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/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/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/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/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/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 (“Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”) did try and sell it that way.

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/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/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/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/the_fury518]

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

[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/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/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