Malê Rising
- Thread starter Jonathan Edelstein
- Start date
I read Zinn's People's History when I was about 12 years old. Can't say I agree with everything in it - I think he's a bit too single-minded about class being at the root of everything - but the book was one of my first exposures to the role class does play, and it opened my eyes to some aspects of American history they didn't teach us in school.
Considering that it started with a black guy doing the conquering, I'd hope not.
And yes, part of what I wanted (and still want) to do in this timeline is show colonies, princely states and their people as living entities rather than pieces on a game board.
If you're ever in NYC, I make a pretty good one.
I think part of the reason why I'm so fond of reading Malê Rising, is the way in which you seem to be able to emphasize with such a myriad of different people, and authentically present the world as they would see it.
Myself, I'm very much a product of my time and my position in society, and I would - and do - have quite great difficulties managing to imagine what things would be like for so many, so different people, from central african Belloist herders, to Indian entrepreneurs in Australasia, to the incredibly innovative society which you have created in parts of southeastern USA.
It's doubtlessly a combination of your own person and decades of hard work, but it's still an incredibly admirable skill, and it's certainly something that keeps me coming back to read more.
Myself, I'm very much a product of my time and my position in society, and I would - and do - have quite great difficulties managing to imagine what things would be like for so many, so different people, from central african Belloist herders, to Indian entrepreneurs in Australasia, to the incredibly innovative society which you have created in parts of southeastern USA.
It's doubtlessly a combination of your own person and decades of hard work, but it's still an incredibly admirable skill, and it's certainly something that keeps me coming back to read more.
Sure, but that is his thing. He wears his heart on his sleave on that matter
Another legend passes. She was one tough lady to live through Indian independence and beyond. I kind of figured she died in the 20s (or was she in that update where the Abacar family had their reunion and danced the night away?)
Those Abacar women sound just like you Akwiren'te women
Callate you dork!
Not related to South-East Asia, but what has happened to the municipalities of Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog? Are the two areas still unchanged from the Great War?
I don't know why the great war would have effected those, since the Netherlands was neutral and IIRC there never was any fighting on Belgian soil.
… The 1920s in China began with conflict. In the halls of government, Emperor Ma Qi struggled for power against the generals who put him on the throne, competing for influence among the junior officers and provincial governors. [1] In the countryside and the cities, discontent rose against the Great Renewal program and its policies of forced agricultural collectivization, crash industrialization and labor conscription. At any given time, two or more provinces were in rebellion and hundreds of thousands of people evaded the government net by withdrawing to the forests or unlicensed settlements on the edges of cities.
The infighting within the government hampered the efforts to gain control on the ground. Both sides’ purges of suspect officers weakened the army, and at times, army units went over to the rebels to avoid being purged. Institutional corruption also enabled many rebels to buy immunity or safe passage. No sooner was one revolt put down than another would begin, often led by members of the same faction who had won free to fight another day. Even the coastal regions weren’t always safe, and much of the hinterland was outside government control for years at a time.
By the middle 1920s, however, the emperor had begun to get the upper hand, both within the capital and in the provinces. With his central location, he was able to disperse his opponents and put loyal men in charge of the capital garrison. Many of the people also supported him in the belief that the excesses of the Great Renewal had been imposed by the generals and that the emperor would mitigate them if he could. In 1925, Yang Tian, the last of the military clique that had dominated China during the early years of Ma Qi’s reign, was forced into exile, and the emperor had unchallenged control of the government.
If the people had expected a relaxation of the Renewal, they would be disappointed. Far from being the generals’ invention, it was Ma Qi’s, and now that he was China’s virtual dictator, he was free to push it to new heights of radicalism. Like his martyred uncle, Ma Qi’s ideology was a mix of Confucianism, Belloist Islam, and the narodnik ethos, but unlike the first Ma emperor, he identified this ideology exclusively with service to the state. The Belloist ideal of communal solidarity and the narodnik notions of cooperative village economics were recast as state collectivism, with the solidarity owed to the nation as a whole rather than to autonomous communities. Belloist egalitarianism and narodnik semi-anarchy were cast aside in favor of a strict hierarchy that controlled development and production.
Some aspects of the root ideologies remained. The ideal of the apolitical state was given great emphasis, with all parties and factions banned and a multi-tiered system of nonpartisan councils put in their place. Remnants of consultative government still existed; competitive council elections were held (albeit in caucuses where votes were not secret and candidates disfavored by the government were excluded) and everyone had the right to submit anonymous complaints directly to the central authority. Sometimes corrupt or overly oppressive officials were evicted from office, and sometimes the complaints were acted upon. Private enterprise, and private civic and social organizations, were permitted. But overall, the life of every citizen was regimented in service to the state, and open dissent invited harassment, arrest or even death.
