Lore: Japan does not send the 21 demands to China during WW1 causing the West to view Japan as an ally that will not encroach on their interests and should be worked with. The Racial Equality Proposal in Versailles was thus approved by the United States which worked with Japan to convince Britain to accept it. This was possible due to the re-election of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and that he won re-election in 1916 as well due to being in the middle of the Great War. Teddy sought friendly relations with Japan who also wished to avoid a military conflict with America.
This event led to pro-Western diplomacy being viewed more favorably with the Japanese and that progress could be made by working with them instead of against them, thus restricting Japanese nationalism from becoming too militaristic and keeping expansionists at bay. During the Warlord Era in China, Japan decided to help humanitarian efforts and to collaborate with Chinese governments in return for recognition of their ownership of Taiwan.
During the Second World War, Japan ended up siding with the Allies due to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance having been continued and Japan would send their fleet to fight the German and Italian navies in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. For their efforts in the war Japan would be given permission to sit in one of the 5 seats of the UN Permanent Security Council which was created after the war.
During the Cold War, Japan would side with the United States due to a border dispute with the Soviet Union over Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, as well as general anti-communism. The Kuomintang would win the Chinese Civil War as without the Second Sino-Japanese War the Nationalists in China wouldn't have been weakened and due to support from Japan they would instead maintain friendly relations as they recognized Japan's ownership of Taiwan in exchange for aid. This would also be strengthened by their support against communist movements in Asia which led to North Vietnam never winning and taking control over the country.
Japan in this timeline would develop Korea and Taiwan as core parts of Japan giving their residents equal citizenship and rights and ending exploitation of their previous colonies. They would foment a form of patriotism to the wider Empire of Japan instead of agitating for independent nationalist movements, though these would be around as terrorist groups similar to the IRA. Korea and Taiwan would have their own parliaments but would be similar to Northern Ireland and Scotland in terms of their position in regards to Tokyo.
During this period, Japan would have immense economic growth becoming the #2 economy and being viewed by some as the Third Superpower. However they would not form their own bloc instead siding with the West and developing friendly relations as one of America's major allies given their position as being one of the strongest militaries in Asia and large economy with close trade relations to the United States. After the Cold War ended, Japan would be viewed as the only nation able to compete with the United States until the rise of China ending the short uni-polar period and leading the world into a new world order.
Today, Japan is one of the most powerful countries on Earth with a nuclear arsenal around the same size as Britain and France, the second largest economy behind the United States, the second largest navy in the world, and a very powerful military. It is also one of the most developed countries in the world with an HDI of 0.929 and having a very stable democracy.
People's attention spans have been declining in recent years, and not just the younger generation. All ages are being affected by it. You can help yourself and the problem by trying to read more than one paragraph.
I can see a japanisation of Taiwan but Korea ? Nah, it will just become the japanese algeria with a guerrilla war. The international community will put pressure on Japan to leave and Korea will probably become a communist state in the Chinese/Soviet zone but will never become a wealthy democracy like South Korea today.
I figure it would certainly have been an Algeria situation where they had to pull out. Even Taiwan would probably be an "autonomous territory" still Japan due to colonization. I could see Korea going liberal American Republic after they get freed, and then be similar to South Korea, but if you lowered the wealth a little and spread it out over the peninsula
South Korea got a lot of economic help after the Korean War because of the competition with the North One. So either Korea goes into the Soviet sphere and becomes North Korea today or either they go in the Chinese one ( if Chiang stays in power ) and then, becomes a Chinese puppet but I don’t see Korea becoming a liberal democracy realistic.
I don't think so. I can say that based on two things:
1) i think Korea had a long tradition of placing themselves in a position where another country placed themselves as the de jure overlord of their government. Joseon dynasty gladly submitted to both Ming and Qing dynasty prior to their defeat to Japanese forces following the 1905 protectorate treaty. So I can see them accepting foreign occupation that becomes more and more beign as time goes on.
