Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

I believe that Japan would remain indefinitely at war with China until the wide-scale use of chemical weapons, and potentially nuclear, on the Chinese forces and civilian population, forces them into some sort of defeat or climb-down. It is either that, or we have a 25 year proxy war in China between the USA/Allies and Japan which ends when China or Japan simply become too war-weary to fight on.
 

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Banned
Japanese did use biological weapons on China, and their chances of getting a nuclear weapon is close to nil.
 
I believe that Japan would remain indefinitely at war with China until the wide-scale use of chemical weapons, and potentially nuclear, on the Chinese forces and civilian population, forces them into some sort of defeat or climb-down. It is either that, or we have a 25 year proxy war in China between the USA/Allies and Japan which ends when China or Japan simply become too war-weary to fight on.
As previously said, the Japanese did use biological weapons. The only weapon that they could've made that might've won the war for them would be their bubonic-plague bombs. And if those were used, Japan would become an international pariah and there'd be no chance for a Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The chances of a military success by Japan over China is nil as they are outnumbered, lack allies, are fighting insurgents and soldiers equipped by Germans and later Americans and Brits, and their outrages against the civilian population pushed the Chinese to try even harder to rid themselves of the invaders.

The only chance Japan has is to actually stick to what it said it'd do, get rid of the European imperialist powers and not go to China and kill millions of people. That was a bad idea. If they do invade China, it'd be wise to make the Reformed Government more legitimate and independent of Japanese authorities. And no propping up of Puyi. I don't think anybody there longed for the old Qing rule.
 
Oh, I'm not sure as to why the Dutch and French would be willing to sell their colonies. Maybe they Depression hits them harder IITL. I'm not sure. But with a European war going on, neither the French nor the Dutch would probably relish having to fight for their colonies. Again, it all depends on whether or not Japan's offer is "Sell us your colonies. Or else."

As for the citation on FDR normalizing relations with Japan, here's the excerpt where it is mentioned in an essay by John Lukacs.

"On November 21, 1941—it was the Friday after Thanksgiving Day—President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took up a pencil on his desk and wrote this memorandum:

6 MONTHS
  1. U.S. to resume economic relations—some oil and rice—more later.
  2. Japan to send no more troops to Indochina or Manchurian border or any place South (Dutch, Brit. or Siam).
  3. Japan to agree not to invoke tripartite pact even if U.S. gets into European war.
  4. U.S. to introduce Japs to Chinese to talk things over but U.S. take no part in the conversations.
LATER ON PACIFIC AGREEMENTS"

From there, Roosevelt sent the memorandum to Cordell Hull, who many historians believe did all he could to delay/quash the aims of the memorandum.

I don't think Hull is an issue in this, it was far too late - its only 2 weeks before Pearl Harbour. Japan was already comitted by this point - it would have taken a lot more than some vague proposals to change that.
 
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