DBWI: America took Guam and the Philippines in 1898

In 1898 the US Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Paris of 1898, on the basis that annexing Guam and the Philippines would involve America in the overlapping spheres of European (and Japanese) colonial interests in Asia, and risk dragging America into overseas wars. This forced the treaty's revision, leading to Japan buying Guam from Spain a year later, and the US recognizing Philippine independence, followed by Siam, Japan, and Britain doing likewise in 1899 and 1902 respectively. Furthermore, it affirmed America's 'Americas First' foreign policy for decades to come, and even when the policy was amended in light of realpolitik concerns from the 1930s onward, American overseas influence remained an almost purely 'soft power' affair.

But what if the US Senate did ratify the treaty as it original was? How would it have affected the Eurasian balance of power, and American foreign policy onward?
 
I have some notes from a TL regarding this. Some crucial things:

* English as an official language nationwide, as opposed to Spanish;
* increased tensions in Mindanao especially with the Moros;
* The Second Great War happens to pit Japan against the USA, and the Philippines are occupied as a result.

This would lead to a more unitary Philippines instead of the federal republic of OTL.
 
The Second Great War happens to pit Japan against the USA, and the Philippines are occupied as a result.

As I recall Japanese naval war exercises (potentially) against the USA in the 20s and 30s determined that strategically, the IJN could never hope to decisively defeat the USN, much less force the USA to capitulate. The best Japan could have gotten would have been a status quo ante bellum peace, and at worst Japan occupied or even annexed by the USA. If the Philippines becomes an American territory/satellite, I can't help but wonder if that would actually make the point - that Japan could never win a war against the USA - easier to drive home against the hawks in Tokyo?
 
Well, ITTL the Japanese had the element of surprise against an isolationist USA. Paradoxically, despite having its own colonial empire the US became MORE isolationist TTL.
 
Well, ITTL the Japanese had the element of surprise against an isolationist USA. Paradoxically, despite having its own colonial empire the US became MORE isolationist TTL.

Wait, what? How could having a colonial empire make America even more isolationist than it already is?

OTOH, I can see how an American presence in the Philippines would make Japan's operations in the Second Great War more difficult if not completely compromise them. The Philippines after all, is right in the middle of the South China Sea, and (potentially) hostile forces there could threaten Japan's lines of supply and communications to their Dutch allies in the Dutch East Indies, and supporting the operations against the British and the Australians in the region.

OOC: I assume that WWII never had Japan go to war against America in this DBWI scenario, so what do you mean by Japan had the element of surprise?
 
Wait, what? How could having a colonial empire make America even more isolationist than it already is?

Well, you could have a major economic depression occur in the early 20th century. Not to mention America's tendency to emphasize the issues of small government and isolationism, even as an emergent world power.

OOC: I assume that WWII never had Japan go to war against America in this DBWI scenario, so what do you mean by Japan had the element of surprise?

OOC: Japan essentially attacked the Philippines the day after Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese early success in the Pacific front was mostly because the USA had yet to fully devote itself to a war economy. That's what I mean by surprising the USA.
 
Well, you could have a major economic depression occur in the early 20th century. Not to mention America's tendency to emphasize the issues of small government and isolationism, even as an emergent world power.

Perhaps...if so, then Japan could potentially buy the Philippines, which would secure their lines of supplies and communications across the South China Sea. Of course, this assumes that same alliance systems as in the OTL Second Great War: Germany, Russia, Japan, and their co-belligerents, against Britain, France, and the Commonwealth.

It's possible that ITTL, alliance systems and thus war goals could be completely different.
 
Perhaps...if so, then Japan could potentially buy the Philippines

Except TTL I had the US setting the Philippines on the road to self-government by 1935, which is a half decade before TTL's Second Great War.

Also, my alliance system was utterly similar to yours. A Japan far less democratic than OTL wouldn't have been a willing sale partner for the USA as well.
 
Was the US Senate in general thought of then-emerging China market?

America always supported the Open Door Policy, i.e. everyone could freely trade with China. The other Great Powers also supported this policy, as unlike Africa China was too heavily-populated/organized to partition into colonies. Even the Japanese understood this...

...though Manchuria was a massive grey area, not officially being considered part of China Proper. The same could be said for all territories contested by the Hong Dynasty for the past half century or so: Manchuria, Tannu Tuva, Mongolia, and Xinjiang. All of those except for Manchuria have been part of the Russian Empire since 1928, and Manchuria was split by Japan and Russia in 1925: the north to the Russian Empire, and the south to Japan.

Heh...Japan and Russia, the odd couple of the Great Powers. You'd expect given the humiliation of the war of 1904-1905 the two to be bitter rivals, but instead the current Empress Consort of the Empire of Japan was born a Russian Grand Duchess, and Russia refused to even consider a separate peace with Britain in 1944 if it meant leaving the Japanese out in the cold. And of course, the Eurasian Space Agency's always had Russia and Japan as its core members.
 

Deleted member 97083

The German "guarantee" of Spanish control over the Philippines would have posed a problem for the US.
 
* English as an official language nationwide, as opposed to Spanish;
* increased tensions in Mindanao especially with the Moros;
* The Second Great War happens to pit Japan against the USA, and the Philippines are occupied as a result.

This would lead to a more unitary Philippines instead of the federal republic of OTL.
Oh, I remember a well-known quote from Artemio Ricarte:
"We are a Latin American country located in the other side of the Pacific with increasing, albeit indirect, Japanese influence".
 
Oh, I remember a well-known quote from Artemio Ricarte:
"We are a Latin American country located in the other side of the Pacific with increasing, albeit indirect, Japanese influence".

It's not just the Japanese. The Hong Empire's influence in the region is also growing, and has been for a couple of decades now.
 
America would have had to suck up to the landed classes/elites to maintain its hegemony in a hypothetical Philippine Colony, meaning that reformers like Apolinario Mabini would never have been able to negotiate a Land Reform bill that would have split the Religious Orders' estates among their tenants. Even in this timeline, it was a close-run thing...
 
Top