WI Japan did not invade Vietnam causing the oil embargo and then have to go on their assault of the pacific?
Yes, people tend to forget that it was the fact that Japan -couldn't- achieve a strategic breakthrough in China which caused it to attack the western colonies in the first placeI think the Western powers would have embargoed Japan anyway even if they didn't occupy French Indochina. The Japanese were spouting a lot of anti-colonial rhetoric and committing a lot of atrocities in China that would have led to an embargo sooner or later.
I also don't think that the Japanese can win in China even if they don't go to war with the Western powers. As long as the Western powers can continue shipping supplies into China via Burma, the Chinese will fight on and bleed Japan dry. It won't be pretty, but it will happen. Either the Chinese will win, or all of China will be effectively depopulated.
Why wouldn't it? Vichy couldn't really protest - it had no way to project power. It was clearly worth it for the Imperial Japanese Army - it helped cut off Chinese access to Western arms and supplies via Guangxi.
If we're acting under the assumption that France fights on, the power-projection issue remains, albeit lessened by the presence of the British. The Japanese would at least push for France to completely cut off trade with China.
My understanding is that Japan would have run out of hard currency by sometime in 1942 if they had maintained the war in China. They would have either had to make the war pay for itself in terms of hard currency or shut it down.
The consequences of having to back out of the war would have been interesting.
backing out of the war...
China isn't going to be a "Japanese Vietnam", on so many different levelsStill, I don't think a Japanese "Vietnam" on a massive scale is going to have the same effect as losing WW2. There might be some heads rolling, and less IJA influence in the Diet, but essentially it will be business as usual. Maybe the loss of so much manpower will have some effect on the industry though, with increased mechanization. That, in combination with a war in Europe, and the loss of face of the military, could give rise to "Japan Inc." of postwar fame. It won't be anywhere near as successful though, since politicians will still be in control...
...unless the war's fallout is so massive that it completely breaks the nations economy, like WW2 without bombs. The Japan might go technocrat or communist instead.
For starters, how likely would the Kwangtung Army accept Tokyo's excuses for the lack of pay and supplies?