The radicalization of the Great Renewal, under the new name “Aspire to the Heavens,” touched off a new round of rebellion, among both rural peasants who resisted the forced collectivization of confiscated estates and urban communists who believed that Ma Qi’s collectivism was half-baked and thwarted true revolution. The emperor dealt with the communists first, suppressing the urban risings and driving the foreign leaders into exile. He quickly gained the upper hand over the provincial rebellions as well: some remote parts of the hinterland would never be subdued, but by 1929 the settled areas of all provinces were under government control. For the first time in two decades, China was effectively united under a single ruler.
It is undeniable that Ma Qi did strengthen China. Throughout the 1930s, industry grew at breakneck speed, with output nearly equaling Russia’s by the end of the decade. The country produced agricultural surpluses for the first time in years, a modern road and rail network grew between the major cities, and electricity began spreading from the provincial capitals and industrial towns to densely settled rural areas. The army was fully equipped with modern weapons and transport, and the command structure was brought in line with the armies of Europe and India.
These developments went some way toward quieting discontent. Rising living standards silenced many protests, and when Ma Qi parlayed China’s growing military strength into a renegotiation of the unequal port treaties, this was greeted as a triumph and briefly gave his regime genuine popularity. At the same time, however, trouble was building along the borders, because the Ma Emperor’s program called not only for strengthening the state but renewing China’s presence in its traditional sphere of influence. In Burma, the Panthays – a Muslim population originating in Yunnan – had long been the Mas’ proxies in fighting Siamese domination, but in the late 1930s, Chinese support for the Panthay state became increasingly direct. The same took place in Tonkin, where China provided increasingly overt aid to the insurgency against the British-backed monarchy.
But the greatest danger was in Manchuria, which China claimed as its own. Qing independence in Manchuria was guaranteed by Russia, which had major commercial interests in that region and a large expatriate population. The Mas had been close Russian allies for more than thirty years, but by the end of the 1930s the Manchuria question had soured their relationship to the point of open enmity and sporadic clashes. [2] This also led to official harassment of populations deemed too close to Russia, including the Mongols and the mixed Transbaikal Orthodox population, many of whom had Russian citizenship. Even the Uighurs, who had been Ma Zhanshan’s base of support when he was a provincial governor and emperor, became suspect due to their association with Turkestan, and they were persecuted no differently from the others. By 1940, China again seemed destined for conflict both at home and abroad…
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Yokomichi Yonosuke, Empires of East Asia (Tokyo: Yomiuri, 1980)
… Many had hoped that the rise of mass politics in Japan would end the system of matoryoshika government, the rule of cliques within cliques. [3] In fact, it simply shifted the balance. The navy, which had been dominant between the Great War and the late 1910s, faded in favor of the merchant marine and the large industrial companies, who could fund private militias and patronage machines. In fact, the navy itself became a client of the industrialists, who employed many former naval officers and sometimes married into prominent naval families. By the later 1920s, the navy was still sacrosanct but no longer held the balance of power: instead, Japan had become a mercantile empire.
Universal suffrage did open the door to genuinely radical voices, and the expansion of civic freedoms during the 1920s ensured that they were heard. The socialist, populist and agrarian parties that had grown up since the Great War became forces to be reckoned with, and were sometimes able to affect government policy. But in a system where elections were often decided by distribution of patronage and street clashes between party militias, they operated at a disadvantage compared to the parties maintained and funded by the ruling class. Also, although the civil service had been brought to heel, the judiciary, which also favored the ruling cliques, was constitutionally protected and often defied the will of the Diet. Governments might be conservative or liberal, but they nearly always favored the business and professional elites: Japan was not yet a democracy, and the argument over whether it should become one was both passionate and violent.
The Japanese identity crisis extended to other matters as well. Under the terms of the Great War peace treaty, the Russian inhabitants of Sakhalin, the Kurils and Kamchatka were awarded Japanese citizenship, but the people of Japan’s other possessions did not have the same privilege. That changed in 1928, when a liberal cabinet pushed through a constitutional amendment conferring the franchise on all adult males in the Japanese Empire. The next year’s election saw Taiwanese and Micronesian representatives elected to the Diet, and the 1930s saw an increasing number of people from the outlying provinces move to the home islands for work or study.
As expected, this benefitted the ruling parties and extended their patronage network to the farthest corners of the empire. But it also touched off a debate about how to integrate the new citizens. The dominant faction argued that they should be made culturally Japanese, and official policy during the 1930s intensified the already-existing promotion of Japanese language, dress and naming customs. This was especially true of those who moved to Japan, who were expected to conform to Japanese norms throughout their stay, and who faced, at minimum, social discrimination if they failed to do so.
