alternatehistory.com

How could Japan's liberalization phase and good relations with the West not gone out the door after Emperor Taisho's death?


Here is a series of at least semi-possible events that I think might have done the trick, maybe. Perhaps.


1. Not pushing their luck and risking the turning of popular sentiment against them by witholding the most extreme of OTL's 21 Demands and instead focusing on the legitimization of their possession of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia.
2. Less successfull communist infiltration in Japan, hence less of a response from the ultranationalist right during the period of general liberalization and democratization. Additionally, the Peace Laws preventing communist assemblies being broadly worded enough so they can later be interpreted generally and be used to contain military cliques and ultranationalist organizations.
3. The maintaining of their alliance with Britain.
4. Prince Hirohito's accidental death (horseback riding?) and the regency being turned over to the British-friendly Yasuhito. Yasuhito would assume the throne upon his father's death and ostensibly continue the period of relative democracy and good relations with the West that had occurred under his father.
5. A war between the Soviet Union and Japan, allowing Japan to ride on Western anti-communist sentiment and commonly held vested interests in keeping the status quo in China.
6. This would lead to the Soviet Union being a co-belligerent rather than Ally in WWII, and Japan being one of the Allies.
7. With the US staying out of the war longer and the USSR getting less aid (while the British would be kicking more aid than in OTL), once the US does find an excuse to join in the war the Allies will probably push the Germans to the Russian border, or close to it, preventing Soviet expansion.
8. A scrappy surviving, intact USSR however still means that the US and Britain will be interested in keeping Japan as an ally to check Russia in the far east. This will also probably mean a post WWII war between Soviet backed China and a flush from Allied victory Japan, which will help vent the nationalist/expansionist energies of the hard to control Japanese military complex. Japan would get more or less open license to keep East Asia from going red(?).

The main problem is that there aren't many Nazi possessions in Asia for Japan to go after during WWII, but some sort of campaign on East Africa would be interesting. Also, one can hope that continued universal male sufferage and influence of the Diet rather than unelected advisors would help temper the empire over time.

Suggestions?
Top