Could Japan have done a deal with China

Could the Japanese Empire have agreed something with the Chinese state and how much difference might this have made to its capacity in the rest of the Pacific theatre?
 

Hashasheen

Banned
Could the Japanese Empire have agreed something with the Chinese state and how much difference might this have made to its capacity in the rest of the Pacific theatre?
No they couldn't. Japanese honor, or more specifically; the honor of the Japanese officers who launchd the war was at stake. They wouldn't have accepted anything.
 
First of all, it would depend on the nature of the deal. Chiang was playing for time and still had real problems with the warlords on his back. There are three real problems:

1. That Japan has done terrible things to the Chinese People, the Nanjing Massacre is essentially unforgivable. That said, it is not impossible to rule that this need not have happened.

2. Japan has decided to ignore Chiang's entreaties for any kind of peace deal, suggesting that the war is all or nothing. This attitude also needs to be reversed.

3. The IJA wants a lot more than Chiang will be willing to yield. Chiang will obviously never yield Nanjing as a concession to Japan, or any large swaths of territory in that region.

With those points in mind, it is very possible to see the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, culminating with a successful attack and capture of Nanjing leading instead to Chiang being profoundly humiliated, and being forced to recognize Inner Mongolia (Menguko) and possibly the loss of Beijing (which was actually on the front lines of Japanese expansion).

The problem here, is that the IJA needs to get reined in, or yet another war with China will be provoked. Ultimately, a peace deal that leaves Japan in Beijing and Inner Mongolia is going to exist only so that Chiang can crush the Communists once and for all. Once that's done, maybe Chiang is in a strong enough position to resist any further territorial grabs. Alternatively, Chiang might well fall for cutting this last deal with Japan, and more hawkish leaders come to the fore--someone like Li Zongren takes over.
 

Markus

Banned
Could the Japanese Empire have agreed something with the Chinese state and how much difference might this have made to its capacity in the rest of the Pacific theatre?

It was the Chinese who did not want to give in the the Japanese demands and even if both had made a compromise it would not have affected the Japanese performance in the PTO because without the war in China there might very well be no PTO.
The various sanctions were all western reactions to Japanese actions intended to defeat China. Case in point, if there is no sino-japanese war the Japanese will not to invade French Indochina to cut off the flow of supplies to the Chinese and the USA and others will not freeze japanese assets, stop the sale of various commodities.
 
First of all, it would depend on the nature of the deal. Chiang was playing for time and still had real problems with the warlords on his back. There are three real problems:

1. That Japan has done terrible things to the Chinese People, the Nanjing Massacre is essentially unforgivable. That said, it is not impossible to rule that this need not have happened.

2. Japan has decided to ignore Chiang's entreaties for any kind of peace deal, suggesting that the war is all or nothing. This attitude also needs to be reversed.

3. The IJA wants a lot more than Chiang will be willing to yield. Chiang will obviously never yield Nanjing as a concession to Japan, or any large swaths of territory in that region.

With those points in mind, it is very possible to see the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, culminating with a successful attack and capture of Nanjing leading instead to Chiang being profoundly humiliated, and being forced to recognize Inner Mongolia (Menguko) and possibly the loss of Beijing (which was actually on the front lines of Japanese expansion).

The problem here, is that the IJA needs to get reined in, or yet another war with China will be provoked. Ultimately, a peace deal that leaves Japan in Beijing and Inner Mongolia is going to exist only so that Chiang can crush the Communists once and for all. Once that's done, maybe Chiang is in a strong enough position to resist any further territorial grabs. Alternatively, Chiang might well fall for cutting this last deal with Japan, and more hawkish leaders come to the fore--someone like Li Zongren takes over.

Couldn't Chang be convinced to "buy some time" and give the Japanese what they want until they enter into a war with the anglo-saxons.
 
I believe that removing Chiang Kai-Shek from the picture is the best way to accomplish this. Perhaps a successful anti-Chiang coup in the early 1930's could leave Wan Jiabao dominant over the KMT. He would likely have trouble with other contenders for power later, and go full Quisling for the Japanese in order to rule as their puppet. A pro-Japanese, anti-communist government in Nanjing could be accomplished, though they would spend a lot of time fighting anti-Japanese warlords and the communists.

This would likely remove the impetus for a Pacific Theatre at all. The changing strategic situation may improve the position of those seeking an invasion of the Soviet Union instead. That chain of events could lead to a later conflict with the western powers, but it would be very different from OTL.
 
Couldn't Chang be convinced to "buy some time" and give the Japanese what they want until they enter into a war with the anglo-saxons.

Japan wants too much; and I don't think the US or UK will DoW Japan even if Japan marches into Indochina.

Japan wants to take ALL of China. I'm suggesting that someone like Konoe is able to rein the army in enough to cut a deal with Chiang, allow the Army to celebrate a victory by establishing a puppet Menguko and maybe Beijing, and then MAYBE put the army under his thumb.

So, in short, if Japan cuts a deal with China, it means that the IJA's influence on politics is fading. This is possible--all that is needed is Hirohito to disapprove of these adventures. If he would quietly signal his displeasure of the constant attacks in China and look to "keep what we have", that should suffice.

Once Japan has a double helping of China, and Hirohito comes out AGAINST another round of grabs, maybe the situation in China will solidify. Full Control, though, is best achieved by having Wang Jingwei remain in charge of the RoC, and then he agrees to become a Japanese Puppet.
 