But there was pushback from a minority faction which argued that Japan had done well for itself out of leaving the Russians alone, and that as long as the minorities were loyal to the state, they should be allowed to develop in their own fashion. There was also opposition from the Taiwanese and Micronesians themselves, and from Japanese settlers who had moved to both provinces and found that the local cultures had much to teach them. [4] The harassment of cultural preservationists as “separatists” blew hot and cold, but they persisted, and it was far from certain how the debate would be resolved.
All this played out, as well, against the growing tensions between Russia and China, which had become intense by the late 1930s. The official Japanese policy was one of strict neutrality, as befitted a nation that now looked outward to the Pacific and wanted to maintain a friendly trading relationship with both sides. At the same time, Chinese and Russian emissaries courted Japan, promising benefits in exchange for a military alliance and holding out the possibility of damaged relations if Japan stayed aloof. Korea, aware of its own uneasy position between Russia and China, approached Japan as a third-party protector, threatening to draw it into continental affairs from another direction. And some in the army – which had been sidelined in Japanese politics since the Great War – saw in the gathering storm an opportunity to regain influence…
… Queen Min of Korea died in 1928, leaving behind a thoroughly subdued nobility. The great landed estates had all been broken up through confiscation or compulsory purchase, depriving the yangban of their traditional power base. The more enterprising ones had taken up civil service posts or gone into business, both of which had been made easier for them in partial compensation for their land [5], and the lazy ones had taken lump sums of cash and gone to live dissolute lives in Macao or Monte Carlo. In their place was a modernized civil service responsible solely to the crown, which oversaw the country’s growing transportation network and a new system of universal primary and secondary schools.
Min had ruled Korea, first as regent and then as queen in her own right, for more than half a century, and had found it a hermit kingdom and left it a strong and modernizing state. But her death brought conflict, as the royal autocracy she had built passed into less competent hands. Min had maintained popularity by positioning herself as champion of the poor, a role that her land reform programs, schools and free clinics had made natural. The new King Yi Hwan, however, concentrated more on doling out favors to his cronies, and relaxed Min’s stringent anti-corruption measures. Living standards continued to rise, but rule in the countryside became more oppressive and arbitrary, and local officials with royal favor increasingly augmented their salaries by extorting bribes.
By the mid-1930s, the growing Orthodox Christian community and those who followed the Donghak- and Orthodox-derived Religion of the Heavenly Way, which had been pillars of support for the monarchy during the Min era, had turned against the throne. The mutual-aid networks that the Heavenly Way hierarchy had formed began developing into parallel institutions of government and justice, and the call for a parliament and constitution spread beyond the urban intellectuals to the countryside. The powerful Russian expatriate community, which had ties to both the Orthodox and the Heavenly Way and much of which was discontented with oligarchic rule at home, added its support for constitutional government.
The Russians’ challenge to the throne added to the doubts that the royal clique was already having about Korea’s alliance with St. Petersburg. With Russia and China seemingly on a collision course, and with Korea still a nominal Chinese vassal, the clique feared that continued alignment with Russia might lead the country to a war for which it was not prepared. A growing faction within the court suggested that the old enmity with Japan be buried and that Korea seek Japanese aid to protect its neutrality. Others, who still distrusted the Japanese, were bitterly opposed, and as the 1930s ended, the court was divided and increasingly open to intrigue…
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Hasim Ampatuan, The Decolonization of Southeast Asia (Univ. of Sulu Press, 2003)
… Siam’s separate peace with India in 1920 had taken it out of the British orbit, and a 1924 treaty with London confirmed its full independence. But even as it shook off its last ties to European imperialism, it was becoming an imperial power in its own right. The peace with India had effectively partitioned Burma, with Upper Burma and the northern hill tribes designated as a Siamese sphere of influence, and Siam lost no time in attempting to make its claim good.
Its success was decidedly mixed. Several of the hill tribes willingly gave their allegiance to Bangkok in exchange for subsidies, but the Konbaung Dynasty, which had seized on the Indian war of independence to restore itself, refused to submit. The Siamese army gained control of the central Irrawaddy valley, taking Mandalay in 1923, but it was unable to root the Konbaung supporters out of the hinterland, and the western mountains remained stubbornly out of its control. In the meantime, China – which wasn’t a party to the Siam-India treaty – sought to carve out its own sphere in northern Burma by financing and arming a Panthay state, and by the 1930s, it was also providing aid to the Konbaung armies.
The short victorious war that Siam had anticipated turned into a long, draining conflict from which the common people saw little return. Discontent spread to the soldiers, many of whom were conscripts, and to the lower-ranking officers. The government initially ignored the dissension, waking to its impact only after returning veterans began to protest in Bangkok’s streets. It then switched from complacency to panic, ordering harsh repression and shooting hundreds of protesters, but this only swung more of the army against the throne, and in February 1933, a group of officers and civilian opposition leaders seized power. The coup was a bloody one, with army units loyal to the monarchy resisting, and during the chaos, the king and much of the royal family were killed. As the dust cleared, the new government declared that Siam was a republic and announced elections to a constitutional assembly.
