone was a huge drain on the Japanese economy. How are they going to hold onto India?

Japan would have various options to hold together the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", but it is going to be a ramshackle effort. At best, it will likely lose any real power over India very quickly, and be sucked into low intensity warfare over most of East Asia. It would continue to be the paramount power in Asia, but likely faces real threats in other Pacific/Asian powers like the US, Soviet Union, or a Nazi dominated Europe (which likely exists since the only way Japan could win is if the Nazis somehow win).
 
It's worse than that because Japan never intended for any of the "liberated" countries to have self-determination. When Japan said "Asia for the Asians" they really meant "Japan should rule Asia." Manchukuo may have been "independent" on paper, but everything was actually decided by Japanese "advisors". Expect the same thing for any of the "liberated" countries in Asia.

While there will always be collaborators of some sort, the independence movements of those countries will all quickly turn against Japan as it attempts to control those countries. It won't just be the Philippines. Nehru, Ho Chi Minh, Sukarno, etc. will keep agitating for real independence. They won't settle for being puppets.

Japan has less economic power than Britain and France did at their height, so they would be very pressed to maintain control in their new empire. China alone was a huge drain on the Japanese economy. How are they going to hold onto India?

Japan would have various options to hold together the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", but it is going to be a ramshackle effort. At best, it will likely lose any real power over India very quickly, and be sucked into low intensity warfare over most of East Asia. It would continue to be the paramount power in Asia, but likely faces real threats in other Pacific/Asian powers like the US, Soviet Union, or a Nazi dominated Europe (which likely exists since the only way Japan could win is if the Nazis somehow win).

Manchukuo is a little different in that the base population was so low, that Japan could and did colonize the area. Of course, there are two serious problems to keeping the territory long-term: 1.) Japan has to maintain control of Korea. 2.) China and Russia both really want that chunk of land, and its not very defensible against a superior enemy.

Still, in a very, very good scenario for Japan, Korea and Manchuria are just possible. Much more than that is a pipe dream, I suspect.
 
They would increase the amount of labor camps in China tremendously.

Question i would ask; would they be able to keep control of them while millions of chinese die as slaves in camps without anyone ever knowing about them like in the Russian Gulags? Or would they be more like Nazi concentration camps and be subjected too revolts and escapes all the time?

Also: What type of labor would the prisoners be forced to do? Would it differ per region? Would the Japanese use them to do suicidal and hazardous work too increase technological and industrial capabilities(like uranium mining and working with chromium)?
 
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