WI: No (or less) Han Chinese immigration into Manchuria?

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IOTL, in the 19th century, droves of Han Chinese started pouring into Manchuria, violating the Qind Dynasty's edicts in regards to settlement and thus forcing them to be revised. The region then saw a boom in population and industry, and is now a quite developed and majority-Han part of China.
But what if it hadn't been that way? Say, if the Han immigrants decided to stay home as a result of better economic conditions, or if travel to Manchuria was better restricted, maybe through the Russians conquering the regions north of Liaodong (a different border treaty in 1860?) or the Qing making an exception for Liaodong in their settlement-exclusive area. Liaodong had already been majority-Han for a long time anyway. "Non-Han Manchuria" ends up encompassing the OTL states of Jilin, Heilongjiang, and northeastern Inner Mongolia.
How would the region end up looking like, ethnically, demographically, culturally, and economically?
My senses tell me that some Han Chinese would still end up north of Liaodong, even if sometimes illegally. But the region could technically have been less Han, with the population vaccuum being instead filled by Manchus, Koreans, Mongolians, and, primarily, Russians and other Slavs. If Russia controls all of the Amur Basin, could this result in the Russian Far East being more viable as an entity for settlement? With industry being directed towards Russia and Siberia rather than China proper, which industries in population centers like Harbin could see more priority?
Could Russian Orthodox missionaries have more success in converting locals ITTL?
 

RousseauX

Donor
The Manchus did not restrict Chinese immigration by the mid-1800s, they consciously chose to settle it with ethnic Han in order to have a better claim on the region after the Russians showed they could just walk in and the the amur basin without the Qing being able to do anything about it. Having ethnic Han living there was a way of consolidating their hold on an otherwise thinly populated region.
 
The Manchus did not restrict Chinese immigration by the mid-1800s, they consciously chose to settle it with ethnic Han in order to have a better claim on the region after the Russians showed they could just walk in and the the amur basin without the Qing being able to do anything about it. Having ethnic Han living there was a way of consolidating their hold on an otherwise thinly populated region.

Yup the Manchus encouraged Han settlement as a response to the Russians taking outter Manchuria from them. Before that Hans were forbidden to even visit the place. If the Manchus successfully kept the Russians out they would not need to move the Han people in.
 
Yup the Manchus encouraged Han settlement as a response to the Russians taking outter Manchuria from them. Before that Hans were forbidden to even visit the place. If the Manchus successfully kept the Russians out they would not need to move the Han people in.
I'm not so sure, Manchurian cities had already many Chinese in them by this time and the population was growing after more rapidly than before(indicating migration?)
 

RousseauX

Donor
I'm not so sure, Manchurian cities had already many Chinese in them by this time and the population was growing after more rapidly than before(indicating migration?)
Yeah the first wave of Han immigrants were in the 1790s in response to famines in Sichuan
 
Honestly I think you need an outlet for the rapidly increasing Han population to settle and Manchuria was the only real option available. Perhaps a larger Chinese Xinjiang that takes more of the central Asian Khanate would allow them a place to settle that doesn’t violate Qing policies of ethnic separation- even so it’s much farther away and traveling that far would need to ba made attractive to the Han.
 
Honestly I think you need an outlet for the rapidly increasing Han population to settle and Manchuria was the only real option available. Perhaps a larger Chinese Xinjiang that takes more of the central Asian Khanate would allow them a place to settle that doesn’t violate Qing policies of ethnic separation- even so it’s much farther away and traveling that far would need to ba made attractive to the Han.

Could a Qing conquest of all or enough parts of Burma (to at least access the Bay of Bengal and thus Indian Ocean Trade) in the Sino-Burmese War have provided such an outlet for rapidly increasing Han population to settle in?
 
Without Russian conquest it probably means the status quo is kept with no overt colonization but a steady trickle of Han settlers instead of the flood of OTL. There's only going to be major changes once Japan shows up, and that war isn't getting butterflied away. Without Russia meddling in Manchuria, there isn't a triple intervention and Japan will keep Port Arthur, and I genuinely think they were going to push for Manchuria as a colony. This will be even easier if there millions less Han settlers than OTL.
 
