What if Japan decided not to attack china in 1937(NO OIL EMBARGO)

I hadn't read that. The 4th and 6th did form the 3rd Mar Bde in '27. I believe that both were transited in early 1927, though.

 

I understand. Thanks for the pointer on the years but what I meant to ask was this: Leaving aside the Chinese sentiment, was the US acting with an international consensus similar to the international view during the Boxer rebellion? Other foreign contingents were in China other than the US and Japan. The British had HK,Portugal had Macau and the Italians also maintained a contingent in China.

 

I can imagine the Brits trying to build a consensus. It would have been in their interests to keep the Italians, Japanese and the States embroiled in something resembling a common cause. Keeping the Soviets and Chinese in check is in line with preserving The Empire

 

What if Japan already had possession of the Philippines and Guam? Would an attack against the US fleet sill be coherent if the US was unwilling to rescue colonial positions?

 

In that case, "what teritories"? It was only the Philippines and a few other Pacific islands that America had taken into it's "protectorate". If America isn't there, why would the Japanese be there. Those were Spanish properties before and until shortly after Japan came out of its own feudal isolationist position.

I guess I don't understand your query.

 

It doesn't matter how they got it. Lets just say that Japan controlled those areas instead of America. If there were no US colonies in the way, would the US really declare war over European possessions? Hard to imagine the opposition or survival of the FDR administration.

 

But it does matter. You have proposed a significantly different world. How the US reacts in and to it will depend in part on how it came to be.

 

It would very much depend on how much the U.S. would want to maintain trade with China, which was a very large factor in deciding whether to pressure Japan to pull out of there. If Japan for whatever reason controlled the Philippines and Guam, then certainly they'd have a more secure position in the Pacific without the U.S. But it ties back into the trade relation between the U.S. and China.

But really, why in the world would America enter a foreign war solely to protect European colonies? That's exactly what the U.S. was trying to avoid through their previous isolationist policies.

 

I think the US and Britain would emancipate total embargoes on Japan and the British would have another force to reconcile with in the Pacific. Would the Japanese still be concerned about the US fleet? They could just send a telegram stating that any US warships spotted on near their coasts would be an act of war which Americans oppose.

 

I'm unable to follow your logic here. And do you really mean "emancipate"? Or do you mean to say "initiate"? The total oil embargo didn't go into effect until 1941, and the limited embargo against aviation fuel and scrap iron wasn't all that old either, 1940? (I think)

And the US Pacific Fleet wasn't anywhere near Japanese waters, even when it was attacked it was many, MANY miles away from Japanese waters.

Even the little, and separate Far East Fleet was no where NEAR Japanese home-waters.

As I mentioned, I don't follow you logic here, could you expand on that please?

 

I wrote a scenario a few comments up on this page that you didn't see. This time the Japanese held Guam and the Philippines instead of the US.

 

Your scenario cannot just drop out of the clear blue, as you have tried to do with this one. That is akin to saying "..if the Klingons had launched help to the Nazis from their base on the far side of them moon, would the Axis have won?"

It has to have some basis in historical reality. The Japanese didn't emerge from the feudual state until post Commadore Perry, and the Mejii restoration. They wouldn't have been anywhere near either the Philippines or Guam by 1900, let alone the 1930s. They almost didn't go to war with China over the fishermen from Okinawa being murdered on Formosa in 1895. They were sort of "goaded" into that by an American "businessman" who expressed to them that the US wouldn't interfer.

Even at that, they did so reluctantly and with great caution so as not to forment a larger conflict. That early success emboldened them to attack the Far East Russian Fleet and ground forces a few years later, and that win also emboldened them to do even more "provocative" things later.

They wouldn't just go from one to the other, and America was established in the Far East before they came out of their shell. Remember that by 1904 America had an undersea cable between San Francisco and Manilla by way of Hawaii, Midway, and Guam. When exactly would the Japanese be able to, or able to take these territories.

You cannot just say "let's say they did"! That won't work, as it won't stand on its own merits.

A matter of "you can't get there from here".

 

Was it worth writing an essay to prove a point out that Japan was isolated and depended on Western technology before making an impact which was obvious to me. Side tracking to legitimize a sequence in history is not necessary nor desirable if a random scenario is legitimately making a difference to the situation otherwise I would violating the rules and reported. Guess what, its not. THIS is an alternative history page you know?. You lack common sense my friend so please do yourself a favor write a book with all your posts.

 

I don't quite follow your response to my statement. The U.S. ultimatum to Japan was to pull out of China lest they freeze all Japanese overseas assets and impose a complete trade embargo on them yet you ignore that factor and jump to the conclusion that Japan is already deciding war...the question is with who.

Are you trying to change the fact that the naval arm of the United States was an interference to potential Japanese conquest in the South? And in your "what if" situation, the U.S. does not have the sphere of influence in the Pacific because the Japanese are already there, am I correct?

 

You are waxing incoherent. By the way a "good" what if has a single well defined and plausable POD and what follows flows naturally from there. Your scenario had some indeterminate one some time well before the war and possibly would require multiples. I.e. it as essentially worthless as is.

 

I'd like to hear a plausable way this could happen. Guam and the Philippines were taken by the US in the Spanish-American war in 1896 and before that were Spanish possessions. Since Japan's own navy at that time is pretty much limited to near-water and coastal operations and, they have no means of effectively interveining militarily.
Or, are you refering to no Spanish-American war? That would have implications for the overseas views of America and the growth of their navy etc. So, that would take us pretty far afield of a realistic discussion on the subject.

Now, I could see them aquiring more of what were German possessions at the end of WW 1 instead of the French and British. This has interesting possibilities. Japan holding the Bismarck archepelgo, holding the German protion of the Guam Island group and, the rest of German possessions in the Eastern Southwest Pacific.

 

That does open up an interesting direction, but the agreement was that the Japanese would be granted some of the former Imperial German colonies above the equator, and the UK those below it. Those above the equator and west of a given longitude went to other of the allied nations which fought against the Kaiser's forces. Wasn't that the deal? I'll have to look around and see if I can figure out those "dividing lines".

But since Guam was already held as a protectorate by the US, that wouldn't/couldn't change unless there was no Spanish/American war. And that really gets away from reality too far.

 

I think the German possessions angle is more realistic than the US giving up Guam and the PI. This just requires that Japan be granted German possessions in the Pacific in their entirety for fighting on the Allied side in WW 1. The US went to alot of trouble to gain basing in Guam even risking a war with Germany in 1885 over that. I just don't see Guam or the PI in Japanese hands.

 

I'm aware of the incident in 1889 at Apia Harbor, in what was to become American Samoa. The Brits made it out to sea. Barely. I can post the link, if anyone is interested.
The German angle can become quite interesting, if the Hohenzollerns agreed to lease the Carolines and Marshalls from the Bourbons, 1899 though.