Japan's Actions if France *Doesn't* Fall in 1940 or Later

The US is still very supportive of China (the US had a strong domestic lobby in support of China) even if Japan stays out of the European war, so expect tensions to still escalate (and certainly enough that the Allies are not going to tick off the US by embracing Japan). And Japan wasn't in good odor with the UK or France either.

On the other hand, if they don't put an embargo on oil (OTL triggered by the occupation of French Indochina, which clearly doesn't happen here), then Japan doesn't find itself needing to invade the DEI in order to secure its oil supply. It's likely that Japan eventually crosses some red line and the sanctions get imposed, but that will be significantly later. Meanwhile, the Army continues flailing about in the endless quagmire that is China (while the KMT is getting increasing foreign support, especially since the Burma Road isn't closed ITTL).

my take is China will lose, unless US keeps providing unlimited free aid. Japan is also draining money but their cities ain't occupied.

But trade goes both ways. China keeps getting their equipment, Japan keeps getting their US oil. Just don't know how China will keep getting their money with no way to get tax from their cash cow cities.

Does anyone have any recorded funding of the Chinese or are these written off as give aways?
 
Few points in no particular order (it's something I've read a lot about - see the timeline in my signature which is about exactly this scenario!):
  • The oil embargo from the Dutch East Indies isn't going to happen - in OTL it was because of pressure from the US which the Dutch government in exile (and indeed the British) couldn't afford to resist. Here, the Dutch are much less subject to pressure from the US and the UK is looking to Paris rather than Washington for allies. The Japanese probably won't get all the oil they want, but it's certainly in far greater demand.
  • The RN and MN between them can send a very powerful fleet to the Pacific - Bismarck, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are pretty much the only surface threat to the RN, and they have no friendly ports outside of Germany and (probably southern) Norway. That's far less of a threat than the OTL fleet, which could use French Atlantic ports as well if they could reach them.
  • Suez is open. It's hard to overstate just how big an effect this has on shipping things around. Thrown in no Atlantic ports for the U-boats and no North African campaign to provide supplies for, and compared to OTL there is a cornucopia of shipping available. That strongly influences what gets sent East if the Japanese are threatening - in OTL simply getting it there is very hard, ITTL it's easy.
  • The Japanese can't just take over Indochina without declaring war on the British and French. That makes attacking Singapore almost as hard as attacking Pearl Harbor - yet even in OTL Singapore had better and more alert defences, and here it'll probably have almost as large a fleet as the US Pacific Fleet. It also affects the timetables for the US embargoes - occupying Indochina really brought those forward.
  • Not only is the Burma Road still open, but the Haiphong-Kunming railway is too. Supplies to China are going to get through in far greater volume than OTL, and there is nothing the Japanese can do about it without going to war with the British and French.
 
Here, the Dutch are much less subject to pressure from the US and the UK is looking to Paris rather than Washington for allies. The Japanese probably won't get all the oil they want, but it's certainly in far greater demand.
It appears your understanding or application of supply and demand economics is confused. If the Dutch allow Japan to buy their oil, Japan would would be able to get oil in far greater supply, regardless of how great their demand is.

Perhaps a quick tutorial on supply and demand is in order. http://www.whatiseconomics.org/the-law-of-supply-and-demand

“Supply” refers to the amount of goods a market can produce, while “demand” refers to the amount of goods consumers are willing to buy.
 
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It appears your understanding or application of supply and demand economics is confused. If the Dutch allow Japan to buy their oil, Japan would would be able to get oil in far greater supply, regardless of how great their demand is.

Perhaps a quick tutorial on supply and demand is in order. http://www.whatiseconomics.org/the-law-of-supply-and-demand

“Supply” refers to the amount of goods a market can produce, while “demand” refers to the amount of goods consumers are willing to buy.
No, I'm just unable to string a coherent sentence together this morning having been kept up half the night by a toddler who wouldn't sleep in her own bed and insisted on repeatedly headbutting me out of mine.
What I was trying to say was that the oil supplies in the DEI will be in far greater demand than in peacetime with the likelihood of major British and French fleets and air forces in the region, and thus Japan will probably be unable to get the entire oil production of the DEI delivered to them even if they want to. This leaves Japan in a far better position than under the OTL US Embargo, but still unable to meet their full requirements for oil imports due to the dominance of US oil companies in the market.
 
No, I'm just unable to string a coherent sentence together this morning having been kept up half the night by a toddler who wouldn't sleep in her own bed and insisted on repeatedly headbutting me out of mine.
What I was trying to say was that the oil supplies in the DEI will be in far greater demand than in peacetime with the likelihood of major British and French fleets and air forces in the region, and thus Japan will probably be unable to get the entire oil production of the DEI delivered to them even if they want to. This leaves Japan in a far better position than under the OTL US Embargo, but still unable to meet their full requirements for oil imports due to the dominance of US oil companies in the market.

And meanwhile China keeps swallowing men and resources, the KMT keeps getting resupplied, and relations between the Army and Navy become ever more frayed...
 
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Is it somehow possible for Japan's invasion of China to go much, much worse initially and for a fascist Chinese government to arise which aligns itself with the Axis to fight Japan?

Even if Hitler doesn't see the Chinese as a particularly strong ally, couldn't he in a cynical way try to use them as meat shields on an eastern front he doesn't care about with the Soviets to draw away some of the Soviet manpower from the western front?
 
I believe Italy is still in the fight ITTL per OTL, just not winning in summer 1940.

ASB. Italy entered the war when France had very clearly lost already, and even then it was a close thing that only went through because Mussolini really wanted to be in any peace conference that would close it.
 
One of the intractable economic problems Japan was wresting with was its chronic lack of investment capitol. Between a unsustainable military size & the need for large scale industrial development Japan was extremely dependent on loans from the US & Britain. While the complete cutoff of fresh credit was painful for the US when the embargoes were cranked up in 1941 they were devastating to Japan.

Another bit of leverage was the reliance on foreign flagged ships to service Japans industrial plant, both on the Home Islands & on the Asian mainland. in 1940 over 40% of the cargo passing through Japans ports was in foreign flagged ships. Unlike some nations there was no slack or surplus in Japanese flagged cargo shipping to make that up. When the embargoes were imposed only a few Soviet flagged ships continued contracting Japans cargo. The 40% backlog in Japans ports was crippling to industry. had a small surplus of raw materials not been assembled in the previous two years Japans industry would have collapsed even more rapidly than OTL.
 
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