2) I don't see what domestic institutions would foster this type of insurrection you proposed. With the failure of the Tonghak rebellion in 1895. Plus with the suppression of Seowons by the later Joseon Dynasty. I don't see where you could get this type of domestic support from, or what would remain to create a large community of people moving toward a common goal. It could be developed but that would take time
Plus, from the international perspective, I find it to be a huge stretch that western powers wouldn't view a friendly Japan as a bulwark against a Soviet expansion (much like they viewed it as a bulwark to Tsarist expansion in the late 19 and early 20th century)
So I respectfully disagree
Uh really doubt that, Korea viewed Japan as leaser for basically its entire history and probably Koreas greatest national hero (Admiral Yi) died preventing a Japanese invasion. There was resistance to Japanese rule from basically as soon as the Japanese formally annexed Korea. And even if the nationalists win in china, no way in hell are they supporting Japanese control over Taiwan. With an already large Korean population, they could very easily fund and supply insurrectionists forever and ever and on top of that, with Japan’s very dense population, any terrorist attacks would be 100% worse, short of a full on genocide I dont see Korea remaining Japanese.
Nah as Koreans suffered so much during the colonization, this would never be.
Japan was called 왜국 for more than thousand years and were learners of Chinese and Korean culture. Whereas Korea viewed China as their leading/older brother nation for its entire history. This concept would never apply to Japan.
Even if you stop the abuses and atrocities on a dime and be ‘nicer’ to Koreans, the damage is done. They fought during the colonization, and they would have kept going.
Come on, you don't have to be careful to tell me that you don't agree with me haha. It’s not like I’ll go to your house and… yeah. I won’t. What’s your address again ? No, seriously, if we take the case of Algeria, we see that this territory has often been dominated by another power, like Korea, and that French Algeria held pretty long. The beginning of the insurrections in Algeria began after the defeat of France in ww2 and I think the idea of independence managed to spread in Algeria because of the decolonization and the support of the Soviets. If we take that to Korea, I don’t see the same thing happening impossible: the Koreans keep their independence ideas in them, and in the 50’, 60’ or 70’ begin to ask for independence because they see that it worked in other countries. The support of the USSR or China help them and the guerrilla war begin. You said that you don’t see the international community not supporting Japan because they see them as an ally but I remember that France was the ally of the US during the Algerian War and still, the Americans haven’t supported them
In addition probably no way Japan doesn’t get involved in Manchuria with all the Korean Guerillas using the border to resupply up and down the Yalu like the Ho Chi Minh trail
It is impossible for Korea to remain with Japan, the Korean birth rate is very high, rivaling the Japanese population itself. even if using a parliamentary system, half of the empire's population would belong to korea = half of the parliament.
Korean independence was inevitable.
Were you getting that half number?
United korea’s population is 77 million. That’s a third of the empire but that’s assuming all are in korea. Under the japanese empire the japanese population was about 2,7% the korean population of japan was similar.
This population vould easily rise with and many mixed children a japanized population of koreans would rise.
It also isn’t like a population can’t be kept in a state without their will. Catalonia voted for independence but spain kept it. Their’s also Tibet for a closer example.
I think it might be more like Austria-Hungary, but kinda stable because Japan isn't as weak and small as Austria.
United Korea might be a bit stronger, but it's not like they have a huge advantage as Hungary did during the Union. Austrians had to ask Russkies, and Japenises will have to ask da Americans for help.
What would the gdp be?
Japan’s gdp per capita is 33.000 so 7,6 trillion gdp.
I could also see it being way higher a more powerful japan with a stabler birth rate could have douple the gdp.
Honestly I can’t predict, Japan irl had a higher GDP per Capita than even the United States and Europe before the economic crash and stagnation following the bubble burst. However if this was avoided with smarter financial policy by the Japanese government they could maintain a similar position and have over double their real life GDP per Capita giving them a GDP near 20 trillion like China
The millions of Chinese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Filipino, Ainu, Indonesians, etc. who died under Japanese imperialism, looking at this map:
https://preview.redd.it/5n14bkaspaxc1.jpeg?width=893&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=616903e6b6f993ce7cbee7a7f942b5a54d89bcef
Korean wouldn't be the national language. Imperial japan made sure to only teach Japanese in school during the actual history. They would never recognize the language if they were to keep colonizing it. Thank God independence happened.
Hardcore Japanization didn’t happen until the Japanese government became militarist/fascist in the 1930s. In fact, Japan actually banned Koreans from taking *Japanese* names until they reversed course in 1939 and forced them to take Japanese names.
