Japan and Korea trading places?

What is the possibility of a rapidly modernizing Korea opening and colonizing a backwards and isolationist Japan?
 

ninebucks

Banned
Korea did open and modernise, so that's actually quite likely.

Colonising Japan on the other hand, is not going to happen, the Koreans are just too outnumbered.
 
Colonizing India on the other hand, is not going to happen, the British are just too outnumbered. :rolleyes:
Even a backwards Japan will present a unified front, however "weak" it may be compared to post-Meiji Japan; the same was not true for India, and the UK conquered the entire subcontinent by conquering it piecemeal, and sometimes by not even conquering but just buying the loyalty of the princely states.

This would not be possible in a Japan, since even during the latter stages of the Tokugawa shogunate, the regional Daimyos (well, barring the very peripheral and as a result comparatively weak ones) were in no position to really leave themselves at the whims of foreigners and serve as a base for conquest.

The most you could conquer in Japan, at least the impression I get, is the island of Kyushu, since that's always been a rather neglected region by the national government.
 
What would be a rough timeline of Korea becoming a Mejii Japan though? Could Korea ever become as powerful?

Certainly if Daewongun died earlier and did not prevent the reformists in the Korean government.

Even a backwards Japan will present a unified front, however "weak" it may be compared to post-Meiji Japan; the same was not true for India, and the UK conquered the entire subcontinent by conquering it piecemeal, and sometimes by not even conquering but just buying the loyalty of the princely states.

This would not be possible in a Japan, since even during the latter stages of the Tokugawa shogunate, the regional Daimyos (well, barring the very peripheral and as a result comparatively weak ones) were in no position to really leave themselves at the whims of foreigners and serve as a base for conquest.

The most you could conquer in Japan, at least the impression I get, is the island of Kyushu, since that's always been a rather neglected region by the national government.

Maybe Hokkaido too, if the Koreans expand to the north and east.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Best case scenario, Japan remains politically fractious, and the Korean state is able to court individual Japanese factions for political gains.

But as soon as Korea tries to force anything, as soon as they send any soldiers to the Home Islands, or as soon as the idea begins to spread among the Japanese that the Koreans are keeping them down, well, then Korea is screwed, because as said, the Japanese have a developed enough sense of nationalism to unite against a foreign enemy.
 
You could say the exact same thing about China, but look what Japan tried to do in OTL. A modernised Korea, doing the whole gunpowder empire thing, would be able to dominate a backwards and isolationist Japan. The trick is getting a situation like that to work.

The best bet for Korean modernising, in my view, is the proposed late 1860's joint French-American expedition against Korea in retaliation for the deaths of French missionaries and the General Sherman incident, IIRC. That could provide the same sharp shock that got Japan it's act together. I need to TL that up sometime.

However, you may need an earlier PoD, in order to keep Japan at a disadvantage. People have said earlier that a Japan that opened earlier to the West may have found itself in a disadvantageous position. What about a Japan conquered by an earlier colonial power, such as Spain. Centuries later, the Spanish empire has declined, while Korea modernises. A suitably glorious Spanish-Korean war ensues, and Japan comes under Korean domination.

Hmm. Maybe dubious. But I still think that this scenario is feasible. People tend to over-estimate Japan due to their OTL success.
 
You could say the exact same thing about China, but look what Japan tried to do in OTL. A modernised Korea, doing the whole gunpowder empire thing, would be able to dominate a backwards and isolationist Japan. The trick is getting a situation like that to work.
When Japan conquered China (rather, tried to), China had collapsed into many warring factions, making their job easier.

And even then, these warring factions in CHINA were able to put up enough of a united front to halt the IJA.

However, you may need an earlier PoD, in order to keep Japan at a disadvantage. People have said earlier that a Japan that opened earlier to the West may have found itself in a disadvantageous position. What about a Japan conquered by an earlier colonial power, such as Spain. Centuries later, the Spanish empire has declined, while Korea modernises. A suitably glorious Spanish-Korean war ensues, and Japan comes under Korean domination.

Hmm. Maybe dubious. But I still think that this scenario is feasible. People tend to over-estimate Japan due to their OTL success.
The Spanish Japan idea sounds completely ASB, more likely the Dutch or the Portuguese would have conquered it, and even that would be questionable.
 
When Japan conquered China (rather, tried to), China had collapsed into many warring factions, making their job easier.

And even then, these warring factions in CHINA were able to put up enough of a united front to halt the IJA.

But the population and power balance between China and Japan was even more askew than the relative balance in Korea and Japan.

It would require a very fortunate set of circumstances for Korea, and a very disunited and unfavorable set of circumstances for Japan, plus Korean modernisation, to pull it off. And it probably wouldn't be as comprehensive as Japan's colonisation of Korea OTL. But it could still happen, to an extent.

Perhaps if a modernising Korea which had already expanded into Manchuria would have the population and industrial might to pull it off. An alliance with a powerful European power might help. Korea and Russia clash in East Asia, Korea ends up supported by Britain? Maybe something like that.

Still, in the long run Korean colonisation of Japan wouldn't be feasible. But I could see it making for a few decades of Interesting Times.

