Japan Limits itself in China

As a response to the large number of "What Japan did better" threads, I now compose this one to consider how Japan could've avoided its major problem: getting stuck in China.

First off, two points:
- By 1931, I've read that the IJA could no longer be controlled and was pretty much going to invade China proper no matter what. Also it was a pretty big priority on the part of the Japanese gov. to get China under their realm of influence.
- In the early 30s, there was an active struggle between the KMT and CCP, and in fact it was the Japanese aggression that created the cease-fire.

So basically, my idea is that for some reason, the civil war in China doesn't get put on hold, and when Japan invades, Chiang Kai-shek is even more screwed.
Now the second thing that needs to happen is for the KMT and Japan to negotiate (again!). This shouldn't be so difficult on Chiang's part especially if he suffers even more crushing defeats without any hope in sight. But what Japan needs to realize is that it would be fucked in the long run if it tried to swallow China.
So we need a Japanese leadership that is happy to accept a peace with Chiang and sees the situation a little more realistically. Japan would get its goal of a disunited, weak China, and would probably be able to squeeze some favorable terms out of the KMT, giving it resources and development rights, etc.

Then, assuming Japan doesn't do something stupid like attack Russia or America, could it be that they would emerge out of WW2 as winners, in the sense that they met their strategic goals?

How plausible is this? Is there anything I'm forgetting or overlooking?
 

abc123

Banned
As a response to the large number of "What Japan did better" threads, I now compose this one to consider how Japan could've avoided its major problem: getting stuck in China.

First off, two points:
- By 1931, I've read that the IJA could no longer be controlled and was pretty much going to invade China proper no matter what. Also it was a pretty big priority on the part of the Japanese gov. to get China under their realm of influence.
- In the early 30s, there was an active struggle between the KMT and CCP, and in fact it was the Japanese aggression that created the cease-fire.

So basically, my idea is that for some reason, the civil war in China doesn't get put on hold, and when Japan invades, Chiang Kai-shek is even more screwed.
Now the second thing that needs to happen is for the KMT and Japan to negotiate (again!). This shouldn't be so difficult on Chiang's part especially if he suffers even more crushing defeats without any hope in sight. But what Japan needs to realize is that it would be fucked in the long run if it tried to swallow China.
So we need a Japanese leadership that is happy to accept a peace with Chiang and sees the situation a little more realistically. Japan would get its goal of a disunited, weak China, and would probably be able to squeeze some favorable terms out of the KMT, giving it resources and development rights, etc.

Then, assuming Japan doesn't do something stupid like attack Russia or America, could it be that they would emerge out of WW2 as winners, in the sense that they met their strategic goals?

How plausible is this? Is there anything I'm forgetting or overlooking?

Impossible.
 

Typo

Banned
The CCP actually was not at all that powerful in the 1930s, they weren't capable of disrupting KMT efforts to a large scale.

The problem with your scenario is basically that Chiang wasn't in the position to negotiation precisely because of the weakness of his position
 
The CCP actually was not at all that powerful in the 1930s, they weren't capable of disrupting KMT efforts to a large scale.

The problem with your scenario is basically that Chiang wasn't in the position to negotiation precisely because of the weakness of his position
But the question is: would it have been possible for the Japanese to seek peace rather than get entrapped? Could they have realized this? If no, why not?

Impossible.
I think we need to increase the number of minimum characters per post.
 
I agree with the general idea of LeoXiao's post. China was almost in a mini-warlord era around this time, and if either Japan had been more pragmatic or China had been even more chaotic(or both!), Japan could easily have done well. For example, if the situation in China is even more chaotic and Chang has trouble unifying the country, Japan wouldn't have all that much trouble creating some sort of puppet state in China. It would be easier militarily for Japan, much more in toe with their "Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" propaganda, and get earn less hostility from the West than an outright conquest of China. I believe there were some Chinese fighting for Japan in WWII, although it's not my area of expertise. While it was probably because they were forced too, it still shows that the possibility for creating a Japanese puppet is there.

In regard to Chiang, I've heard that for quite a long time he held the idea that the communists were a worse threat than the Japanese, and wanted to fight primarily the communists first until his generals basically forced him to stop. Is this true? Because it sounds like Chiang would be a good Japanese puppet in that case...
 
