Japan as a third superpower?

[the Imperium of Canada]

So supposing that in a moment of rare rationality Imperial Japan avoids going to war with the allies somehow, but the United States still gets dragged into the war with Germany at some point in 1942, and the european war goes mostly as per OTL, what would likely be Japan's position post-war?

Assuming they've mostly subdued China and Stalin doesn't decide it would be a great time to kick the shit out of the Japanese after doing the same to Germany, could Imperial Japan form a third bloc in the soon to come Cold War?

 

[dsp19]

IRL Japan is an economic superpower (3rd in world GDP, used to be 2nd before China reformed its economy to a more capitalist system). There's no way Japan can have a military that projects power to other countries outside of possibly North Korea without the USA's permission post-WWII. Pre-WWII this is almost ASB because the USA and Japan were destined to clash as the USA had interests in the Far East they weren't going to give up, and Japan was never going to back down in what they considered their backyard

 

[EWHM]

A Japan that absorbed and ethnically cleansed a good chunk of China would be a VERY powerful country. Japan had the TFR in the 1930s to have plausibly done this. With a TFR in the 5 range, you can double your population in the space of 20 years pretty easily. Alternate Japan could easily catch up the US in terms of population, even if we just count ethnic Japanese population. I don't think this would put it in superpower territory a la the USSR and the US, but it'd be at least as strong as Cold War era China, probably with a better economy.

 

[Canuck Wingnut]

Creating a true third bloc, rather than just being a powerful member of the anti-communist bloc, doesn't make a lot of sense for Japan at the start of the Cold War IMO- though obviously that doesn't mean that they wouldn't try, just that I don't think they should.

To expand a bit: Attempts OTL to build a neutral or third way in the Cold War were pretty common- India, Yugoslavia, and a variety of third world countries had the idea of recruiting a ragtag bunch of countries to build a strategic third option in order to avoid having to choose between the two blocs. In general, this went poorly. The countries outside the Warsaw Pact and NATO didn't have much in common, didn't have easy logistic access to each other, and tended to be pretty poor: ultimately they generally didn't have enough to offer each other to justify the effort of trying to build a coalition.

On the other hand, NATO was run by a wealthy Superpower, well equipped to support its allies and desperate to find anyone with an anticommunist message- the US viewed the spread of communism to previously non-communist states via indoctrination and guerilla action as the largest threat the Soviet Union posed. Imperial Japan, with an officially anti-communist, anti-colonialist*, pro-capitalism** stance, a history of impressive economic growth while not under communist control, and a strong military has a rare and small window to reverse their poor relationship with the US and link themselves back up with the global economy after the economic disaster that must have resulted if they fought a long war in China while under sanctions by the West.

(As a side note, I'd expect a successful Imperial Japan in the 1950s to start running into problems in China once again, this time driven by their habit of setting up puppet governments with militaries and vaguely defined sovereignty- the state run by Wang Jingwei most notably will want to establish itself as a real government of China, but even Manchukuo and other small mainland puppet states would be harder to control without the threat of the CCP and KMT coming back to convince everyone that supporting the war effort and sorting everything out later is the wiser path.)

*Offer valid only for victims of European colonialism- it's not an empire when we do it, as every empire in history agrees.
**Offer valid for zaibatsu. Small entrepreneurs need not apply.

 

[joho6411]

A Japan that absorbed and ethnically cleansed a good chunk of China would be a VERY powerful country. Japan had the TFR in the 1930s to have plausibly done this. With a TFR in the 5 range....

What exactly is a "TFR"?

 

[KingSweden24]

What exactly is a "TFR"?

Total Fertility Rate

 

[tonycat77]

Japan keeps the pre 1937 puppets+Korea, Taiwan.
They would be slowed down by the imperial upkeep and no dismantling of the zaibatsus, but it would be in the top 3 most powerful and wealthy countries by now.

 

[Gillan1220]

So a three-way alternate Cold War: Anglo-American-Franco alliance vs the USSR vs the Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.

The Philippines would be a flashpoint in this Cold War. Too close too Japanese-controlled Formosa.

Interesting.

 

[Pelranius]

A Japan that absorbed and ethnically cleansed a good chunk of China would be a VERY powerful country. Japan had the TFR in the 1930s to have plausibly done this. With a TFR in the 5 range, you can double your population in the space of 20 years pretty easily. Alternate Japan could easily catch up the US in terms of population, even if we just count ethnic Japanese population. I don't think this would put it in superpower territory a la the USSR and the US, but it'd be at least as strong as Cold War era China, probably with a better economy.

