With modern inventions like telephone, telegram, radio... etc. (during WW2) and later television, computer, internet... etc. the Japanese government wouldn't have to move their capital to Bejing. The Japanese could've easily ruled their little "Asian Empire" directly from Japan.
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>
It all depends on how
realistic the scenario of Japan conquering China is.
In the first place, in the real world history, Japan never intended to conquer the entire China.
Even the most imperialistic leaders in Japan did not want to conquer China.
They wanted a strong Japan that could stand as tall as any world power.
They had experienced discrimination from the Westerners even after they defeated Russia and after they supported the Allies during World War 1. They also learned through the hard experience of the Great Depression of how pragmatic the modern world was and they could not depend on the supposedly democratic and free nations such as the West to be open to foreign trade when the going got tough.
To be strong, Japan needed a military that could be taken seriously.
In the modern age, it meant it needed raw materials - iron, coal, oil and rubber etc for the military industry.
It also wanted more lands for farming to cater to its fast expanding population - Manchuria was selected for the proximity.
There were several reasons for invading China.
( a ) Raising national prestige
( b ) Natural resources
However, China itself would not be able to supply Japan with all the necessary natural resources.
"The Japanese had neither the intention nor the capability of directly administering China. Their goal was to set up friendly puppet governments that would be favourable to Japanese interests. However, the action of the Japanese army made the governments that they did set up very unpopular, and the Japanese refused to negotiate with either Kuomintang or the Communists, which could have brought popularity." References
"Though the war with China looked like a success, China had few of the resources Japan needed, especially oil and iron. Undeveloped Siberia had plenty of mineral wealth, but two bloody skirmishes in 1938-39 against Soviet and Mongolian forces got nowhere."In fact, they got badly beaten.
"Southeast Asia was a more promising source of raw materials; with two of the colonial powers (France and the Netherlands) crushed by Germany, and Great Britain under siege by Hitler's navy and air force, Japan had a free hand in the region, so in 1940-41 French Indochina was occupied and Thailand was forced to join the Axis. That provoked a response from the fourth Western nation with interests in the region: the United States."
" (Japanese) Prime minister Konoye saw three courses of action:
1. Agree to American demands, which called for a humiliating withdrawal from Indochina and China Proper.
2. Negotiate with the US for easier terms.
3. War with the West.
Konoye tried option #2, but could not reach an agreement; in October 1941 he resigned, and a rampant militarist, General Hideki Tojo, took his place. There was no turning back from here, as all political parties were dissolved and replaced by an authoritarian cabinet."In order to speculate what would happened if Japan had conquered China, we would need to identify
which historical facts had been
tweaked in order for that to be achieved.
Did Japan
(1) have far more population that it actually had in the real history?
(2) have the connivance of treacherous Chinese as did the Manchus? (
Historically, the Mongols only conquered China by halves, northern half of Jin, then southern half of Song after more than two decades and two generation of Mongol rulers).
(3) have developed and employed weapons of mass destruction to wipe out cities the way the atom bombs did?
(4) enjoyed the privilige of the KMT and CCP wiping each other out along with more than 90% of China's population in the process?
(5) won every battle and forced the Chinese (military or otherwise) out of China into bordering regions (
as happened to many KMT units after CCP's victory against the KMT)?
(6) other reasons?
The reason of Japan's hypothetical victory in conquering China would be the most important factor determining what would happen afterwards.
Kulong's assertion that technology was the answer to Japan's maintaining dominance in China was a leap in wild imagination. When you start a genocide, no potential victims would remain passive, they would either fight back or flee - historically, China had small arms supplied to enable them to fight, and many Chinese also fled, not just to inland China, but also overseas or across borders.
Even in the realms of fantasy and speculation, there must be internal consistency.
If we start tweaking the
fundamental historical facts such as Japan had a thousand-fold more citizens than it did so that it could actually conquer China, then the possibilities are
endless, and
meaningless.
However, for a more sensible discussion, we must ascertain and differentiate between the
improbables, the
unlikelies, the
luck of the draws and
way-out-there.
For example, Britain, with its relatively small population, managed to gain control of India for decades (part of it for more than a century). It did not have to resort to genocide, but relied on superior technology and economic arrangements, as well as compliance from locals, and the fact that the Indians were not united across their clans, castes, states and religions.
It could not hang on.
France could not keep Algeria either despite its superior technology, or the fact that the French outnumbered the Algerians.
And if the willingness to commit genocide was a factor, then consider USSR in Afghanistan where entire villages were massacred - eventually, the mighty Goliath stumbled, with the more and more soldiers going home in bodybags.
Kulong's assertion of the use of technology and genocide could not be labelled as impossible. However, given what we know of history, the credibility of such a scenario is rather, how should I put it,
improbable?
