I'm not really seriously suggesting the following, so please don't attack me for them, but some ideas come to mind
- WW1, if Japan sides with the CP and they win, then the Somali Sultanates are NOT Italian colonies, they are Italian PROTECTORATES - they were not converted into colonies until the later 1920s with some rather brutal wars nobody bothers to remember. Maybe Japan gets some sort of sphere of influence over them ?
- Mozambique was a patchwork colony of other holdings, and it wasn't until the shock of German invasion in WW1 that Portugal really sorted this out. The SAR (Transvaal) was building a rail-line to a S Mozambique city, and if it avoids war with Britain then maybe we could look to a Japanese trading position at this city? Alternatively, some sort of turn of the century European war, maybe from Fashoda or growing out of the Boer War sees Britain losing, and the SAR looking for support for itself, and its exports
- a Franco-Japanese clash, maybe over Formosa, in the 1880s say, leading to an aggressive anti-French policy on behalf of Japan and support for the royal court of Madagascar against France
Best Regards
Grey Wolf