Non Sinicized Japan

Allright, this is going way back, past two millenia or more, but what would be the outcome of Japan not being Chinese influenced? What would their culture be and who would they identify more with? Maybe Siberia,Philippines or other?
 
Allright, this is going way back, past two millenia or more, but what would be the outcome of Japan not being Chinese influenced? What would their culture be and who would they identify more with? Maybe Siberia,Philippines or other?

Sounds cool. I think the easiest way to do this is have them descend into feudalism and warring states much earlier, which means that they have no time to be influenced by China. After all, the Chinese influence in Japan subsided once the emperors lost their power.
 
Sounds cool. I think the easiest way to do this is have them descend into feudalism and warring states much earlier, which means that they have no time to be influenced by China. After all, the Chinese influence in Japan subsided once the emperors lost their power.

That alone wouldn't be enough though-- Japan has have diplomatic relations and cultural exchange with China even before the Yamato dynasty emerged. Japan is estimated to have been unified by the 400s, but the "hundred states of Wo" had relations with China since the Late Han, which is why a great deal of what we know about pre-Nara Japan is derived from Han and Wei Dynasty records.

Furthermore, a lot of Chinese ideas were imported in order to aid in state building-- the Yamato monarchy tried to design itself along the lines of a Chinese imperial state. Rulers like Prince Shotoku would send scholars to China to learn new techniques in administration. Scribes that recorded histories used Classical Chinese texts as a model.

So, in order to get a non-Sinicized Japan, one needs for there to be another country whose ideas are able to outcompete China, and present an alternate model for state development.

India kinda performed this role for Tibet-- Buddhism gave the first Tibetan Emperor, Songtsen Gampo, a religious mandate for his rule. Subsequently, a Tibetan alphabet was designed with Indic scripts as its inspiration, allowing the transmission of more Indian influence.

India's a bit far from Japan, though, and Indian ideas like Buddhism were mostly spread to Japan through China and Korea, a Sinicized country. So...

An interesting possibility, though, is the fleet of some explorer in the Caliphate's employ exploring East Asia and stumbling on four large islands with feuding and secluded but otherwise well-developed states...
 
Geographically speaking, once Chinese civilization exists in any recognizable form, it is very difficult to not have Japan be influenced by it.

Neighbors that were less influenced by zhonghua were influenced by India (SEA, Tibet), eventually by Persia and Islam (Central Asia) or were unsuited for a Chinese lifestyle (Mongolia).
 
Geographically speaking, once Chinese civilization exists in any recognizable form, it is very difficult to not have Japan be influenced by it.

Neighbors that were less influenced by zhonghua were influenced by India (SEA, Tibet), eventually by Persia and Islam (Central Asia) or were unsuited for a Chinese lifestyle (Mongolia).

Yeah, it would be very difficult. The other two are much further away than China.
 
Geographically speaking, once Chinese civilization exists in any recognizable form, it is very difficult to not have Japan be influenced by it.

Neighbors that were less influenced by zhonghua were influenced by India (SEA, Tibet), eventually by Persia and Islam (Central Asia) or were unsuited for a Chinese lifestyle (Mongolia).
You forgot Taiwan prior to the 1600's. Despite being practically close enough to China to see, the island lacked any significant Chinese influence until mass migration of Chinese settlers. If you keep Japan at a similar technological level as aboriginal Taiwan-modest agriculture supplemented with hunting and gathering-you could probably keep Chinese influence at a minimum. This would probably entail somehow eliminating the Yayoi migration into Japan.
 
You forgot Taiwan prior to the 1600's. Despite being practically close enough to China to see, the island lacked any significant Chinese influence until mass migration of Chinese settlers. If you keep Japan at a similar technological level as aboriginal Taiwan-modest agriculture supplemented with hunting and gathering-you could probably keep Chinese influence at a minimum. This would probably entail somehow eliminating the Yayoi migration into Japan.

For two millennium?

I thought Taiwan was because everything was forest. Or something like that.
 
You forgot Taiwan prior to the 1600's. Despite being practically close enough to China to see, the island lacked any significant Chinese influence until mass migration of Chinese settlers. If you keep Japan at a similar technological level as aboriginal Taiwan-modest agriculture supplemented with hunting and gathering-you could probably keep Chinese influence at a minimum. This would probably entail somehow eliminating the Yayoi migration into Japan.