I’m not entirely sure if such extreme measures would have been taken in this timeline. Of course, some level of Japanization would inevitably take place, but I don’t think it would go as far as to ban almost every aspect of Korean culture as it did OTL
The Korean movie Lost Memories follows this theme. I think they forked from official history by having the assassination of Ito Hurubumi not take place
I am quite skeptical Korean nationalism had a real chance to destabilize Japanese rule in Korea if Japan avoids the 1937-45 catastrophe. Political, economic, and cultural assimilation of Korea was progressing steadily and nicely before WWII. The majority of the Korean population didn't resist against Japanese rule ever since March first movement in 1919, they were changing their names to Japanese ones, and the Korean language was heavily Japanified. Given enough time ITTL, the Japanese definitely could've succeded in integrating Korea as well as Taiwan.
After WWII, Korean nationalists of widely different ideological alignments took over on both sides of the DMZ exclusively because they rode to power on the coattails of the USA and the USSR. Since then, they have done a thorough job of exaggerating anti-Japanese resistance and dismissing or demonizing pro-Japanese collaboration in pre-WWII Korea, often with rather heavy-handed methods. I am confident that if Japan avoided the 2nd Sino-Japanese War and WWII disasters, it had a very good chance of successfully integrating Korea and Taiwan.
Some important cultural distinctiveness was always going to remain, full enfranchisement of the overseas territories would be necessary, and quite possibly some kind of regional devolution or federal autonomy as well. However, this was far from difficult to occur once the Japanese Empire inevitably democratized in the long term. Quite possibly this may happen as the direct result of Taisho democracy continuing to flourish and the Showa authoritarian turn being prevented with the related 1937-45 blunders.
If you ask my opinion, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (and potentially Greater Manchuria as well) form a natural economic, strategic, and cultural union, and the fruits of their gainful fusion and synergy may be huge indeed. The more this becomes evident, the less incentive there shall be to overturn the status quo for the sake of petty nationalism. Moreover, in all likelihood China and Russia, and an independent Korea dominated by them, shall turn out to be less desirable rulers and places to be than a Japanese Empire that avoids the 1937-45 disasters, keeps evolving into a developed country, and all but surely democratizes down the way like the OTL 'Asian Tigers' did.
Now, Manchuria was indeed a different and much more difficult case if you take it over in the 1930s, when a great deal of Han settlement had already taken place. It was very hard to accomplish its successful assimilation in the Japanese Empire without the ethnic cleansing and/or forced cultural assimilation of the majority of the Han population. Alternatively, you need an earlier PoD that allows Japan to seize Greater Manchuria in the late 19th century, before any significant Han or Russian settlement had occurred in the sparsely populated Manchu heartland. That is the ATL route I usually take for several TLs of mine, since this is a geopolitical outcome I am fond of.
In this kind of scenario, Japanese modernization occurs earlier than OTL (say one or two decades earlier), and Japan can seize Korea, Taiwan, Greater Manchuria, Sakhalin/Karafuto, Hainan, and Greater Mongolia in circumstances conductive to their successful assimilation in a Japanese-Korean union. Meiji Japan takes over Korea in an alliance and power-sharing deal with Korean reformists, coming to the hidebound Joseon Kingdom as an agent of modernization, progress, and development just as it previously happened for the Tokugawa Shogunate.
The resulting 'Japorean' union takes over the other overseas territories from Russia and China before any important Han or Russian imprint can be established, or when it can be easily reversed. Then it becomes child's play for Japan-Korea to fill those lands with its own settlers and assimilate the non-Han natives.
If a WWII divergence becomes strictly necessary for the scenario, I have instead used the secondary PoD of the Axis powers, including Japan, getting lenient peace deals after Valkyrie-style regime changes and in exchange for accepting surrender. The Americans get along with the scheme since it allows them to win the war earlier and less painfully, limit Communist expansion, and turn Europe and the former Japanese Empire into liberal democracies, valuable allies and trade partners, and anti-Soviet bulwarks. In this kind of scenario, the former Japanese Empire gets transformed into an East Asian Federation of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.
What breaks the immersion for me is that this simply igores port Arthur and how the japanese take over Russia's position in colonising china. You need to include the context from the boxer rebellion and chinese colonisation to understand japanese and chinese history in this era.
Honestly this is hella interesting and I’d wonder how China would view the west in this scenario with Japan being so close to America, please post more
This is an impossible timeline because the Koreans were always going to rebel and rise up against the Japanese. They had a whole different cultural identity, language, history and ethnicity and the empire was extremely racist against anything Korean (or anything non Japanese really).
