Superpower Japan: Japan-Taiwan-Korea-Philippines

Would a Japan comprised of the home islands, Taiwan, Korea, and the Philippines be internally wealthy enough to become a Superpower-level entity?

Let's say Germany got the Philippines and Japan grabbed the archipelago during the Great War.

Looking at these territories today, that's a population of about 330 million people. However, if one discounts deaths from WWII, the Korean War, emigration, and the North Korean famine the population could conceivably be 360-380 million people.


I'm thinking that if Japan gets the Philippines after the Great War, the navy will be the stronger branch of the military (meaning less army militarism) and the country won't feel deprived of gains from the war. Japan then spends the next several decades focusing on consolidating its gains rather than expanding.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Is the IJA as bat shit insane as in OTL with junior officers conducting beheading competitions and enlisted engaging in a midevil pillage at will?
 
Korea and the Philippines would destabilise this mega Japan as they agitate for independence.

Japan would struggle to keep them both.
 
Retaining the Philippines would be just as, if not more trouble, for Japan as it was for the US. A Catholic Christian archipelago, with a large Muslim presence in the south, being ceded to a nation that is dangerously close to drifting towards state Shintoism? Not only does the religious aspect really make things difficult for integration, it's going to take years for the Japanese to occupy the region, just as it did for the US and would have for Germany as well.

It takes quite a bit of time and money to attempt to control a region so remote from the metropole, especially when the population is opposed to the occupation. True, there were small integrationist parties in the Philippines, but that was pre-1900, before the populace outside the cities began to establish a political identity (as it's when you started to have campaigning from outside of town). In the early 1900s, the federalist party in the Philippines maintained the support of only a few percent of the population; and that support petered out when they merged with other parties. I don't think the Japanese would be treated anymore warmly than the US.

And this is assuming that Japan can avoid a war with China or the US, or the Soviets/Russia, for the rest of the time between now and then. Needless to say, the odds of Japan getting involved in a major war against a larger nearby competitor is certainly more likely than not. One has to consider how successful the Nipponification of Korea and Formosa were. Only Formosa even considered staying with Japan after WW2, and a lot of that was due to resistance to returning to China by the island natives.

Also, the population of the Philippines currently isn't a good indicator. If the region was developed along first world standards, the population would be noticeably lower, just due to the lowered birthrate that occurs in a developed state.
 
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