WI what if the usa annexed japan in 1850's

manacus

Banned
As some people know the USA opened Japan up for trade in the 1850s but is there any chance instead that us decides to annex it instead
 
Can I ask why I'm curious as to why the usa couldn't annex Japan.

(Even if it was physically possible), if there was any better way of making Britain, France and Russia instantly align on every aspect of foreign policy for a while, I can't think of one. And once that happens in the 1850s, bad things happen to those they'd aligned against.
 
Can I ask why I'm curious as to why the usa couldn't annex Japan.
Politically unviable both domestically and internationally. Militarily impossible for the US at time. Yes they had technological superiority to threaten Japan and potentially bombard cities but the US Regular Army is still pretty small at this point and largely focused on Native Americans in their new western territories. The country doesn't yet have a strong enough presence yet on the West Coast to launch a full scale invasion of one of the most highly militarized societies in the world on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Expeditions similar Commodore Perry's is basically as far as it can go.
 
Yeah, this is not going to happen. Leaving aside the fact that the US had no logistical capacity whatsoever to launch an invasion, as lionised as Commodore Perry is it's important to recognise that he was only one of several Western expeditions to the region over the 1850s. France, the UK, Russia and even the Dutch all had a presence in the region. In fact, take the Dutch as an example- by far the weakest of the western powers with interests in Asia (apart perhaps from Spain,) even they could have put more troops in the region via their East Indies colonies than the Americans could.

Furthermore, the US had no desire or need to annex Japan; they're still digesting the massive gains of the Mexican War, are unwilling to spend large sums of money on a peacetime military and can get nothing from a quixotic invasion attempt that they can't get from trade- as our timeline demonstrates.
 

Lusitania

Donor
I am trying to understand the reason for your question. Are you familiar with the economic and military situation of both countries in the 1850s? I trying to understand your thinking
 
As some people know the USA opened Japan up for trade in the 1850s but is there any chance instead that us decides to annex it instead

Any attempts will result in failure. The US can not project power far enough in Japan and succeed as Japan is too big and populous. The attempts will drive Japab towards the Europeans.
 
I don't see why the U.S. would. The United States was virtually splitting in half in the 1850s, they could not manage a large colony nearly half-way around the world. Plus, the Japanese at the time would definitely rebel against colonial rule. On top of that, Japan doesn't have many valuable resources for the Americans. ASB scenario.
 
Can I ask why I'm curious as to why the usa couldn't annex Japan.

First, they have to deal with a lot of pissed off Japanese people, who would become an overwhelming majority in the U.S assuming it somehow stuck, I really doubt anyone in the U.S would want that. Second A lot of these pissed off Japanese are going to be lead by nobles who would not take kindly to having their privileges and land removed, and would be willing to fight. Third doing some that blatantly aggressive would cause major reactions from both Britain, China, and possibly France.
 

manacus

Banned
Ok from what you're all getting at it couldn't be done in the 1850s thanks for letting me know. So could it have ever been done of just asb no matter the time.
 
Imperialism in East Asia was quite a different beast from, say the Scramble for Africa. Now, bearing in mind that actually establishing control of African territory was far harder than is generally thought, on that continent you at least saw European countries divide up the map and allocate huge areas of territory to different empires at a stroke.

You never saw any similar process in East Asia.

It took the British 150 years to become the hegemon of India, and another hundred to complete the conquest of the subcontinent. Even then, huge parts of that territory were still under autonomous native states.
China endured a century of humiliations during which it still retained the vast majority of its territory, and in fact saw European empires intercede in 1895 to ensure that their Japanese rival didn't demand too much during the peace settlement.
France took decades to secure Indochina. The Netherlands were still fighting colonial wars in Indonesia into the twentieth century. And so on, and so forth.

The idea that America could unilaterally seize the whole of Japan at a stroke is simply without precedent.
Leaving aside the fact that you still haven't established why they would want to do so- there is absolutely nothing they can get from an occupied Japan that they can't get from a Japan that is open to trade- they would not be in any position to launch an invasion until they'd secured the Philippines, at which point Japan itself was far too powerful for any attack to succeed.

But my broader point is that even if they wanted to attack, and even if they could attack, doing so would be incredibly destabilizing to the international order in Asia.
The British Empire would be absolutely furious, seeing as keeping the Japanese and Chinese markets open to all was their key policy in the region- in our timeline we associate the 'open door' with America, but do not underestimate the laissez-faire City of London's power here. An American Japan would also encourage territorial expansion into Manchuria, Mongolia and North-West China by the Russians who could point to an American precedent- which would make it even more important for the British to stop the American annexation.
Of course, the Russians would at the same time oppose the Americans moving in even as they enjoyed it providing cover for themselves- because they don't want a powerful, industrialised empire on their eastern flank.
The French had occasional designs on Korea, which will be threatened. So they'll oppose.
So, for that matter, will the Qing- who, weak as we generally see them to be, were at the time regarded as a formidable power who had to be dealt with carefully (if patronizingly.)


If you want America to rule Japan, I give you our timeline from 1945 to the treaty of San Francisco.

Anything earlier is ridiculous.
 
This cartoon actually uses the annexation of Japan as a reductio ad absurdum of the expansionist proclivities of the "Young America" faction of the Democratic Party (led by Stephen A. Douglas) in 1852. Douglas says of his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination: "These old Fogies are out of date. Young America expects Progress! I am for the annexation of Cuba, Canada, Mexico, and Japan!"

3a31314r.jpg


This was intended as a joke: Expansionists had their eyes on Cuba, Central America, some additional parts of Mexico--but here Douglas is saying he wants to annex Japan!

What has to be understood is that in the mid-nineteenth century it was almost always understood that annexed territories would someday become states. That was one reason why "all Mexico" remained basically a fringe movement--a mixed-race people of the Catholic religion could not be allowed that much power in Congress and the Electoral College. (Annexation of Cuba was a different matter to southerners because the blacks there were enslaved. But the South, even more than the North, did not want any large free "colored" population. Annexing Alta California and New Mexico was defended on the ground that they were relatively sparsely settled, and that once annexed the "Anglo-Saxon" would soon outnumber the Mexican population there.) If that was true of Mexico it was a thousand times more true of Japan, whose population was actually greater than that of the US--so that annexation would mean "pagans of the Mongolian race" would dominate the US.

Indeed, the very constitutionality of acquiring distant colonies not intended for statehood was extremely doubtful in the 1850's. Taney specifically said in the Dred Scott decision "There is certainly no power given by the Constitution to the Federal Government to establish or maintain Colonies bordering on the United States or at a distance, to be ruled and governed at its own pleasure; nor to enlarge its territorial limits in any way. except by the admission of new States. That power is plainly given; and if a new is admitted it needs no further legislation by Congress, because the Constitution itself defines the relative rights and powers and duties of the State, and the citizens of the State, and the Federal Government. But no power is given to acquire a Territory to be held and governed permanently in that character." https://books.google.com/books?pg=P...JX9l61LNdMdwV0&id=_5MDAAAAQAAJ&ots=pAA_iLP7hG (Of course Dred Scott was tremendously controversial, but not this particular passage of it.)
 
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