>japan didn’t colonise Hokkaido until 1869 despite living next to it for thousands of years>Japan primarily colonized the southern half of Sakhalin Island (known as Karafuto) between 1905 and 1945. Following victory in the Russo-Japanese War, Japan acquired the territory south of the 50th parallel, officially establishing the Karafuto Prefecture in 1907. It was annexed by the Soviet Union in August 1945So japan could have had Sakhalin/Karafuto. An island full of coal, gas and oil. If they’d just not been lazy fucks and colonised an island so close to them they could reach it via rafts, before Russians crossed all of Eurasia to colonise it first?Now the fuck was Japan slow? Their lack of resources is on themAlso just look at it. It’s perfectly aligned with the other Japanese home islands. It makes sense to incorporate it as a final home island.How’d they drop the ball so hard on this? How do they win a war against Russia but don’t take the whole island?
>>18457125It technically was under the Matsumae just like how Okinawa was under the Satsuma. And there was no point in colonizing it until the Russians started getting too close. As far as the Japanese knew, it was an undeveloped freezing cold shithole populated by Ainu savages. There was no early appeal to it.
Why would Japan want to colonize Hokkaido prior to industrialization? Why deal with the bearded devils known as the Ainu? What do they gain?
>>18457125Don't get me wrong, the opening of Japan's borders to gaijin trade by Commodore Perry was undeniably a good thing but it did introduce the country to cancerous Western ideas like colonialism and imperialism, including the idea that if you're not an oppressive empire you're not worthy of respect.This is what spurred the creation of Imperial Japan and motivated the colonization of Hokkaido and a large chunk of Asia.
>>18457175>ideas like colonialism and imperialism, including the idea that if you're not an oppressive empire you're not worthy of respectChina already introduced that idea before Japan knew westerners existed
>>18457199Chinese imperialism =/= Western-style colonial imperialism
>>18457253Chinese imperialism = Western-style colonial imperialism
When will Jaopan pay reparations to the brown skinned natives of Hokkaido?
>>18457125>Now the fuck was Japan slow? Their lack of resources is on themYou literally cannot grow anything there. That's why it's only inhabited by primitive hunter-gatherers.You can't even build a town in such an environment, much less government.
>>18457411What the fuck kind of tropical spic monkey are you to believe this?
A Manchuria by any other name...
>>18457175Japan was not a hermit kingdom prior to Perry's arrival. When he met with the Emperor, Perry was surprised how well briefed the Emperor was on the political situation in the United States and asked Perry about his experience in the Mexican American war.
>>18457125Colonialism isn't free. I want to live in Greenland but they don't have jobs and don't pay you to live there
>>18457125>japan didn’t colonise Hokkaido until 1869 despite living next to it for thousands of yearsJapan didn't exist for "thousands of years". Japan as we know it is only about 1300 years old, and they had to contend with other native peoples on the islands who lived in the northern part of Honshu and on Hokkaido. The Ainu, and the Emishi people prevented Japanese expansion to the north for hundreds of years. Once the Emishi people on Honshu were conquered, though, the northern part of Honshu remained fairly desolate and sparsely populated for a long time. Then you have the fact that Hokkaido was not a very hospitable place to the Japanese who were used to a warmer climate and whose staple food was rice. You can't grow rice in Hokkaido, you can't grow a lot of what the Japanese are used to eating in Hokkaido. It's fairly good land for ranching and raising cold-climate crops, but the Japanese weren't ranchers, and didn't know much about farming cold climate crops, if anything. So all Hokkaido had to offer was furs and timber, which they got plenty of on northern Honshu. That's basically what they saw Hokkaido as: more of the same as the already sparsely populated north of Honshu, but even more remote and impossible to govern due to the Ainu there.It was only in the 19th century, with the advent of nationalism foisted on them by western powers, that Japan cared about extending its sovereign territories and cared about anything like how its borders looked on a map.
>>18457411>You literally cannot grow anything there.Besides wheat, barley, and other grains from the mainland that do well in such a climate. That's one reason Sapporo developed a booming beer brewing industry. They can grow hops there, too. Hokkaido's land is perfectly good, you just have to have the right kind of agriculture for it. Japan didn't have that kind of agriculture until the modern age.
