If the US recognized the Philippine Republic's independence instead of annexing it, would another country have colonized it?

[raharris1973]

If the US recognized the Philippine Republic's independence instead of annexing it, would another country have colonized it?

[Note - although the "if we don't, somebody else will, and they'll be worse than us" was part of the contemporary and retrospective justification for US annexation of the islands, I am not saying I accept as an excuse for violently occupying it against the will of its inhabitants or an excuse for any violations of the laws of war in so doing.]

Would a new, unestablished, non-white, poor, Asian-Pacific Republic without a modern Army or Navy have been too vulnerable to maintain sovereign independence in the early 1900s world of high imperialism over most of Africa, Asia, and Oceania?

Or would any of the following assets like the rebel leaderships background and experience from the independence struggle, their experience in international law and governance concepts gained from interactions with Spain and trading partners, or potential/probable residual interest from the United States have sufficed to help the Philippines remain independent?

By itself, does the existence, or not, of an American Philippines versus an independent Republic, effect the likelihood of an eventual Japanese mid-century Showa omnidirectional Western Pacific land and sea grab like we saw in OTL?

With independence instead of US colonization from the turn of the 20th century, would Filipino absolute GDP be higher or lower than OTL? Its per capita GDP? Its Gini coefficient lower or higher (with lower more equal and thus considered better)? Literacy? Life expectancy?

 

[Ricardolindo]

Although the PoD begins in 1898 and 1899, I am posting to After 1900, because most of the affected time period falls there.

No offense, but in copying this post from alternatehistory.com, you should have deleted this part as Sea Lion Press doesn't have Before 1900 and After 1900 subforums.

 

[Japhy]

Odds are Phillipine Independence comes with US Naval stations. The idea that the islands would have been gobbled up by the Germans is a non issue. US bases do open up the risk of invasion in the event of a US included Pacific Law. But how long those bases are there and what the development of the Philippines are too open ended to consider with just a pod.

 

[TheIO]

Would Japan try making moves? Or would they still be too preoccupied with Russia at that point?

 

[Jackson Lennock]

I assume that the new Republic would be a protectorate of the United States anyway, complete with Guantanamo-style naval base at Subic Bay (and perhaps a few others), if not the entirety of the Batan Peninsula. There may be other bases as well.


I don't think another country would have colonized the Philippine Republic based in Manila, but there's no guarantee that the Philippine Republic would keep control of the entirety of the Philippines. The Sultanate of Sulu, Sultanate of Maguindanao, and Muslim Sultanates in Lanao likely won't want to be part of a Manila-controlled polity. An outsider, like Germany, could perhaps support such independentist movements and seize all of Mindanao.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

Philippines split three ways. [1] Filipino Republic, [2] the American Bataan Province, and [3] Independent Muslim Sultanates

 

[I Saw A Red Sky]

Seems like a slower American colonization of the Philippines scenario more than a no colonization one.

 

[Octosteel]

Aguinaldo had just finished killing off one of his rivals. There's a pretty good chance as noted by others that the republic wouldn't control all the islands. While the US may say they won't use military force to help Aguinaldo control all the islands, I can see them extending the Monroe doctrine and making clear no foreign power is allowed to gobble anything up

 

[Charles EP M.]

An America that decides it won't take over the place is still an America that's likely to go "this is our sphere of influence" and have naval bases, which still leads to Japan attacking and likely taking over the rest of the country because it's there.

I dunno about GDP but a country that hasn't had a three-year war against the US and decades of further occupation is probably going to be better off than OTL (even considering the Japanese atrocities): more people, less damage, more energy to be put towards politics and business and life.

 

[raharris1973]

An America that decides it won't take over the place is still an America that's likely to go "this is our sphere of influence" and have naval bases, which still leads to Japan attacking and likely taking over the rest of the country because it's there.

I dunno about GDP but a country that hasn't had a three-year war against the US and decades of further occupation is probably going to be better off than OTL (even considering the Japanese atrocities): more people, less damage, more energy to be put towards politics and business and life.

