Challenge: Allies allow Japan to keep mainland holdings

What is a situation where the Japanese keep their holdings in Manchuria, Mongolia, Korea, etc. after a (not necessarily OTL's the) Pacific War?
 
What is a situation where the Japanese keep their holdings in Manchuria, Mongolia, Korea, etc. after a (not necessarily OTL's the) Pacific War?

Change history rather a lot, maybe. Japan and Taiwan grew to have a rather good relationship over time, and considering the many similarities between the Korean and Japanese people, maybe Japan decides to treat them as long-lost brothers rather than as second-class serfs during the time when Japan ruled Korea.
 

Cook

Banned
What is a situation where the Japanese keep their holdings in Manchuria, Mongolia, Korea, etc. after a (not necessarily OTL's the) Pacific War?

Without the war in China and the (or any type of) Pacific War I’d have said it was not that much of a challenge.

With them I’d have to say it would be extremely difficult.
 
I ask this because I read Randy McDonald's Tripartite Alliance Earth timeline where Japan fought a much less brutal war than in OTL. Different kind of imperial Japan, though.
 
Perhaps if Japan fills the role of a Far East Finland of sorts?

First, during the Russian Civil War, Japan makes some unilateral border adjustments between her holdings in northeast Asia and Russia's. Once the Bolshies settle the Russian Civil War, they find themselves unable to immediately contest those "adjustments" and so simply mark it down on their "To Do" list.

Meanwhile, aside from her holdings in Manchuria, this Japan stays out of the rest of China and, while still acting as sharp economic competitors, doesn't directly interfere with all the Western cessions and treaty rights in China.

Jump forward to 1939 and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact not only gives Stalin a green light to begin settling various issues along the USSR's western borders, the diminished threat of war with Germany also allows Stalin to settle things on the USSR's eastern border too. Accordingly, the Red Army attacks Finland and Japan.

While the Soviet Union settles Japan's hash rather easily along their common border in Manchuria, adjusting things more to Stalin's liking, anyplace the Red Army has to cross water, like Sakhalin, Japan prevails. As with Finland, Japan signs a white peace of sorts in 1940 and bides her time.

Barbarossa kicks off on schedule and, just as with Finland, Japan drifts into a semi-allied relationship with Nazi Germany and attempts to reverse her losses in Manchuria. Pressed in the west, the Soviets, as is usually suggested here during the interminable "Japan Goes North" threads, simply withdraw deeper in to Siberia to a point where Japanese logistical issues prevent pursuit. The war in the Far East settles down to one of limited raiding, by air and otherwise, by both parties.

The Heer's disembowelment in western Russia kicks off, some "damn fool thing in the Atlantic" brings the US in against the European Axis only, and Germany's defeat occurs pretty much on schedule too. Like Finland, Japan sees indications of defeat early enough to cut a deal with the Soviets and, while giving up territory, manages to hold onto most of what she has.

I'd think the question of whether Japan keeps Manchuria or not will depend on how much the USSR wants to help Mao or how much the USSR wants Mao to "owe" them. With the focus on Manchuria, Japan could very well keep Korea, Taiwan, and other possessions.

Another question is whether the US would press for Japan to lose some of the Pacific island territories she was awarded at Versailles.
 
Japan isnt taking anything off the U.S.S.R. their army sucks too much to ever hold out in a serious 1 on 1 war with the Soviets.

I assume Japan can keep their mainland holdings in the short term, if they somehow avoid a war with the USA. However that wont last, at one point the stupid lava-breathers in the Kwatung Army will launch one attack too many along the Mongolian/U.S.S.R border and all hell will break loose. Resulting in Japan losing a few curb-stomp battles and the Soviets forming an alliance with the KMT.
 

Cook

Banned
Don Lardo’s scenario has the Japanese staying out of China apart from Manchuria. In that situation they would have a significant advantage numerically over the Soviets in the Far East, especially once the Stavka start stripping Siberia of divisions to send west against Barbarossa.
 
Japan isnt taking anything off the U.S.S.R....


Re-read my post.

First, I suggest that Japan keep a few gains from their occupation of Tsarist Empire's Far Eastern territories in 1919 during the Entente's attempts to interfere with the Russian Civil War. Next, I suggest that, for whatever reason, the USSR doesn't negate those gains as they in the OTL. I then suggest that the USSR attack Japan in 1940 for pretty much the same reasons they attacked Finland; i.e. to make border "adjustments".