Japan doing the Asian edition of Generalplan Ost in China won't work for the same reasons the original wouldn't (economic reasons).

 

[Pelranius]

Japan keeps the pre 1937 puppets+Korea, Taiwan.
They would be slowed down by the imperial upkeep and no dismantling of the zaibatsus, but it would be in the top 3 most powerful and wealthy countries by now.

More likely Japan stagnates due to fighting extended insurgencies.

Korea: pretty obvious why there's an insurgency there (racism, Japanese settlers, no shortage of foreign sponsors)

Taiwan: the locals will eventually realize that they aren't ever going to be equals with the Japanese (not to mention settlers lording it over them). The locals agitate, Imperial Japan cracks down in its usual brutal way, and things just escalate downwards and out of control from there.

 

[EWHM]

Japan doing the Asian edition of Generalplan Ost in China won't work for the same reasons the original wouldn't (economic reasons).

With TFR 5, and getting to 6 is reasonable in a 'postwar' baby boom, you don't have to do anything that looks like Generalplan Ost. What you do is an ethnic cleansing based on taking over choice areas, making settler colonies and allowing your demographic pressure to ethnically cleanse places while also depressing the TFR of the native population. It's very similar to the US pattern against the various native tribes in North America.

Down below around TFR 3, ethnic cleansing looks like Generalplan Ost
Around TFR 5 it is a planned pattern of displacement that is fairly easy for comfortable Westerners to ignore when it's not against people they give a damn about
Around TFR 6 or so, you can do it without even a conscious plan---as in, it happens without even the intent to displace and ethnically cleanse.

Somewhere between TFR 5ish and TFR 6ish plan is what was executed in the US between the 1700s and around 1900.

 

[Pelranius]

With TFR 5, and getting to 6 is reasonable in a 'postwar' baby boom, you don't have to do anything that looks like Generalplan Ost. What you do is an ethnic cleansing based on taking over choice areas, making settler colonies and allowing your demographic pressure to ethnically cleanse places while also depressing the TFR of the native population. It's very similar to the US pattern against the various native tribes in North America.

Down below around TFR 3, ethnic cleansing looks like Generalplan Ost
Around TFR 5 it is a planned pattern of displacement that is fairly easy for comfortable Westerners to ignore when it's not against people they give a damn about
Around TFR 6 or so, you can do it without even a conscious plan---as in, it happens without even the intent to displace and ethnically cleanse.

Somewhere between TFR 5ish and TFR 6ish plan is what was executed in the US between the 1700s and around 1900.

That is Generalplan Ost. In order to create room for the settlers, you need to kill the locals (given Chinese population densities). And at that scale, you are talking about Generalplan Ost.

Oh, and what are the economic effects of removing so many people from the Home Islands (hint, you just nuked any hope of Japanese industrial competitiveness).

EDIT: Sense you seem to be unaware about the basics of Generalplan Ost, the economic problems with it come not from the lack of German settlers, but from killing tens/hundreds of millions. Anyone can see why that's economically unfeasible.

 

[EWHM]

That is Generalplan Ost. In order to create room for the settlers, you need to kill the locals (given Chinese population densities). And at that scale, you are talking about Generalplan Ost.

Oh, and what are the economic effects of removing so many people from the Home Islands (hint, you just nuked any hope of Japanese industrial competitiveness).

EDIT: Sense you seem to be unaware about the basics of Generalplan Ost, the economic problems with it come not from the lack of German settlers, but from killing tens/hundreds of millions. Anyone can see why that's economically unfeasible.

I understand Generalplan Ost. Basically that plan is to exterminate nearly all the inhabitants of an area and then hope for a baby boom so you can take it over. If you don't have really high fertility, this is the only way you can take over areas with non-trivial population density. That plan obviously is psycho, but it's the only real plan available to Germany that wants to expand to the degree that the Nazis envisioned. Given Germany's population and TFR at the time, I suspect they could have probably swallowed a good chunk of Poland but probably no more than that (in terms of area that they could people to the degree that Germans would live in assuming at least a modest baby boom in the aftermath of a successful WW2). And even that would require a lot of Generalplan Ost.

On the other hand, when you're Imperial Japan (which even OTL put a TON of settlers into Manchuria), you've got other options available to you. Your presence in Manchuria is going to depress the fertility of the group you're occupying, even if you're not trying to---and they, being IJA, will be trying. Also, given that a lot of the population in Manchuria in the 1930s was from recent Han immigration, a lot are going to migrate back. Japan would be doing continuous low level ethnic cleansing on Manchuria throughout the 40s through the 60s. Even today, the population of Manchuria is only around 40M.