Japan wants to take ALL of China.

I doubt that,they had massive problems with guerillas in the areas they controlled,trying to hold down all of China would be disastorous and I'm sure any Kwantung officer with brain can see that. They would probably see a large containable chunk as a victory.

And Japan went to war with the Anglo-Saxons due to fuel,surely the oil embargo will continue even though China has made peace.
 
I doubt that,they had massive problems with guerillas in the areas they controlled,trying to hold down all of China would be disastorous and I'm sure any Kwantung officer with brain can see that. They would probably see a large containable chunk as a victory.

And Japan went to war with the Anglo-Saxons due to fuel,surely the oil embargo will continue even though China has made peace.

Actually, the problem is that Japan didn't really have much of a brain for the whole affair--they indeed went for all of China, and threw out any hope of a negotiated peace OTL.

The war with China was the critical element that caused tensions with the west in the First Place. If China peaces out pre-1940, there's no Oil Embargo to start with! Even if Japan has pushed into Indochina, if at this late point China cut a deal, Japan would be in a position to make a concession to reconnect its oil--it could pull out of Indochina.

There is also the point that Japan's oil needs were tied to its combat operations. If Combat operations are pared down, there is much less need for Oil. Besides, you're treating Japan's war against the West as its preferred solution to the problem--it was more a matter of a self-inflicted trap.

There will be no war with the West if there is Peace in China. This, combined with the point that China would be likely to peace out around 1938, when Japan grabs Nanjing, means that Japan dodges war.

Attacking the West is a desperate gamble with no other choices present themslves. That would not happen ITTL with Germany in everyone's mind. Japan MIGHT hit the Soviet Union, but it would only do so if things like the Nomohan Incident went very favorably, which they would probably not.
 
The war with China was the critical element that caused tensions with the west in the First Place. If China peaces out pre-1940, there's no Oil Embargo to start with! Even if Japan has pushed into Indochina, if at this late point China cut a deal, Japan would be in a position to make a concession to reconnect its oil--it could pull out of Indochina.

It doesn't work that way,did Britain make peace because Germany had conquered Poland.

There is also the point that Japan's oil needs were tied to its combat operations. If Combat operations are pared down, there is much less need for Oil. Besides, you're treating Japan's war against the West as its preferred solution to the problem--it was more a matter of a self-inflicted trap.

There will still be large guerilla forces in the occupied regions and as in OTL the Japanese are going to expand a lot of fuel just fighting them.

There will be no war with the West if there is Peace in China. This, combined with the point that China would be likely to peace out around 1938, when Japan grabs Nanjing, means that Japan dodges war.

The embargo is still going to hit them very hard so surely it will lead to the same downward spiral.

Japan MIGHT hit the Soviet Union, but it would only do so if things like the Nomohan Incident went very favorably, which they would probably not.

How could they without oil ;)
 
I don't know if it's that implausible. There were discussions throughout 1940 about coming to an agreement. But I agree it'd be easier if Chiang died at some point.
 
It depends on what you regard as the Chinese State as they arguably did a deal with Puyi in Manchukuo.Not with Chiang Kai Shek or Mao Tse Tung the problem was that Puyi had little support in China from either the warlords or the Communists. Also the Japanese were racist and continually sidelined Puyi enraging him and would probably have been incapable of treating the Chinese as an ally. The effect, the Chinese managed to tie down a considerable part of the Japanese Army had they not been in China they could have been used in Burma or the Solomons but as others have pointed out, there may well have been no oil embargo
 
This tempted me to dig stuff up at home.

From Chinese-Soviet Relations: The Diplomacy of Chinese Nationalism

Chiang moved to open secret peace talks with Japan. In November 1939, Chiang ordered the head of his secret service Dai Li to send an agent to Hong Kong to establish contacts with Japanese operatives there. Dai made the necessary arrangements, and talks began in Hong Kong on 7 March 1940. They continued intermittently until 8 October 1940. By early June the two sides were close to agreement. Chiang's peace terms in mid-1940, simply stated, included the following points. First, Japan could station troops in Inner Mongolia and at certain points in north China. Second, China would sign an anticommunist agreement with Japan directed against "external communism," that is, against the Soviet Union. Third, China would not contest the loss of Manchuria to Japan. Finally, Japan would have extensive economic and political privileges in China. The implementation of these terms would have been a serious threat to the Soviet Union. Moreover, if a Sino-Japanese settlement were linked to improvements in Japanese-American relations, as the idea of a U.S.sponsored international conference suggested would be the case, such an arrangement would diminish prospects for a Japanese drive south into Southeast Asia. Again, in the lexicon of that era, it would have been a "Far Eastern Munich."​

Thoughts?
 
I don't think its impossible they could have succeeded. The whole "Japan wanted to conquer all of China and would never have accepted anything less" is just part of a swath of bad memes that paint Japan in this era as particularly irrational. There were a significant factions in the Japanese government who wanted to bring the war with China to an end, and they were sidelined OTL. However, it wasn't some fundamental aspect of Japanese honor or racism or whatever that pre-ordained this, different circumstances could have brought them to the fore.

Japan wanted to control China, but it didn't necessarily want to directly control China. They would have been happy to rule China through their puppets Puxi and Wang Jingbei, and I'd suggest it was largely down to personality that they were unable to make an arrangement with Chiang.
 
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