Manchuia To The Stars

In the novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union, there were mentions of an independent Manchuria that has its own space program. Which got me thinking: with a post-1900 POD, how do we get an independent, no-one's-puppet Manchuria powerful enough to afford a space program?

BTW I haven't actually read the book. I only saw that passage about their space program on Wiki. :eek:

Marc A
 
Weak, Nationalist China looses Red combined Manchukuo and Korea to the Soviets, not directly annexed but basically in an eastern Warsaw Pact.

It leaves Yugoslavia style in the '60s, being so far East, hard to roll Soviet tanks in to stop it. Slowly but surely, they capitalismize themselves, developing a program roughly on par with OTL's Japan or Canada.
 
Well if you add some other bits of Russia it could be a White or Imperial remnant that survived with Japanese help and then grew to stand on its own.
 
but wasn't Manchuria largely Chinese by the 20th century, or does that matter?

That doesn't matter. Facts on the Manchurian ground were the Soviet boots on the ground in the period immediately following the end of WW2 that led to the hand-off of control to the Chinese Communists. & that it was the most industrialized portion of China.
If the Nationalists, unlike OTL, retain control of the rest of China, Manchuria is recognized and supported by the Soviets as an independent state. Subsequently, it goes its own way similar to Yugoslavia or just as China did OTL.
 
That doesn't matter. Facts on the Manchurian ground were the Soviet boots on the ground in the period immediately following the end of WW2 that led to the hand-off of control to the Chinese Communists. & that it was the most industrialized portion of China.
If the Nationalists, unlike OTL, retain control of the rest of China, Manchuria is recognized and supported by the Soviets as an independent state. Subsequently, it goes its own way similar to Yugoslavia or just as China did OTL.

I meant population wise the Manchus were a minority in Manchuria, unless the OP is just asking for a state of Manchuria and not a Manchurian nation state.
 
Maybe if the Soviets more bogged down in Europe, making its eastern armies couldn't invade Manchuria?
 
I meant population wise the Manchus were a minority in Manchuria, unless the OP is just asking for a state of Manchuria and not a Manchurian nation state.

I believe the OP is asking for an independent country encompassing the region of Manchuria. I would assume that since this query is on the after 1900 board that it wouldn't be a Manchu ethnic- nationalist state. That would be ASB this late in the game.
 
That doesn't matter. Facts on the Manchurian ground were the Soviet boots on the ground in the period immediately following the end of WW2 that led to the hand-off of control to the Chinese Communists. & that it was the most industrialized portion of China.
If the Nationalists, unlike OTL, retain control of the rest of China, Manchuria is recognized and supported by the Soviets as an independent state. Subsequently, it goes its own way similar to Yugoslavia or just as China did OTL.

It's plausible that if the KMT wiped out the Communists before the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge incident, World War Two will end with Soviet troops occupying Manchuria, the most industrialized part of China. But because the rest of the Chinese nation is ruled by a regime hostile to the Soviets, the Manchurian Democratic Republic *must* be as tightly controlled by the Soviets as East Germany. They simply cannot permit Manchuria splitting like Yugoslavia or China IOTL.
 
This really needs a Japanese PoD to work. Have Japan be more level-headed and tricky in confronting China. China balkanizes and Manchuria splits off and become super-successful.
 
This really needs a Japanese PoD to work. Have Japan be more level-headed and tricky in confronting China. China balkanizes and Manchuria splits off and become super-successful.

But isn't this OTL with the entire Warlord Era? Even without the Japanese invasion of 1931, Manchuria would still have been ruled by Zhang Xueliang and his warlords.
 
I meant population wise the Manchus were a minority in Manchuria, unless the OP is just asking for a state of Manchuria and not a Manchurian nation state.

I believe the OP is asking for an independent country encompassing the region of Manchuria. I would assume that since this query is on the after 1900 board that it wouldn't be a Manchu ethnic- nationalist state. That would be ASB this late in the game.

Herzen has it right. Apparently the book says Manchuria, but since I haven't read it, I'm fine with "an independent country in the area that we would call Manchuria". :)

But isn't this OTL with the entire Warlord Era? Even without the Japanese invasion of 1931, Manchuria would still have been ruled by Zhang Xueliang and his warlords.

If the Japanese were level-headed enough would they have kept Zhang Zuolin alive?

Marc A
 
Maybe it is a situation where the League Of Nations intervene when Japan invades Manchuria. Or a Russo-Japanese war which goes in favor of Russia.
 
But isn't this OTL with the entire Warlord Era? Even without the Japanese invasion of 1931, Manchuria would still have been ruled by Zhang Xueliang and his warlords.
Then make Zhang Xueliang/Zuolin smarter, or smart enough to ensure that Manchuria survives, can stand on its own two feet, and get super rich. If China is messed up then the country will get lots of immigrants.
 
If the Japanese were level-headed enough would they have kept Zhang Zuolin alive?

That would require Zhang Zuolin being clever enough to take a hint from the Japanese and quit trying to launch campaigns to reunify the north and south. For most of the '20s and '30s, all they wanted him to do was stay bottled up in Manchuria so he wouldn't drag them into an all out war with all of China until they were ready for it. At any rate, they didn't like the fact that he was so persistent in pursuing his own agenda off to the side.
 
In the novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union, there were mentions of an independent Manchuria that has its own space program. Which got me thinking: with a post-1900 POD, how do we get an independent, no-one's-puppet Manchuria powerful enough to afford a space program?

BTW I haven't actually read the book. I only saw that passage about their space program on Wiki. :eek:

Marc A

The TL in this book is tricky.
A smaller Holocaust, while big part of europeans Jews find refuge in Alaska, USA
The Soviet Union is crush by The Third Reich in 1942, the Nazi get Nuked by the USA in 1946
The State of Israel is destroyed after only three months, in an alternative version of the Arab-Israeli War in 1948.
a long 'Cuban War' in the 1960s (analog to Vietnam in this TL ?)
and an independent Manchuria that has its own space program.

the question is this a Chinese Manchuria or japanese Manchuria ?
 
I can't recall the exact date of the POD given in the book (it's in there) but it's the death of an Alaskan politician who opposed the proposal to send refugees to Alaska. In the book people seem to know that the man's death is the reason the proposal was approved, so it must have occurred pretty close to the time of approval- close enough for him to be involved in the debate in the first place.

So that puts the POD around 1939 - 1940. Definitely out of the Warlord Era. It seems unlikely that the US would let the Japanese off lightly since a version Pearl Harbor still happens in the book. Therefore I think Whanztastic's original idea is most likely.

Maybe the allies do better in SE Asia and push north. Maybe they've got boots on the ground in China when the Soviets invade and they decide on a now-customary split. The Soviets latch onto a convenient fiction and name their sphere Manchuria. Then as Whanztastic says, they drift Yugo-style but remain heavily statist, allowing mega-projects like a space program to remain viable.
 
Yeah, Manchuria is large and populous enough to support a split against the USSR or at least be treated as a semi-equal.
 
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