Could Japan have achieved a Brest LItovsk with Chins pre Dec 41

I am curious about whether there was any way the OTL Pacific war could have been prevented.

As I see it the US was rightly appalled at Japan's behaviour and the sanctions gave the mno choice but surrender or war.

WI the Japanese thugs had decided that there was a limit to how useful kiling lots of Chinese people was and to end the war dominating bits fo China.

Could Japan have done that?

Was the nature of the regime in Japan such that it needed to have continual aggressive wars?

Also assuming no Pearl Harbor how long does the US stay neutral in the European war
 
No. Anymore than the US could achieve that with North Vietnam.

The Japanese did everything they could to force the Chinese to make peace on their terms. The Chinese just simply refused. With the result that Japan just kept expanding the war in hopes that one more victory would compel China to negotiate. Japan never had the manpower to occupy all of China, and short of that I don't see what they could do to force a peace.
 
No. Anymore than the US could achieve that with North Vietnam.

The Japanese did everything they could to force the Chinese to make peace on their terms. The Chinese just simply refused. With the result that Japan just kept expanding the war in hopes that one more victory would compel China to negotiate. Japan never had the manpower to occupy all of China, and short of that I don't see what they could do to force a peace.

was that even the plan? they did set up a puppet in manchuria.

a good start to get a B-L would be more restraint shown by the IJA. nanjing was probably the worst thing that could have happened for japan, diplomatically.
 
Part of the problem was there not really being a nationally-accepted Chinese govenrment with which the japanese could negotiate. Even leaving aside the matter of Mao & his followers, provincial warlords -- especially in the north -- could and did ignore Chiang Kai-Shek's instructions whenever that suited them.
 
The problem with a Brest-Litovsk scenario is that Chiang refused to make any concessions with Japan, and Japan was not able to force him. However, if Japan was able to inflict an even worse defeat on China earlier in the war, then Chiang might be forced to sue for peace.

Here are the major battles that Japan must win to create a situation where Chiang feels he must make peace (or enable a pro-peace faction to oust Chiang).

1) Battle of Taierzhuang March/April 1938. This was a major Chinese victory early in the war that made China feel like it was possible for them to defeat Japan. A Japanese victory here severely erodes Chinese morale, and enables them to hit China harder in the next year.

2) Battle of Wuhan June-October 1938. The battle was a Japanese victory, but came at a very high cost and delayed Japan from pushing deeper into China. A stronger Japanese victory would inflict higher casualties on China, reduce Japanese casualties, and enable them to move up the Yangtze.

3) First Battle of Changsha September/October 1939. The Chinese stopped a major city from falling to Japan for the first time, and prevented the Japanese from linking up their central Chinese territories with their southern conquests.

These battles created the stalemate that Japan found itself in prior to 1941. Victories here would eliminate that stalemate. Such victories were theoretically possible, and so are within plausibility. If we imagine a timeline where Japan won Taierzhuang, quickly seized Wuhan, and then was able to take Changsha that enabled them to link their conquests with southern China, and threaten Chungking, then the entire Chinese military effort might have collapsed.

The actual land ceded to Japan might not be that extensive, but China would become a pupper of Japan, and Japan would have major extraterritorial rights.

Of course, the people of China would hate both the discredited Nationalists, the pupper government, and the Japanese. I'd expect most opposition to flock to the Communists, and the long term prognosis would be guerilla war and eventual civil war. I don't see the puppet Chinese government exercising much authority, and we'd see a return to warlordism. Some of the warlords might remain anti-Japanese, but there'd be little they could do. This would significantly delay China into becoming any sort of world power for a very long time.
 
The problem with a Brest-Litovsk scenario is that Chiang refused to make any concessions with Japan, and Japan was not able to force him. However, if Japan was able to inflict an even worse defeat on China earlier in the war, then Chiang might be forced to sue for peace.

Here are the major battles that Japan must win to create a situation where Chiang feels he must make peace (or enable a pro-peace faction to oust Chiang).

1) Battle of Taierzhuang March/April 1938. This was a major Chinese victory early in the war that made China feel like it was possible for them to defeat Japan. A Japanese victory here severely erodes Chinese morale, and enables them to hit China harder in the next year.

2) Battle of Wuhan June-October 1938. The battle was a Japanese victory, but came at a very high cost and delayed Japan from pushing deeper into China. A stronger Japanese victory would inflict higher casualties on China, reduce Japanese casualties, and enable them to move up the Yangtze.

3) First Battle of Changsha September/October 1939. The Chinese stopped a major city from falling to Japan for the first time, and prevented the Japanese from linking up their central Chinese territories with their southern conquests.

These battles created the stalemate that Japan found itself in prior to 1941. Victories here would eliminate that stalemate. Such victories were theoretically possible, and so are within plausibility. If we imagine a timeline where Japan won Taierzhuang, quickly seized Wuhan, and then was able to take Changsha that enabled them to link their conquests with southern China, and threaten Chungking, then the entire Chinese military effort might have collapsed.

The actual land ceded to Japan might not be that extensive, but China would become a pupper of Japan, and Japan would have major extraterritorial rights.

Of course, the people of China would hate both the discredited Nationalists, the pupper government, and the Japanese. I'd expect most opposition to flock to the Communists, and the long term prognosis would be guerilla war and eventual civil war. I don't see the puppet Chinese government exercising much authority, and we'd see a return to warlordism. Some of the warlords might remain anti-Japanese, but there'd be little they could do. This would significantly delay China into becoming any sort of world power for a very long time.

So, the strategy that you're postulating is that Japan decisively wins every battle that it didn't. How, exactly, are you handwaving away the leadership and logistical problems that affected Japan historically in those battles besides "Japan does better?" Japan wasn't looking for extraterritoriality, but for control, so the Nationalists couldn't sue for peace. Japan wasn't looking for it.

If the Chinese war movement collapsed, Japan would probably have looked to press its advantage for all of China. The entire goal of Japan's military effort during WWII was for the conquest of China, so you'd have to change the military leadership significantly for a Brest-Litovsk scenario. The question posited in this thread is something akin to "1942: Could Nazi Germany have achieved a Brest-Litovsk with the USSR?" The answer is No, because Nazi Germany was looking for utter conquest, not Brest-Litovsk 2.0. As for this question, the answer is also No. The Japanese didn't see a limit in killing Chinese people, and didn't want to end up dominating just bits and pieces of China, which is the big reason why they went to war with every power in East Asia in order to try to conquer China. (Other reasons of course include poor planning and deep-seated racism.)

That being said, even if the Japanese leadership completely changed its mentality and was willing to withdraw from China, I'm not sure why the Republic of China would officially cede territory to Japan. After all, weren't the Japanese claiming to be fighting for the Nanjing puppet regime or something? In Manchukuo, they leased Dalian, instead of a legal cession. Of course, any legal dealings with Japan during this time are legal fictions, but it's still indicative.
 
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