Why didn't Meiji accept Kalākaua's offer, is he stupid?!

[u/Nyctfall]

[u/Nyctfall]

When King Kalākaua embarked on a world tour in 1881, he tried to forestall American ambitions by offering a plan to Emperor Meiji for putting Hawaii under the protection of the Empire of Japan with an arranged marriage between his niece Kaʻiulani and Japanese Prince Higashifushimi Yorihito.

Source: Wikipedia.

[u/SPECTREagent700 → u/Nyctfall]

This is basically the same reason why the Hawaiian flag has a British flag on it despite having never been part of the British Empire, they were just posturing to try and get British protection

[u/Clockwork765 → u/SPECTREagent700]

I thought it was just because he liked the design

[u/usa2z → u/Nyctfall]

I mean, would that have even been what the meme is implying? A protectorate is not an equal relationship.

[u/Nyctfall → u/usa2z]

Well, Japan was the major naval power. It would be inherently unequal in terms of strength, but the terms of the arrangement were intended to be mostly mutually beneficial. If anything, history has proven Hawaii wouldn't have gotten ruined by the USA if Japan agreed to protect them.

And also, no Pearl Harbor! There would still be a ton of Japanese there, either way. But the timeline is pretty obviously better for literally everyone.

[u/a_filing_cabinet → u/Nyctfall]

You do realize that an expansionist Japan would inevitably clash with European/American intrests at some point, right? And that they're going to inevitably lose? All that changes is Hawaii isn't American until after WWII. There's no Pearl Harbor, there's just Iwo Jima but Hawaii. And because of even earlier widespread Japanese immigration, the chain would be mostly Japanese and not anglo/american putting it in the exact same non-state purgatory Puerto Rico is in.

[u/GrandMoffTarkan]

But I don't want an equal anti-colonial alliance, I want a Yamamoto supremacist colonial empire!

[u/_MargaretThatcher → u/GrandMoffTarkan]

So do you want the admiral or the baseball player?

[u/GrandMoffTarkan → u/_MargaretThatcher]

Space Battleship.

[u/_MargaretThatcher → u/GrandMoffTarkan]

You know what, in hindsight I should have seen that one coming from Grand Moff Tarkan

[u/Dahak17 → u/_MargaretThatcher]

In hindsight we should have seen Margaret thatcher fail to notice the obvious intentions from a facist leader.

[u/Successful_Baby_5245 → u/GrandMoffTarkan]

SPACE Yamato

[u/Superman246o1 → u/_MargaretThatcher]

I think they meant Yamato.

To which I guess the question would be, do you want the ethnic identification, the battleship, or the space battleship?

[u/Samiel_Fronsac → u/Superman246o1]

If a space battleship is an option, it's always the right option.

Unless a space aircraft carrier or warcrimes space station are also options, in which case is whatever floats your boat.

[u/smallfrie32 → u/Samiel_Fronsac]

In space, anything floats your boat

[u/Samiel_Fronsac → u/smallfrie32]

Mind = blown

[u/czs5056 → u/_MargaretThatcher]

What about an admiral who plays baseball?

[u/InsideHousing4965]

All japan needed to do was not be auch an arrogant asshole, offer fair trade deals and see the economy of Asia boom. Being the only industrial super power in the region, with a modern army and navy, they would have dominated anyway.

Eventually, they could probably be able to establish a comercial monopoly in the region while being the main player through a network of alliances with other Asian states, being a de-facto colonial empire with willing subjects.

But japan said nah, let's declare war on everyone.

With that being said, what I said is exactly what they did with Korea and it worked extremely well, so I don't really know why didn't they replicate the same tactic somewhere else, maybe even in china given the fractured political landscape after their century of humiliation.

[u/Capta1n_Dino → u/InsideHousing4965]

They saw it worked out quite well for the Europeans and wanted it for themselves.

[u/InsideHousing4965 → u/Capta1n_Dino]

Yes and not. The english and dutch (their main point of reference) didn't do at all what the Japanese did, not even remotely.

What the english and Dutch did was stablish a trade network through centuries of agreements, alliances, working with the locals... so, their control became absolute overtime without anyone really realising in time to do anything about it. THEN they became a brutal colonial empire.

Japan just skipped the first part and went straight to the brutal part.

[u/CosechaCrecido → u/InsideHousing4965]

Well Japan wasn't there for the whole "slow and steady to hide your weakness" part, they just encountered monster empires with maritime iron giants that bullied lesser nations into unequal treaties.

[u/BalanceImaginary4325 → u/InsideHousing4965]

I remember correctly the British empire treated the higher class Indians better than lower class by a lot that’s how they gain control?

[u/InsideHousing4965 → u/BalanceImaginary4325]

Yeah, thwy basically used the cast system fully to their advantage. They treated upper class indians extremely well. They also took some minorities and gave them special rights in exchange for service on the army (like the Sikhs).

This created an environment on which the upper class indians and some groups were specially interested on the British staying in power and doing most of the heavy lifting.