As in Japan, the democracy enacted by the assembly was a flawed one, in which the military and civil service played a strong behind-the-scenes role. There were few mass political movements outside the veterans’ community, so the new Siamese parliament and judiciary were a largely elite affair, and the first elections would also lay bare the divisions between the nation’s regions. The new government also declined to withdraw immediately from Burma as many people had hoped, abandoning the far north and the Konbaung-held mountains but holding onto Mandalay and the eastern hill tribes as a bulwark against China. Soldiers still died, and among the veterans and people with dashed hopes, a radical revolution waited in the wings of the elite one…
… The four Philippine states, in contrast, experienced the 1920s and 30s as a period of peace and development. The Manila-based Philippine Republic, which held Luzon and the central islands, had forged a consensus government during the revolution based on a relatively liberal form of Catholic populism, and that consensus largely held together during the early years of independence. Land reform was fitful but made progress, and the post-independence access to foreign markets improved the economy. Japan, especially, became a key ally and trading partner, with a growing expatriate community in the port cities. In some ways, the Philippines traded the Spanish colonial empire for a Japanese economic one: much of the country’s developing light industry was Japanese-owned, many Filipinos studied at Japanese universities, and thousands more moved to the western parts of Japanese Micronesia which had historical Filipino settler communities. But the Republic jealously guarded its political independence, and as it gained confidence during the 1930s, a Tagalog cultural revival took shape.
Mindanao, which was divided between three states, developed along a somewhat different path. The Republic of Zamboanga, which had a Spanish-speaking majority and was the most culturally Hispanic part of the Philippines, maintained strong economic ties to Spain, and prospered as a port of entry for trade with the Maguindanao and Sulu sultanates. Of the sultanates themselves, Maguindanao was relatively traditional – one of the few remaining Islamic states where isolation and difficult terrain had kept the nineteenth-century reformist doctrines from gaining much purchase – while Sulu was a modernizing maritime state and developing democracy that included not only the Zamboanga peninsula but Palawan and several outlying islands.
Sulu was also the notional sovereign over northern Borneo, and although Britain had exercised practical control for decades, the Court of Arbitration had confirmed its ownership in a decision that had hastened the Imperial Party’s rise to power. [6] That ownership now complicated its attempt to forge economic ties with Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, whose imperial patrons also claimed the area. While Sulu valued trade relations more than its lost Bornean territory, it also had no desire to give away territory for nothing. Its inspiration, in 1936, was to propose a conference of the imperial powers, Brunei and Sarawak (now a British dominion under the rule of the Brooke family and a responsible parliament) to sort out the region’s frontiers once and for all and to establish a regime of shared citizenship for peoples whose homelands were divided by borders. It would be the 1940s before this proposal became a reality, but in the meantime, Sulu would develop a close working relationship with the region’s other small states…
… The remainder of the British sphere in Southeast Asia – Indochina and Malaya – would see dramatic changes. In Cochin-China, the region’s only crown colony, the Wells government implemented a mostly-elected legislative council in 1924, and by 1938, it had progressed to full dominion status. Ironically, Cochin-Chinese autonomy would see a return of French influence: many French citizens of Vietnamese extraction returned to their homeland during the 1930s, and the native-born Cochin-Chinese whose families held French citizenship under the Latin Right were now able to maintain closer ties to Paris. Cochin-China would prove more independent in foreign policy than London had anticipated, and Saigon would again take on a French-Vietnamese flavor.
The three monarchies of Cambodia, Annam and Tonkin stayed closer to London for the most practical of reasons. The former, which had begun to democratize by the 1920s, wanted British protection against Siamese expansion, while the latter two, which hadn’t democratized, sought insurance from London against their own people’s demands. This was a service that, by the 1930s, Britain was increasingly unwilling to provide. In Tonkin, which was particularly beset by peasant rebellion, the monarchy began to crumble, and the Annamese dynasty survived only by becoming increasingly repressive. And in neither country would the opposition fight alone. The Tonkinese insurgents were supported by China, and also by the Indian regiments that had made their home in Laos during the war of independence and who were now a force to be reckoned with in that country’s politics. Those in Annam would draw their support from the Cochin-Chinese democrats and ultimately from the international Vietnamese diaspora.
Malaya was the most loyal of the remaining British possessions, but it was also seen as something of a problem. By the late 1920s, London’s long-term colonial policy goal had shifted toward an “All-Dominion Empire,” and the Malay states were too small to form effective dominions on their own. As it had in the West Indies, therefore, Britain promoted the idea of a Union of Malaya.
