Japan takes the Philippines, does Europe intervene?

Should Japan defeat Spain and force them to cede the Spanish East Indies (including the Philippians), do other European nations intervene to stop the transfer? This is all assuming that the Spanish-American War is butterflied away somehow.
 
Is this occurring after OTL's triple intervention? Is it before the Anglo-Japanese alliance? The European powers would likely get involved, the question is really to what extent and how much Japanese gains would be limited.
 
if spanish American war is butterflied, there is no reason why Japan would suddenly be interested when they just rejected the offer to interfere in 1896.

A most likely PoD is Japan takes the offer and aid to Bonifacio's Katipunan in 1896 to expel the Spanish. So rather a rejection of aid like in otl, you have the emperor approving aid to the locals in ATL. You have a possibility of even Rizal be taken alive since if we based in otl 1898, the locals can take the whole philippines with exception to manila by 1-3 months.
 
Well, you need Japan to have an interest in the Philippines.

The first manifestations of territorial imperialism were directed at those areas that had a tradional link with Japan, and/or were largely inhabited by Japanese. In the 1860's and 1870's, attention was thus focused on the Ryukyu islands, the Kuriles, the Bonins, and Sakhalin.

Once matters were mostly settled there, the next areas of focus were on the closer areas such as China and Korea, which were both important and had long-standing feuds or relations with Japan. Only after Japan has achieved its goals here, or at least hit what it considers to be the limit of what is achievable, is it likely that Japan would look out further, for instance towards the Philippines.

Now, there are a few interesting facts:

First, Iyeyasu, before his turning strictly against Christianity, encouraged Japanese merchants to go to the Philippines, Annam, Siam, china and even India, to open up trade routes. During his later years, and during the reigns of Hidetada and Iyemitsu, of course, this was abandoned and Japan became isolationist.

Some earlier Japanese reformists wanted to export Japan's newfound "better way" to other "backwards" countries (preferably peacefully, but with a bit of strong-arming if necessary). In 1869, for instance, after Korea had resisted gentler persuasion to modernize according to Japanese ideals, Kido Takayoshi proposed to bring "our superior national policies to that land" by armed force, believing that this "rationale will be universally accepted".

Edit: removed the sentence about Korea supposedly having been a tributary state. That may have been relevant in the 1500's, but not in the 19th or 20th century...

Finally, while China's population had nearly doubled during the 18th century, while Japan's had remained fairly stable. When, about 1900, Japan's population had grown large enough, emigration principally went to Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.

Now, it looks to me like we need Japan to have a reason to be unusually interested in the Philippines so that it will make intrusion there a priority before 1898. Otherwise it will focus on closer areas exclusively.

What if, during Iyeyasu's day, a large and thriving Japanese merchant community was established there, and some contact maintained during Japan's isolationist years? With many Japanese living there, Japan is likely to take a renewed interest in the Philippines during those early decades of modernization (1860's through 1870's). It might seem a natural spot for emigration once Japan's population grows (and it would help if population growth accelerated a bit earlier to stimulate renewed emigration to those islands). With the conflict that was endemic there under Spanish rule, it might seem like a good place to showcase Japan's "superior national policies" once Japan developed the military strength to support such an effort at a distance from home.
If Japan developed a bit more modern naval strength in the 1880's, perhaps Japan, anticipating the Spanish-American War's outbreak, positions itself to rapidly jump on the Philippines with an eye to "establishing order" and protecting her people there from potential violence. This will cause a confrontation with the U.S., but since America was divided over the notion of imperial-style expansion in distant regions anyway, this could be managed. The European imperial powers can perhaps be bought off with various concessions, especially if Japan establishes her initial role as Protector-Protectorate instead of outright annexation. What the Europeans really feared at this point was expansion of other European nations' power; at the moment Japan still looks "manageable"; her taking the Philippines might seem more desirable than the prospect of some other European power establishing itself there.

