DBWI: Japan joined the Axis

DBWI: Japan joined the Axis.

Insane I know, even the IJA admitted that going to war with America wasn't so much as stupid but insane, but how would the Second Sino-Japanese War (to say nothing of the rest of WWII) had gone if Japan, not China, went fascist?

EDIT: let's expand the premise to what happens long after the war comes to an end.
 
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Horribly for them, no doubt. Think of the utter, utter devastation Japan, Britain, Soviets, and even the US toward the end did to China, and then project that onto Japan. By the casualty total some attribute to the Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII combined (no one will ever know), Japanese would only be spoken in hell by the end of things if they got China's treatment.
 
Horribly for them, no doubt. Think of the utter, utter devastation Japan, Britain, Soviets, and even the US toward the end did to China, and then project that onto Japan. By the casualty total some attribute to the Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII combined (no one will ever know), Japanese would only be spoken in hell by the end of things if they got China's treatment.

That's something of an exaggeration though. Yeah, the Allied strategic bombing campaign over Eastern China was bad, but casualty rates weren't particularly higher than in Germany. And the Soviets get too much flak for what happened in Western China, seeing as the Red Army only invaded Xinjiang towards the end of the war (which led the Japanese to cave-in to American pressure to allow the use of a nuclear bomb against the provisional capital at Chongqing). Yeah it was nasty, but much of the postwar horror in China was due to Mao and his ilk's mismanagement of the People's Republic until the Soviets finally got rid of him when he nearly pushed the superpowers to a nuclear war in the Three Weeks War of 1964. And there were those stunts Mao pulled in Indochina in 60 to 61.

The DRC wasn't the best of countries - there's a reason people call it the GDR of the east - but compared to the Maoist PRC it was practically a paradise. Khrushchev did everyone a favor when he had the KGB get rid of Mao before things got out of hand.
 
The best way to do this is probably to make the Chinese Communists come to power sometime during the interwar period. So China wouldn't be fascist and would not join the Axis. Japan was already quite militaristic and nationalistic in that era, given the right nudge I could see them becoming fascist. As for how the war would go in that situation, it depends on who is involved. The Soviet Union would presumably be at war with Japan, but would America be involved? Or Britian?
 
That's something of an exaggeration though. Yeah, the Allied strategic bombing campaign over Eastern China was bad, but casualty rates weren't particularly higher than in Germany. And the Soviets get too much flak for what happened in Western China, seeing as the Red Army only invaded Xinjiang towards the end of the war (which led the Japanese to cave-in to American pressure to allow the use of a nuclear bomb against the provisional capital at Chongqing). Yeah it was nasty, but much of the postwar horror in China was due to Mao and his ilk's mismanagement of the People's Republic until the Soviets finally got rid of him when he nearly pushed the superpowers to a nuclear war in the Three Weeks War of 1964. And there were those stunts Mao pulled in Indochina in 60 to 61.

The DRC wasn't the best of countries - there's a reason people call it the GDR of the east - but compared to the Maoist PRC it was practically a paradise. Khrushchev did everyone a favor when he had the KGB get rid of Mao before things got out of hand.
Agreed, I believe there was a Khmer Maoist-turned-Marxist revolutionary by name of Saloth Sâr who traveled to the PRC a week prior to Mao's assassination. When he met with the Pro-Soviet replacement of Mao, Sâr became convinced that Marxism was superior to Maoism and he would lead a failed revolution in Thailand's Khmer Autonomous Region. Imagine what would've happened if Sâr stayed a Maoist.
 
The best way to do this is probably to make the Chinese Communists come to power sometime during the interwar period. So China wouldn't be fascist and would not join the Axis. Japan was already quite militaristic and nationalistic in that era, given the right nudge I could see them becoming fascist. As for how the war would go in that situation, it depends on who is involved. The Soviet Union would presumably be at war with Japan, but would America be involved? Or Britian?
The Americans & British would only get involved if they felt that Japan threatened their Spheres of Influence in region.
 
The Americans & British would only get involved if they felt that Japan threatened their Spheres of Influence in region.