The idea had been proposed before: the late Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor had suggested it as early as the 1890s. But some rulers opposed union precisely because of Johor’s support, fearing that they would become provinces in a Johor-dominated federation. Early attempts to unite the Malay peninsula had always foundered on disputes over precedence and internal autonomy.
By 1930, however, the decision no longer rested solely with the rulers. Even the more conservative states had a rising middle class influenced by Ottoman and West African reformism, and most rulers had given in to the extent of establishing consultative councils. The urban Malays were overwhelmingly for union, which would enlarge their domestic markets, allow them to better protect their Pacific and East African investments, and enable them to build connections with democratically-minded people in other states. The Indian revolution had also inspired the Tamil community, and to a lesser extent the Chinese, to support a federation in which their communities could unite and in which the more progressive states could be used as bases to reform the others.
Through a combination of public pressure, British bribery and discreet threats of economic sanctions, the rulers were persuaded to take part in a referendum on union. On October 16, 1934, voters in all the Malay states approved the federation by margins ranging from 60 percent in Kelantan to more than 90 percent in Johor, and ratified its draft constitution by similar margins. This constitution provided that the sultans would function as coequal heads of state, with a prime minister and cabinet responsible to a parliament elected by universal suffrage. An upper house selected by the state governments would have the power to delay and amend bills, but not to dismiss the government.
In the meantime, one of the question marks that had hovered over the Malay federation was whether Aceh would take part. Both the Sultan of Aceh and the democratic movement had expressed an interest in joining, the one because he hoped that an alliance with other rulers might strengthen his hand, and the other because they expected closer ties with Malay democrats to strengthen their hand. [7] As the union came closer to reality and it became clear that the federal government would be democratic, the Sultan withdrew from negotiations and cast his eyes instead on an alliance with Brunei and the more traditional Dutch East Indies sultanates. But the Aceh Reform Congress stayed in contact with like-minded parties in Malaya, and the battle over the country’s future was far from over…
… Most dramatic of all, possibly, was the transformation of the Dutch East Indies. Many have argued that the DEI is an example of what might have happened in India had the Partnership Raj continued. Unlike the ad hoc and conflict-ridden partnership that existed between the Congress and the British Raj, the Batavia Agreement of 1899 had been fought for and agreed by all sides, and everyone had an interest in nurturing it. [8] The tradition of nonviolent protest that had developed during and after the Great War also stood the nation in good stead, and served as a foundation for civil society and political engagement among the santri and the rural population.
Over the next thirty years, the Volksraad established by the 1899 agreement gradually increased in power: in 1913 it became fully elected, in 1921 it gained the power to discuss and amend the budget, and in 1924 it was authorized to override the governor-general’s veto on bills not involving public security. At the same time, the santri used their new economic opportunities to branch into industry, often using Dutch or Ottoman capital. By the 1920s, a Dutch-Hadhrami-East Indian industrial class had developed, linked by business partnerships and sometimes marriage, and both the leading Dutch party and the leading Islamic reformist party had strong connections to this class.
This process was accelerated by the Indian Revolution, which convinced the Dutch government that it needed to advance the Indies’ progress toward nationhood. Beginning in 1923, the governor-general’s office held round-table talks with political and civic leaders, and in 1929 they were invited to Amsterdam for formal discussions on the colony’s future. In April 1930, the parties announced a new agreement to supersede the Batavia accord. Those parts of the DEI under integral Dutch rule would become, in effect, a dominion of the Dutch crown, with universal suffrage (including women, whose status had risen dramatically due to their role in the struggles of the 1890s) and fully responsible government. This entity, which would be in a customs union with the Netherlands, would be called both the Dutch East Indies and Nusantara, and while Amsterdam would remain responsible for defense and the resident Dutch and Eurasian populations would have reserved places in the Volksraad and civil service, it would otherwise be under home rule.
The question was what to do with the princely states on the outlying islands. Most of them were willing to assume the same relationship with the new dominion that they had held with Holland. A few, fearing that the dominion government would push them to democratize, wanted to keep their direct ties with Amsterdam, and others – especially those like Makassar that had already democratized and had Abacarist-influenced constitutions – sought full independence or a looser confederation. The process of negotiating with the princely states delayed the implementation of dominion status until 1935, but the parties finally worked out a multi-tiered system similar to India, in which certain “treaty states” gained full internal autonomy and the right to their own international presence, while the remaining kingdoms were under closer supervision. In a few cases, all but one in the Moluccas and Lesser Sundas, the Netherlands agreed to keep its direct oversight, although this would prove less of a protection from change than their rulers had envisioned.
