DBWI: China does enter into WW1

BigBlueBox

Banned
Which side does China join? If it joins Entente, then Entente might have won by the end of 1918, instead of January 1919. Still doesn't make a big difference in the grand scheme of things though. If it joins the Central Powers, it would have been defeated by the Entente and Japan, but it could have been enough of a distraction that the Russians were forced to sue for peace even earlier, which could lead to a better deal for the Central Powers, although I doubt it would have been enough to make them win, unless the butterflies somehow prevented America from joining the Entente.

The events after the war would have been different though. China probably would have gotten Shandong Province from Germany if it joined the Entente (OTL it was given to Japan).
 
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Which side does China join? If it joins Entente, then Entente might have won by the end of 1918, instead of January 1919. Still doesn't make a big difference in the grand scheme of things though. If it joins the Central Powers, it would have been defeated by the Entente and Japan, but it could have been enough of a distraction that the Russians were forced to sue for peace even earlier.

Very true. China was on this point on terrible state. The country was practically on civil war. Even if China would join to Entente, hard to imaginate about that being anything benefit for China.

In other hand perhaps China could get Chinese territories instead Japan. So we might avoid Second Sino-Japanese War or at least delay that.
 

raharris1973

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If China entered the war on the Entente side (the saner choice, in my view) it could have contributed labor and supplies and been an early member of the League of Nations. It's contributions though would have come too late and would have been too small for it to be a permanent League Council member though.

And, I think that for China to get Qingdao instead of Japan (and thus averting full-scale Sino-Japanese war in the late 1920s), Yuan Shikai would have had to move instantly. After November 1914, Japan's Qingdao leasehold was going to be a fact of life for the next 20 years, as the Japanese had "conquered it fair and square" from the Germans, and possession is 9/10ths of the law.

If China entered on the Central Powers side, it would be Boxer Rebellion # II. The Chinese would not have distracted first-line Entente troops from anything more important in Europe, and Japan would have been given carte blanche to beat down China. Japan might have gotten League of Nations mandates over Manchuria and Shandong and Inner Mongolia or more. Britain might have gotten a mandate over Tibet. Only revolution in Russia (don't see why that would change) would prevent Russian mandates in Sinkiang, outer Mongolia and northern Manchuria. Perhaps even a French mandate over Yunnan and Kwangsi provinces in China's southwest.

Worst of all for China might have been if "China" joined *both* sides. There would have been a real risk of the Canton regime of Sun Yat-sen joining the CP if the Beiyang regime joined the Entente, or vice versa. Sun was a rabble-rouser determined to bring down Beiyang and to work with absolutely anyone to do it.
 

raharris1973

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So either ways, sino-japanese war is butterflied away, right?

Well yes, either one does away with the Sino-Japanese war *as we knew it* but in many ways a China joins CP scenario opens the door for Japan to launch an earlier big war on China, with the *approval*of most other powers that matter. So in some ways a similar war, without the international bad press.
 
If we look at it from a Chinese internal perspective, a Entente China or a neutral China probably means that the pro-entente Zhili Clique holds onto their mastery over the nation.
 
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