Japan invades Manchuria during world war 1

raharris1973

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After the war, the "West" was too weak to defeat a Rump Ottoman Empire (AKA Turkey). The West cannot stop Japan if Japan decisively commits to this option.

I do not think this is indicative of what would happen vis a vis Japan and China. It shows Britain was tired and risk averse, but in the case of a Far East crisis, the USA would be the leader of the coalition to contain Japan.

Japan doing an early Manchukuo makes OTLs Washington Treaty on naval arms limitation and the nine power treaty on China impossible, at least in their OTL form.
 
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raharris1973

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The concept of the OP is not as far fetched as one might think. At least one Chinese Party leader might have tolerated such a Japanese initiative at this time (1914-1915), and kinda, sorta did, in OTL!

Throughout this life, Sun retained
an admiration of Japan, though on occasion he would admit it was treating
China even worse than the "white" powers were doing. At the very least,
Sun showed a willingness to make startling concessions to the Japanese for
opportunist reasons--e.g., to get their support against Yuan Shikai. For
example, in January 1914, "Sun Yat-sen gave his blessing to Chen Qimei's
expedition to Manchuria. Not much is known of this expedition, but the
plan probably involved having the revolutionaries make contact with Prince
Su's monarchists and help establish the separatist kingdom of Manchuria
that some Japanese leaders already had in mind. It is known that, unlike
Song Jiaoren and a number of other revolutionary leaders, Sun had never
evinced any passionate nationalism with regard to these regions of the
northeast. Perhaps that was because they had formally been the territory
of barbarian tribes, only annexed to China at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Sun considered that these territories were 'not all of
China,' if they were lost, 'the true China,' the China of the Han, would
still remain." Bergere, pp. 265-66.
http://books.google.com/books?id=vh7M1u4IGFkC&pg=PA265

Also in 1914, appealing for Japanese aid, Sun offered Japan a quasi-
monopoly of the Chinese market, explaining that this vast market and
China's vast natural resources would support Japan's prosperity as India's
resources had in the nineteenth century supported the expansion of Great
Britain--and Japan would even be spared "the trouble and expense of
stationing troops!" Bergere, pp. 262-3.
http://books.google.com/books?id=vh7M1u4IGFkC&pg=PA263 In 1915 he was
willing to offer Japan even more than it had sought in the Twenty-One
Demands, in an attempt to outbid Yuan for Japanese support. Finally,
there was Sun's famous "pan-Asianism" speech in Kobe in November, 1924. [1]

(As one might expect, Wang Jingwei, when he became Japan's puppet
"president" of China, loved to cite Sun's pro-Japanese writings as
justifications of his course. (Wang had an anthology of Sun's writings on
Japan published under the title *China and Japan: Natural Friends--
Unnatural Enemies* [Shanghai 1941].)
 
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After the war, the "West" was too weak to defeat a Rump Ottoman Empire (AKA Turkey). The West cannot stop Japan if Japan decisively commits to this option.
hmmm Yes it can because Japan has very little Oil. Whether it will is, of course, another matter. Surely if Japan wanted to seize territory in the far east the best time is not during WW1 but during the anti-Bolshevik intervention, and its best policy not to seize Manchuria directly, but to take the Russian Far eastern territories first, possibly setting up some form of puppet White government as a PR front.
 
In the aftermath of the war, and the Russian revolution/civil war, all the west will do about Japan seizing territory through puppets especially is tut-tut. The British and French are in no mood and no shape morally or financially to act against Japan, and the USa is busy rejecting internationalism and certainly won't do much. To the extent that the DEI is supplying/can supply Japan with oil as long as Japan can buy it, I doubt the Dutch will care one way or another. As the USa is beginning to suffer a post war recession I doubt the USA would stop selling anything to Japan over this.

I agree that doing it during the war would be bad timing.
 

BlondieBC

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I do not think this is indicative of what would happen vis a vis Japan and China. It shows Britain was tired and risk averse, but in the case of a Far East crisis, the USA would be the leader of the coalition to contain Japan.

Japan doing an early Manchukuo makes OTLs Washington Treaty on naval arms limitation and the nine power treaty on China impossible, at least in their OTL form.

Fully agreed on butterflies to things like naval limitation treaty and nine power. On the attack, I tend to think the USA will not fight a long war with Japan. It is not that the USA lacks the resources to defeat Japan, it is that first the USA entry to war may be butterflied away. Second, if USA enters war and Japan has done the attack before and the UK did not declare war, it is hard to see the USA going against Japan. Now get to more of a 1918 annexation of Manchuria, I can see it a bit more.
 
1915 was suggested as a date for this to start. It is going to have negative effects with the Americans, but not enough to war over. Also Japanese forces never really engaged with the CP outside of Asia so no change there and it means they have the forces free to undertake the attempt.

The bigger issue is how exactly the US and Wilson takes this move considering the interests the US had in China at this point and if they try to lean on the Brits to reign in the Japanese. If the UK does not do so that would chill relations which may cause them to push a bit harder to loosen the embargo on neutral countries in Europe.

It also may be enough for the germans to start trying to court the US over a common enemy in Asia (though I cannot see the US actually joining I do think the Germans would give this a try).

1915 also means we start seeing the response by foreign powers to US requests and demands impact the 1916 election, some different congressmen getting elected could change the dynamic even if Wilson wins re election and.
 

raharris1973

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hmmm Yes it can because Japan has very little Oil. Whether it will is, of course, another matter. Surely if Japan wanted to seize territory in the far east the best time is not during WW1 but during the anti-Bolshevik intervention, and its best policy not to seize Manchuria directly, but to take the Russian Far eastern territories first, possibly setting up some form of puppet White government as a PR front.

Are the world’s Navies no longer fuelable by coal by 1918? They were coal fired as recently as 1905.
 
Are the world’s Navies no longer fuelable by coal by 1918? They were coal fired as recently as 1905.
japan has some coal, but its not massively over endowed with it either, and you would struggle to use it to provide any air cover or fuel land vehicles, Not that Japan has a hugely mechanised army but some oil is still useful. On the naval point itself I would need to check, but I suspect its a limited option.
 
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