China divided between Great Powers in late 19th century

Inspired by the picture below.

So:
1. What would be the POD...?
2. How would be the territorial division of China after the Great Powers take it...?
3. What would be the impact to the World Wars and modern age...?

420px-China_imperialism_cartoon2.jpg
 
The PoD could be a some sort of Berlin-Conference only for China. Russia would take most of the in-lands and a warm water port. France would get the southern part of thecoast line, the British the middle coast line and the in land not taken by Russia and Germany would get the nothern part of the coast line.
 
You can only "take" what you can hold. China has rather a lot of people in it, and the death toll from the Taiping Wars looks phenomenal in 19th century terms. If people don't want to be under you, there are a lot of them around to rebel!

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
The PoD could be a some sort of Berlin-Conference only for China. Russia would take most of the in-lands and a warm water port. France would get the southern part of thecoast line, the British the middle coast line and the in land not taken by Russia and Germany would get the nothern part of the coast line.

Hmm, it would be nice if you can provide a map... :D
 
You can only "take" what you can hold. China has rather a lot of people in it, and the death toll from the Taiping Wars looks phenomenal in 19th century terms. If people don't want to be under you, there are a lot of them around to rebel!

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Well, then what would be the most efficient way for any foreign powers to exert a direct political control over China, but still shared with other powers...?
 
Well, then what would be the most efficient way for any foreign powers to exert a direct political control over China, but still shared with other powers...?

China is quite safe from being divided into lasting colonies, unless the foreign powers in question are willing to depopulate it.
I recommend Jared's Decades of Darkness, if you want a plausibel TL where China is divided by the foreign powers.
 
Well, then what would be the most efficient way for any foreign powers to exert a direct political control over China, but still shared with other powers...?

Why bother? What happened IOTL was a win-win situation for the colonial powers. They got selected colonies (Hong Kong, Tsingtao, Port Arthur), special privileges, commercial rights and extraterritorial enclaves (such as in Shanghai) without actually having to bother with administering the country and dealing with famines and rebellions. Imposing direct rule on China would have been unprofitable as well as futile.

Remember, even in India, the majority of the subcontinent was never under the direct rule of the Raj- it was much more efficient to prop up puppet rulers and milk them for profit. In China such a strategy would have been less workable due to the historic unity of the country so the unequal treaties were a useful alternative.
 
I don't think China can be divided, maybe pieces of it get chomped by the European powers but there's going to be a Chinese polity.
 
Why bother? What happened IOTL was a win-win situation for the colonial powers. They got selected colonies (Hong Kong, Tsingtao, Port Arthur), special privileges, commercial rights and extraterritorial enclaves (such as in Shanghai) without actually having to bother with administering the country and dealing with famines and rebellions. Imposing direct rule on China would have been unprofitable as well as futile.

Remember, even in India, the majority of the subcontinent was never under the direct rule of the Raj- it was much more efficient to prop up puppet rulers and milk them for profit. In China such a strategy would have been less workable due to the historic unity of the country so the unequal treaties were a useful alternative.


But most of their colonies were unprofitable to begin with. A Chinese colony was another extra bit of expensive prestige to convince the European great powers that they were more significant than their fellows.

I wholeheartedly agree on the second point though. The mandate of heaven clearly needs to be dissolved, perhaps a more successful/devastating Taiping rebellion which leads to the fall Qing dynasty, and a protracted civil war.

The Chinese colonies certainly wouldn't be profitable, and would suffer demographically when they are invariably shifted to commodity export economies. Its safe to say said colonies would be lingering time bombs of guerrilla war and nationalist revolution.
 
Sure, it would be a bit outlandish and unworkable to carve up all of China into full-fledged colonies, but if we go with Flocculencio and King Gorilla's ideas, we can still divide China into spheres of influence where local rulers are allied in some way to one European power or another, perhaps with some sort of arrangement similar to the one Japan proposed for the whole country in its Twenty-One Demands.

Also, why not create more full-fledged but smaller colonies in the Hong Kong/Tsingtao/Port Arthur mold?
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Honestly we could easily see the Russian border move a good pierce south, Xinjiang, Inner and Outer Mongolia and Machuria was all relative thinly populated, this could serve as rush for China to keep Russia from gobble it all up (Russia would not have been able to do so, but it's the fear which would drive the other powers). Of course it will be a nigthmare, but I think the French may be able to integrate their pierce into Indochina, while the Ruassia would also likely to be able to integrate their pierces. But hen colonism breaks down I would expect the English (minus Tibet), German and Japanese (minus Taiwan) to reintegrate into a smaller China (in size, population wise there wouldn't be a big difference).
 
A different warlord era sans any legitimate, recognized, nominal Chinese leadership but massive foreign involvement is certainly the likeliest scenario for a divided and foreign-dominated China.
 
I think the most likely outcome is rather then a completely divided China, larger territorial concessions holding strategic significance are given to great powers and outlying territories are allowed to seceede.

Tibet staying under British Thumb.
Yunnan's warlords turning to either France or Britain.
Mongolia and Xinjang either go independent or under Russian rule.
Manchuria is dominated by Japan / Russia
Germany probably expands its Tsingtao beachead all the way to Fuyang and the mouth of Yellow river, little point in more.
France probably gets Hainan and other southern territorial ports.
A hodgepodge of national enclaves on the coast.

You now have an even MORE screwed up China, but I think total colonization is unnecessary.
 
I think the most likely outcome is rather then a completely divided China, larger territorial concessions holding strategic significance are given to great powers and outlying territories are allowed to seceede.

Tibet staying under British Thumb.
Yunnan's warlords turning to either France or Britain.
Mongolia and Xinjang either go independent or under Russian rule.
Manchuria is dominated by Japan / Russia
Germany probably expands its Tsingtao beachead all the way to Fuyang and the mouth of Yellow river, little point in more.
France probably gets Hainan and other southern territorial ports.
A hodgepodge of national enclaves on the coast.

You now have an even MORE screwed up China, but I think total colonization is unnecessary.

Sounds about right, to up the ante the hodgepodge of national enclaves more or less have defacto control over the province or prefecture that they are based in hence the madness of italian, american, or austrian "colony"
 
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