WI America never forces Japan to discontinue isolationism

If Japan had never been forced to trade with the west by America, what would happen? Would another western power do it instead, would Japan remain isolationist? Would Japan still invade China and if not, how would this affect the European wars in China?
 
To be honest, another Western power would probably do it a few years later. The late-nineteenth-century West was very big on trade, and very down on countries which sought to exclude them from their markets.
 
Some other power would eventually force it. While not as valuable as China, the European powers were too into colonialism and exploiting the rest of the world to not force a major market to open up.

However it is far from a forgone conclusion that Japan would be in any position in an alt TL to invade China. Japan in the Meiji period really threaded the needle. It industrialized incredibly quick, with little real aid from industrial powers, avoided the powers that were from crushing it, etc. A different series of events could easily have left Japan in a similar position to China and Korea. Government divided on relations with the European powers, fighting each other for influence, difficulty modernizing, European powers using proxies to take advantage of all this, etc.
 
And, even if in a series of very unlikely events that Britain, France, and Russia were to leave Japan alone, the Tokugawa Shogunate itself may force the issue and try to modernize Japan, since the Satsuma Domain were starting to become a threat to modernize (at least their army) through their backdoor trade in Kyushu.
 
Goo
Could they end up controlling it as thoroughly and as long as they controlled Indochina in OTL?
Good question. Japan had settler colony potential that neither Indochina nor New Caledonia had. The only issue would have been the high population density of the native Japanese. An apartheid type system would probably evolve. A Japanese revolt would always be in the cards, and given the distance from metropolitan France, I'd say they hold it till the interwar period (1919-1939).
 
Goo

Good question. Japan had settler colony potential that neither Indochina nor New Caledonia had. The only issue would have been the high population density of the native Japanese. An apartheid type system would probably evolve. A Japanese revolt would always be in the cards, and given the distance from metropolitan France, I'd say they hold it till the interwar period (1919-1939).
Actually the Settler colony that they can have is Hokkaido.
 
Good question. Japan had settler colony potential that neither Indochina nor New Caledonia had. The only issue would have been the high population density of the native Japanese. An apartheid type system would probably evolve. A Japanese revolt would always be in the cards, and given the distance from metropolitan France, I'd say they hold it till the interwar period (1919-1939).
This is about as likely as China becoming a settler colony, that is to say, not at all.
 

The British, French, Russians, and Americans had been trying to get contact with the Japanese for years and the Dutch were pretty pissed by their poor treatment, having considered just leaving the place in the past due to how they were confined to a small island while Japanese noblemen took all their stuff and got rich off of it, without letting the Dutch take back what wasn't sold. I expect if the Americans didn't open Japan another group would have. Or even more likely, another expedition come after Perry. The Americans did have reasons to be there. It was a decent stopping point for supplies for whalers and those trading with China. The original treaty or letter of friendship also suggested that one of the prime reasons for being there was to buy food from Japan to feed Californians. It took a third or forth of the time getting from Tokyo to San Francisco than it did going from New York. Also, if Japan isn't opened then perhaps Americans keep the Bonin islands, instead of the Japanese moving in and saying 'no, we claimed those on these vague, six hundred year old maps, of course they are ours'. Ahh, and the Russians got to Nagasaki a month before Perry got to Tokyo Bay.
 
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The short answer is that someone would force them open eventually.

“Japan has no need for foreign trade. We have stood proudly alone for centuries, and have no need of your worthless trinkets. Nor do I feel compelled to listen to anyone who believes that marching into lands prohibited to their kind to be the correct way to behave.” The shogun said.
The Four Day War, 1947

As soon as the Council realised that the shogun was bent on war, the final order to attack Japan was given. Fliers were launched from twenty of the carriers in the waters south of Japan, while bombers, including the fearsome BH-30s, came from as far as the Philippines to rain death and destruction on the Japanese. Every major city that was loyal to the shogun save Kyoto was targeted, Kyoto only being saved because the daimyos had cautioned against attacking the Emperor’s home as it risked an even more complete uprising against the Europeans and Americans.

If it takes longer, the outdated Japanese Army will simply suffer more against the better European weapons.

- BNC
 
The short answer is that someone would force them open eventually.




If it takes longer, the outdated Japanese Army will simply suffer more against the better European weapons.

