Japan Stays Isolated

WI, for whatever reason, Perry doesn't go to Japan and the country essentially stays isolated through the second half of the 19th Century? Is Roosevelt (after 1900, I know) the man who forces them out of it?
 
I can't see why the Japanese would join the USA. People don't seem to make the distinction between American colonists and the rest of the world. The colonists, by and large, did yes want to form a national union and were willing to form the state system to share federal power. But other nation-states did not universally want to join this system. Remember, Hawaii joined the Union because American merchants tired of the Queen and the people, who wanted to remain their own nation, and performed a coup d'etat to impose American rule, largely to suit their own business needs. And look at what happened when the Japanese were brought out of isolation. Yes, they positively gulped down westernisation, but then they went on an annexation-fest in Manchuria and the like. Can you really see them enjoying being subservient to Washington? And can you see Washington OK-ing their vicious attack and then extreme rule in Manchuria? If Washington does, for some strange reason, OK it then you have to live with the entire USA being burdened with the blame for the Japanese' treatment of the native Chinese and Koreans, which means a whole lot of genocide accusations. I just can't see the Japanese existing within the USA. Maybe there could be some form of protectorate agreement for a while, but even that will only spur the Japanese to advance quicker so that they can declare it void due to their own newfound ability to defend themselves.
 
I can't see why the Japanese would join the USA. People don't seem to make the distinction between American colonists and the rest of the world. The colonists, by and large, did yes want to form a national union and were willing to form the state system to share federal power. But other nation-states did not universally want to join this system. Remember, Hawaii joined the Union because American merchants tired of the Queen and the people, who wanted to remain their own nation, and performed a coup d'etat to impose American rule, largely to suit their own business needs. And look at what happened when the Japanese were brought out of isolation. Yes, they positively gulped down westernisation, but then they went on an annexation-fest in Manchuria and the like. Can you really see them enjoying being subservient to Washington? And can you see Washington OK-ing their vicious attack and then extreme rule in Manchuria? If Washington does, for some strange reason, OK it then you have to live with the entire USA being burdened with the blame for the Japanese' treatment of the native Chinese and Koreans, which means a whole lot of genocide accusations. I just can't see the Japanese existing within the USA. Maybe there could be some form of protectorate agreement for a while, but even that will only spur the Japanese to advance quicker so that they can declare it void due to their own newfound ability to defend themselves.

Why would they go on an annexing spree if they remain isolationist? In OTL their society had decades to change into an interventionist state. Here they remain isolationist right up until the point where American interests swoop in and take them over. There is, however, no way it would end up as an integral part of the USA or even a territory - even an isolated Japan is going to have a population density an order of magnitude higher than Hawaii, and unlike the Philippines, there's no Spanish influence to make their culture and language comprehensible to Americans.
 
My point was about Japan's possible incorporation into the USA, which some of the posters above were citing as likely. Sure Japan wouldn't go on a spree if they stayed isolationist. But if they stayed isolationist they wouldn't join the USA. If they join the USA, their isolationism is forever ended, and pretty soon they are going to westernise and eye up Manchuria and the like, and then they are going to chafe under the American system. But then again, I don't think they'd even enter into any union with the USA in the first place.
 
My point was about Japan's possible incorporation into the USA, which some of the posters above were citing as likely. Sure Japan wouldn't go on a spree if they stayed isolationist. But if they stayed isolationist they wouldn't join the USA. If they join the USA, their isolationism is forever ended, and pretty soon they are going to westernise and eye up Manchuria and the like, and then they are going to chafe under the American system. But then again, I don't think they'd even enter into any union with the USA in the first place.

Japan will not invade korea but will be a US protectorate....

World War 2 wasn't just about Japan vs America you know.

Sorry I really meant only the eastern side of WWII will not exist.....
 
Not sure that Japan can stay Isolated. Japan and Russia were at semi-war over Sakhalin, and the Russian Fleet came steaming into Tokyo several years after Perry.
And both the British and French were interested in Japan. A French Japan to go with French Indo China :cool:
 
Japan will not invade korea but will be a US protectorate....