Could a Qing conquest of all or enough parts of Burma (to at least access the Bay of Bengal and thus Indian Ocean Trade) in the Sino-Burmese War have provided such an outlet for rapidly increasing Han population to settle in?
Potentially but I think the problem there is that the climate is a fair bit muggier and the terrain is a lot more heavily forested and thus harder to develop than Manchuria. Still given enough incentive it’s a possibility.
 
Honestly I think you need an outlet for the rapidly increasing Han population to settle and Manchuria was the only real option available. Perhaps a larger Chinese Xinjiang that takes more of the central Asian Khanate would allow them a place to settle that doesn’t violate Qing policies of ethnic separation- even so it’s much farther away and traveling that far would need to ba made attractive to the Han.
I disagree, I think that when you account for the fact that Chinese population more than tripled betwenn 1700 and 1850 and that the migration took steam only during the 19th century when the population growth was stagnating or even declining, overpopulaiton doesn't seem to be the reason why the migration happened.
 
I disagree, I think that when you account for the fact that Chinese population more than tripled betwenn 1700 and 1850 and that the migration took steam only during the 19th century when the population growth was stagnating or even declining, overpopulaiton doesn't seem to be the reason why the migration happened.

Well from 1750 to 1850, the Han population of Manchuria grew by four million, which is still significant even if it’s not on the same scale as post taiping and post Russian predation which increased the population by another nine million in half the time. Though Russian predation can’t be accounted to demographic pressures, I think there’s a case to be made that after the devastation of the taiping rebellion many people were more willing to migrate to new lands, and a major cause of the taiping rebellion was the fact that due to the increasing population until then, famines had become more common and plots of land had become intolerably small, which is why sharing land was a policy of the taiping.
 
Well from 1750 to 1850, the Han population of Manchuria grew by four million, which is still significant even if it’s not on the same scale as post taiping and post Russian predation which increased the population by another nine million in half the time. Though Russian predation can’t be accounted to demographic pressures, I think there’s a case to be made that after the devastation of the taiping rebellion many people were more willing to migrate to new lands, and a major cause of the taiping rebellion was the fact that due to the increasing population until then, famines had become more common and plots of land had become intolerably small, which is why sharing land was a policy of the taiping.
But overpopulation still doesn't seem to be the main reason behind the migration patterns, so the idea of finding alternative lands seems to be flawed, because it's not like it's guaranteed that the same people that found it convenient to migrate to Manchuria would go to any other far away place.
 
But overpopulation still doesn't seem to be the main reason behind the migration patterns, so the idea of finding alternative lands seems to be flawed, because it's not like it's guaranteed that the same people that found it convenient to migrate to Manchuria would go to any other far away place.

Yeah I see that. But seeing as overpopulation was a root cause of the migration as it caused the taiping rebellion and other revolts that made people want to migrate to manchuria, getting rid of the overpopulation in areas closer to the new lands still improves empire wide stability and makes it less likely that people want to move to more stable lands.
 
Yeah I see that. But seeing as overpopulation was a root cause of the migration as it caused the taiping rebellion and other revolts that made people want to migrate to manchuria, getting rid of the overpopulation in areas closer to the new lands still improves empire wide stability and makes it less likely that people want to move to more stable lands.
Why do you think overpopulation caused the revolts?
 
Why do you think overpopulation caused the revolts?

It resulted in labour surpluses, land shortages and famine, causing peasants to desert their lands and try and affect change.

To quote Columbia universities Asia for educators:
But it was not only food production and available opportunities for work that could not keep up with the population surge. The machinery of government had been reasonably well-suited for a smaller population, yet a proportionate increase in administrative personnel was not made to keep pace with the population. By the 19th century, it is estimated that a direct magistrate, the lowest level official responsible for all local administration, might be responsible for as many as 250,000 people. Small wonder that when real crises came, officials in government were powerless to avoid them, and people had nothing to fall back on except for some meager donations and national and international relief efforts, which reached few people.
 
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