The Spanish Japan idea sounds completely ASB, more likely the Dutch or the Portuguese would have conquered it, and even that would be questionable.

You're probably right in that regard, I remember reading how the Spanish sailors were warned not to endanger the reputation of Spanish arms by engaging unnecessarily with the Japanese. But that was just an example at any rate.

On the other hand, while I admit you have a point, I don't think it would require supernatural or extraterrestrial intervention for the Spanish to concievably have conquered the Japanese. People throw around the term ASB way too easily.
 
Without a forceful modernization policy, maybe Japan would just remain half an international port half a traditionalist backwater even to today?

Warring States style warlords mixed with OTL industrial era zaibatsu and modern corporations would be interesting. So I guess this goes back and prevents Tokugawa centralization policies besides just preventing the Meiji after that.

Japan has never been conquered by anyone...including itself. So the individual warlords all have great individual pride and some of them are very influential larger-scale and command great respect among the people, but the nation never centralized enough. The current democratic government is just a weak evolution of very slow progress throughout the decades and in effect each warlord controls trade policy and ports in his area. And since the others keep open to all sorts in order to keep in a cash-flow to their personal holdings, the others need to do so to in order to keep competitive.

Ironically this Japan may be more easy to become a future cyberpunk technofinancial center than OTL Japan.
 
Perhaps if a modernising Korea which had already expanded into Manchuria would have the population and industrial might to pull it off. An alliance with a powerful European power might help. Korea and Russia clash in East Asia, Korea ends up supported by Britain? Maybe
something like that.
Expanding into Manchuria? Is that a theory of what would happen if Korea had been more modern and powerful? Cause Korea (and previous incarnations) hasn't controlled what is now Manchuria since probably the 900s.

The question of alliance and which ally was better suited for both Korea's independence and modernization was 1/2 the reason why I didn't feel like doing a TL on a more modernizing Korea. The kingdom would have had to be really good at foreign relations not to tick off any of the other powers.
 
IMO, If an Imperialistic Korea had a natural projectory, it'd be oriented towards Manchuria, largely for reasons of history and the fact that there have always been (and still are) a lot of ethnic Koreans in that region. Even today, some Korean nationalists consider the whole region as being originally Korean territory. Korean nationalism would likely manifest itself as a desire to recreate that old empire, and hell, it's right there.

Though a modernised Korea would also likely want to prevent a modernised Japan, remembering the invasions of the 16th century. Perhaps if Japan gets partitioned somehow, and China fails to modernise and fractures, then Korea could get back it's (highly industrially useful) heartland while also maintaining a colonial presence in Japan (though likely rubbing shoulders with the Brits and Russians).
 
IMO, If an Imperialistic Korea had a natural projectory, it'd be oriented towards Manchuria, largely for reasons of history and the fact that there have always been (and still are) a lot of ethnic Koreans in that region. Even today, some Korean nationalists consider the whole region as being originally Korean territory. Korean nationalism would likely manifest itself as a desire to recreate that old empire, and hell, it's right there.

Though a modernised Korea would also likely want to prevent a modernised Japan, remembering the invasions of the 16th century. Perhaps if Japan gets partitioned somehow, and China fails to modernise and fractures, then Korea could get back it's (highly industrially useful) heartland while also maintaining a colonial presence in Japan (though likely rubbing shoulders with the Brits and Russians).

I'd say Japan would be more of a puppet state since the Japanese outnumber the Koreans and there is not much to exploit other then labor which can be far easier in a puppet state.

I do like this theory, but wouldnt it mean prolonged confrontation with the Chinese? Was this anathema to the Koreans or not (please correct me if i am wrong, i plan to do this for my TL), for when the Koreans did close off their borders, they were reluctant to do so to their western neighbour.

What do you mean exactly?
 
IMO, If an Imperialistic Korea had a natural projectory, it'd be oriented towards Manchuria, largely for reasons of history and the fact that there have always been (and still are) a lot of ethnic Koreans in that region.
I heard from a Korean friend of my brother's said he read a survey of when the capital of Korea (whether, South or united) will be in 50 years. The most voted answer said "In Manchuria". :D

Even today, some Korean nationalists consider the whole region as being originally Korean territory. Korean nationalism would likely manifest itself as a desire to recreate that old empire, and hell, it's right there.
While there are Koreans in the PRC today, it's relatively small number. What was the number and distribution of Koreans during Qing China?
 
Well, it considered itself a tributary state of China, as it always had been. The isolationism thing was aimed at the West, not at China. Korea maintained a tradition of deference to China, until the Japanese encouraged them to declare an "Empire of Korea" and declare independance (thats what Independence Gate in Seoul was built to commemorate).

You'd need an early PoD, and slow progression, to get Korea's traditional view of it's place in the world to change. A farcically collapsing Qing China being rampantly devoured by Westerners while Korea modernises might do the trick. Or perhaps a situation where the Qing retreat to Manchuria and rule a weak rump state there, which becomes a target.

There are still quite a few Koreans in China (small in relative terms, but quite large in absolute terms) and I believe there were even more earlier in history. A large number of ethnic Koreans in China moved to the Soviet Union later and ended up deported to central Asia by Stalin.
 
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