If China collapsed into Warring states in 19th century, Would it have been colonized.

[TRH]

Tibet remained a protectorate. So it indeed was effectively annexed.

The Treaty of Lhasa was immediately renounced by the Qing resident, with the British doing nothing to contest it because the administration in India had been replaced by a less aggressive Viceroy. The subsequent Anglo-Chinese treaty included a British promise "not to annex Tibetan territory or interfere in the administration of Tibet."

 

[BBadolato]

But those conceded cities and naval bases aren't the only things Europeans or Japan held. The British held Tibet, a territory over half the size of Mexico, while the White Army carved out Mongolia, another gigantic territory. Korea was effectively part of China, and the Japanese colonised it. The Chinese went to war with France over Vietnam, so that's yet another Chinese territory we can count as colonised.

Moreover, the British occupied Beijing itself during the Second Opium War. They would have gotten an even bigger amount of territory had the Russians not intervened. Vladivostok also isn't insignificant, and I don't know why you say it was "contested" when the Russians still have Vladivostok (a territory that directly neighbours North Korea) to this day.

Vladivostok when the Russian first gained it had suffered from rebellions and being in hostile territory that what I mean by contested. The British expeditions of Tibet only saw them get concessions it is not as if Britain had just conquered all of Tibet from the Qing. Mongolia or more accurately Outer Mongolia was de-facto independent as post-1911 the Mongolians rebelled against China, the White Army arriving was more them setting up shop then it is some kind of Russian colonialism against China, especially since the Mongolian wanted Russian and later Soviet help.

Also, your understanding of what is China is really lacking if not outright insulting to some people. Korea was never a part of China, yes Korea had plenty of influence from China to point of where Confucianist factions all but dominated the Joseon Kingdom, but it governed it's own affairs and sent its own diplomatic missions. Dai Viet and the Nguyen dynasty afterward would not be considered part of China either, after 1421. Even before 1421 it's not like the Chinese dynasties were able to completely control what was Northern Vietnam for long periods of time.

 

[xsampa]

This will avert Ottoman colonization if WW1 is averted because there are only so many European troops and they can't directly colonize everywhere at once.

 

[TyranicusMaximus]

Korea was at any rate not a province of China, and having its own emperor would definitely signify it being an independent state. It is after all a comparable title to that of the Qing emperor, or close enough that you couldn't really have two rulers claiming the title in the same state.

 

[Monter]

Korea was at any rate not a province of China, and having its own emperor would definitely signify it being an independent state. It is after all a comparable title to that of the Qing emperor, or close enough that you couldn't really have two rulers claiming the title in the same state.

Korea wasn't an Empire until 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War.
But it "confusion" relies on seeing pre-modern Sino-Korean relations, which worked on the sinocentric world order, under the modern Westphalian model of nation-states, in which Korea was pretty much a "protectorate" of China through history (as was Southeast Asia and occasionally Japan), of course neither Koreans (or Chinese) saw it as such.

 

[MetternichDidNothingWrong]

I think it would lead to some "territorial adjustments," but not the total partition of China. China was appreciated as a singular, large (anemic, helpless) state because that meant a lot of Europeans could extract what they wanted (money) without having to embroil themselves further in Asian politics. The epitome of this was Britain, who would probably blanch at the idea of administrating all of India and having a sprawling "China Office" in London too.

While there are powers that would leap at the prospect of carving up China such as Japan or Russia, both of these getting too ambitious would annoy European business interests that appreciate having a colossal and semi-stable market to make their riches in. This happened OTL with Britain and its huge navy, but the United States was especially belligerent in protecting China's status quo. If Chinese land fell under stronger protection of more powerful rulers, that meant the Chinese playground for western business interests became smaller.

Of course, the key to all this foreign policy lobbying by business is that China is big and peaceful. Being split up by warlords would warrant a change of policy; would the Great Powers back the strongest warlord to get back to business as usual ASAP, or would they predict this war being a quick one and carve out some larger concessions? If the former, would they all agree on who to back, or would a proxy war develop? Much as the Europeans and Americans like having a gigantic captive market without all the pesky complications of ruling the land, would any of them feel compelled to abandon this policy in favour of more "traditional" colonialism? Which empires would be able to get away with that, seeing as many would oppose it?

 

[Lord High Executioner]

Tibet remained a protectorate. So it indeed was effectively annexed.

So, could we get a brief summary of the history of the British Protectorate of Tibet, 1904 to ca 1959?
Because what Tibetan history I can recall from the period seems to have an awful lot of China doing things
and remarkably little Britain protectorating for a British Protectorate.
Or maybe one of those sources I asked about?