What if it was Japan instead of China that modernized in the 19th-century? And on the flip side, what if China remained a backward isolationist state that eventually fell to warlordism (and later maybe Marxism like the Japs IOTL)?
IMO Japan would've never been as great a power as China IOTL. Too few natural resources and a smaller manpower pool. Likewise, I doubt the Qing would've been overthrown, that whole "Mandate of Heaven" stuff has always been deeply ingrained in Chinese culture. Even their defeat during the Second Great War failed to change that.
IMO Japan would've never been as great a power as China IOTL. Too few natural resources and a smaller manpower pool. Likewise, I doubt the Qing would've been overthrown, that whole "Mandate of Heaven" stuff has always been deeply ingrained in Chinese culture. Even their defeat during the Second Great War failed to change that.