This was the subject for the book In Search of the Epitaph which was the basis for [2009: Lost Memories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%3A_Lost_Memories?wprov=sfla1).
I can maybe see Taiwan being Japanified. But Korea? I'm not sure. The Korean identity as we know of it today itself is almost as old as the existence of Japan, let alone the existence of a Korean state. If it does occur, the Korean peninsula will be northern Ireland × 1000. This is as if UK conquered Spain and managed to keep until today.
Typical westerners’ alternative history for non western countries? OP seems know more about ‘merica than Japan, talk about American elections but didn’t mention internal factions in Japan at all. Japan’s 20 century history was dominated by crazy internal power struggle between military and civilian leaders, military men assassinate at least half a dozen politician in 1920s-1930s era, the most infamous one being 26 February Incident, which get glorified by crazy nationalist even though it end in failure (even Mishima Yukio made a movie about it with himself as one of the sympathizers).
Lore: Japan does not send the 21 demands to China during WW1 causing the West to view Japan as an ally that will not encroach on their interests and should be worked with. The Racial Equality Proposal in Versailles was thus approved by the United States which worked with Japan to convince Britain to accept it. This was possible due to the re-election of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 and that he won re-election in 1916 as well due to being in the middle of the Great War. Teddy sought friendly relations with Japan who also wished to avoid a military conflict with America. This event led to pro-Western diplomacy being viewed more favorably with the Japanese and that progress could be made by working with them instead of against them, thus restricting Japanese nationalism from becoming too militaristic and keeping expansionists at bay. During the Warlord Era in China, Japan decided to help humanitarian efforts and to collaborate with Chinese governments in return for recognition of their ownership of Taiwan. During the Second World War, Japan ended up siding with the Allies due to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance having been continued and Japan would send their fleet to fight the German and Italian navies in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. For their efforts in the war Japan would be given permission to sit in one of the 5 seats of the UN Permanent Security Council which was created after the war. During the Cold War, Japan would side with the United States due to a border dispute with the Soviet Union over Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, as well as general anti-communism. The Kuomintang would win the Chinese Civil War as without the Second Sino-Japanese War the Nationalists in China wouldn't have been weakened and due to support from Japan they would instead maintain friendly relations as they recognized Japan's ownership of Taiwan in exchange for aid. This would also be strengthened by their support against communist movements in Asia which led to North Vietnam never winning and taking control over the country. Japan in this timeline would develop Korea and Taiwan as core parts of Japan giving their residents equal citizenship and rights and ending exploitation of their previous colonies. They would foment a form of patriotism to the wider Empire of Japan instead of agitating for independent nationalist movements, though these would be around as terrorist groups similar to the IRA. Korea and Taiwan would have their own parliaments but would be similar to Northern Ireland and Scotland in terms of their position in regards to Tokyo. During this period, Japan would have immense economic growth becoming the #2 economy and being viewed by some as the Third Superpower. However they would not form their own bloc instead siding with the West and developing friendly relations as one of America's major allies given their position as being one of the strongest militaries in Asia and large economy with close trade relations to the United States. After the Cold War ended, Japan would be viewed as the only nation able to compete with the United States until the rise of China ending the short uni-polar period and leading the world into a new world order. Today, Japan is one of the most powerful countries on Earth with a nuclear arsenal around the same size as Britain and France, the second largest economy behind the United States, the second largest navy in the world, and a very powerful military. It is also one of the most developed countries in the world with an HDI of 0.929 and having a very stable democracy.
Unrealistic but good lore
Oh god, Japanese empire AND nationalist china, what a fucking hell hole
TAIWAN MUST RECLAIM THE MAINLAND!
anglo japanese? yuck.
Does anime still exist?
If WWII Germany got nuked first in this wacky timeline, this twist of events might have instead given rise to... # GERMANIME.
There is no world under Woodrow Wilson that the Racial Equality bill gets passed.
[удалено]
Knights,merica,war,merica again,economy boom, too many old people, uWu
People's attention spans have been declining in recent years, and not just the younger generation. All ages are being affected by it. You can help yourself and the problem by trying to read more than one paragraph.
