"Meiji" alternatives?

Dominated by the English? Really? Is that how Glasgow, Scotland, became the second city of the British Empire and the fourth largest city (behind only London, Paris, and Berlin) in Europe at the turn of the 20th century?

A second city which expanded and gained its clout due to commercial ventures which were controlled and funded either by Englishmen or by English-speaking Scottsmen. Still a linguistic monopoly.
 
Although Belgium and Britain had multi-ethnic societies, their economies were dominated by a specific national group: the English in Britain, and the French-speaking aristocrats and industrialists of Belgium.

Not all countries have such a clear-cut linguistic hierarchy.

Belgium never had a Francophone majority, though. Big difference between English-majority Britain and split Belgium (which had and still had a slight Flemish majority).
 
Belgium never had a Francophone majority, though. Big difference between English-majority Britain and split Belgium (which had and still had a slight Flemish majority).

But it had a largely Francophone aristocracy and later on most of the industrialization, as mentioned by other members, was concentrated in Wallonia.
In fact, I vaguely remember that the Belgian revolution was partially caused by a French-speaking aristocracy not wanting to be controlled by a Dutch monarchy.

For successful industrialization, you don't need a culturally unified nation, you simply need a linguistically monolithic investing demographic.
 
But it had a largely Francophone aristocracy and later on most of the industrialization, as mentioned by other members, was concentrated in Wallonia.
In fact, I vaguely remember that the Belgian revolution was partially caused by a French-speaking aristocracy not wanting to be controlled by a Dutch monarchy.

For successful industrialization, you don't need a culturally unified nation, you simply need a linguistically monolithic investing demographic.

The Belgian revolution was caused by the Catholic Flemings and Catholic and secular Walloons not wanting to be controlled by a Protestant Dutch monarchy.

The problem with talking about the investor class that is that some Southeast Asian countries had a largely Chinese investing class, especially Malaysia. In Malaysia, this led to the failure of the merger between Malaysia and Singapore, and a subsequent program of discrimination against the Chinese in rump-Malaysia.
 
A second city which expanded and gained its clout due to commercial ventures which were controlled and funded either by Englishmen or by English-speaking Scottsmen. Still a linguistic monopoly.
Before you were talking about ethnicities now your talking about linguistic monopolies. Which is it?
 
Before you were talking about ethnicities now your talking about linguistic monopolies. Which is it?

The problem is that the relationship between language and ethnicity is very complicated and varied amongst all groups. Many groups have multiple languages, such as the Jews, whilst many share primarily speak the language of another nationality, such as the Irish.

I do acquiesce that the focus should be on linguistic uniformity amongst investors, with ethnic monolithism being secondary.
 
Vietnam is a likely-ish candidate. It did have an industry relatively early on but for most of its recent history it was separated between North and South and kept in a cycle of war.

Obviously that's not a major issue in itself but they had other problems.

Vietnamese leadership was extremely ticklish about christianity and its christian population which meant that a lot of ideas they could have gotten from Europe were snuffed out.

But then ok, maybe it could have still pulled a Meiji? Sure, when France took Cochinchina it was not great but it was not a vital region, they had acquired it relatively recently from Cambodia. This happened in the early 1860's. There was another "war" in 1873 when Francis Garnier went on a joy ride in the Hanoi delta but the following treaty wasn't TOO harsh on Vietnam and actually freed it from Chinese influence. There they could have used this opportunity to grow as France was wary enough not to invade them further but not too wary to keep foreign powers to carve Vietnam up.

If by then you have a strong Vietnamese leader accepting French "protection" (not the protectorate of 1884, just being in the French sphere of influence) and using this to train his army and get guns to clean the Northern delta and assert his authority with French support they could get very powerful.

The French were interested in Vietnam for its commercial opportunities as well as opening the road to Southern China. If you allow French capital and protect French trade in the region it looks unlikely they would do a full on colonisation as OTL.


If you wanna start earlier, get Louis XVI to go full on with Pigneau de Béhaine support of Gia Long. A French army would help him unify and conquer Vietnam faster. The French would get the port of Da Nang and very favourable terms as well with a stronger relationship thereafter. That would be a very interesting PoD
 
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