The formal transfer of power – one of the first examples of entirely peaceful and cooperative decolonization – took place on January 1, 1936. It was a gala occasion in the capital, attended by all the East Indies’ populations, and the public mood was overwhelmingly optimistic. But at the same time, many internal matters remained to be settled…
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[1] See post 3449.
[2] See post 4806.
[3] See post 3449.
[4] See post 4913.
[5] See post 3449.
[6] See post 3493.
[7] See post 4509.
[8] See post 2876.
Dragos Cel Mare
Banned
On the one hand, it's good that the Philippines has a government that's actually competent and able to make use of the country's rich resources. On the other hand, it's far more likely to wind up a minor power than ever before.
Something that I find interesting about Ma China is that it seems pretty similar to Maoist China, mainly the collectivist villages that are part of a strict hierarchy and top-down industrialization. Also I like that decolonization seems to be much more peaceful in Southeast Asia then it was in OTL. The fact that the bloody insurgencies of the post WWII era won't happen here is very appealing. I hope that when Africa's decolonization begins it can be as peaceful as Southeast Asia's and not as bloody as OTL's.
Also this update reminds, what's been going on with Tibet? How is it and the Dalai Lama dealing with Maist reforms and collectivization?
Also this update reminds, what's been going on with Tibet? How is it and the Dalai Lama dealing with Maist reforms and collectivization?
Oh dear, at least the East Indies are having a more pleasant twentieth century. But China's still undergoing forced collectivization, and it looks more and more like Micronesia will be swallowed by Japan permanently. Sure, the cultural exchange goes both ways to some extent but that still means a lot less than actual independence.
Ah well, as positive as this timeline is I suppose it has to have its bleaker aspects for the rest to be enjoyable.
Ah well, as positive as this timeline is I suppose it has to have its bleaker aspects for the rest to be enjoyable.
Yay! Sarawak and Malaya are their own Dominions now! *toots horn, touch wood*
And the Dutch East Indies/Nusantara willl definitely have an interesting path ahead in regards to dominion status. In OTL, there were already communist, Islamist, democratic and what-have-you parties operating in Java and Sumatra. I'm especially interested on how the Nusantarese view ITTL communists now after the precedent of Red France.
All in all, SE-Asia's a lot pleasanter than I thought, though Thailand/Siam might have a problem regarding the Pattani Muslims in the future. Having a democratic Dominion of Malaya close next door is going to influence them to some extent, and Allah help them once Bangkok decides to Thai-ify the provinces and outer regions.
EDIT:
Call me a cynic, but I have a weird feeling that Ma Qi's opponents would be the ones who'd lead an alt-Cultural Revolution, only not against Chinese culture but foreign/Islamic ones.
And the Dutch East Indies/Nusantara willl definitely have an interesting path ahead in regards to dominion status. In OTL, there were already communist, Islamist, democratic and what-have-you parties operating in Java and Sumatra. I'm especially interested on how the Nusantarese view ITTL communists now after the precedent of Red France.
All in all, SE-Asia's a lot pleasanter than I thought, though Thailand/Siam might have a problem regarding the Pattani Muslims in the future. Having a democratic Dominion of Malaya close next door is going to influence them to some extent, and Allah help them once Bangkok decides to Thai-ify the provinces and outer regions.
EDIT:
Call me a cynic, but I have a weird feeling that Ma Qi's opponents would be the ones who'd lead an alt-Cultural Revolution, only not against Chinese culture but foreign/Islamic ones.
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I remember recent discussions about Thai politics, stating that the strong monarchy combined with unable monarchs had terrible effects on the nation, so I guess a republic could be good for the nation once democracy truly sets in. So overall the developments in Greater Indochina seem to be relatively good, considering all of the other (minor) things from this update.
The DEI will be interesting to say the least, with possible inter-religious conflicts and the many different "paces" of Nusantara and the many treaty states making things difficult there.
Ma China looks rather fascist-y, to be honest, probably the closest we ever got to the "real deal" ITTL, with it being more extreme than even the Belgian model. And I also agree with sketchdoodle with the fact that the opposition would probably ruin China completely if they got in power, enacting reforms that destroy positive elements of Chinese culture and forcing fear into the Hui minority (and other Muslims, too).
The DEI will be interesting to say the least, with possible inter-religious conflicts and the many different "paces" of Nusantara and the many treaty states making things difficult there.
Ma China looks rather fascist-y, to be honest, probably the closest we ever got to the "real deal" ITTL, with it being more extreme than even the Belgian model. And I also agree with sketchdoodle with the fact that the opposition would probably ruin China completely if they got in power, enacting reforms that destroy positive elements of Chinese culture and forcing fear into the Hui minority (and other Muslims, too).
The Sandman
Banned
So how is Turkestan responding to the increasing repression of the Uighurs?
