DBWI: Russians and Japanese got modernized, Turks and Chinese didn't

I know this sounds implausible, but...hey this is AH.com.
So what if in colonial age both Russians and Japanese successfully modernizing themselves, while both Turks and Chinese (at that time controlled by Ottoman and Qing dynasty, respectively) experiencing stagnation...?
Well, let's say one of Russian "Tsar" (I believe that's how they called their ruler, similar to present-day Turkish Sultan and Chinese Emperor) and Japanese Emperor (yes, they DID have their own emperor in the past) initiated a major reforms...while Ottoman Sultans and Qing Emperors became more conservative...
What would be the impacts to the present day...? To the WWI? WWII? WWIII?
 
Russia would find it very hard to modernize - with a more serf-reliant society, any attempts at modernization wouldn't affect the serfs.
 
Though the Qing experienced a long relative period of stagnation compared to the West, the humiliations of the Drug Wars forced the Chinese to begin the process of modernization in order to prevent such things from happening again. Perhaps if these wars never happened, that would keep China in it's malaise for longer. Still, it is relatively unlikely. Manchuria seems to me to have been a natural centre of industrialization (though I suppose that an industrialized Russia or even Japan might try to expand into the area if China was weak).

If Japan was to industrialize along the level of say, Siam, then they probably would be able to resist Western colonialism. There are very few resources on the Japanese islands, however (which is why they rely so heavily on tourism these days), so industrialization on a larger scale may be very difficult.

If Russia industralizes, then it's empire would probably not be carved up in the 20th century. No Yakutia, Khazakhia, Uzbekia? Might make Central Asia more peaceful than in OTL.
 
Considering how closed-off Japan was, I really do not see how they could possibly have modernized. Remember what happened when the US tried to open Japan up to trade? A lot of people do not realize it now with how much Japanese society has opened up thanks to colonialism, but at the time Japan was violently hostile to any foreigners even entering their country. Hard to imagine Japan ever modernizing when the government's official policy was to kill or expel any non-Japanese found on the islands.
 
This would mean that there would be no sino-allied cold war after world war 2
And china wouldn't be the largest economy by now
 
I think we're underestimating the Japanese, which had a quite sophisticated government and a pretty capitalist society in the early 19th. There were those who saw the importance of modernization after a couple punitive expeditions: what do you think the civil war of the 1860s was about? Alas, the traditionalists won and slammed shut the narrow crack that had been opened in the door: but even they weren't such fruitcakes as they are sometimes made out to be. They made massive efforts to recreate a gunpowder army, and might have succeeded in making their country more trouble than it was worth to conquer, like Afghanistan or Ethiopia: they just didn't have the time, that's all, before their return to "massacre foreign intruders" policy brought down the wrath of the European powers on their heads.

A thought: even with the "new army" still in embryonic form, the Intervention of 1877 was quite expensive; indeed, due to Japanese intransigence what was meant to be an effort to beat concessions out of the government ended up as the actual occupation of Japan and its division into spheres of influence, after too many French, British and Columbian troops had been killed to let the Japanese government off with a wristslap. If the Intervention hadn't turned into such a bloody mess (what's the estimate? 1/10 of the population of Japan at the time died?), would the European powers have been more active in messing around with China? Did Japan's disastrous failure to seal itself off from the world give China some breathing room for its modernization?

Bruce
 
Oh, BTW, I'd disagree that Russia hasn't modernized: it's still pretty poor, sure, but Latin-American poor, not sub-Saharan Africa poor: it compares favorably with Brazil, (They are after all both RIBS countries) and is nowadays a fairly substantial industrial power and cheap goods producer.

Bruce
 
Fair point about Russia; losing so much territory to the Ottomans and Chinese, not to mention what happened with Poland, gave the Russians a real wake-up call about how far behind they were. They have not caught up yet, but they have made some progress in closing the gap; they still lost in WW III, but they gave a solidly respectable performance compared to their previous wars, especially on the Crimean front.
 
Fair point about Russia; losing so much territory to the Ottomans and Chinese, not to mention what happened with Poland, gave the Russians a real wake-up call about how far behind they were. They have not caught up yet, but they have made some progress in closing the gap; they still lost in WW III, but they gave a solidly respectable performance compared to their previous wars, especially on the Crimean front.

With regards to ww3 it was more of an impossibility for the coalition to win after all for they were fighting both superpowers at that.
Quite ironic really for before the start of the war, people always thought that ww3 would involve the USA and China on opposite ends of any future global war, but it was found to be false as both superpowers were on the sameside against Russia, the islamists and their other allies.

But I would think that if Russia had modernized, they would have also discover superbombs and maybe sunbombs as well. Thus butterflying the Chinese sunbomb attack on Petrograd (which ended the war) for fears of Russian retaliation. And thuds would have made the war more costly.
 
