Benefits of Colonizing Japan

Delvestius

Banned
Lucrative trade ports along the East Asian commerce lanes.

Japan itself is pretty resource poor, with China and the East Indes being the most coveted lands in the region.
 

scholar

Banned
Japan's trading ports were unprofitable as well...

Strategic positioning, national pride, and getting rid of an uppity Shogunate/Empire that has desires to join the big boys are all possible benefits.
 

Sumeragi

Banned
Would it be any more expensive than India? And shouldn't it have the same benefits?
The main benefit of India was the market it provided for the UK to sell its "unwanted" goods. Japan would never have provided such a market if it was colonized.
 
Russia finally gets its long-coveted warm-water port?

But of course, unless they build a bridge to Sakhalin, and a couple of tunnels to Hokkaido and Honshu, they would still need a warm-water port in the continent to get to Japan in the first place.
 
I feel like it would be need to be a sphere of influence over one of Japan's few resource-rich areas. Control a port on that area, control the trade of that resource in and out of that port.

Outright colonisation is not beneficial.
 
The best prize here is Japan's strategic position. Any would-be colonizer would de-facto require a strong navy, now said navy has a highly favorable forward base with several advantageous ports, and a natural resource of coal, and to a lesser extent steel. From there controlling the trade routes throughout East Asia, particularly to China, are relatively easy - or at least much easier.
 
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