Then as now, Manchuria is a grey zone where Chinese sovereignty is concerned, given that it only truly became part of China under the Qing. And the Japanese knew it, which was why they managed to get away with establishing Manchukuo in '32 and snubbing the League over the issue. China was different: both the IJA and the IJN knew the Americans were very sensitive of the Open Door Policy, and despite the heavy inter-service rivalry both branches of the military didn't want a war with America.

And starting in '36, they saw the advantage in America's growing apprehension over China's increasing militarization as giving Japan an opportunity to mend fences bruised by the Manchurian Intervention (which in turn allowed the Japanese a semi-plausible excuse to increase their standing forces to maintain a seven to ten ratio with the Chinese). And of course, Chiang's ambitious naval construction program starting in 1936 especially worried the Americans. Much like they later realized with the Soviets, Japan while perfectly capable of becoming the regional leader was nowhere near an existential threat to America. China (and later the Soviets) were both large countries with manpower, resources, and industry to match America - and therefore existential threats that Japan could never be.

Worse, Japan might have been arch-conservative in the vein of Imperial Germany, but it was a multi-party parliamentary democracy. Not so with Chiang's China, which was a single-party state reminiscent of the Nazis but lacking their racial superiority and such overtones. And in the Soviets' case, well, at at least Japan was free-market, which the Soviets were not until Khrushchev came along.
 
Then as now, Manchuria is a grey zone where Chinese sovereignty is concerned, given that it only truly became part of China under the Qing. And the Japanese knew it, which was why they managed to get away with establishing Manchukuo in '32 and snubbing the League over the issue. China was different: both the IJA and the IJN knew the Americans were very sensitive of the Open Door Policy, and despite the heavy inter-service rivalry both branches of the military didn't want a war with America.

And starting in '36, they saw the advantage in America's growing apprehension over China's increasing militarization as giving Japan an opportunity to mend fences bruised by the Manchurian Intervention (which in turn allowed the Japanese a semi-plausible excuse to increase their standing forces to maintain a seven to ten ratio with the Chinese). And of course, Chiang's ambitious naval construction program starting in 1936 especially worried the Americans. Much like they later realized with the Soviets, Japan while perfectly capable of becoming the regional leader was nowhere near an existential threat to America. China (and later the Soviets) were both large countries with manpower, resources, and industry to match America - and therefore existential threats that Japan could never be.

Worse, Japan might have been arch-conservative in the vein of Imperial Germany, but it was a multi-party parliamentary democracy. Not so with Chiang's China, which was a single-party state reminiscent of the Nazis but lacking their racial superiority and such overtones. And in the Soviets' case, well, at at least Japan was free-market, which the Soviets were not until Khrushchev came along.
True, all too true. Good thing Chiang's dream of a reunited Chinese Empire (with him and his Kuomintang at the helm) was stopped by the Allies.
 
I'm still confused by the POD here. Japan was a long-standing ally of Britain and had British style parliamentary institutions. What would possess them to join the Aryan supremacist Nazis and challenge two naval powers, one of them their Allies?

Granted, relations between Japan and the United States could have been better, but they improved rapidly after Churchill convinced Roosevelt of the importance of the Japanese alliance, and Congress passed legislation improving the status of Japanese-Americans.

The only thing I can think of is a second Russo-Japanese War in the late 1930s, after which Japan joins in with Barbarossa, similar to what happened with Finland. But just this happening has a huge amount of butterflies. Its sort of an Axis wank, because presumably China would remain pro-Axis and the Japanese would have to come to some sort of agreement with China, which itself is hard to imagine. And it completely changes US diplomacy and strategy if they have to face two large Asian Axis nations, one with a sizeable navy, when they enter the war. IOTL, it was very difficult to get the United States into the war even to avoid what seemed like a sure German victory over the USSR and the UK.
 
I'm still confused by the POD here. Japan was a long-standing ally of Britain and had British style parliamentary institutions. What would possess them to join the Aryan supremacist Nazis and challenge two naval powers, one of them their Allies?

Granted, relations between Japan and the United States could have been better, but they improved rapidly after Churchill convinced Roosevelt of the importance of the Japanese alliance, and Congress passed legislation improving the status of Japanese-Americans.