Personally, I've always wondered in the sunbombing of Petrograd might have been a bit too much. Of course, the fact that the Turks had finally finished mopping up the Islamists and broke through in the Crimea was probably a bigger factor in the Russian decision to throw in the towel than the sunbombing in any case. Losing Petrograd hurt, certainly, but the fact that the Russians were already on the verge of conventional collapse was a bigger issue.

Of course, the Russian Front was really just a secondary theater of World-War III anyway; the fight against the Hapsburg-Bourbons was where things really got decided. I just hope we finally managed to finish the Holy Roman Empire off once and for all; sure, we broke it up into a bunch of smaller countries, but we tried that after World War II too. At least now there are not any Hapsburg-Bourbons left to take up the crown; a lot of people think wiping out the entire family was cruel, but the world can not afford a World War IV.
 
Personally, I've always wondered in the sunbombing of Petrograd might have been a bit too much. Of course, the fact that the Turks had finally finished mopping up the Islamists and broke through in the Crimea was probably a bigger factor in the Russian decision to throw in the towel than the sunbombing in any case. Losing Petrograd hurt, certainly, but the fact that the Russians were already on the verge of conventional collapse was a bigger issue.

Of course, the Russian Front was really just a secondary theater of World-War III anyway; the fight against the Hapsburg-Bourbons was where things really got decided. I just hope we finally managed to finish the Holy Roman Empire off once and for all; sure, we broke it up into a bunch of smaller countries, but we tried that after World War II too. At least now there are not any Hapsburg-Bourbons left to take up the crown; a lot of people think wiping out the entire family was cruel, but the world can not afford a World War IV.


Yeah, but still the unresolved question left over from the end of ww2 and still unanswered after ww3 is who's the stronger superpower China or USA?
Which would still be a cause for a flash point.
Anyway I'm one of those people who believe that the Sino-American friendship treaty will not hold. I'm not saying there would be a ww4 maybe just a few minor proxy wars between the 2. Specially with all those disputes in the occupation and division of Russia.
 
Not more 'American Party' BS. China's an advanced, rational constitutional monarchy with a working Parliament. They do not want to waste their time with territorial pissing matches in Central Asia. I more worried about President Ford. Edsel the Second's had to give quite a few sops to the military to keep his family in power. And some of those nuts actually believe their own press...
 
Japan could have emerged as a mercantile power smiler to the Netherlands if it acted earlier. It had both a large educated population, an advanced sense of national identity, and a willingness to make reforms. Its problem was attempting to take on the colonial powers before it was ready, especially when the emerging powers were looking for colonial spheres to bolster their prestige. Because of this it was chopped up into 6 spheres of influence and it still hasn't been fully united.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Japan could have emerged as a mercantile power smiler to the Netherlands if it acted earlier. It had both a large educated population, an advanced sense of national identity, and a willingness to make reforms. Its problem was attempting to take on the colonial powers before it was ready, especially when the emerging powers were looking for colonial spheres to bolster their prestige. Because of this it was chopped up into 6 spheres of influence and it still hasn't been fully united.

That's mostly propaganda from the nationalists of the greater Japanese government on Honshu to justify their constant aggressive stance towards both the Kingdom of Satsuma and the republic of Ezo; while there is a large Japanese population in Ezo, it's still heavily Ainu and within Japan it would likely be no better than a colony, while the Satsuman language would likely be drowned into the japanese mainstream if Southern Kyushu and the Ryukyu were part of this Japanese empire. Both these regions were only ever loosely tied to Japan except by vague feudal oaths, concessions or not. We might as well claim that Portugal is "not united with Spain".
 
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That's mostly propaganda from the nationalists of the republic of Honshu to justify their constant aggressive stance towards both the Kingdom of Satsuma and the republic of Ezo; while there is a large Japanese population in Ezo, it's still heavily Ainu and within Japan it would likely be no better than a colony, while the Satsuman language would likely be drowned into the japanese mainstream if Shikoku and the Ryukyu were part of this "Japanese empire". Both these regions were only ever loosely tied to Japan except by vague feudal oaths. We might as well claim that Portugal is "not united with Spain".

OOC: and someone chimes in with something blatantly in contradiction with what had been said or implied in the previous parts of the thread. Thus Perish all Double-Blinds.

Bruce
 

archaeogeek

Banned
OOC: and someone chimes in with something blatantly in contradiction with what had been said or implied in the previous parts of the thread. Thus Perish all Double-Blinds.

Bruce

OOC: Crap I skipped that post, I'll admit I was going from the last post about "not fully united yet" in the last comment :p - to be fair calling a Honshu-Shikoku bound Japan Honshu is not that different from calling the Republic of China Taiwan ;) - I'm also more annoyed at my mixing up two of the islands. I'll have to ninja a few bits
 
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