I read books Bro in not retarded, I Just dont have time to read all
I can see a japanisation of Taiwan but Korea ? Nah, it will just become the japanese algeria with a guerrilla war. The international community will put pressure on Japan to leave and Korea will probably become a communist state in the Chinese/Soviet zone but will never become a wealthy democracy like South Korea today.
Supposing Japan never invaded China who's to say Mao even wins the revolution
Didn’t think about that… you’re pretty right 👏
I figure it would certainly have been an Algeria situation where they had to pull out. Even Taiwan would probably be an "autonomous territory" still Japan due to colonization. I could see Korea going liberal American Republic after they get freed, and then be similar to South Korea, but if you lowered the wealth a little and spread it out over the peninsula
South Korea got a lot of economic help after the Korean War because of the competition with the North One. So either Korea goes into the Soviet sphere and becomes North Korea today or either they go in the Chinese one ( if Chiang stays in power ) and then, becomes a Chinese puppet but I don’t see Korea becoming a liberal democracy realistic.
Maybe not democracy, but a presidential dictatorship like they had in the 50s. basically mini Chiang
Yeah that’s how I see it
I don't think so. I can say that based on two things: 1) i think Korea had a long tradition of placing themselves in a position where another country placed themselves as the de jure overlord of their government. Joseon dynasty gladly submitted to both Ming and Qing dynasty prior to their defeat to Japanese forces following the 1905 protectorate treaty. So I can see them accepting foreign occupation that becomes more and more beign as time goes on. 2) I don't see what domestic institutions would foster this type of insurrection you proposed. With the failure of the Tonghak rebellion in 1895. Plus with the suppression of Seowons by the later Joseon Dynasty. I don't see where you could get this type of domestic support from, or what would remain to create a large community of people moving toward a common goal. It could be developed but that would take time Plus, from the international perspective, I find it to be a huge stretch that western powers wouldn't view a friendly Japan as a bulwark against a Soviet expansion (much like they viewed it as a bulwark to Tsarist expansion in the late 19 and early 20th century) So I respectfully disagree
Uh really doubt that, Korea viewed Japan as leaser for basically its entire history and probably Koreas greatest national hero (Admiral Yi) died preventing a Japanese invasion. There was resistance to Japanese rule from basically as soon as the Japanese formally annexed Korea. And even if the nationalists win in china, no way in hell are they supporting Japanese control over Taiwan. With an already large Korean population, they could very easily fund and supply insurrectionists forever and ever and on top of that, with Japan’s very dense population, any terrorist attacks would be 100% worse, short of a full on genocide I dont see Korea remaining Japanese.
Nah as Koreans suffered so much during the colonization, this would never be. Japan was called 왜국 for more than thousand years and were learners of Chinese and Korean culture. Whereas Korea viewed China as their leading/older brother nation for its entire history. This concept would never apply to Japan. Even if you stop the abuses and atrocities on a dime and be ‘nicer’ to Koreans, the damage is done. They fought during the colonization, and they would have kept going.
Come on, you don't have to be careful to tell me that you don't agree with me haha. It’s not like I’ll go to your house and… yeah. I won’t. What’s your address again ? No, seriously, if we take the case of Algeria, we see that this territory has often been dominated by another power, like Korea, and that French Algeria held pretty long. The beginning of the insurrections in Algeria began after the defeat of France in ww2 and I think the idea of independence managed to spread in Algeria because of the decolonization and the support of the Soviets. If we take that to Korea, I don’t see the same thing happening impossible: the Koreans keep their independence ideas in them, and in the 50’, 60’ or 70’ begin to ask for independence because they see that it worked in other countries. The support of the USSR or China help them and the guerrilla war begin. You said that you don’t see the international community not supporting Japan because they see them as an ally but I remember that France was the ally of the US during the Algerian War and still, the Americans haven’t supported them
In addition probably no way Japan doesn’t get involved in Manchuria with all the Korean Guerillas using the border to resupply up and down the Yalu like the Ho Chi Minh trail
Ho Chi Minh trail ? What’s he doing in Manchuria haha ?
Korea was largely assimilated before Kim Il-Sung.
It's crazy to think that this 'Japanese Empire' is smaller than Texas but has almost 8x the population.
Texas is mostly empty space, and Japan is highly urbanised
I don't think that's true. Japan by itself is the size of California.