- BNC
The Japanese traded with the Dutch, Koreans, and Ainu, as well as semi unofficially using them and the Ryukyus to trade with everyone else. The Japanese translated, compiled, and published history books on the outside world even within years before Perry. They used Nanban and Dutch Learning and the government made sure to compile all new information they found. Before the closing of Japan they had more guns (and quite well made) than France or any other country in the world. If the Shogun claimed there was no need for foreign trade he would have been liking. That was how the Lords of the South got much of their income, as did he. Through keeping trade limited so that it all went into their coffers and they could control prices for the populace, while also giving foreigners bad prices, as well as using them to trade with China, which would not do it directly because of them refusing to recognize the Chinese system (that, and the Chinese hadn't originally been happy about all the Pirate Dwarfs that attacked them before the Seclusion). When the Japanese were going to threaten the Dutch to cut off or limit trade, they first checked with the port dealing with the Koreans, seeing if they could double imports so that there would be no change in the general flow of goods. Which makes sense as it was hardly as though the Dutch were bringing in a bunch of stuff from the he Netherlands. They mostly acted as freighters, bringing things between Asian countries and using the profits to buy things to sent to Europe. Anyways, the Japanese would be well aware of what was going on in the world and wouldn't be running around like headless chickens. And they knew what guns were. Also, keep in mind that one month before Perry arrived the Russians landed in Nagasaki and showed off a steam engine, and a Japanese man attempted to make one within the year. Read up on him and you will be pleasantly surprised at how advanced science was in certain fields, and how the Dutch/Rangaku Learning was not an isolated field. Thoooough it did get a bit antsy for practitioners near the end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanaka_Hisashige

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangaku
 
The Japanese traded with the Dutch, Koreans, and Ainu, as well as semi unofficially using them and the Ryukyus to trade with everyone else. The Japanese translated, compiled, and published history books on the outside world even within years before Perry. They used Nanban and Dutch Learning and the government made sure to compile all new information they found. Before the closing of Japan they had more guns (and quite well made) than France or any other country in the world. If the Shogun claimed there was no need for foreign trade he would have been liking. That was how the Lords of the South got much of their income, as did he. Through keeping trade limited so that it all went into their coffers and they could control prices for the populace, while also giving foreigners bad prices, as well as using them to trade with China, which would not do it directly because of them refusing to recognize the Chinese system (that, and the Chinese hadn't originally been happy about all the Pirate Dwarfs that attacked them before the Seclusion). When the Japanese were going to threaten the Dutch to cut off or limit trade, they first checked with the port dealing with the Koreans, seeing if they could double imports so that there would be no change in the general flow of goods. Which makes sense as it was hardly as though the Dutch were bringing in a bunch of stuff from the he Netherlands. They mostly acted as freighters, bringing things between Asian countries and using the profits to buy things to sent to Europe. Anyways, the Japanese would be well aware of what was going on in the world and wouldn't be running around like headless chickens. And they knew what guns were. Also, keep in mind that one month before Perry arrived the Russians landed in Nagasaki and showed off a steam engine, and a Japanese man attempted to make one within the year. Read up on him and you will be pleasantly surprised at how advanced science was in certain fields, and how the Dutch/Rangaku Learning was not an isolated field. Thoooough it did get a bit antsy for practitioners near the end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanaka_Hisashige

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangaku
Guess you learn something new every day! :)

My TL's Japan and China do lapse into a state of isolation even more than OTL shortly after the PoD which explains the "headless chickens" part - at that time most guns were still Napoleonic muskets, which are basically useless when your enemy comes in with flamethrowers and helicopters (I do mention that Japan has a few muskets in that section somewhere). Obviously a PoD in the 1850s won't lead to anything like that, I know, but that scene was one of my favourites in the TL so I thought 'what the hell?'.

- BNC
 
This is about as likely as China becoming a settler colony, that is to say, not at all.
OK, I admit that may be a little far fetched, but they tried it in South Africa, not exactly a lightly populated country. Whatever the form of colonization, a rejection of Perry means a delay in Japanese industrialization. As an earlier poster noted, OTL was a close run thing for Japan. A feudal Japan in the 1880s probably looks more attractive to France than Indochina. If not, then by the 1890s the Americans, Russians, Germans, and even potentially the Chinese come calling.
 
Why do people think that Japan before US opening their borders was some kind of massive backwater? The Meiji restoration was indeed a thing but Japan still had high literacy rate levels, high urban population and many other things that would differentiate it from other places European colonized.

At worst the Ryukyu and some peripherical islands would be European, but the mainland of Japan would hardly be colonizable as early as some people propose.
 
Tokugawa Japan had an effective centralized government unlike most of Asia plus a large highly educated population with a healthy economy, so no the Meiji Restoration wasn't an "anomaly" that the smallest butterfly will cause it to fail and turn into a dyfuctional shithole, Japan may be less successful sure, but to end up like China or, even worse, Korea and Indochina is farfetched.
 

RousseauX

Donor
If Japan had never been forced to trade with the west by America, what would happen? Would another western power do it instead, would Japan remain isolationist? Would Japan still invade China and if not, how would this affect the European wars in China?
at the time the dutch/french/british/american pretty all had ships in Japanese waters trying to open them up it was only a matter of time
 
OK, I admit that may be a little far fetched, but they tried it in South Africa, not exactly a lightly populated country. Whatever the form of colonization, a rejection of Perry means a delay in Japanese industrialization. As an earlier poster noted, OTL was a close run thing for Japan. A feudal Japan in the 1880s probably looks more attractive to France than Indochina. If not, then by the 1890s the Americans, Russians, Germans, and even potentially the Chinese come calling.
South Africa WAS lightly populated, the West was by itself for geographic and other reasons, the East because of indigenous warfare:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mfecane
 
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