Well sure, Taiwan wasn't sinicized per se (although it's simply false to say that China lacked any influence on Taiwan prior to the 17th century. But Fujian is the periphery of peripheries, and like many peripheric areas it's rather difficult to say it was truly Chinese until the Song era. Contrast with most of North China (which is much closer to Japan than Fujian).

Anyhow let's assume that the Yayoi are ASBed. How exactly do you expect to keep future agriculture away from Japan, since Korea has already completed the transition?
 
For two millennium?

I thought Taiwan was because everything was forest. Or something like that.

Taiwan was haiwai and a land of naked and tattooed savages according to Kaifeng or Beijing, so there was no government support. There was a lot of Fujianese trade that gets forgotten, but the government did not encourage it nor did it encourage trying to jiaohua the natives.
 
Well sure, Taiwan wasn't sinicized per se (although it's simply false to say that China lacked any influence on Taiwan prior to the 17th century. But Fujian is the periphery of peripheries, and like many peripheric areas it's rather difficult to say it was truly Chinese until the Song era. Contrast with most of North China (which is much closer to Japan than Fujian).
That's why I specified significant influence. What influence China did have was minimal compared to Japan, southern China, and Korea. Completely eliminating all Chinese influence would be impossible. A Japan that for much of its history has no more Chinese influence than early Taiwan is slightly doable.
Anyhow let's assume that the Yayoi are ASBed. How exactly do you expect to keep future agriculture away from Japan, since Korea has already completed the transition?
IIRC, extensive agriculture didn't penetrate Hokkaido until much later OTL despite its proximity. Japan isn't exactly an ideal place for growing rice on a large scale. You don't need to prevent agriculture from developing, just delay it long enough so that early Japan doesn't unify and pursue relations with Korea and China. You don't need to eliminate the Yayoi people either, whoever they were. Preventing wetland rice cultivation from getting started in Japan would delay development significantly.
 
IIRC, extensive agriculture didn't penetrate Hokkaido until much later OTL despite its proximity. Japan isn't exactly an ideal place for growing rice on a large scale. You don't need to prevent agriculture from developing, just delay it long enough so that early Japan doesn't unify and pursue relations with Korea and China. You don't need to eliminate the Yayoi people either, whoever they were. Preventing wetland rice cultivation from getting started in Japan would delay development significantly.

Southern Japan is better than most of Korea for rice.

Hokkaido is a poor example, it's like citing the Inuits to prove the claim that agriculture could have been avoided in the Americas.
 
Southern Japan is better than most of Korea for rice.
Climate-wise, yes. The terrain isn't so great, though now that I think about it, seeing how people have overcome that in Bali I suppose it's not that much of an issue.
Hokkaido is a poor example, it's like citing the Inuits to prove the claim that agriculture could have been avoided in the Americas.
How so? Hokkaido has the flattest terrain in Japan. The growing season isn't prohibitively short except in the furthest northern parts of the island. In fact, I would bet that even northern Hokkaido is better for agriculture climate-wise than most of northern Europe. Yet the Ainu only had minimal agriculture despite the rest of Japan having crops like barley, millet, and buckwheat that are far easier to grow than rice. The Jomon probably also had these crops, as well as Korea and China. What allowed for rapid population growth following the Yayoi period was the introduction of wetland rice cultivation. I doubt that rice and the technology needed to grow it in a flooded field system was introduced more than a very few times to Japan. It would be easy to butterfly away that initial introduction.
 
What allowed for rapid population growth following the Yayoi period was the introduction of wetland rice cultivation. I doubt that rice and the technology needed to grow it in a flooded field system was introduced more than a very few times to Japan. It would be easy to butterfly away that initial introduction.

Hokkaido is remote and the Japanese didn't really care enough for it. By contrast southern Japan is rather apparently better than Korea for wet paddy agriculture.

So intensive agriculture is like a disease, in that it makes most people miserable and that it tends to spread. It's hard to butterfly away the settlement of Japan as long as population pressures in the mainland exist and the mainland has the capability to defeat the Japanese population. The Fujianese for example did not really think that much about the agricultural potentials of Taiwan and it was often considered forested mud - that's not going to be the case with Japan, where climatic benefits WRT Korea are apparent. Rice was probably introduced only a few times - because once it was introduced there was no need to reintroduce it.
 
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