WI: A Democratic Imperial Japan in the 20th Century

[SenatorChickpea]

Or maybe it needs to go further back, to a less botched Siberian Intervention and avoiding the collapse in relations between the Army and the Diet? (though that might also just involve an earlier case of the army wagging the government dog)

Avoiding the threat of the USSR- either by a White victory leading to a weak government or a mutilated Red victory- might certainly take the heat out of many of the radical army officers.

Conversely, strengthening China weakens Japanese power but potentially strengthens Japanese diplomacy. A China that avoids the Warlord Era will be took weak to be a threat but too strong for local Japanese officers to unilaterally intervene; if we combine that with a weakened USSR you get a Japan that doesn't have any natural avenues of expansion in the twenties and thirties. It's possibly a very bitter and toxic politics, but it would be hard to get on the escalatory ladder of small expeditions eventually taking you to Marco Polo and through to Pearl Harbour.

 

[TheIO]

Avoiding the threat of the USSR- either by a White victory leading to a weak government or a mutilated Red victory- might certainly take the heat out of many of the radical army officers.

Conversely, strengthening China weakens Japanese power but potentially strengthens Japanese diplomacy. A China that avoids the Warlord Era will be took weak to be a threat but too strong for local Japanese officers to unilaterally intervene; if we combine that with a weakened USSR you get a Japan that doesn't have any natural avenues of expansion in the twenties and thirties. It's possibly a very bitter and toxic politics, but it would be hard to get on the escalatory ladder of small expeditions eventually taking you to Marco Polo and through to Pearl Harbour.

A China that avoids the Warlord Era*, or at least isn't so obviously divided, is goinna be substantially more open to Japanese economic penetration than OTL, so there's an influential group who won't want the Chinese boat rocked.

Admittedly, the investors would probably still like overt Japanese security underwriting their investments in a "weak but non-warlordy" China, and thus wouldn't butterfly away all military activity, but it would have more civilian leadership rather than being a solely army project from the get-go.

(now there's something with a lot of PoDs and routes, but best left for a separate thread)

 

[Makemakean]

A China that avoids the Warlord Era*, or at least isn't so obviously divided, is goinna be substantially more open to Japanese economic penetration than OTL, so there's an influential group who won't want the Chinese boat rocked.

Well, things weren't actually all-together terrible between the Japanese and Chinese governments in the 1910s. There's a reason why Zhou Enlai studied in Japan for example, there really was a feeling in some circles prior to May Fourth that China could benefit from trying to figure out the extent to which the trajectory of Japan was applicable to China (obviously there were many differences). San Yat-sen had spent years in Japan and there was a Japanese intellectual current who felt that Japan and China should stand together, forming some sort of bulwark against western influence in East Asia.

If Sun Yet-sen is more successful in consolidating his power, and we don't get Yuan Shikai killing the Republic of China for all intents and purposes in the crib, well... I don't think that we're going to see Japan and China become super best friends for ever or have some grand Double Anti-Western Alliance or a Japanese Marshal Plan for China or anything, of course, but, well... A Japan that essentially regards China as someone you want to do business with?

Sure. It's possible.

 

[Makemakean]

This was a less important feature of Japanese politics than is sometimes made out to be. The relevant rule the army was exploiting was the rule that the army minister had to be a serving army officer. But this rule wasn't a bedrock rule of government, it had been abolished decades ago and reinstated just recently. When the Japanese army did bring down governments in this way, it invariably created a backlash that the general staff did not like facing. It's very easy to imagine a postwar Japanese government reviving the practice of running the army ministry through retired army ministers, whom the general staff could not order to resign.

I'm afraid that I'm going to have to disagree with you here. The fact that the Army was successful in bringing the rule back after its official abolition speaks to their power, not their weakness. After a triumphant victory in China far beyond what they accomplished in OTL, what's to say they won't go there still?

The Diet may have not been democratic at a British level, but it wasn't a subservient estates either. It was an overwhelmingly civilian body that was set up to grant businessmen (and, increasingly through the 30s, labor unions) completely untouchable voices and hands in government. The Home Ministry has some power to influence elections, but the Army has no independent ability to bring parliament onside until Tojo gets his hands on the Taisei Yokusankai (and this only sort of worked).

Well, the thing is, this precise same thing can be said about the German Reichstag as well. It was set up to provide a voice for German businessmen. And it remained a toothless institution.

True, the IJA will gain prestige from a victory. However, that didn't allow them to consolidate control before, and they may very well lose the prestige once they get an entire division slaughtered in Mongolia and subsequently back down against the Soviet Union.

Now, you cannot on the one hand say that the reason why the military had power was because they weren't as successful as they had expected in China, and so, if they had been successful, their power would have diminished, only to then say that now precisely because they aren't as successful in Mongolia as they expect, their power will diminish. Either you have that the Japanese military's power increases when they're successful and decreases when they are not, or vice-versa, but not both at the same time.