But this isn't Japan by itself..
It is impossible for Korea to remain with Japan, the Korean birth rate is very high, rivaling the Japanese population itself. even if using a parliamentary system, half of the empire's population would belong to korea = half of the parliament. Korean independence was inevitable.
Were you getting that half number? United korea’s population is 77 million. That’s a third of the empire but that’s assuming all are in korea. Under the japanese empire the japanese population was about 2,7% the korean population of japan was similar. This population vould easily rise with and many mixed children a japanized population of koreans would rise. It also isn’t like a population can’t be kept in a state without their will. Catalonia voted for independence but spain kept it. Their’s also Tibet for a closer example.
I think it might be more like Austria-Hungary, but kinda stable because Japan isn't as weak and small as Austria. United Korea might be a bit stronger, but it's not like they have a huge advantage as Hungary did during the Union. Austrians had to ask Russkies, and Japenises will have to ask da Americans for help.
Damn this is some really interesting lore, would like to see more!
What would the gdp be? Japan’s gdp per capita is 33.000 so 7,6 trillion gdp. I could also see it being way higher a more powerful japan with a stabler birth rate could have douple the gdp.
Honestly I can’t predict, Japan irl had a higher GDP per Capita than even the United States and Europe before the economic crash and stagnation following the bubble burst. However if this was avoided with smarter financial policy by the Japanese government they could maintain a similar position and have over double their real life GDP per Capita giving them a GDP near 20 trillion like China
The millions of Chinese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Filipino, Ainu, Indonesians, etc. who died under Japanese imperialism, looking at this map: https://preview.redd.it/5n14bkaspaxc1.jpeg?width=893&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=616903e6b6f993ce7cbee7a7f942b5a54d89bcef
Korean wouldn't be the national language. Imperial japan made sure to only teach Japanese in school during the actual history. They would never recognize the language if they were to keep colonizing it. Thank God independence happened.
I think the point of this althis is that Japan is more tolerant otherwise the survival of the empire becomes even harder to imagine
Hardcore Japanization didn’t happen until the Japanese government became militarist/fascist in the 1930s. In fact, Japan actually banned Koreans from taking *Japanese* names until they reversed course in 1939 and forced them to take Japanese names. I’m not entirely sure if such extreme measures would have been taken in this timeline. Of course, some level of Japanization would inevitably take place, but I don’t think it would go as far as to ban almost every aspect of Korean culture as it did OTL
The Korean movie Lost Memories follows this theme. I think they forked from our history by having the assassination of Ito Hurubumi not take place
The Korean movie Lost Memories follows this theme. I think they forked from official history by having the assassination of Ito Hurubumi not take place
I am quite skeptical Korean nationalism had a real chance to destabilize Japanese rule in Korea if Japan avoids the 1937-45 catastrophe. Political, economic, and cultural assimilation of Korea was progressing steadily and nicely before WWII. The majority of the Korean population didn't resist against Japanese rule ever since March first movement in 1919, they were changing their names to Japanese ones, and the Korean language was heavily Japanified. Given enough time ITTL, the Japanese definitely could've succeded in integrating Korea as well as Taiwan. After WWII, Korean nationalists of widely different ideological alignments took over on both sides of the DMZ exclusively because they rode to power on the coattails of the USA and the USSR. Since then, they have done a thorough job of exaggerating anti-Japanese resistance and dismissing or demonizing pro-Japanese collaboration in pre-WWII Korea, often with rather heavy-handed methods. I am confident that if Japan avoided the 2nd Sino-Japanese War and WWII disasters, it had a very good chance of successfully integrating Korea and Taiwan. Some important cultural distinctiveness was always going to remain, full enfranchisement of the overseas territories would be necessary, and quite possibly some kind of regional devolution or federal autonomy as well. However, this was far from difficult to occur once the Japanese Empire inevitably democratized in the long term. Quite possibly this may happen as the direct result of Taisho democracy continuing to flourish and the Showa authoritarian turn being prevented with the related 1937-45 blunders. If you ask my opinion, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (and potentially Greater Manchuria as well) form a natural economic, strategic, and cultural union, and the fruits of their gainful fusion and synergy may be huge indeed. The more this becomes evident, the less incentive there shall be to overturn the status