And what's Ma China's opinion on Taiwan?
And what's Ma China's opinion on Taiwan?
The Indian war aged Sarah, but she's one of those people who's hard to kill. She was at the reunion - she accompanied Ujjal on the business trip to Zanzibar.
As Haaki said, I doubt anything's happened to them unless the Dutch and Belgians got together after the war and decided to straighten out the border. (Which I hope they didn't, because Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog are a glorious mess.)
There's no "could" about it - Russia and China are nearly at the point of no return by now, if they haven't already passed it. The question is whether the conflict will only involve Russia and China, or whether any other nations will get dragged in.
Of course, even a Russian-Chinese war by itself will be bad enough - imagine a modern war between two powerful countries which are both able to trade space for time.
The Philippine Republic has about 75 to 80 percent of its OTL population, and the loss of Mindanao may even be a net plus in terms of avoiding internal conflict. As the economy matures, the republic might reduce its dependency on Japan, so there's no reason why it can't do at least as well if not better than OTL.
There are elements of both Maoism and fascism in Ma Qi's ideology, as well as other things. His collectivism isn't a particularly left-wing collectivism, given that it's based on communal solidarity and efficiency rather than any desire to abolish private property, and his industrial (as opposed to agricultural) policy is much more of a public-private partnership. He's also not anti-Confucian in the way that Mao was, which is one of the reasons he calls himself an emperor despite trying to create a revolutionary state - continuity and traditional legitimacy are important parts of his regime.
Other similarities to Mao's China are form following function: with the state as the only institution that can act as venture capitalist and banker on the required scale, industrialization is necessarily a top-down process, although Ma Qi has tried to make it less so by delegating some of the management and risk to private owners.
Overall, the Ma constitution is a major step back from the fully democratic constitution of the 1910s, although the latter was never truly implemented.
And his opponents... well, he has many of them, and some are benign while others aren't so much.
There are insurgencies in Annam and Tonkin, albeit against indigenous monarchs rather than colonial powers as such. Siam also isn't having a very happy time in Burma. But on balance, it probably is a less bloody process, especially in Cambodia, southern Vietnam and *Indonesia.
Ma isn't pushing too hard in Tibet, which he considers economically unimportant and not truly Chinese - he's garrisoned strategic locations but otherwise left well enough alone. At the moment, the Dalai Lama is more in danger of revolution from below than anything else - there's a lot of anti-feudal sentiment, especially in the cities. That could change in the future, though.
The people in TTL are human beings, and as such, I don't think there's any way to eliminate all conflict and oppression. I've said that there probably won't be a second Great War, but there will be other medium-to-large ones as well as internal political struggles. The international system that is developing in TTL won't spring out of thin air - it has developed, and will continue to do so, because people become convinced through bitter experience of the need for it.
I will say, though, that in addition to being a key point in the development of the international order, the coming Russo-Chinese war will lead to changes in the government of both countries. Also, remember post-Westphalianism - there may be solutions for Micronesia or Taiwan, or even the Ryukyus.
As far as the true believers are concerned, the Red French just didn't get it right, either because they made bad decisions or because they didn't go far enough. Of course, the more moderate Nusantarese (Nusantaran?) leftists will see the Red Twenty as a cautionary example, in which gains were made but at a heavy cost.
Getting rid of the monarchy will probably be good for Siam/Thailand in the long run. Right now, though, the country is dealing with an imperfectly competent government, a growing revolutionary movement and a long-term foreign conflict that has no clear way out. Burma will be a problem for some time, especially after the trouble spreads into the Indian-held areas, and it would definitely be a mistake for Siam to try and assimilate the border regions.
I'll say with some confidence that Siam will be doing well by the 1970s or 1980s. Between now and then, though, it has a lot to work through.
Turkestan isn't happy about the situation in Xinjiang, especially since many Uighurs are fleeing across the border as refugees. It realizes that it's in no position to take on China, but it might jump in if Russia goes to war.
Ma Qi considers Taiwan a potential irredentist target, but he can be very practical about these things sometimes: he'd rather have Japan as an ally or at least a friendly neutral, so he's put Taiwan on the back burner while he pursues his claims against Russia. This isn't to say, though, that the issue doesn't lurk in the background of any diplomacy between China and Japan.
Narrative next, and then West Africa to finish the 1930s.
Cochinchina makes me thinking to OTL Anjouan.
Is there any possibility ITTL that a former colony returns to its former master or tries like Anjouan which unsuccessfully attempted in 1997?
Is there any possibility ITTL that a former colony returns to its former master or tries like Anjouan which unsuccessfully attempted in 1997?
Bad indeed.
But considering the geography, Russia is somewhat disadvantaged.