 

[Pelranius]

I understand Generalplan Ost. Basically that plan is to exterminate nearly all the inhabitants of an area and then hope for a baby boom so you can take it over. If you don't have really high fertility, this is the only way you can take over areas with non-trivial population density. That plan obviously is psycho, but it's the only real plan available to Germany that wants to expand to the degree that the Nazis envisioned. Given Germany's population and TFR at the time, I suspect they could have probably swallowed a good chunk of Poland but probably no more than that (in terms of area that they could people to the degree that Germans would live in assuming at least a modest baby boom in the aftermath of a successful WW2). And even that would require a lot of Generalplan Ost.

On the other hand, when you're Imperial Japan (which even OTL put a TON of settlers into Manchuria), you've got other options available to you. Your presence in Manchuria is going to depress the fertility of the group you're occupying, even if you're not trying to---and they, being IJA, will be trying. Also, given that a lot of the population in Manchuria in the 1930s was from recent Han immigration, a lot are going to migrate back. Japan would be doing continuous low level ethnic cleansing on Manchuria throughout the 40s through the 60s. Even today, the population of Manchuria is only around 40M.

Now the most basic of Google searches would inform one that the population of Manchuria is 109.5 million. According to basic math, 109.5 million is about 273% more than 40 million.

What options?

Settlers don't depress native birth rates (otherwise Zimbabwe would by majority white British today, by that logic).

Now if the IJA is depressing the fertility (or whatever they're calling it nowadays) then they'll be fighting a nasty insurgency (or more nastier than usual). Settlers aren't going to magically just float to Manchuria, they'll opt for better prospects (like a factory job in say Osaka or Tokyo).

Japan needs those Han Chinese to work the farms, mines and factories. Japanese settlers are not going to come over to work those menial jobs, certainly not at rates economical for the colonial enterprise.

 

[EWHM]

Now the most basic of Google searches would inform one that the population of Manchuria is 109.5 million. According to basic math, 109.5 million is about 273% more than 40 million.

What options?

Settlers don't depress native birth rates (otherwise Zimbabwe would by majority white British today, by that logic).

Now if the IJA is depressing the fertility (or whatever they're calling it nowadays) then they'll be fighting a nasty insurgency (or more nastier than usual). Settlers aren't going to magically just float to Manchuria, they'll opt for better prospects (like a factory job in say Osaka or Tokyo).

Japan needs those Han Chinese to work the farms, mines and factories. Japanese settlers are not going to come over to work those menial jobs, certainly not at rates economical for the colonial enterprise.

My google search on it gives 40M. Perhaps you're getting the figure for the entire NE China? That's in that neighborhood (about 120M).

Settlers do depress native birth rates when they're actively trying to replace them (e.g. Americans @1700-1900). Populations that feel defeated generally don't reproduce as much. Especially if you do stuff like periodically move them from one place to another, which the Japanese probably would as they absorbed more and more into mostly Japanese areas.

 

[Pelranius]

My google search on it gives 40M. Perhaps you're getting the figure for the entire NE China? That's in that neighborhood (about 120M).

Settlers do depress native birth rates when they're actively trying to replace them (e.g. Americans @1700-1900). Populations that feel defeated generally don't reproduce as much. Especially if you do stuff like periodically move them from one place to another, which the Japanese probably would as they absorbed more and more into mostly Japanese areas.

40 million for what? 109.5 million includes Liaoning, Jilin, eastern Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang.

The Algerians and Zimbabweans would like a word.

And what's the economic basis for tens/hundreds of millions of Japanese moving in (and that's assuming you can murder the locals with an ASB preventing economic collapse)? People aren't going to hack it out on some frontier farm/slave in a coal mine/heavy industry for the lulz.

 

[EWHM]

40 million for what? 109.5 million includes Liaoning, Jilin, eastern Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang.

The Algerians and Zimbabweans would like a word.

And what's the economic basis for tens/hundreds of millions of Japanese moving in (and that's assuming you can murder the locals with an ASB preventing economic collapse)? People aren't going to hack it out on some frontier farm/slave in a coal mine/heavy industry for the lulz.

There are plenty of resources in Manchuria, and plenty of space, which the Japanese felt short of in a way that the Germans never did (other than the Nazi elite). OTL the Japanese had nearly a million settlers in Manchuria as it was with plans for a lot more. Had they put in a lot more (presumably by not waging war on the US and tamping down how much of China they wanted to conquer) they'd have an economy that looked like this most likely:

Section1 , Japan-ified areas which would be towns/cities where probably 80% or more are Japanese ethnically. These act more or less like an adjunct to Japan.