That may leave a Japan interested in allying with Nazi Germany in the same manner Finland did, fighting a rather desultory war, and "gaining" pretty much the same results Finland did at war's end.

This would meet SR's requirements: Japan participated in the Pacific portion of WW2 and Japan kept some of her prewar mainland possessions. Of course all this would require a very different Japan than the one in the OTL.

I'm well aware that the IJA is no match for the Red Army. The IJA was primarily a light infantry force with penny packets of obsolete armor and very little artillery. I'm one of the members here who routinely whacks the far too regular, historically illiterate, and yet well meant "Japan Goes North" threads.

If Japan had been stupid enough to hit Russia at Germany's bequest in 1941, the Red Army would have mopped the floor with the Kwantung bullies and, what's more, the even the fire-breathing commanders of the Kwantung army knew it. The requirements they told Tokyo would be necessary for an attack on the Soviets included 3:1 superiority in all forces, the German capture of Moscow, and the USSR civil war.

In order to complete my suggestion of Japan as a Far East Finland, I juggled things a bit to produce a stalemated front - just as what essentially happened around Leningrad. Face with a Japan solely fixated on them and having no way to keep Vladivostok open as a Lend Lease port in the face of the IJN, the Soviets simply withdraw towards Lake Baikal. They're giving up nothing of consequence to the Japanese while extending Japan's logistics past the breaking point. Once the Soviets are able, or more importantly, feel able, they can easily counterattack and drive Japan back into the Pacific if they wish.

We'd be looking at a Japanese attack and Soviet withdrawal in the summer of 1941, stalemate by the winter of the same year, low level raiding for a period, and the war-ending Soviet offensive kicking off in the summer of 1944 after the success of D-Day/Bagration leave no question that Germany will lose the war.

It's worth noting that Finland, whose experience in WW2 I'm trying to copy for Japan in this challenge, signed an armistice with the USSR in September of '44 after a series of Soviet offensives drove the Finns back to roughly the 1940 borders. In order that it could concentrate on Germany, the USSR was satisfied with some relatively small territorial adjustments and various basing rights. I feel a Japan who attacked the USSR in the same manner Finland did, who conducted few operations after the initial push, and who was driven back relatively easily, would receive an armistice offer in a similar tone to that offered Finland.
 
The U.S.S.R will never swallow that loss of land and Japan's army is a badly led WW1 rabble that is no match for the Red Army in open battle end of story.

Also why would Japan be so keen on collecting empty steppe and forests, when all China lies to the south? Along with a lot more valuable European holdings. So in order for Japan to not attack China you'd need it to have a regime in power not crazy enougth to attack the Soviets which butterflies eveything you posted Don Lardo
 
The U.S.S.R will never swallow that loss of land and Japan's army is a badly led WW1 rabble that is no match for the Red Army in open battle end of story.

So the imperial Japanese Army that defeated Russia not many years before would be unable to defeat a Soviet Army that had had any officer considered a threat, (i.e. competant), removed from office either by exile, imprisonment or execution leaving a dispirited, badly trained and incompetantly led force that was the Soviet army prior to about 1942?

If Stalin's purges take place, even if they were the bloodless, (mostly), sort of post WWII, it still leave the Soviet Union in too weak a position from a leadership perspective to defeat the Japanese army. Especially if Barbarossa takes place as per the OTL. Moscow is more important than Siberia. The Japanese were not supermen, but they had high morale and were highly motivated, not something that could be said of the majority of troops in Siberia, (who weren't Siberian, mostly western Russians of dubious political "reliability").
 
Yes, it would be unable to beat the Red Army that is in fact correctr, because for one thing the Soviet forces in the Far-East were well led despite the purges. Also they were a modern army, the Japanese Army was a WW1 relic at best.

The major weakness that Japan exploited during the Russo-Japanese War was logistics, Russian logistics in 1905 were utterly appalling as was their leadership,. The Red Army doesn’t have these handicaps, in fact it would be better supplied than it’s Japanese foes despite them being far closer core territories.
 
