WI: Japan peacefully acquires Hawai'i in 1882

King Kalākaua was (rightfully) quite concerned about Hawai'i being taken over by Western powers. In addition to his modernization campaigns, and his hopes for forming a broader Polynesian confederation, he proposed in 1882 to Emperor Meiji that Hawai'i and Japan merge into a pan-Asian union, sealed by intermarriage between their noble families. Japan declined, though Kalākaua continued to promote Hawai'ian-Japanese communication and immigration.

What would it take for the deal to go through? How would the United States react? Is there any chance of the US bungling their response enough to receive the sort of unpleasant surprise Russia did in OTL, and how would this affect the Pacific going forward?
 
How? all the western(white) powers already were eyeing, specially the two english speaking one...getting it will be hard, might even start a race for a pacific navy in the US, and i doubt the IJN is up to the task even if more ships already
 
Pretty interesting idea to explore; but I would say at the time Japan likely wasn't as concerned about strategic military points like Hawaii and more was concerned with expansion for resources like coal & iron. It likely would have taken the discovery of resources like those to convince the Japanese of Hawaii's long-term value.

On top of this, its hard to say how the US would have taken this because at the time the relations with Japan were improving so, but the US was dabbling in pacific affairs during this period.......so while war probably would have never happened, there would have been likely small skirmishes between the two navies....but there should be considerations that neither really had deep-water modernization, yet, so a naval war would actually be pretty much non-existent now that I think about it.

I guess the more I think about it, there'd have to be changes to the timeline for at least a decade back to really change any outcomes.
 
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