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I've seen threads on "Cortes in China" before that generally show him getting his head handed to him. But could the Spanish have invaded Taiwan, or the Ryukyus in the 1500s or 1600s and held them? If they could invade them, would this stimulate successful counteraction of Chinese (or Japanese) fleets or not?

Going the other way, many Chinese and Japanese rulers of the 1600s mentioned the conquest of the Philippines as an eventual objective, even more rulers demanded tribute from the Spanish in Manila. The Spanish colony in the Philippines broadened trade opportunities for East Asians, but there were also massacres of the Chinese population on the islands.

If the Chinese or Japanese had chosen to mount a serious campaign of conquest against the Philippines in the 1600s (or possibly the early 1700s in the case of China), could either have won?

Would the Spanish galleon trade have dried up with a major reduction of silver flowing to the far east, or would it have continued, under Asian sovereignty, motivated by the local desire for specie and continued European desire to import Chinese luxuries?

Having lost the Philippines, might the Spanish have sought to establish a firm base further south, for example in New Guinea or northern Australia, as a sovereign colony to serve global trading networks on their terms?
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