In the 17th century, two dynamic non-European empires, the Shun Dynasty in China and Mughal India, became wealthy, stable, dynamic, and powerful empires under the leadership of Li Zicheng (or the Yongchang Emperor) and Dara Shikoh respectively with Shun China and Mughal India undergoing their own industrial revolutions at the same time that Europe did. But what if the modern world was more Eurocentric with India and China stagnating and falling victim to European imperialism? What PODs might be necessary? Aurangzeb winning the power struggle in the Mughal Empire and/or the Qing/Southern Ming winning out over the Shun (or a combination of both)?
DBWI: A Eurocentric modern world
- Thread starter Whiteshore
- Start date
Hard to imagine...
I mean, it was the dynamic expanding nature of Shun China that led to the discovery of Aozhou and Aetorea, and to the settlement of Aozhou - primarily by the Han, but also with settlers and merchants from their tribute states in the Indonesian archipelago and South-East Asia - and the Maori becoming tributaries. Without that...Aozhou might have been never settled. Or settled by Europeans...
I mean, it was the dynamic expanding nature of Shun China that led to the discovery of Aozhou and Aetorea, and to the settlement of Aozhou - primarily by the Han, but also with settlers and merchants from their tribute states in the Indonesian archipelago and South-East Asia - and the Maori becoming tributaries. Without that...Aozhou might have been never settled. Or settled by Europeans...
Thomas1195
Banned
It is actually quite Eurocentric, because China and India eventually lost the race since the Second Industrial Revolution. China and India lagged behind Europe at least 30 years in adopting electricity, oil and mass production techniques in power generation and manufacturing. The British Empire (Great Britain + North America) was the main industrial giant in the world.
The values of liberalism and enlightenment also enhanced European lead in the long run, especially in scientific development.
The values of liberalism and enlightenment also enhanced European lead in the long run, especially in scientific development.
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Well, the Dutch did visit Aozhou before the Shun did (and even called it "New Holland") but found it to be too unprofitable (well, it's largely desert and the locals there were hunter-gatherers) for a colonization effort to be made. Ditto for Aetorea (which they called "New Zealand").
OOC: The Dutch actually found New Zealand and Australia over a century before James Cook did but didn't colonize it as they deemed it to be unprofitable.
I'd disagree where China's concerned. They did lose ground briefly, but they're on an even keel with any European power industrially these days, and they're still the world's greatest military power.
Plus, they're the world's leading provider of Healthy Technology (OOC: Green technology). Some huge amount of their power is generated by solar and wind power, and they figured out how to tap geothermal power well ahead of the West. China is probably one of the environmentally cleanest countries in the world, yet they remain as industrialised as the West. And let's not forget their lead in space...
True. And it's easy to see why - further away from the homeland, it wouldn't seem worthwhile.
OOC: I know - hence Tasmania
Thomas1195
Banned
Meanwhile, the West has a clear lead in automation, nuclear and tidal energy, as well as AI, electronic, IT and computing technology. They also has more advanced life science and medical technology, as well as chemical technology of all kinds including advanced materials. Even in space, China's lead is tiny. Meanwhile, India still lags behind both China and the West in all areas.
Also, how the hell is China militarily stronger than the West when only the latter possesses WMDs, as well as superior military robots (which China never has) and cyberwarfare? I fear that British Terminators would crush the Chinese forces in a hypothetical war if these monsters are activated, which means no British soldiers involved.
What, you don't consider Rods from the Heavens a WMD? Britain would get wrecked before they even deployed.
OOC: Dude, this is going way OTT - 1. The OP had a world that was Asiacentric, so this doesn't really fit, and 2. Military robots?
Well, it's no longer the world's largest economy with the Shun Chinese the world's largest economy and Mughal India passing it as the world's second largest economy in 2007.
OOC: We can always say he's a British nationalist with a axe to grind against the Chinese/Indians.
Truth.
Don't get me wrong: Britain was a great power once. But these days...definitely not. Well, unless you live there. In which case, it's either a great power or you get shot.
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So, what do you think of that timeline where Li Zicheng fails to take over China and Dara Shikoh was defeated by Aurangzeb, leading to both China and India stagnating and becoming easy prey for European powers?
OOC: I really fail to understand the obsession this forum has about the Qing and Aurangzeb. The Qing made China run better than it ever had in at least four hundred years, and the Shun, led by an uneducated and bloodthirsty hillbilly, would have been a much worse dynasty from everything we've seen.
Aurangzeb wouldn't have been that bad a padishah if he hadn't invaded the Deccan, and the Mughals were very parochial anyways (the government appears to not even have known where Sri Lanka was). A single different padishah can change only so much.
Aurangzeb wouldn't have been that bad a padishah if he hadn't invaded the Deccan, and the Mughals were very parochial anyways (the government appears to not even have known where Sri Lanka was). A single different padishah can change only so much.
Optical_Illusion
Banned
Economic very broad strokes, long term, with a stagnant India and China, one thing I can add is is you wouldn't see the demographic transformations that overtook China and India early in our timeline.
In our world, you saw Asian demographic growth slow down in the late 19th century, just like in industrialising Europe and the British colonies in North America. That leads to our present day where Europe+North America has about 2x the population of China+India+Rest of Asia, and although the world is centered on Asia, the North Atlantic sphere is still relatively important. The pattern's been, everywhere, that as people get richer, child mortality lowers and people choose to have fewer children.
In another world where the industrial revolutions in Asia happened later, demographic slowdown would happen much later, you might see China+India+Rest of Asia reach very large populations relative to the North Atlantic sphere (OOC: in OTL, about 4x in 2012), and where actually when you take into account population growth in South America and Africa, most of the population is not in Asia.
