What if the west never managed (or bothered) to open Japan to the world again in the late 1800s?
I would imagine Japan would get colonized.
I'm less sure about colonisation : the island enjoyed big demographics (it was one of the reasons they opened OTL, too many people in the same place with subsequent issues of food, enough distribution of wealth, no possibilities to release some demographical pressure) and it's unlikely you could put settlement there.
I think something more like China, in the case of a Russia something close to Manchuria.
I'm less sure about colonisation : the island enjoyed big demographics (it was one of the reasons they opened OTL, too many people in the same place with subsequent issues of food, enough distribution of wealth, no possibilities to release some demographical pressure) and it's unlikely you could put settlement there.
I think something more like China, in the case of a Russia something close to Manchuria.
It becomes like China, or even Siam; carved up by the imperial Western powers, economically exploited, and eventually placed under someone's sphere as a protectorate.
Even though spheres on influence and colonization are different terms they are in many ways the same thing. Spheres of Influence are more efficent form of colonization in the eyes of the Europeans because they got all the benefit of a colony without having to put in funds to support it.