Yes, it would be unable to beat the Red Army that is in fact correctr, because for one thing the Soviet forces in the Far-East were well led despite the purges. Also they were a modern army, the Japanese Army was a WW1 relic at best.

The major weakness that Japan exploited during the Russo-Japanese War was logistics, Russian logistics in 1905 were utterly appalling as was their leadership,. The Red Army doesn’t have these handicaps, in fact it would be better supplied than it’s Japanese foes despite them being far closer core territories.

So how do they manage this in the early part of the war without American lease/lend trucks? Easily bombed and not so easily repaired rail lines? It took quite a while for Zhukov to get the reinforcements he needed in 38/39, although the result there mitigates your belief of easy Soviet victory.

However, if large quantities of troops are not sucked into China, the Manchurian army are in a much better state and get, if not better, then certainly more of the equipment they had. So while tactically, the Russians have a better bet with Zhukov, without, it's a Japanese win hands down.
 
What is a situation where the Japanese keep their holdings in Manchuria, Mongolia, Korea, etc. after a (not necessarily OTL's the) Pacific War?

Japan doesn't attack the US. Indeed... the US would likely have to stay almost totally out of it. Quite possibly the Russians, too.

Instead, Japan continues a war against the mainland Chinese... to whatever end. Perhaps a couple of puppet states, an agreement with the Communists and/or Nationalists. With USA staying out of the war, Germany in turn keeps Russia's attention held fast for a while longer.

If/when Germany finally goes the way of the Dodo, the Dutch, British, and French decide to come looking for their colonies again. Say the Allies make some various headway against the Japanese in the Far East, or perhaps some sort of alternate fighting between the Chinese, Viet, Thai, Indians and all the rest. A horrible sort of Balkan War, except in the Asian Southeast.

Either way, in the end, the Europeans are fed up with the war, Japan might defeat them outright and entirely, or hold them off and convince them to quit, or perhaps offer to pay reparations as a sort of 'past payment' for the possessions in the Pacific. In return, some are handed back, some are not, and Japan keeps the Mainland.

Batshit? Probably, but there ya go.
 
The U.S.S.R will never swallow that loss of land...


The USSR isn't losing land. It's trading space for time and counter-attacking when the conditions are right. Which is exactly what the USSR did on the Eastern Front versus Germany in the OTL.

... and Japan's army is a badly led WW1 rabble that is no match for the Red Army in open battle end of story.

Have I suggested that Japan wins this war?

Also why would Japan be so keen on collecting empty steppe and forests, when all China lies to the south?

So that the OP's challenge can be met and nothing more.

In the OTL, Japan went south instead of north for very good reasons, but going south will inevitably entangle Japan with the UK/US and that means the end of Japan's mainland holdings. The OP wants Japan to keep some of those mainland holdings, so I suggested that Japan become sort of a Far Eastern Finland. As this Far Eastern Finland, it fights during WW2 but not exactly in WW2. That means that, while Japan is beaten, she isn't destroyed and, as with Finland, will come out of the war with almost the same holdings she went into the war with.

So in order for Japan to not attack China you'd need it to have a regime in power not crazy enougth to attack the Soviets...

Not exactly. I see you still don't quite comprehend what I've suggested.

First, a Japan in which the Navy and civilian government gained the upper hand on the Army during the 1920s is a Japan that would not attack China. Both the Navy and government were more "cosmopolitan" than their Army counterparts and thus were much more aware of just how weak Japan actually was compared to the other powers.

Second, among the things which gave the Army the power in Japanese government it had was the "fact" that the Army had never been beaten. The loony militarists who routinely assassinated government ministers and generals as part of their terror campaigns could point to the "fact" that they were always right. Aggression had always worked and the more aggressive the policies the better they came off. To counter this, I suggested a POD in which the Army had been beaten and beaten rather convincingly.

This "Far Eastern Finland" version of Japan tried to keep more of the Russian territory it occupied during the Russian Civil War than the OTL Japan did. In the OTL, Japan eventually bowed to heavy international pressure and withdrew two years after everyone else in 1922. I'm suggesting that this ATL Japan sees more initial success in their attempts to set up various White provisional governments as "deep" into Siberia as the Trans-Baikal region.