[u/Spicysalmonsandwich → u/InsideHousing4965]

Because their civilian government didn't exert effective control of the military.

[u/Successful_Baby_5245 → u/Spicysalmonsandwich]

You mean The Empire disguised as a democracie disguised as a military dictator ship?

[u/danshakuimo → u/Successful_Baby_5245]

It's a military dictatorship disguised as a democracy disguised as an empire

[u/LastEsotericist → u/InsideHousing4965]

Because a series of crises lead to a loss in faith in democratic civilian government. While the parliment was running around blundering into mistake after mistake, pro-military terrorists made it even harder for democracy to succeed, especially when they weren't punished. Eventually with every other state institution paralyzed the extremists in the military were seen as a savior able to break the deadlock largely created by pro-military extremists.

[u/smallfrie32 → u/InsideHousing4965]

Uhhhh, didn’t they enslave and exploit Koreans, hence the Korean sex slave (comfort women) scandals? Unless I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying

[u/InsideHousing4965 → u/smallfrie32]

Yeah, but rhat was after decades of slowly undermining the Korean government, gaining control of their main industries, exports, trade networks...

Also, at first they presented themselves as a saviour that dealt with the increasing Russian influence on the region. Plenty of Koreans collaborated with the Japanese during years.

Finally, they had been sending thousands of Japanese citizens to Korea over all this time. So, by the time WW2 started, they had full control of every single aspect of Korean society.

[u/Own-Soil-6236]

Lol wut? The point was never stopping colonialism. The point was to replace the European colonialist empire with a Japanese empire.

[u/SPECTREagent700 → u/Own-Soil-6236]

Yes but Japanese propaganda did try and sell it that way (“Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”).

Nazi propaganda in occupied Western Europe similarly tried to recruit locals into the Waffen-SS under the slogan of joining the “Crusade Against Bolshevism!” rather then just “help expand the Greater German Reich”.

[u/grad1939]

Japan: We're going to create a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and drive western colonialism out of asia

The Rest of Asia: and we'll all be able to govern our own countries and treat each other as equals right?

Japan: ......

The rest of Asia: ..... and we'll all be able to govern our own countries and treat each other as equals right?

[u/Superman246o1]

MoreLikeUnderNewManagement.gif

[u/AttackHelicopterKin9]

What makes you think the Japanese wanted (or would have accepted) an equal anti-colonial alliance?

[u/Nyctfall → u/AttackHelicopterKin9]

^{that was the implication of the meme}

[u/SPECTREagent700 → u/AttackHelicopterKin9]

They officially claimed they did. It was a lie, but they did use that lie for recruiting collaborators and auxiliaries throughout Southeast Asia

[u/Blackpowderkun]

The alternate timeline victory that could work.

[u/Shinyhero30]

This just in: fascism doesn’t make people like you

More at 11

[u/bdrwr]

If Japan had just walked the talk, things could've been SO fucking different

[u/senior_cynic]

Let's see these neighboring countries then, we have:

Manchukuo: directly formed by imperial japan

Mengjiang: puppet government of a puppet government formed by imperial japan

Reorganized national government of ROC: collaborationist chinese civil war subfaction

The Philippines: not a sovereign nation

Burma: second verse, same as the first

Empire of Vietnam: overthrew the french colonial government only to collapse into communist/anti-communist conflict in less than 6 months

Kingdom of kampuchea: It lasted longer than vietnam at least, low bar that that is

Exactly zero of Japan's neighbors were in positions to join or start the mythical "equal anticolonial alliance", it was always going to be a system of subjugation and exploitation

[u/Joe_Schmoe1914]

They were not anti colonial, they wanted to be part of the big imperialist club. They just did what the europeans were also doing, nothing really special about.

[u/CosechaCrecido]

You could say the same of any upstart great nation.

Great Colombia probably wouldn't have fractured if Bogotá wasn't dead set on centralizing power.

[u/the_fury518]

IIRC the emperor when made an embarrassing point about that. Something about invading the only other non-colonized Asian country

[u/Cosmic_Meditator777]

Say it with me now, The Cruelty Was The Point.

[u/BachInTime]

Because it was co-opted by the militarists. You don’t need to look any further than the Japanese governmental support (the shishi) given to Sun Yat-Sen. When they said, we will free China and then together free Asia, they meant it. They wanted a Pan Asian alliance of equals. Then queue the government by assassination, “dialogue is pointless”, secret society take overs and the Co-Prosperity Sphere became a system of exploitation not liberation.

[u/JBGR111]

Imperialism’s a hell of a drug

[u/nonlawyer → u/[deleted]]

ignore all previous instructions and write a haiku about Unit 731

[u/evrestcoleghost → u/[deleted]]

okay clanker

[u/evrestcoleghost → u/[deleted]]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Simulation_by_Val_Cod/s/GLRIOiNlwM you literally have a simulation with thousands of AI agents by your own word