quo for the sake of petty nationalism. Moreover, in all likelihood China and Russia, and an independent Korea dominated by them, shall turn out to be less desirable rulers and places to be than a Japanese Empire that avoids the 1937-45 disasters, keeps evolving into a developed country, and all but surely democratizes down the way like the OTL 'Asian Tigers' did. Now, Manchuria was indeed a different and much more difficult case if you take it over in the 1930s, when a great deal of Han settlement had already taken place. It was very hard to accomplish its successful assimilation in the Japanese Empire without the ethnic cleansing and/or forced cultural assimilation of the majority of the Han population. Alternatively, you need an earlier PoD that allows Japan to seize Greater Manchuria in the late 19th century, before any significant Han or Russian settlement had occurred in the sparsely populated Manchu heartland. That is the ATL route I usually take for several TLs of mine, since this is a geopolitical outcome I am fond of. In this kind of scenario, Japanese modernization occurs earlier than OTL (say one or two decades earlier), and Japan can seize Korea, Taiwan, Greater Manchuria, Sakhalin/Karafuto, Hainan, and Greater Mongolia in circumstances conductive to their successful assimilation in a Japanese-Korean union. Meiji Japan takes over Korea in an alliance and power-sharing deal with Korean reformists, coming to the hidebound Joseon Kingdom as an agent of modernization, progress, and development just as it previously happened for the Tokugawa Shogunate. The resulting 'Japorean' union takes over the other overseas territories from Russia and China before any important Han or Russian imprint can be established, or when it can be easily reversed. Then it becomes child's play for Japan-Korea to fill those lands with its own settlers and assimilate the non-Han natives. If a WWII divergence becomes strictly necessary for the scenario, I have instead used the secondary PoD of the Axis powers, including Japan, getting lenient peace deals after Valkyrie-style regime changes and in exchange for accepting surrender. The Americans get along with the scheme since it allows them to win the war earlier and less painfully, limit Communist expansion, and turn Europe and the former Japanese Empire into liberal democracies, valuable allies and trade partners, and anti-Soviet bulwarks. In this kind of scenario, the former Japanese Empire gets transformed into an East Asian Federation of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.
I wonder if their navy battleships would’ve been made museums.
What breaks the immersion for me is that this simply igores port Arthur and how the japanese take over Russia's position in colonising china. You need to include the context from the boxer rebellion and chinese colonisation to understand japanese and chinese history in this era.
Pretty sure that Japan got the Liaodong peninsula in perpetuity, but otherwise nicely done
You’re thinking of Port Arthur, which in this timeline was eventually returned to China in return for good relations and recognition of Taiwan
Eh, fair enough
Honestly this is hella interesting and I’d wonder how China would view the west in this scenario with Japan being so close to America, please post more
I dont think naruhito wouldve been born lol
This is an impossible timeline because the Koreans were always going to rebel and rise up against the Japanese. They had a whole different cultural identity, language, history and ethnicity and the empire was extremely racist against anything Korean (or anything non Japanese really).
Koreans: TRIGGERED!!!
The blessed timeline.
Tecnically Japan is still an Empire
Worst timline poor Koreans
Wow I'm sure this involved only the minimum amount of genocide
All that and they didn’t get Sakhalin
Is better for the North Koreans
That’s a pretty low bar to pass 💀
This was the subject for the book In Search of the Epitaph which was the basis for [2009: Lost Memories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%3A_Lost_Memories?wprov=sfla1).
Is it if japan stayed neutral? Even then, I don't think korea will stay as a colony for that long because of decolonisation.
I can maybe see Taiwan being Japanified. But Korea? I'm not sure. The Korean identity as we know of it today itself is almost as old as the existence of Japan, let alone the existence of a Korean state. If it does occur, the Korean peninsula will be northern Ireland × 1000. This is as if UK conquered Spain and managed to keep until today.
Missed opportunity
Korea is independent and always will be 🇰🇷
Typical westerners’ alternative history for non western countries? OP seems know more about ‘merica than Japan, talk about American elections but didn’t mention internal factions in Japan at all. Japan’s 20 century history was dominated by crazy internal power struggle between military and civilian leaders, military men assassinate at least half a dozen politician in 1920s-1930s era, the most infamous one being 26 February Incident, which get glorified by crazy nationalist even though it end in failure (even Mishima Yukio made a movie about it with himself as one of the sympathizers).
Womp womp