Those successes mean that the USSR launches a series of campaigns to regain the regions in question and, during those campaigns, the Imperial Japanese Army gets it's ass kicked on a regular basis. Even the IJN's command of the sea can't prevent the USSR from retaking Vladivostok and other ports cities. Japan's Army is humiliated, it's political power severely curtailed, and the Soviet threat to Japan's possession in northeast Asia is higher than ever.

Jump forward nearly two decades and the Navy/civilains have been able to forestall any of the Kwantung Army's shenanigans in China. Pointing to Japan's recent undeniable loss versus a European power in Siberia, they point out that several European powers, plus the US, await Japan in China and the south. Concerns over Japan's immediate security, concerns which had led to the conquest of Korea and Russo-Japanese war, mean that this Japan is very much aware of the Soviets on her borders.

Accordingly, when Germany attacks the USSR in the summer of 1941 Japan joins in for the same reasons Finland did. Japan isn't in the war to destroy the USSR, Japan is in the war to earn a seat at the negotiating table and gain border adjustments in northeast Asia to it's liking.

Of course, this second Siberian intervention plays out pretty much like the first. Japan "enjoys" some limited local success, more due to the USSR being busy elsewhere than anything else, and, when the USSR can turn it's attentions back to the region, Japan gets stomped as quickly as it had been a few decades earlier.

... which butterflies eveything you posted Don Lardo

I'd like to think I tried to handle most of the butterflies, like diverting Japan from China while still keeping it aggressive enough to enter the war against the USSR, but I'd be the first to admit I haven't gotten all of them.

Tell you what, do you have any suggestions about how the OP's challenge could possibly be met? I thought limiting Japanese participation in WW2 would limit her losses. Is there another way to skin this particular cat?
 
So the imperial Japanese Army that defeated Russia not many years before

Years enough for the Russian army to have learned several lessons from the fighting, and also for the Transsiberian to have been properly finished (in 1916). During the Russo-Japanese War, it had to be stitched together with sledges.

And in spite of this, the bloody fighting in Manchuria was eating up the money and manpower of both sides - and the Russians had a lot more of it. The Japanese managed to seize a key strategic objective and grab some flashy naval successes, and on the back of that they got advantageous mediation after Russia saw massive domestic trouble break out. Had Russia been in a position to continue the war, Japan would have been running out of money and facing ever-growing enemy numbers (they didn't have much chance of seizing the heavily fortified railhead at Vladivostok).

Between the RJW and the *WW2 timeframe came the Russian Civil War, and the Japanese got the chance to occupy much of Russia's Far East practically unopposed. And when the Red Army turned up on the other side of Lake Baikal - with a finished Transsiberian and not intending to stop for western mediation any more than the west intended to mediate - the Japanese did the sensible thing and basically gave in without fighting.

would be unable to defeat a Soviet Army that had had any officer considered a threat, (i.e. competant), removed from office either by exile, imprisonment or execution leaving a dispirited, badly trained and incompetantly led force that was the Soviet army prior to about 1942?

Actually, the Far Eastern Front was one of the least affected by the Purges. Adequate leadership and a notable supremacy in heavy equipment was why the Soviets had roundly whipped Japan in 1939. You also make it sound like an officer corps that had had no real experience of open battle since 1905 and a worrying fixation with glorious death were so much better than their Soviet counterparts.

If Stalin's purges take place, even if they were the bloodless, (mostly), sort of post WWII, it still leave the Soviet Union in too weak a position from a leadership perspective to defeat the Japanese army. Especially if Barbarossa takes place as per the OTL. Moscow is more important than Siberia. The Japanese were not supermen, but they had high morale and were highly motivated, not something that could be said of the majority of troops in Siberia, (who weren't Siberian, mostly western Russians of dubious political "reliability").

Yeah, saving their country from extermination never motivated anybody. :rolleyes:

The Far East Front was fully intact in 1941 and, as I've mentioned, one of the better in the Soviet army. While a Japanese attack would have major negative consequences for the Soviets - they wouldn't have the "revolving door", so they'd have to send newly formed divisions into the fire faster, and they'd also lose about half of Lend Lease - it would have even worse consequences for Japan. The attacks on the western powers were undertaken with a handful of light infantry divisions. The best they can hope to do is not crumple like a wet paper bag before the failure to seize the Southern Resource Area means Japan's economy grinds to a halt and the Russians roll on to Pusan.