In regard to Chiang, I've heard that for quite a long time he held the idea that the communists were a worse threat than the Japanese, and wanted to fight primarily the communists first until his generals basically forced him to stop. Is this true? Because it sounds like Chiang would be a good Japanese puppet in that case...
Yeah, that was another thing I was wondering about. In order to fight Communists and other dissent, would Chiang be willing to appease the Japanese? How far would he go? I can't see China being controlled in the same way as Manchuria, but is there a chance for it to become a (at least relatively obedient) Japanese ally?
 
- By 1931, I've read that the IJA could no longer be controlled and was pretty much going to invade China proper no matter what. Also it was a pretty big priority on the part of the Japanese gov. to get China under their realm of influence.

It took a while for the IJA to blow all the safety locks. Certainly it would still have been possible to restrain them in 1931. Political will was lacking, for a variety of reasons.


Now the second thing that needs to happen is for the KMT and Japan to negotiate (again!). This shouldn't be so difficult on Chiang's part especially if he suffers even more crushing defeats without any hope in sight.

OTL the period from 1931 to 1937 was a mixture of negotiation and advances by Japan. Chiang suffered setbacks, but his power base in south and central China was never seriously threatened, so there was no reason to attempt all-out war.

Japan would get its goal of a disunited, weak China,

Here's your problem.

Leave Chiang alone, and he'll gradually unite and pacify China and embark upon economic development and modernization. That was part of the reason for the Japanese aggressions of 1931-37: China was weak and divided, but Chiang was perceived as a long-term strategic threat.

Cut a deal with Chiang... well, they tried. But Chiang was a stubborn SOB who saw himself as the legitimate heir of Sun Yat-Sen and the destined leader of a strong, united China. He'd agree to truces and such, but he wasn't going to cut a deal that would leave China weak and divided. The Japanese militarists -- not just the military proper, but right-wing politicians; it wasn't just the IJA -- couldn't accept any China that was *not* weak and divided.

So there was no way to square that circle.



Doug M.
 
Can't ignore Chiang, can't cut a deal with him. Any other alternatives? Sure.

1) Don't bother trying to dominate China. Leave Chiang be, accept a united China, and be content with being the strongest economic power in the region. This was actually Japan's strategy from 1927 to 1931; it was called "Shidehara Diplomacy", after the minister who was its strongest advocate. Liberals supported it, the right wing and the military hated it.

The liberal approach pretty much died after 1931, although there were a number of attempts to revive it, especially during the period 1935-7.


2) Kill Chiang. They tried! Alas, Chiang was wily and paranoid. He moved around a lot, didn't go out in public much, stayed far behind the front lines, and was always surrounded by bodyguards and loyalists.

3) Replace Chiang. They tried that too. They set up a number of puppet governments in China, culminating in the Wang Jingwei regime. Wang was a former high-ranking KMT member who'd split with Chiang. The Chinese set him up as leader of a puppet Chinese government that officially ruled all of China. (In reality, it ruled only the areas under Japanese occupation, from its setup in 1940 to the end of the war in '45.

Nobody recognized Wang's regime, though, and most Chinese viewed him as a traitor. The Wang government was useful insofar as it took over the burden of actually running occupied China, but otherwise it was pretty useless from a Japanese POV.

So they tried war -- which quickly took on a logic of its own, and became impossible to withdraw from.


Doug M.
 

Da Pwnzlord

Banned
What about assassinating Chiang? Was there a clear successor to him, or would China collapse into civil war again?


EDIT: Bah, beaten to it by Doug M.
 
So there was no way to square that circle.


Very well put.

We too often look at the various factions on the Chinese side like the CCP, KMT, and other warlords without also realizing that multiple factions existed on the Japanese side too.

Chiang, for one, repeatedly told Western diplomats this only to be ignored. Any agreement he came to with Japan's government was eventually violated by factions in Japan's military. Even more problematic, any agreement Chiang came to with one Japanese military faction was eventually violated by another Japanese military faction.

Negotiations were impossible because no one person or group spoke for either China or Japan.
 
Wasn't it Japan being involved in China which resulted in the oil embargo which saw them 'looking' elsewhere?
 
Wasn't it Japan being involved in China which resulted in the oil embargo which saw them 'looking' elsewhere?

PMN1

No actually it was after they took the opportunity of occupying French Indo-China after the defeat of France that the US impose the steel, oil and other embargoes. However this might have come with time as the US was building up strength and growing increasingly hostile to Japanese actions in China.

Also I'm not sure how much longer the Japanese could have sustained the war without serious economic problems even without the allied actions. They were I believe running short of funds to purchase such materials anyway.

Steve
 
Top