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As you know it, the history of East Asia in early 20th century is really interesting, in fact, the Yamato (Imperial Japanese Dynasty) conquest of Chosen dynasty of Korea (朝鮮, OTL Joseon) and then the Manchurian Kiyoshi Dynasty (清, OTL Qing) made them as one of the Superpowers on Earth. Controlling not only their native Japanese isles, but also Korea and China.

And let's be fair here, to Westerners, even until now, there are some ambiguity on how they should be referred. Due to momentum and the fact that Japanese Dynasty are already known as Japan before their conquest of China, the formal English naming for them is still internationally "Japanese Empire", but to the more astute observers who realized how the Royal family called themselves now, after formal "Mandate of Heaven" declaration, they would argue that "Yamato Dynasty of China" would be much more fitting.

In many ways, the events of how Japanese Yamato end up conquering China somehow mirroring the Manchurian Kiyoshi's conquest of China in 17th century from the Akira Dynasty (明, OTL Ming), with the Akira Dynasty wrecked by internal revolts, mirrored at Kiyoshi being wrecked by Republican revolts led by Umago Nakayama (孫中山, OTL Sun Yat Sen) and later Sho Nakatadashi (蔣中正, OTL Chiang Kai Shek), giving an opening for the Yamato with their reformed, westernized Army and Navy soon after the Meiji Restoration, to launch war of conquest to take "The Mandate of Heaven" of the middle Kingdom. There are attempts by Western powers to either save the Kiyoshi Dynasty or backing up the Republic of China, or in Soviet Union's case, supporting a Communist revolt, but the Japanese (either masterfully or accidentally) took advantages over the chaos between the still fighting to each others, native chinese factions, and thus finally consolidating their gain of China at 1930's, with formal declaration of Mandate of Heaven occured in 1936, with Emperor Showa/Hirohito formally enter the Forbidden City in Hokkyo (北京, OTL Peking/Beijing) and sit on the Dragon Throne in a formal ceremony declaring the gain of mandate of Heaven, as well as renaming the city into what we knew now as Ryukyo (龍京, lit Dragon Capital) to be the governing capital of the Empire, while the Japanese Capital of Tokyo stayed as financial capital.

Which brings us to this hypothetical question, what if the Japanese failed in their conquest of China? Now, with the benefits of hindsight, we could tell that the Yamato conquest is actually a close run thing of events. If the Japanese lost their momentum, they would fail and the other factions vying to control China would be in their place right now. Will the Qing survived, or will China turned into a Republic, or end up under the boots of communism?

More importantly, before the Japanese conquest, East Asia do have somewhat unified Kanji writing system, but their spellings and even grammars differed heavily as there are Cantonese, Hakka, Mandarin, Korean, Shanghainese, and of course Japanese. Without Yamato unification, who would be likely to stand as the unified spelling? Or will Chinese language end up staying with many spelling variations without being ever unified?

What do you think?

OOC:
1) As per 2018 ITTL, ITTL Japan still held on being superpower holding on (at least) China, Korea, Taiwan, and Japanese Islands. The Yamato Dynasty is already seen as gaining "Mandate of Heaven" and has the same legitimacy of the late Qing in the eyes of common Han Chinese.
2) Due to point number 1, Japanese spelling and language end up being the standard spelling of Chinese Kanji, that's why past Chinese Dynasties and OTL Chinese names has Japanese names in universe as Japanese end up using their own spellings for the ITTL Chinese spelling reform.
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