And the Japanese knew this' hence why they didn't attack when everybody thought the Soviets were losing.
 
What I was thinking is that Japan focuses its early colonial efforts on Korea and Taiwan, claiming publicly the premise that they are long-lost brothers of the Japanese people, which Japan, now that it is not a feudal society but a united nation, want to unite. (In the case of the Koreans, this is genetically somewhat accurate - Japanese are descended from the Koreans.) Japan's rule at first is quite harsh, but after the first few years it slackens off, and Japan, eager to increase its power and its abilities, funds major industrial development in Korea, which raises both the Japanese government's resources and the standard of living of Koreans. A similar story is true in Taiwan.

In the first World War, Japan joins the Allies and as a consequence gets many of Germany's smaller colonial possessions, though the German territories in New Guinea are ceded to the British Empire, administratively controlled by Australia. Japan through the 1920s and 1930s gradually builds up its armed forces, though on a considerably bigger scale than OTL due to their larger number of people. By 1939, there is little difference between Japan, Korea and Taiwan, along with Japan's myriad of smaller possessions in the Pacific.

Japan's need for oil grows dramatically during this period, which leads to massive investments by Japan in the Dutch East Indies, which makes the Dutch understandably nervous, but after WWII kicks off, the fall of the Netherlands leads to Japan rapidly taking the Dutch East Indies for themselves, though they make great pains to not hit Singapore or Australia - even with Britain fully engulfed in War in Europe, they don't want to fight people they don't have to. America, though, cuts off Japan from oil and trade, which ultimately causes the Pacific War to begin anyways.

Japan is still defeated in the Pacific War, though it takes about a year longer for the US to do so. But as a result of it, Japan is recognized as having its territories in Korea and Taiwan as theirs, both to not cause too much of a mess and the US also noting that Mao and Stalin both had their eyes on those territories.

Despite the rising influence of identity politics in these areas, it is noticed that with Stalin and Mao nearby, trying to become independent would be seriously difficult, as moving out from under Tokyo's shadow would end up seeing them forced under that of Beijing or Moscow. The Japanese themselves, humiliated in war but having seen large numbers of Koreans, Taiwanese, Jewish refugees and indigenous peoples of those areas fight for the Japanese Army and in many cases with distinction, loses the racial edge, though many aspects of its politics stay fairly similar. The "Japanese Spirit" indeed proves to be quite true across Japan, Korea and Taiwan, as well as its other, smaller islands, most of which are ceded back to Japan in the 1960s and 1970s. Very rapid economic growth surges through Japan through the 1950s well into the 1980s.
 
The attacks on the western powers were undertaken with a handful of light infantry divisions.


I happen to strongly agree with everything you wrote. The Siberian front was along the USSR's best, the USSR never actually removed forces from the Far East, the USSR instead used the area as a recruiting/training ground, Japan in the OTL had very good reasons for not attacking the USSR, even the fire-eaters in the Kwantung Army essentially wrote off the idea of an attack by presenting Tokyo with a list of prerequisites which were impossible to achieve, and the "Lunge to the South" was conducted the 5 or 6 infantry divisions the IJA reluctantly let go.

The last part is telling however. Japan had few ground forces on hand in the Pacific and elsewhere because the bulk of her army was tied up in China. Fixated as it was on defeating China, the IJA was very reluctant to part with any units. But...

... what if there isn't a war in China?

What if the IJN/civilian factions prevail and the various incidents manufactured by the Kwantung Army never take place? How big an army would Japan have stationed in Manchuria/Manchukuo, Korea, and the Home Islands if it weren't fighting China?
 
I quite understand your point: I was just responding to his Dan, who was parroting the usual misconstruction of the Russo-Japanese War and talking nonsense about the purges.
 
Supposably, Japan had 3.9 million troops stationed in China and Manchuria, with about an additional 900 thousand Chinese soldiers within their armed forces.

For comparision, during the invasion of Manchuria, 1.2 million Japanese soldiers were positioned against 1.5 million Soviet soldiers. I am not sure how many were deployed in the Far East during the early 40's, but I am sure that it was less than that. Therefore, I am certain that 3.2 million Japanese soldiers could potentially secure at the very least the more strategic assets of the Soviet Far East, and hold their own.
 
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