>>18457680>please understand, we only had only been a country for 1150 years by that point :(
>>18457125>Their lack of resources is on themJapan had timber, gold, silver, iron and a lot of land
>>18457253If its not from Europe its just sparkling conquest
>>18457686>Japan didn't have that kind of agriculture until the modern age.And what did I say, anon?Was I perhaps being asked about how the Japanese or Russkies live there today OR why the historical Japanese never set up shop on those islands... y'know, OP's dumb question.I'm sure you can figure that one out.
>>18457688A small country which did not actually control most of the territory it nominally claimed. You are fooled by lines on a map. Japan could easily claim to rule much more territory than it actually controlled because it is an island nation. Islands are hard to invade, so outside rivals were not the main concern for Japan's early rulers. The only neighbors they had to worry about were the ones already on the islands, and the Ainu and Emishi were not kingdom-builders. They were tribal folk. They had neither the inclination nor the organization to challenge Japan's claim to rule whatever swathe of territory it controlled. And the lands Japan actually cared enough about to actively control were the areas most productive for rice growing. Rice was the literal basis of the fledgling Japanese empire's authority and the focal point of its economy, it was the primary way they assessed wealth, and it was the medium in which they taxed the people. And this was true for basically all of Japan's history up til the Meiji period. It was only during periods of relatively rare stability that the Japanese were able to push into these less desirable lands on the edge of the empire. More usually, internal squabbles in the imperial court, or later, feuds between warlords, preoccupied them. Fighting to control productive rice growing lands was far more important than trying to settle remote wilderness.
>>18457698They lacked fine luxuries and had to trade with China for things like jade, silk, incense, tea, spices, and dyes.And in the modern age, Japan severely lacked in natural energy reserves. No oil to speak of, little coal. That greatly hindered their desire to industrialize. Hence the need to seize lands with abundant energy like Manchuria, for its coal deposits, and Sakhalin for its energy sources. Japan had sunk a lot of its capital into modernizing the military on account of the civil war the new government had to fight to establish itself. It was flat broke afterward, didn't have much to sink into developing civilian industries or infrastructure. But it did have a pretty well equipped and modern army. Use what you got to solve your problems.
>>18457125>>18457138>>18457163>>18457199>>18457654During civil war between red and white, Japan have wasted opportunity annexing northern half of Karafuto, considering island has low Russian and Ukrainian population.
>>18457723>They lacked fine luxuriesDidn't they produced lacquerware? >and had to trade with China for things like jade, silk, incense, tea, spices, and dyesWhich was facilitated by their large reserves of gold and silver. You think every country had everything they needed? Even China needed a constant supply of silver from abroad. No country can survive without trade
>>18457267nahshow us their oversea colonies on other continents
>>18457818>>Didn't they produced lacquerware?It's nice but it's not silk, which the nobility prized for kimono. It's not incense, which the temples and shrines burned on a daily basis. It's not tea, that Japanese people drank ubiquitously. And so on. The problem with modeling your entire culture on Tang China is that you need all the same stuff as the Tang, but Japan didn't have any of it on their islands. Nice lacquerware though. >You think every country had everything they needed?China did. >Even China needed a constant supply of silver from abroadNo not really. China demanded silver because it was used for currency, not because they desperately needed it.
>>18457750The UK and USA would have thrown a giant fit + the intervention in Siberia was costly and unpopular in the parliament
>>18457125>Now the fuck was Japan slow? Their lack of resources is on themJapan was a backwater that only rose out of India and China declining at the same timewithout American support, Japan would go back to being just another insignificant Asian country
>>18458175>China demanded silver because it was used for currency, not because they desperately neededIf it was used for currency then they desperately needed it to prevent inflation
>>18457125In response to the United States opening of Japan by Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853 and, later, the subsequent signing of the Convention of Kanagawa on March 31, 1854, Tsar Nicholas I, who was personally involved in the "Sakhalin issue", in April 1853 ordered the Russian-American Company (RAC) to immediately occupy the Sakhalin Island and begin colonization by constructing two redoubts armed with cannons on the western and southern coasts of the island[49]
>>18458343However Anglo-American powers would realistically give in as bolshevik-led revolution were a threat.
Colonisation isn't an inevitability, if no one wants to move their why bother?
>NOOOOOO YOU DONT GET IT, ITS COLD AND ECONOMICALLY NOT BENEFICIALand Iceland and the Faroe Islands were beacons of economic strength?Truth is the Japanese didn’t explore or colonise because their culture is naturally anti exploration because exploration is an individualistic activity, same with frontier settlements
