Would a non-Axis Japan get into conflict with an isolationist USA?

Let's say Germany after listening to the petitions of Alexander von Falkhausen or something keeps their ties with China instead of Japan, sending advisors to train forces there. Would let us say a Huey Long lead USA with protective tariffs be an issue for Japan? And what would it do in Asia most probably in such circumstances?
 
I have approached this from an earlier POD, a stalemated Great War and no destruction of Germany or its position as a Great Power. In that I se the Great Depression has having a different and lesser toll on economies outside the USA and I likely have no WNT to curb the arms race. In that I think Japan is more constrained and a wholesale Pacific War less likely. What you need is Japan to conquer Manchuria in 1931. That to me is what set in motion the collision course with the USA. But I look to Japanese aggression earlier and I see that before the Great Depression the Great Powers did have mixed success in restraining Japan, but Japan was flexing its muscles. I think that pattern continues. Japan wants to expand and keep China from rising again as the natural regional powerhouse to assure she is the power in Asia. The questions include how does the Anglo-Japanese Alliance survive or evolve. if their is a USSR how does it support the KMT and confront Japan and how does Japan react, how much stronger are the Europeans without a Nazi Germany, Fall of France, etc., and does Germany use China to reassert its position in Asia and punish Japan for taking its possessions?

I think tensions would run high in China for decades and it might remain more divided and weak overall, the Western powers had no interest in getting China up to strength but they were opposed to Japan or any other player getting too powerful. In my scenario FDR runs for two terms and is out of office in 1940, there is not war beginning in 1939, the Great Powers squabble and position but Japan has no obvious opening. I think they take Manchuria and set themselves against the other powers but from there the war is attritional and contained, Germany supports Chiang, the USSR aids the KMT and token supports the CCP, the USA drips aid to Chiang, the USA is warmer with Germany's efforts and cooler with the UK who has the vestiges of their alliance with Japan, sells them Persian oil, trades more freely and Japan is more tied to the Pound than the Dollar and the USA. The French aid Japan to weaken Germany and Italy moves in Africa when eyes turn to Asia. Not stable and different alignments subject to change, the model for things in China since the Opium Wars.
 
The US China Lobby (including Henry Luce and his magazine empire) would still be there, with Nazi Germany or Weimar, FDR or Long

I don't think a Huey Long would be as restrained as FDR over the Panay Incident, either
 
I have approached this from an earlier POD, a stalemated Great War and no destruction of Germany or its position as a Great Power. In that I se the Great Depression has having a different and lesser toll on economies outside the USA and I likely have no WNT to curb the arms race. In that I think Japan is more constrained and a wholesale Pacific War less likely. What you need is Japan to conquer Manchuria in 1931. That to me is what set in motion the collision course with the USA. But I look to Japanese aggression earlier and I see that before the Great Depression the Great Powers did have mixed success in restraining Japan, but Japan was flexing its muscles. I think that pattern continues. Japan wants to expand and keep China from rising again as the natural regional powerhouse to assure she is the power in Asia. The questions include how does the Anglo-Japanese Alliance survive or evolve. if their is a USSR how does it support the KMT and confront Japan and how does Japan react, how much stronger are the Europeans without a Nazi Germany, Fall of France, etc., and does Germany use China to reassert its position in Asia and punish Japan for taking its possessions?

I think tensions would run high in China for decades and it might remain more divided and weak overall, the Western powers had no interest in getting China up to strength but they were opposed to Japan or any other player getting too powerful. In my scenario FDR runs for two terms and is out of office in 1940, there is not war beginning in 1939, the Great Powers squabble and position but Japan has no obvious opening. I think they take Manchuria and set themselves against the other powers but from there the war is attritional and contained, Germany supports Chiang, the USSR aids the KMT and token supports the CCP, the USA drips aid to Chiang, the USA is warmer with Germany's efforts and cooler with the UK who has the vestiges of their alliance with Japan, sells them Persian oil, trades more freely and Japan is more tied to the Pound than the Dollar and the USA. The French aid Japan to weaken Germany and Italy moves in Africa when eyes turn to Asia. Not stable and different alignments subject to change, the model for things in China since the Opium Wars.
Interesting, would if the Japanese are more expansionist and perhaps someone sympathetic to them like Leo Amery is in a good position or PM in the UK might a second world war break out over China in such a scenario? With three factions?
The US China Lobby (including Henry Luce and his magazine empire) would still be there, with Nazi Germany or Weimar, FDR or Long

