raharris1973
Well-known member
What if the Japanese territorial spoils from the 1894 Sino-Japanese War were limited to Korea, with no territory taken from China in the settlement?
I think to achieve this result, the Chinese are going to have to sue for peace and agree to talk flexibly about peace terms much earlier, in 1894, rather than early 1894, by no later than the beginning of November. This is to get a settlement done before too many repeat spectacular victories keep happening on Chinese soil (up until 24 October, all Japanese victories were at sea and in Korea) and Japanese public & military appetite for more territorial spoils becomes irresistible.
Mid-October is when the Japanese fleet won the Battle of the (mouth of the) Yalu River and finished off Chinese formations in Korea. October 24th is when Japanese forces stormed across the Yalu river into Manchuria and others landed on the liaodong peninsula.
The Japanese were already fearful of an international intervention at this point but were exhilarated by victories. The Chinese were stunned by defeats, but somewhat hopeful about foreign intervention.
Here, the difference is that the senior Chinese, above all Li Hongzhang, size up the situation, and anticipate nothing will turn the military situation around, even as it moves on to Chinese soil. The prospect of foreign intervention is considered. Li and co judge it is not unrealistic, and potentially useful in preventing Japan from going too far into China or taking too much in territorial losses. However, they take the next step and consider, 'what price will the foreigners charge for their intervention?'
Knowing it won't be free, they reach out to the foreigners, and Japan, seeking to interest the former, while trying to end things as fast as possible with the latter, with the least losses.
An agreement is reached in very early November, before the seizure of or Port Arthur (OTL Nov 7), where China concedes Korean independence and a very large indemnity to Japan, cost of Japan's war plus, and agrees to demilitarize its side of the Yalu and the Liaodong peninsula. However, China thanks its lucky stars it doesn't have to cede any sovereign territory in Manchuria or Taiwan or the Penghus. The Japanese hadn't even gotten close to operating around the latter two areas.
China, like OTL is exposed as week, and owes a huge indemnity, and does have to take out western loans to pay the indemnity. However it is not as exposed as quite so abjectly weak around the ramparts of Beijing as it was in OTL. It also doesn't incur geopolitical debt to Russia in particular and French and German finance in particular (brought about by the Triple Intervention in OTL).
My thought is the OTL Triple Intervention doesn't happen. The OTL Triple Intervenors don't have a leg to stand on without the Japanese attempted annexation of Liaodong, and the Japanese limiting themselves to the independence (and de facto puppeting) of Korea.
Japan is free to use its massive indemnity to pay for the war, build up its Army, and especially its Navy.
I'm thinking that the scramble for concessions and things it led to, like the Boxer Rebellion, are likely slowed down, with a China that is less cut and bleeding.
Without concessions at Port Arthur and the Manchuria railway leases, Russia is focusing its TSSR development north of the Amur on its own sovereign territory, and is focusing any such Navy it keeps in the Pacific in Vladivostock.
If there is no Russian interference with the gradual process of Japanese takeover, then ultimately annexation, of Korea, there need not be a Russo-Japanese War.
However, Russia may well interfere, and Koreans wary of Japan may seek to use Russia as a balance against Japan. Russia may investigate a Korean warm water port.
Any Russian success getting a signed lease of such a port, or verging on it, would lead pretty much automatically to Japanese attack and declaration of war, whenever it happans, between 1897 and 1904 or beyond. The Japanese could have trouble winning in any fight fought in the 1890s, but after 1900 or 1901, Japanese odds greatly improve.
If there's a Russo-Japanese war beginning over this in 1904, the Japanese would have to begin it with an attack on Vladivostock and the Japanese war aim would be foremost to have their paramountcy/ownership of Korea recognized, and secondarily, as a token for their war effort and field of war activity, get the annexation of all Sakhalin island. Further annexations of Russian mainland territory I consider unrealistic, even if Vladivostock and some surrounding areas of the maritime province get occupied for the duration and their facilities demolished on Japan's way out.
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I see an alternative to the festering slow burn in Korea outlined above. This would be intense nationalist disappointment in Japan at the end of the Sino-Japanese War for not getting territorial loot from China causes the responsible Japanese Mutsu and Ito Hirobumi, to face immense pressure to score a visible foreign policy "win" or causes them to lose their jobs or lives to assassins, putting pressure on immediate successors.
They or their immediate successors react by putting the squeeze on their Korean allies and puppets, quickly raising the level of troops and advisors there, and fast-tracking Korean annexation to take place early, in 1895.
If Japan can suppress Korean revolts against this fait accompli and weather any diplomatic protests, its created a new situation in northeast Asia that should be pretty stable and doesn't have obvious cause to be disturbed by things like a Russo-Japanese war. The result is a longer than OTL period of Japanese colonization in Korea.
If Japan has very, very bad luck, a foreign, perhaps Triple Russo-German-French, intervention against the outright annexation might occur. I don't think the British would be into such an intervention. Those potential intervening powers wouldn't have much ground power nearby, and wouldn't, in the first days, have massively superior naval forces right on the scene, but in 1895 they can no doubt assemble a massively superior naval force to Japan, cut off its international merchant commerce and its supply lines between Japan and Korea.
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In any and all the above scenarios, Japan can certainly end up fighting China again later. But alternate possibilities become plausible, including several where China and Japan end up on the same side against other powers, in parts of the 20th century.