As written, this seems to take a Japanese American war, and an accompanying Japanese invasion of the Philippines, as inevitable, butterflies be damned. It's all possible, but hardly inevitable.

But I would agree, all things being equal, not having a three year war of rebel suppression should be better for the economy. Let's assume there would not be internal Filipino infighting approaching anything like the scale or cost of the fight with the Americans. Then there's a question of how the domestic policy choices and investments the Filipino government makes. How do its allocations towards health care, insfrastructure and education compare with those of the US-governed Commonwealth administration?

US interest the Philippines as a location for bases and a protectorate under an extended Monroe Doctrine - would this be a persistent multi-generational commitment, or just a one-generation thing that American politicians and public grow tired of? With less blood committed implanting the flag, there may be less emotional commitment to the relationship. There may be sentiment to back off from the alliance/protectorate and bases in the the post-WWI isolationist backlash or as part of the Washington naval arms limitation treaties. Or to back out when the Depression hits, in parallel with FDR's turn to the non-interventionist 'Good Neighbor' policy in Latin America.

On the other hand, the bases offer unique access in that part of the world, so odds are more than even that the US keeps the leases and special relationship going through the 1930s and 1940s.

If Japan, like OTL, turns hyper militarist and aggressive towards China at the dawn of the 1930s, how spooked will the Philippines government be? As a sovereign nation, albeit in a treaty relationship with the US, it should have a great deal more autonomy to decide how to tax and spend for its own defense forces than the colonized Philippine Commonwealth did. Might it choose to build up its military establishment a bit more than OTL and make itself a harder target? Would it be treaty-limited to buy only American arms, or free to buy arms elsewhere as needed?

For a small country like the Philippines, deference to a strong, rich, undefeated country like the USA on defense matters can be tempting, but it is not inevitable with an independent republic, unlike a US commonwealth. To the extent Filipinos pry into US War and Navy Department planning and capabilities in the 1930s regarding war with Japan, especially if and when tensions really mount, strategically minded Filipinos would probably be horrified to find that the defense of their islands is written, and only a recovery/liberation after a few years is contemplated.

In the face of scary Japanese, I suppose a liberation promise is better than nothing, but even in OTL on the eve of war the Commonwealth President was grasping at straws trying to somehow 'neutralize' Filipino territory in the impending US-Japanese war. Perhaps in this ATL, if a particularly strong-willed Filipino President is in power in the 1930s, they may insist that the USA "get serious" about a defense of the Philippines that could repel a Japanese invasion or "get out" of the bases, terminating their leases, allowing the Philippines to chart its own neutral path to stay out of the line of fire [or frankly, its own 'go along to get along' path, like Thailand].

Aside from its bloody beginnings in prosecuting the Filipino-American war after all, the biggest failing of American imperialism was failure to 'get serious or get out" with regard to its defense. The parts in between didn't seem so bad. The first responsibility of any benevolent imperialist is to at least protect the colony from the assaults of competing imperialists, and the US couldn't even do that right.

 

[Ricardolindo]

Philippines split three ways. [1] Filipino Republic, [2] the American Bataan Province, and [3] Independent Muslim Sultanates

View attachment 65325

The Zamboanga Peninsula was not under the control of the Muslim Sultanates.

 

[Francisco Cojuanco]

It would probably be still part of the American sphere of influence, just not actually run by the Americans.

One likely social change would be a lesser rebound of the influence and moral authority of the Catholic Church. Before the Americans, the Church in the Philippines was in deep crisis - there had been a concerted effort (often working against Madrid) by the friars to keep Filipino-born clerics from rising higher than parish priest. While the Americans first installed Anglophone hierarchs, there was an effort to eventually replace them with homegrown bishops - people like Cardinal Sin or Archbishop Tagle. Furthermore, the withdrawal of the Spanish priests and the American occupation allowed the Church (especially the Jesuits) to present itself as a cultural force distinct from the Anglo-Saxon occupiers.

Without that, you have a Church in the throes of schism, with the hierarchy and the religious orders seen as puppets of the former colonial regime, not as the conscience of the nation. It would be much more different, somewhat at least more secular society.