Without a single unifying leader for Chinese nationalists and overseas Chinese to rally about, the establishment of a republic might be delayed by maybe five years or so. The Qing would have fallen sooner or later, so the only difference would be the state of the country in the aftermath of their collapse.
Also, Japan had nowhere near the necessary amount of manpower and industrial strength to conquer China. Even in WWII, the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and the rest of northern China was an astounding strategic defeat, and their high command openly admitted on a number of occasions that withdrawing was the best option on the table.
Japan is able to conquer China! YAY!!!![]()
Unit 731... *shudders*. I'm still kind of bummed that they pardoned a lot of those assholes in charge on the grounds of "significant contribution to the advancement of medical knowledge". I'm pretty sure more than a few of the Nazi vivisectionists were tried and found guilty of war crimes, but in order to secure the Japanese research on germ warfare, the Americans let it slide when it came to them.
I think one of the warlord factions in the north would eventually come out on top, but without a legitimate civil government, China would be hard pressed to get international aid from industrial powers like Germany and the US.
Why would it not be legitimate?
I think people are a bit hard on the warlords, and presuming they didn't want to modernize or centralize China on their own terms. The Guangxi Clique in particular were incredibly progressive, and I think Zhang Zoulin shows that nationalism and warlordism aren't incompatible...
I actually suspect another Chinese nationalist movement would rise up to take the KMT's place. They were hardly the only ones around at the time.
And why does the war crimes have any relevance to his statement, never mind that a more chaotic China might mean Japan could go in earlier, while the country was at a relatively more sane mode, thereby avoiding all that #%$@ that happened in OTL?Please tell me you're joking and I don't need to bust out my Rape of Nanjing/Unit 731 pictures.
Or address the disturbing amount of apologism that seems to imply for the Japanese Empire that really does not deserve any of it.
And why does the war crimes have any relevance to his statement, never mind that a more chaotic China might mean Japan could go in earlier, while the country was at a relatively more sane mode, thereby avoiding all that #%$@ that happened in OTL?
Without Sun, there was still Yung WingWithout Sun, the Three Principles of the People that indeed put great emphasis on nationalism may not exist, and the reformist movement may be far more influential. If Emperor Zaitian (Guangxu)'s poison could be butterflied away in TTL, you may well see China going through internal reforms instead of a revolution.