Japan into Allied camp?

HMS Erin

Banned
What if the United States or Britain backed Japan during the Sino-Japanese war? I believe the United States sent aid to China because they thought it would be more economically beneficial, but with a weaker China Lobby, and stronger "Japan Lobby", could the sides be flip-flopped? You could also drive this by the Nazis aligning themselves with China instead of Japan.

As a final kicker, would it be possible for Japan to conquer China if it had the full backing of the U.S.A.? Lend-Lease, and all that?


Is this plausible?
 
I'm not real smart on post-1900 stuff but I think the answer would be a resounding NO. IOTL the Germans, Soviets, Americans, and Brits were pretty much all supporting the Chinese at the same time practically, and for very good reasons. The Germans only switched to allying with the Japanese out of convenience. But you will not see the others helping the Japanese. China was not competing with their interests, China was not threatening their overseas possessions, and China was not committing a massive and brutal genocide complete with chemical and biological warfare. Nobody in the States would stand for the government siding with Japan.
 
What if the United States or Britain backed Japan during the Sino-Japanese war? I believe the United States sent aid to China because they thought it would be more economically beneficial, but with a weaker China Lobby, and stronger "Japan Lobby", could the sides be flip-flopped? You could also drive this by the Nazis aligning themselves with China instead of Japan.

As a final kicker, would it be possible for Japan to conquer China if it had the full backing of the U.S.A.? Lend-Lease, and all that?


Is this plausible?

It's (relatively) easy for American politicians to endorse sending aid to countries defending themselves from evil totalitarians. It's quite another thing to persuade the American people to support selling tanks at a discount to Japan. Probably ditto for the British, but I might be able to see a British-Japanese alliance against either the Soviets or Americans at some point. So the best you can hope for is American and British non-interventionism in China.

The most likely way to get Japan on the Allies' side is to have World War II somehow be a "let's all gang up on the Red Menace" war. Which would require a POD probably in the 1920s.
 

HMS Erin

Banned
It's (relatively) easy for American politicians to endorse sending aid to countries defending themselves from evil totalitarians. It's quite another thing to persuade the American people to support selling tanks at a discount to Japan. Probably ditto for the British, but I might be able to see a British-Japanese alliance against either the Soviets or Americans at some point. So the best you can hope for is American and British non-interventionism in China.

The most likely way to get Japan on the Allies' side is to have World War II somehow be a "let's all gang up on the Red Menace" war. Which would require a POD probably in the 1920s.

Surely a "Let's all gang up on the Red Menace" war is possible with a POD as late as 1940, right? Stalin may not have wanted to get involved, but if the Allies start bombing him because of Finland, there's not a whole lot he can do to get out of WWII again. The United States public got the wool pulled over its eyes all the time during the Cold War when it came to who was getting our aid. We were giving Russia tanks for free in 1945, then five years later they were our Mortal Enemy for heaven's sake.
 
Surely a "Let's all gang up on the Red Menace" war is possible with a POD as late as 1940, right? Stalin may not have wanted to get involved, but if the Allies start bombing him because of Finland, there's not a whole lot he can do to get out of WWII again. The United States public got the wool pulled over its eyes all the time during the Cold War when it came to who was getting our aid. We were giving Russia tanks for free in 1945, then five years later they were our Mortal Enemy for heaven's sake.

Eurofed did a quite interesting 'Soviet-German full alliance' TL a while back which saw them try to carve up Europe, Asia and Africa between Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union. Japan fell into the Soviet sphere, got attacked and then promptly joined the Allies (only the UK and commonwealth at this point) along with China.

I found the TL interesting, shame it was never finished.
 
Even if Japan could've been a stronger economic investment, the US probably wouldn't have supported them considering that Japan was the aggressor. That said, Japan's goal in WWII was a Pacific Empire, and part of that was obviously going to be US territory. If we're keeping the same premise of WWII, Japan was always going to be on the Axis if anything.
 
On paper Japan looked like a quasi-democratic constitutional monarchy until the militarists completely grabbed power in the late 1930's. Unfortunately, it was an aggressive and expansioninst quasi-democratic constitutional monarchy.

9-Fang's point is well-taken. Nations ally with others based on perceived threats to their interests, not politics. Nothing in 1930's nationalist Chinese foreign policy indicated it was a real threat to western interests in Asia - even in China - given the extent the Chinese government continued to tolerate the European enclaves. Japan, on the other hand was making noises and taking actions that directly threatened US interests and, less so, those of the British, French, and Dutch. Plus, once the Sino-Japanese war began in earnest, documented brutalities of the Japanese army would have made it politically impossible for the western democracies to ally with Japan ... unless for some reason the USSR formally enters the war in the mid-late 1930's to ally with the Reds and invade Japanese occupied portions if China. Maybe, maybe, if Japan avoids joining the Axis and distances itself from Hitler in particular, and plays the victim of naked Soviet aggression - coupled with the real risk Manchuria and Korea might fall into Communist hands - the Western allies might at least consider the Japanese as some sort special case when or if WW2 in Europe starts: not an ally, but not an enemy either (sort of the Soviet/Japanese non-aggression pact in reverse), and even provide them some aid and trade.
 
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