I don't think a Huey Long would be as restrained as FDR over the Panay Incident, either

So a conflict between the two would've been inevitable?
 

Deleted member 1487

Let's say Germany after listening to the petitions of Alexander von Falkhausen or something keeps their ties with China instead of Japan, sending advisors to train forces there. Would let us say a Huey Long lead USA with protective tariffs be an issue for Japan? And what would it do in Asia most probably in such circumstances?
The issue with sanctions wasn't exports to the US, which protective tariffs would hurt (BTW the US still had those IOTL and was only just starting to try bi-lateral trade agreements to cut tariffs under FDR as of the mid/late 1930s), it was the freezing of Japanese financial assets in the US banking system and stopping exports of scrape steel/iron and oil among other things.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/united-states-freezes-japanese-assets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_Control_Act

If the US doesn't worry about sanctions of Japan, then Japan has no problem with the US and probably would be pretty friendly to them overall given that they were supplying the lifeblood of the Japanese economy with their raw material exports.
 
If the US doesn't worry about sanctions of Japan, then Japan has no problem with the US and probably would be pretty friendly to them overall given that they were supplying the lifeblood of the Japanese economy with their raw material exports.
Japan has few inherent issues with the US (although anti-Japanese racism in the US and broader Japanese imperialist/anti-Western sentiments did cause friction), but the US has enormous issues with Japanese expansion into China. People think of isolationism as "the US doesn't care about the rest of the world," but the US did care immensely about China, and that's not going to change. China was seen as a major commercial market (and had been for over a century), and Japanese expansion was threatening that. Meanwhile, culturally the US had a lot of sympathy for China (in particular, going on mission trips to China was extremely common, so plenty of American churches had members with first hand experience of China), and Japanese atrocities were widely condemned. Isolationists wanted to stay out of Europe, but Asia was fair game (especially since the US already owned the Philippines), and indeed, it was generally the US that took the lead in prodding other nations against Japan.

TL/DR: Unless Japan stops trying to conquer China (which requires a very different Japan), there's still going to be a ton of friction.
 
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Interesting, would if the Japanese are more expansionist and perhaps someone sympathetic to them like Leo Amery is in a good position or PM in the UK might a second world war break out over China in such a scenario? With three factions?


So a conflict between the two would've been inevitable?

I have read the opinion that the British were losing interest in the Alliance with Japan. I think that with the collapse of Imperial Russia and the new relationship with the USA the British felt secure in cutting loose the Japanese. Now once the USSR proved resurgent and interested in resuming the Russian influence in Asia and especially if that looks to include Afghanistan the British would rethink that. Without am American entry into the Great War then isolationism would be different and we might not have the Great depression, at minimum it might impact Japan differently. Those are all things changing my thinking on Asia. I think you have to consider if a stronger Britain would tolerate Japanese expansion, if it is still an ally, or might that cause a break in relations. What I propose is a USA independent of both, wary of both, this makes China a three-way flashpoint between British, Japanese and American interests. Even isolationist the USA had trade links and interests in China that put Japan as enemy One, yet we traded heavily with her. This has more than a few strings to pull and they all unravel the whole. At best I think Japan could expand into Manchuria and set a new status quo, if it did not move again or only supported proxies it might have gotten away with its expansion. But then we set China and Japan on the course to war at some future date. A rather tangled web we weave.
 
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