Taiwan (/Formosa) if Japan remains neutral in WW2

[Hendryk]

The Chinese hadn't surrendered, of course, but in objective terms the situation was being managed effectively from a security perspective.

This is a very bold claim indeed. If the situation was managed effectively, then why did Japan feel the need to resort to bacteriological warfare? Why did it take the gamble of expanding the war to Indochina in 1940? And why, in the face of trade retaliation by the US in 1941, did it take the absolutely desperate decision to go to war against all the Western Allies at the same time?

And once again you fail to account for the fact that the war in China was bankrupting the Japanese economy.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Also 'the situation was being managed effectively from a security perspective' is a phrase that here means 'we had to start a second war with all our southern and eastern neighbours, shuffling the same tired divisions from island to island because so few could be spared from the Well Managed Security System in China, spending vast amounts of money we did not have to cut those Chinese supply lines that we think are quite important even if internet posters of the future disagree, embarking on ever more desperate and far-flung campaigns in a bid to get the vital resources to try and fill what appears to be a bottomless hole of... *checks notes* ineffectual and collapsing Chinese resistance.'