That's probably it. Keep in mind that Taisho only pushed through those amendments in the constitution which switched Japan from a Prussian-style constitutional monarchy into a British-style one after Britain shook off American pressure in 1922 to not extend the alliance. And there was also Britain's support for Japan getting a seventy per cent ratio of capital ships to the British RN.

Japan had gained a strong undercurrent of distrust against the west after what they perceived as unfair compromise in 1905, and the rejection of the racial equality clause in 1919 at Versailles. The 1922 British affirmation of their goodwill to Japan probably let out a lot of steam, which made Taisho's reforms possible. Of course, there was still plenty of extreme sentiment (and Imperial German-like arch-conservatism), which along with the Great Depression led to the Manchurian Intervention in the early 30s. But that was the action of rogue elements in the military, with the ringleaders getting punished afterwards. Japan not withdrawing afterwards cost them plenty of goodwill elsewhere, but economically and strategically (between Manchuria's raw materials and the weakness of the frontier demonstrated the Japanese weren't inclined to leave just to let Stalin walk in behind them) they had reasons not to. FDR being the supreme realist recognized this, and gained tacit agreement (with Churchill acting as a mediator) with Japan against going further south into China in exchange for letting it go.

Unfortunately, Chiang saw America's decision not to truly censor the Japanese over Manchuria as a betrayal, leading to his fateful shift in policy towards the west.
 
OOC: I recognise this world... :D

IC: One thing that might be different is the ongoing Commonwealth presence in Asia. Japan's naval power would have made any fight over the colonies truly nasty: they could actually have threatened Singapore. A big loss in Asia could have harmed Britain's 'face' badly...

As things stand, the Straits Settlements are still British territory, and they've allies in the region. That might not have been the same with the kind of short-term loss that Japan could have inflicted...
 
I think that's why Manchuria is its own separate republic--the Chinese Civil War meant there was insufficient forces to defend Manchuria, and the Japanese pretty much took over that place without firing many shots in 1931. Small wonder why Manchuria got its independence in 1950 and is now a major supplier of raw materials to Japan, including oil (oil was discovered in northern Manchuria in the 1960's).

And the island of Taiwan still belongs to the Japanese, despite a 40% ethnic Chinese population there. In fact, many Japanese moved to Formosa after the Second World War to escape the crowded cities of Japan. From Taihoku (Taipei) to Takao (Kaohsiung) to the south, it's easily the most modern part of the Imperial Republic of Japan (as the Empire of Japan was renamed after the war); the cities there use Western-style street addresses, unlike the main home islands of Japan. Indeed, the Taiwan Shinkansen from Taihoku to Takao opened at the same time as the Tokaido Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka.
 

Gian

Banned
Didn't Manchuria get de-Sinicized after the war, which lead to the country now speaking Manchu (albeit in katakana and romaji)?
 
I think that's why Manchuria is its own separate republic--the Chinese Civil War meant there was insufficient forces to defend Manchuria, and the Japanese pretty much took over that place without firing many shots in 1931. Small wonder why Manchuria got its independence in 1950 and is now a major supplier of raw materials to Japan, including oil (oil was discovered in northern Manchuria in the 1960's).

Uh...you do realize Manchukuo is a constitutional monarchy under the House of Aisin-Gioro, right?

And the island of Taiwan still belongs to the Japanese, despite a 40% ethnic Chinese population there. In fact, many Japanese moved to Formosa after the Second World War to escape the crowded cities of Japan. From Taihoku (Taipei) to Takao (Kaohsiung) to the south, it's easily the most modern part of the Imperial Republic of Japan (as the Empire of Japan was renamed after the war); the cities there use Western-style street addresses, unlike the main home islands of Japan. Indeed, the Taiwan Shinkansen from Taihoku to Takao opened at the same time as the Tokaido Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka.

Again...? I don't understand why people keep calling the empire 'the imperial republic', that's a very unofficial term, ironically enough a disparaging term by critics of the Showa Constitution back during the 40s and 50s. Officially - as in the constitution - the name of Japan is still Dai Nippon Teikoku, i.e. Great Japan Empire.

Speaking of unofficial nicknames, I prefer 'the Last Empire' myself ;)
 
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