Section2 This is the area near the Japan-ified areas. You have a bunch of profiteers and subtle and non-subtle encouragement to move into section 3. These are the areas you think you can absorb soon, probably not a big Japanese percent in the population here.

Section 3, the Manchurian puppet area, here you have a few Japanese profiteers mostly. This part runs mostly OTL, but shrinks over time. As I understand it that puppet state was pretty profitable.

 

[Pelranius]

There are plenty of resources in Manchuria, and plenty of space, which the Japanese felt short of in a way that the Germans never did (other than the Nazi elite). OTL the Japanese had nearly a million settlers in Manchuria as it was with plans for a lot more. Had they put in a lot more (presumably by not waging war on the US and tamping down how much of China they wanted to conquer) they'd have an economy that looked like this most likely:

Section1 , Japan-ified areas which would be towns/cities where probably 80% or more are Japanese ethnically. These act more or less like an adjunct to Japan.

Section2 This is the area near the Japan-ified areas. You have a bunch of profiteers and subtle and non-subtle encouragement to move into section 3. These are the areas you think you can absorb soon, probably not a big Japanese percent in the population here.

Section 3, the Manchurian puppet area, here you have a few Japanese profiteers mostly. This part runs mostly OTL, but shrinks over time. As I understand it that puppet state was pretty profitable.

Japan isn't going to get tens of millions of settlers following in since:

1) The people actually doing the work are going to be Chinese (due to cost reasons. For example, if Kishi didn't use slave labor in his industrial schemes, the economy of Manchukuo would have collapsed).

2) Japanese will want a good paying industrial/service job on the Home Island, as there are only so many supervisory/skilled positions to go around in Manchuria.

They had Section 1 OTL in sense that there were urban areas controlled by the Japanese. But they're not going to be Japanese majority (since Japanese aren't going to come over to clean, cook, fix the sewers, haul garbage for other Japanese. Especially if there are tens of millions of higher payer industrial jobs on the Home Islands).

Section 2: here are they going to get the Japanese come in to settler there? Colonial societies need a large underclass to provide cheap/slave labor. Take that away, and the economy collapses, since the profits disappear if you pay metropole wages.

Section 3: Manchukuo was profitable (at least for some people) because it could rely on slave labor.

 

[EWHM]

Japan isn't going to get tens of millions of settlers following in since:

1) The people actually doing the work are going to be Chinese (due to cost reasons. For example, if Kishi didn't use slave labor in his industrial schemes, the economy of Manchukuo would have collapsed).

2) Japanese will want a good paying industrial/service job on the Home Island, as there are only so many supervisory/skilled positions to go around in Manchuria.

They had Section 1 OTL in sense that there were urban areas controlled by the Japanese. But they're not going to be Japanese majority (since Japanese aren't going to come over to clean, cook, fix the sewers, haul garbage for other Japanese. Especially if there are tens of millions of higher payer industrial jobs on the Home Islands).

Section 2: here are they going to get the Japanese come in to settler there? Colonial societies need a large underclass to provide cheap/slave labor. Take that away, and the economy collapses, since the profits disappear if you pay metropole wages.

Section 3: Manchukuo was profitable (at least for some people) because it could rely on slave labor.

Over time you're going to get industrial jobs in Manchuria too---China has lots of them, most of them not even with slave labor. I don't see Japan failing to make the investment to build bigger section 1 areas, expand them to section 2 and slowly shrink section 3. 1930s Japan really didn't have a labor shortage.

 

[Pelranius]

Over time you're going to get industrial jobs in Manchuria too---China has lots of them, most of them not even with slave labor. I don't see Japan failing to make the investment to build bigger section 1 areas, expand them to section 2 and slowly shrink section 3. 1930s Japan really didn't have a labor shortage.

To make the Manchukuo industrial project viable, slave labor is required. Mark Driscoll described in his 2010 book that Kishi required millions of practically slave labor in order to make Manchurian industry profitable. Even with the passage of time, the vast majority of those jobs would be economically required to be very low paying (to pay higher, you need to have more productive workers, but that would require retooling and reorganizing the industries to an extent that is economically unfeasible).

Japan doesn't have the resources to build/expand Section 1 without making drastic cuts to much more important investments. Those resources will have to be taken from somewhere else (Health case? Education? Investments in new technologies like jet engines? Infrastructure upgrades in the Home Islands).

1930s Japan might not have a labor shortage, but that isn't going to get people to work in slave conditions for Manchurian industrial jobs.

EDIT: More productive industries means far less workers, whether Chinese, Japanese or Gondorian by the way of Tharbad.