How long can japan last in China?

Now I have used search engine and I came up with nothing of an answer. So I come to you for help.

If this thread doesn't belong in the Post 1900 discussion, then I'll delete it.

I'm currently doing a little map series with the US losing the great war in TL 191. So US joins the Axis and blah blah blah never goes to war with Japan.

Japan has the Philippines, Indochina, and the Dutch East Indies under their control. So basically how long could the Japanese have lasted in China before they are either forced out, or forced to accept it as a defeat and offer favorable terms to the Chinese? Could they have actually won it in this little scenario?
 
I don't think the Japanese could have won, because they never seemed to have a real plan. Then again, I don't think they could really lose either. They will have to pull out of China sooner or later, but they probably won't have to give up much of anything.

I think the best they can hope for is to set up a few smaller states and intervene every once in a while to keep them weak.
 
Follow the money

Historically, I've read that Japan would have run out of hard currency in mid-1942. If you could actually come up with a way for Japan to take Indochina and Dutch East Indies without the US intervening, that might help to some extent. The problem is that the Japanese didn't have enough merchant marine to get the goods to the home islands. They were dependent on foreign merchant ships for a considerable amount of their shipping and most of those ships were no longer available once the Japanese went to war with the west.

The Japanese could have built more merchant ships, but only if they had cut back on warship production.
 
Basically all would depend on whether Japan did shift to a two system combat readiness thinking as in the OTL. Before the Great War, Japan did consider the Russians to be the biggest threath to their expension goals, but after the Great War, there developped a split in the Army thinking the new USSR would remain the primary enemy, but the navy did consider the USA the biggest theat. Therefore, a two phased defense policy developped, where both branches did go their own way, splitting resources already on short supply.

This is perfectly mentioned in several pieces of literature and studies, such as:
Kaigun
David C. Evans, Mark R. Peattie & Mark R. Peattie
Engels - Hardcover
ISBN10 0870211927 ISBN13 9780870211928
The Sinking Of The Prince Of Wales & Repulse
The End Of A Battleship Era?
Auteur: Martin Middlebrook & Patrick Mahoney
ISBN10 1844150755 ISBN13 9781844150755
Treaty Cruisers
The First International Warship Building Competition
Auteur: Leo Marriott
ISBN10 1844151883 ISBN13 9781844151882
 
I rather think the Allied Navy submarines were the problem there.

Actually, from the numbers Combined Fleet gives, the Japanese merchant marine was insufficient for peacetime, hence a significant part of the Japanese economy flowing on hired British and American hulls. After the war began and a good part of the merchants requisitioned to support military operations, the situation was dire even with no action by American subs/minefields.
 
Wasn't there a report somewhere that said the IJA would be running out of first-line forces around 1946 in China?
 
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