The POD, then, would be a large colony of Japanese being established in the Philippines during Iyeyasu's day, with the necessity of maintaining contact with it reducing the worst effects of isolationism. Japan keeps up a bit better with modern ways pending a full modernizing revolution in the mid 1800's. By not starting from quite so far behind, she develops her ability to project power a bit faster, and is both interested in, and at least minimally capable of, intervening in the Philippines when a weakened Spain is distracted by its conflict with the U.S.

The above isn't great, but it's the best I can come up with at this point.
 
Last edited:
The POD, then, would be a large colony of Japanese being established in the Philippines during Iyeyasu's day, with the necessity of maintaining contact with it reducing the worst effects of isolationism. Japan keeps up a bit better with modern ways pending a full modernizing revolution in the mid 1800's. By not starting from quite so far behind, she develops her ability to project power a bit faster, and is both interested in, and at least minimally capable of, intervening in the Philippines when a weakened Spain is distracted by its conflict with the U.S.

The above isn't great, but it's the best I can come up with at this point.

In orider to do your scenario, you need to change the way the Spanish make their colonial policies in the philippines from otl by a very clear segregation of races without anyway of converting to Catholicism or intermarrying with spanish migrants. Philippines is anything but racially homogenous.

So if we entertain your scenario without any changes to spanish policies, even if you put a large Japanese colony by 1500-1600s, they won't be indentifying themselves as Japanese by 1898 nor have any loyalty to Japan just like the Malay, chinese and spanish migrants in the philippines(who eventually identify themselves as filipinos not chinese, malay or spanish) rebelled eventually from Spain.
 
One factor in Japan considering itself to have a right to meddle in Korea was that Korea had, long ago, been a "tributary state".
When was Korea Japan's tributary state again? I don't remember the rallying cry during the Japanese invasions of Korea being "let's retake our tributary state!"
 
When was Korea Japan's tributary state again? I don't remember the rallying cry during the Japanese invasions of Korea being "let's retake our tributary state!"

Um, I got the timing wrong. Upon further reading, Hideyoshi used this as a pretext for invading Korea back in the 1592. Disregard, and I'm editing my previous post to remove the badly erroneous claim.
 
In orider to do your scenario, you need to change the way the Spanish make their colonial policies in the philippines from otl by a very clear segregation of races without anyway of converting to Catholicism or intermarrying with spanish migrants. Philippines is anything but racially homogenous.

So if we entertain your scenario without any changes to spanish policies, even if you put a large Japanese colony by 1500-1600s, they won't be indentifying themselves as Japanese by 1898 nor have any loyalty to Japan just like the Malay, chinese and spanish migrants in the philippines(who eventually identify themselves as filipinos not chinese, malay or spanish) rebelled eventually from Spain.

What you suggest might be necessary. But if some contact were kept between the colony in the Philippines and the home islands, I see no reason why a sense of unique identity couldn't have continued.
 
Um, I got the timing wrong. Upon further reading, Hideyoshi used this as a pretext for invading Korea back in the 1592. Disregard, and I'm editing my previous post to remove the badly erroneous claim.

Could you tell me where this is from? I don't think this is the conventional theory on why Toyotomi invaded Korea.
 
I'm sure he's talking about this one.

Of course it's a pure legendary story, but it was the official version of history back then.

Yah, that was a pretext used in the 1500's; if it ever had any relevance or basis in fact, it certainly had no bearing on anything in the 19th-20th centuries. I got hasty and screwed up.
 
Could you tell me where this is from? I don't think this is the conventional theory on why Toyotomi invaded Korea.

Letter from Hideyoshi, sent to Taiwain, on his invasion of Korea: "However, Korea, a land that was long our tributary state, has failed to live up to her pledge of loyalty. At the very time that our troops started out to conquer the great Ming, Korea rebelled. I therefore sent a punitive expedition..."

A s quoted in The Making of Modern Japan by Marius Jansen.

So it was possibly more a retrospective justification, rather than the true cause or pretext.

Edit:
Interestingly, he went on to write "The Philippines and Ryukus have sent tribute-bearing envoys to our country. Your country, however, has not yet sent any envoy... This lack of loyalty will certainly bring the curse of Heaven upon you."

But again, this little mention of the Philippines could have had utterly no relevance or interest in the early 20th century. I post it only as an indication of some sort of contact historically.
 