I think to achieve this result, the Chinese are going to have to sue for peace and agree to talk flexibly about peace terms much earlier, in 1894, rather than early 1894, by no later than the beginning of November. This is to get a settlement done before too many repeat spectacular victories keep happening on Chinese soil (up until 24 October, all Japanese victories were at sea and in Korea) and Japanese public & military appetite for more territorial spoils becomes irresistible.
Mid-October is when the Japanese fleet won the Battle of the (mouth of the) Yalu River and finished off Chinese formations in Korea. October 24th is when Japanese forces stormed across the Yalu river into Manchuria and others landed on the liaodong peninsula.
The Japanese were already fearful of an international intervention at this point but were exhilarated by victories. The Chinese were stunned by defeats, but somewhat hopeful about foreign intervention.
Here, the difference is that the senior Chinese, above all Li Hongzhang, size up the situation, and anticipate nothing will turn the military situation around, even as it moves on to Chinese soil. The prospect of foreign intervention is considered. Li and co judge it is not unrealistic, and potentially useful in preventing Japan from going too far into China or taking too much in territorial losses. However, they take the next step and consider, 'what price will the foreigners charge for their intervention?'
Knowing it won't be free, they reach out to the foreigners, and Japan, seeking to interest the former, while trying to end things as fast as possible with the latter, with the least losses.
An agreement is reached in very early November, before the seizure of or Port Arthur (OTL Nov 7), where China concedes Korean independence and a very large indemnity to Japan, cost of Japan's war plus, and agrees to demilitarize its side of the Yalu and the Liaodong peninsula. However, China thanks its lucky stars it doesn't have to cede any sovereign territory in Manchuria or Taiwan or the Penghus. The Japanese hadn't even gotten close to operating around the latter two areas.
China, like OTL is exposed as week, and owes a huge indemnity, and does have to take out western loans to pay the indemnity. However it is not as exposed as quite so abjectly weak around the ramparts of Beijing as it was in OTL. It also doesn't incur geopolitical debt to Russia in particular and French and German finance in particular (brought about by the Triple Intervention in OTL).
My thought is the OTL Triple Intervention doesn't happen. The OTL Triple Intervenors don't have a leg to stand on without the Japanese attempted annexation of Liaodong, and the Japanese limiting themselves to the independence (and de facto puppeting) of Korea.
Japan is free to use its massive indemnity to pay for the war, build up its Army, and especially its Navy.
I'm thinking that the scramble for concessions and things it led to, like the Boxer Rebellion, are likely slowed down, with a China that is less cut and bleeding.
Without concessions at Port Arthur and the Manchuria railway leases, Russia is focusing its TSSR development north of the Amur on its own sovereign territory, and is focusing any such Navy it keeps in the Pacific in Vladivostock.
If there is no Russian interference with the gradual process of Japanese takeover, then ultimately annexation, of Korea, there need not be a Russo-Japanese War.
However, Russia may well interfere, and Koreans wary of Japan may seek to use Russia as a balance against Japan. Russia may investigate a Korean warm water port.
Any Russian success getting a signed lease of such a port, or verging on it, would lead pretty much automatically to Japanese attack and declaration of war, whenever it happans, between 1897 and 1904 or beyond. The Japanese could have trouble winning in any fight fought in the 1890s, but after 1900 or 1901, Japanese odds greatly improve.
If there's a Russo-Japanese war beginning over this in 1904, the Japanese would have to begin it with an attack on Vladivostock and the Japanese war aim would be foremost to have their paramountcy/ownership of Korea recognized, and secondarily, as a token for their war effort and field of war activity, get the annexation of all Sakhalin island. Further annexations of Russian mainland territory I consider unrealistic, even if Vladivostock and some surrounding areas of the maritime province get occupied for the duration and their facilities demolished on Japan's way out.
---
I see an alternative to the festering slow burn in Korea outlined above. This would be intense nationalist disappointment in Japan at the end of the Sino-Japanese War for not getting territorial loot from China causes the responsible Japanese Mutsu and Ito Hirobumi, to face immense pressure to score a visible foreign policy "win" or causes them to lose their jobs or lives to assassins, putting pressure on immediate successors.
They or their immediate successors react by putting the squeeze on their Korean allies and puppets, quickly raising the level of troops and advisors there, and fast-tracking Korean annexation to take place early, in 1895.
If Japan can suppress Korean revolts against this fait accompli and weather any diplomatic protests, its created a new situation in northeast Asia that should be pretty stable and doesn't have obvious cause to be disturbed by things like a Russo-Japanese war. The result is a longer than OTL period of Japanese colonization in Korea.
If Japan has very, very bad luck, a foreign, perhaps Triple Russo-German-French, intervention against the outright annexation might occur. I don't think the British would be into such an intervention. Those potential intervening powers wouldn't have much ground power nearby, and wouldn't, in the first days, have massively superior naval forces right on the scene, but in 1895 they can no doubt assemble a massively superior naval force to Japan, cut off its international merchant commerce and its supply lines between Japan and Korea.
---
In any and all the above scenarios, Japan can certainly end up fighting China again later. But alternate possibilities become plausible, including several where China and Japan end up on the same side against other powers, in parts of the 20th century.