In time, once these large populations industrialised and converged roughly in term of income (at least to the relatively small regional differences we see in our world), you'd see a much more Asia centered world than our world or the historical norm!
Another thing that strikes is that the world wouldn't be more globalized, exactly, but have a different shape. In our world, industrialisation in each broad region (Indian, Chinese, Euro-North Atlantic) was fed by fairly local demand within each region, and industrialisers were not competitive outside it.
(Geopolitically, this was much enforced by the dividing up of the world into rival multipolar armed camps, during the 20th century "Cold War"!)
In the another world, late industrialisers might try and develop a global export led model of industrialisation, using cheaper local wages as an advantage, and ultimately this would move production from the early industrialisers to cheaper late entering countries, and deindustrialising early industrialisers. In our time line this has happened to a limited extent with the Spanish colonies in South America, but largely hasn't, because so much of the world industrialised at the same time (plus automation)...
Put them together and we'd be looking at world which, at our point in their timeline, would be Eurocentric in terms of a relatively much richer Europe and North America, but which would be contrasted to much younger and larger populations in Asia and find that as Asia industrialised, it could be facing a sharp transition to world order where Europeans hold much less power than anything we've ever seen in our time line.
In our world, you saw Asian demographic growth slow down in the late 19th century, just like in industrialising Europe and the British colonies in North America. That leads to our present day where Europe+North America has about 2x the population of China+India+Rest of Asia, and although the world is centered on Asia, the North Atlantic sphere is still relatively important. The pattern's been, everywhere, that as people get richer, child mortality lowers and people choose to have fewer children.
In another world where the industrial revolutions in Asia happened later, demographic slowdown would happen much later, you might see China+India+Rest of Asia reach very large populations relative to the North Atlantic sphere (OOC: in OTL, about 4x in 2012), and where actually when you take into account population growth in South America and Africa, most of the population is not in Asia.
In time, once these large populations industrialised and converged roughly in term of income (at least to the relatively small regional differences we see in our world), you'd see a much more Asia centered world than our world or the historical norm!
Another thing that strikes is that the world wouldn't be more globalized, exactly, but have a different shape. In our world, industrialisation in each broad region (Indian, Chinese, Euro-North Atlantic) was fed by fairly local demand within each region, and industrialisers were not competitive outside it.
(Geopolitically, this was much enforced by the dividing up of the world into rival multipolar armed camps, during the 20th century "Cold War"!)
In the another world, late industrialisers might try and develop a global export led model of industrialisation, using cheaper local wages as an advantage, and ultimately this would move production from the early industrialisers to cheaper late entering countries, and deindustrialising early industrialisers. In our time line this has happened to a limited extent with the Spanish colonies in South America, but largely hasn't, because so much of the world industrialised at the same time (plus automation)...
Put them together and we'd be looking at world which, at our point in their timeline, would be Eurocentric in terms of a relatively much richer Europe and North America, but which would be contrasted to much younger and larger populations in Asia and find that as Asia industrialised, it could be facing a sharp transition to world order where Europeans hold much less power than anything we've ever seen in our time line.
IFwanderer
Banned
Sigh, these brits and their "self-reliance" bullshit, always pretending their little island dictatorship is a great power on the back of their inaccurate rockets and indoctrinated population. I don't see why should we humor them. Next time they'll start saying that Elder Brother Huxley of the Democratic People's Republic of Britannia single-handedly invented planes and nuclear technology.
OOC: Why is it that every non-eurocentric DBWI (as in, the "DB" part) thread ends up having someone wanking Britain or the US in the first ten posts?
OOC: As Britain was referred to as a "great power" and is under the "British Empire", maybe a right-wing version of Brezhnev's USSR would be a better analogy for TTL's Britain?
IC: How do you think would France and Germany have been affected by the lack of a Chinese or Indian Industrial Revolution?
IC: How do you think would France and Germany have been affected by the lack of a Chinese or Indian Industrial Revolution?
IFwanderer
Banned
OOC: I second @theg*ddam*hoi2fan's idea of retconning that part. It's really annoying that it's strong Britain every TL (there's already OTL for anglo-wanks), have them be a North Korea-like state for once.
IC: Well, it depends on their situation, both states have great reserves of high quality coal so I could see one industrializing and the other trying to catch up, but I'm not sure if they can educate their population well enough to innovate a lot from that point onwards.
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So, how much of a threat do you think is Britannia to it's neighbors (the United Provinces of the Netherlands, the Kingdom of France, the Kingdom of Sweden, and the Holy Roman Empire of the German and Hungarian Nations)? The Republic of New Netherlands (OOC: Essentially a Dutch-speaking alt!US) and Canada are very vocal in calling for more measures against Britannia even though Britannia poses little threat to either of them, so they must be a sizable threat to their neighbors
Also, what parts of that timeline where the Qing took over China instead of the Shun and Aurangzeb took over the Mughal Empire are the most unrealistic? Me? Probably the whole "British Empire" thing as even the Dutch Republic at it's height only controlled 1/10ths of the world's land area while the "British Empire" controlled 1/4ths of the world's land area
IFwanderer
Banned
Don't forget the Republic of Scotland and Ireland* (OOC: if England/UK is North Korea, they can be South Korea), if Britain declares war, they'll get nuked in the first five minutes, same for the UP. France probably has enough missile interceptors to avoid the worst, but there's a chance they take some heavy hits. The HRE and Sweden are out of range if the numbers I have seen are right.
*[OOC: one state, not two]
*[OOC: one state, not two]