Letter from Hideyoshi, sent to Taiwain, on his invasion of Korea: "However, Korea, a land that was long our tributary state, has failed to live up to her pledge of loyalty. At the very time that our troops started out to conquer the great Ming, Korea rebelled. I therefore sent a punitive expedition..."

A s quoted in The Making of Modern Japan by Marius Jansen.

So it was possibly more a retrospective justification, rather than the true cause or pretext.

Edit:
Interestingly, he went on to write "The Philippines and Ryukus have sent tribute-bearing envoys to our country. Your country, however, has not yet sent any envoy... This lack of loyalty will certainly bring the curse of Heaven upon you."

But again, this little mention of the Philippines could have had utterly no relevance or interest in the early 20th century. I post it only as an indication of some sort of contact historically.
As someone who read the Japanese epic Tokugawa I cannot believe I missed the part where he tried to justify his invasion, I'm sure something similar would have been in there.
On note about the Philippines, for what the novel wrote he even sent people to colonise the islands in the Philippines and such. Oh, what a world it would be if Toyotomi never died and Korea let the troops through China.
 
As someone who read the Japanese epic Tokugawa I cannot believe I missed the part where he tried to justify his invasion, I'm sure something similar would have been in there.
On note about the Philippines, for what the novel wrote he even sent people to colonise the islands in the Philippines and such. Oh, what a world it would be if Toyotomi never died and Korea let the troops through China.

Well, having read absolutely nothing about Japanese history other than partly wading through The Making of Modern Japan, I wouldn't know. Jansen sources the quote to Yoshio Kuno, Japanese Expansion on the Asiatic Continent. As this work was published in 1937, I suppose it could be a fiction created to somehow help justify contemporary Japanese actions. But Jansen seems to take it seriously.
 
The War in the Pacific could be quite different, if - there had been no Spanish - American War.
Though it's hard to know how Spain could have coped with an 'empire'? How would the Spanish Civil War affected it?

OTL the US had an interest in the Western Pacific, without the Philippines they did not - apart from being to maintain trade - especially in China.

From both perspectives there would less interest in a WI war with each other.

If there was still an 'oil embargo' Pearl Harbor less likely, and the move south more likely just against the colonial powers.

Would the US join in - likely the USN in the Pacific would be smaller than OTL.
 
What you suggest might be necessary. But if some contact were kept between the colony in the Philippines and the home islands, I see no reason why a sense of unique identity couldn't have continued.

In otl, the spanish colonists had contacts with Spain but that never made them loyal to Spain.

You still have an issue of conversion, assimilation and loyalty to the land you grew up than the land you never grew up nor saw.

There were japanese colonists in the Philippines in otl just like there were chinese and spanish colonists. All of which were lost thru time, assimilation and conversion. In fact, the philippine national hero had chinese, spanish, japanese and Malay blood but was never loyal to either one of those nations except the philippines.

Europeans would simply ask for slices of Philippine archipelago which Sulu area may gone German.

Most likely for the small islands. Luzon and the Moros were the hardest to conquer. Any european nation attempting to take the islands needs to have the need to have a base in south east Asia and resources of OTl USA to pull it off.

Fighting the Moros required 45 caliber tech and resources to put soldiers to non modern transportation in mindanao which lacked any semblance of western modernity. While Luzon was more or less like the west with the technology, large population and talent pool to resist any great power. It was just a string of bad luck and bad leadership that made otl luzon 1896 and later. The other islands individually were just too small both in population and resources to simply resist.
 
Well, having read absolutely nothing about Japanese history other than partly wading through The Making of Modern Japan, I wouldn't know. Jansen sources the quote to Yoshio Kuno, Japanese Expansion on the Asiatic Continent. As this work was published in 1937, I suppose it could be a fiction created to somehow help justify contemporary Japanese actions. But Jansen seems to take it seriously.

Just want to respond to this. Philippines was under Spain at the time hideyoshi was in power in Japan. Does this mean Spain paid tribute to Japan? Because philippines as a nation or philippine national identity doesn't exist yet in the 1590s.
 
Top