A chaotic China is one that is less threatening to Japan. It would not take all that much military commitment to control northern China; the five provinces had zero shortage of hanjian and Chinese guerillas were readily suppressed whenever one or two divisions could be spared from the front lines. While the military would still need funding for standing off against the USSR and whoever becomes most powerful in China (should note that the former is vastly more expensive than the latter) it's a much less urgent need than funding for active operations against peers or near-peers.

It's less threatening to Japan in the sense that the probability (which was already nigh zero) that China is going to launch an attack on the home islands will be reduced. Far more threatening when it comes to being able to keep what they have won on paper. You're going to have to keep men there continuously, you can easily have war lords attacking Japanese settlements, foment discord and revolt, even attack military installations, and then run away back into Chinese territory. And what if the Chinese government falls and a new government comes to power that plainly doesn't recognize previous treaties with Japan, which is extremely likely to happen, given just how profoundly unpopular signing those treaties will be.

It seems to me to be pretty clear that there is going to be a Third Sino-Japanese War within five years at most.

 

[Asdfthemovie]

Now, you cannot on the one hand say that the reason why the military had power was because they weren't as successful as they had expected in China, and so, if they had been successful, their power would have diminished, only to then say that now precisely because they aren't as successful in Mongolia as they expect, their power will diminish. Either you have that the Japanese military's power increases when they're successful and decreases when they are not, or vice-versa, but not both at the same time.

The Army gets power when someone murders a politician, when they are actively fighting a war, and when they are successful. I think the second effect is by far the most important. If you look at Japan's army budget, they got it bumped up significantly from 1931 to 1933 (Mukden incident, Sakurakai, murder of Dan Takuma, etc) but it then completely stagnated until 1937, when the war started. By 1940, real spending had quadrupled, making previous budget hikes look inconsequential. So if you take away the war, you take away most of the power right there. Prestige is part of the story but relatively unimportant.

Well, the thing is, this precise same thing can be said about the German Reichstag as well. It was set up to provide a voice for German businessmen. And it remained a toothless institution.

The diet of Japan was not a toothless institution. If it was, Japan wouldn't have gone through so many prime ministers. Even during the late 30s when their power was relatively low, they very nearly stopped the State General Mobilization Law and they watered down the Taisei Yokusankai until it was not recognizable from Konoe's intentions.

It seems to me to be pretty clear that there is going to be a Third Sino-Japanese War within five years at most.

When the Second one went so well? Eventually, no doubt, but it'll take longer than five years to ready a new Chinese army to the extent that whoever commands it will send it into the Five Provinces.

The warlord of Shaanxi is not going to launch a sudden strike across the Yellow River, because he won't have the strength to fight off the inevitable punitive expedition and the effort might make him less able to defeat his warlord neighbors.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

I'm moderately sure it's possible to have a Democratic Japanese Empire post-WW1 that doesn't involve annexing Manchuria outright or even winning the Second Sino-Japanese War. Those scenarios can be interesting, but they also feel a tad drastic and overegging the pudding.

Wonder if it's possible to avert the Peace Preservation Law, for example, and allow space to remain for liberal/left politics? (I oversimplify but it looks a lot like an Enabling Act and thus Not Good for pluralism)
Perhaps a more generous result at the Washington Naval Treaty, resulting in less nationalist outrage and less fertile soil for right radicals?
Or maybe it needs to go further back, to a less botched Siberian Intervention and avoiding the collapse in relations between the Army and the Diet? (though that might also just involve an earlier case of the army wagging the government dog)

I think a good chunk of it might just require fewer slaps early on. If Japan doesn't have Liaodong seized from it in the Triple Intervention, and secures Sakhalin and Gando for itself during the alt-Russo Japanese War. That gets them the bulk of the areas they historically directed settlement too. Then have outside powers actually commit to propping up the Priamurye Provisional government too.

Perhaps the Washington Naval treaty involves a kind of land swap. Most Japanese and Korean Settlement and investment OTL was in Southern Manchuria, northeast Jilin, and eastern Heilongjiang. A border along the Liao and and Songhua Rivers might work?
...Yes I acknowledge I'm negotiating down what Japan gets from ceding Shandong.

The western line (Liao-Songhua-Amur) of Japan and its client state.

 

[Asdfthemovie]

I think a good chunk of it might just require fewer slaps early on. If Japan doesn't have Liaodong seized from it in the Triple Intervention, and secures Sakhalin and Gando for itself during the alt-Russo Japanese War. That gets them the bulk of the areas they historically directed settlement too. Then have outside powers actually commit to propping up the Priamurye Provisional government too.

Perhaps the Washington Naval treaty involves a kind of land swap. Most Japanese and Korean Settlement and investment OTL was in Southern Manchuria, northeast Jilin, and eastern Heilongjiang. A border along the Liao and and Songhua Rivers might work?
...Yes I acknowledge I'm negotiating down what Japan gets from ceding Shandong.

View attachment 73968 The western line (Liao-Songhua-Amur) of Japan and its client state.

I still don't see what Chinese government would ever agree to this without a war. Giving up the 'rivers and mountains' is a totally different level of offensive to China than giving up a little spit of land on a bay or even a coastal city. And by 1919, there are millions upon millions of Chinese people in those lands.