That's exactly what I mean. When the Japanese were awoken they desperately wanted to do something to show their might and to expand their horizons, and combined with their racism towards their neighbours, the conquest was coming. I really don't see the Japanese happily sitting on their thumbs just because (for whatever reason) they accepted American suzerainty.

To put it another way in a (fairly) contemporary analogy, imagine a "no ARW" scenario. The British weren't desperate to expand west, whereas the American colonists were. If the Americans didn't rebel, would you expect the Americans to just say "OK, we promise to stick with what we have"? No, they wouldn't. They might not expand as fast as OTL but they would simply ignore the official British decisions to some degree. Filibustering, haggling over boundaries, going behind the government's back, etc, the colonists would find a way to expand. The same would happen with Japan. The Japanese would get really, really restless and being somehow an American property wouldn't stop them. They would engineer a conflict and the USA wouldn't be able to stop them without having the Japanese turn on them. Any union of USA and Japan in this era would tear itself apart, I guarantee it.
 
Japan part of the USA is completely ASB.

While relatively undeveloped, Japan still possessed a substantial population and a strong national identity.
Whilst it is possible to subdue one (India) or the other (the Boers), especially if you have stronger industry and an accepted policy of Empire, both is nigh-impossible.

What is more, the USA denied the existence of the empire they did seize after 1898, calling the Philippines a 'Protectorate' IIRC.
US opinion could accept the pacification of the Philippines, just about. The same in Japan, with a struggle an order of magnitude more difficult? Nah.

And now let's consider it from another perspective - butterfly away Perry, what's to stop Britain, or France, or the Netherlands, or even Russia from giving the Japanese a similar scare? Nay, a worse one, since they all had substantial interests on the nearer side of the Pacific.

There were some countries which were not 'colonised' per se, but it was essentially impossible if you had either a large market or any goods of interest to remain entirely out of the system. One or more of the colonial powers would force your market open eventually (viz Opium Wars, Boxer Rebellion). There is no earthly reason for Japan to be excepted from this.
 
I have to agree with DuQuesne, Sam, and Incognita. This thread has gone straight through nonsense and on out the other side. Japan as an US state or even a protectorate? Good grief...

When Perry "opened" Japan, he just there ahead of several other powers. Britain, Russia, France, Holland, and any one else with a whaling fleet or shipping in the Pacific had been sniffing around off the coast for decades. There's even been earlier attempts to force negotiations but the Japanese weren't ready yet.

That's an important aspect of the event that many posters in this thread have either ignored or were ignorant of. Perry opened Japan because events of the last several years had convinced Japan to decide they could no longer remain closed. If it hadn't been the US, it would have been some other nation and perhaps some other nation who had been more forceful in the recent past, like Russia. A large part of the reason Perry why was dispatched was US concerns that some other nation would do the job first.

Japan was going to rejoin the world in the 1850s whether Perry showed up or not.


Bill
 
What would've happened if the Japanese opened Perry (with a katana)?
Could the U.S.A. circa 1850 have waged a trans-Pacific war against Japan?
 
I doubt America had the ability, much less well, to conquer and occupy japan at that time. Defeating Japan is another story, given the technological and doctrinal disparities between the two nations.

If Japan fought back at Perry and a shooting war started, I could see the United States rapidly scrounging up an army and navel to "punish" Japan for its impudence. Rifles and Canon trump Bushido and Japan is forced to concede major trading rights to America and make some territorial concessions, Kyushu or Shikoku perhaps.

America's honor is restored, and its wares now have direct access to the markets of the East, it can now go off and comfortably fight a civil war against itself. Russia on the other hand see's blood in the water. While Japan is still reeling from its defeat Russia launches a haphazard expedition to conquer and annex the Sakhalin islands and Hokkaido. Britain, France and any other aspiring colonial powers follow, and by the end of the century Japan has been reduced to just another colonially divided geography.
 
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