At best, the Russian industries don't exceed the Soviets' ones at the same time and there is no reason that their repartition changes much. So, the easternmost parts of the Russian industrial heartland would be at best in Ural region.
Then the Russian forces in Manchuria are reliant on the Transsiberian (and its Transmanchurian extension), and I doubt that local Manchurian industry would be up to the task of supporting war effort against China.
Still, I imagine that the Transsiberian has been upgraded since the Great War.
Then, if both Russia and China can trade space for time, it isn't actually about the same kind of space and consequences. Siberia may be vast, but if you control the Transsiberian, you virtually control the whole region. I don't find something similar to China. If Russians lose Siberia, they can forget any prospect of victory.
Meanwhile, the territories China would fall back on are on the way of industrialization.
I'm not saying that China is advantaged by all of this.
Chinese industries are young and their wartime potential is untested, whereas Russia has experience of such warfare and could mobilize more efficiently its industrial base.
And I would say that the whole of North China (not only Manchuria but also Xinjiang and Mongolia) would become the battleground, given that the Emperor has done nothing to have friends with Mongols and Uyghurs supporting Russia. The Russians would attack into Mongolia from Chita, something like what Ungern-Sternberg did IOTL but with much more involved forces ), while a concerted offensive from Turkestan and Tuva would invade Xinjiang.
The Chineses could give Russians a hard time in Mongolia but Xinjiang is far more away from Chinese bases than Mongolia.
The nature of northern China geography is likely to produce major tank battles (I imagine a Battle of Gobi Desert with an atmosphere akin to Rommel campaigns in Libya). This is a disadvantage for China. As a European power, Russia has a longer experience of armoured warfare (or at least of the weapon itself) and even if China manages to match Russian production in terms of quantity, it would still have to deal with inferior design and inadequate training (look at what happened IOTL in 1939 to the Japanese when they met Soviet tanks, especially considering Soviet results against Germans two years later).
Moreover, there is the fact that China is still undermined by internal resistance to Ma Qi's radical reforms while Russia is at peace with itself since Tolstoi. This would greatly impede Chinese ability to mobilize its economy and industries to support war effort, risking to see the Chinese Emperor facing the same fate than his Russian counterpart during Great War.
Staying at these considerations, I would say that Russia-Turkestan is more likely to win on the long run.
An initial Chinese offensive may well conquer large territories, but it would be unlikely to severe the Transsiberian and prevent Russia from bringing its full might in Manchuria. Then, the war would begin to last, Mongols and Uyghurs would revolt and allow Russians to push Chinese back to their initial position and out of Outer Mongolia and Xinjiang before the frontlines begin to stabilize.
Then, at some time, internal dissent in South China would evolve into full scale rebellion (Republicans maybe) and force China to exit the war on Russian terms.
However, there is the Japanese position.
In my opinion, it is unlikely that Japan allies with China for its mercantilist regime has even less interest to see a strong China appearing on the continent, a China that could potentially compete with Japan and that is already showing signs of that with industrialization.
Still, if I was Japan, I would merely wait and see Russia and China ''destroying'' each other while taking advantage to undermine both nations by playing on both, selling weapons to both, and there is little risk that Russia might contest it as it hasn't either the will or even the means to contest Japanese domination on the sealines.
Regarding Korea, it is another opportunity to take advantage of while Russia is occupied but it could backfire as well, as the Court and the King, who I understood as willing to initiate a shift from Russian to Japanese sphere, is so corrupt (or so it seems) that a popular revolt could overthrow the King; if Japan was to intervene directly, it could draw attention from Russia.
Continuing on the latter remark, we could also see the Japanese intervention and Russian reaction as a factor deciding Japan to formally enter the war on Chinese's side.
If we consider such a scenario of Japanese involvement, it would only give a respite to China (to deal with internal dissent). Bases in Kamchatka aren't susceptible to be a threat given the region isolation from Siberia with all the way to Yakutsk and the Lena River being a hostile ground.
Japanese activity in the region, over the whole of Okhotsk Sea shores would be mainly raids, but the only valuable objectives I see as at their reach are the Anadyrsk valley and the ports of Okhotsk and Ayan (and other that could have been built by Russians ITTL).
Japanese main focus should be Vladivostok, the Priamur (an offensive supplied from Sakhalin along the Amur, beginning with Nikolaevsk), Korea (offensive to the north, but we know what happened during the Great War when they attempted that). Then, there would be an expeditionnary corps sent to Zhili and maybe an attempted offensive along the coast in coordination with the navy to take Liaodong peninsula and link up with forces in Korea.
But I would be skeptical about the possibility of an involvment. Such a scenario could have fitted with a militarist minded Japan, but not with a mercantilist Japan. War with Russia and supporting China are too risky on both short and long run.