Why was the West so willing to allow China to unify after almost a century of foreign policy intended to keep it fractured, weak, and pliable?
>>18502979It still hasnt unified
>>18502979>Why was the West so willing to allow China to unifyBecause everyone shat their pants after the Japs wiped the floor with Russia and then Germany. They saw China as a counter to Japan when Japan's was seriously rising and supported the Nationalists as a bulwark against them.Historians and people in general seem to grossly underrate and ignore the role that WWI in China/the Pacific, Japan's intervention in Siberia, and the repudiation of the 21 demands by the UK and the West played in being the birth of the schizo path Japan went down in early Showa.
>>18502979Because China manufactured over a million Hanyang 88. Thats not accounting for the various other suppliers each warlord faction got. Japanese rifles, Russian rifles, German rifles, American rifles. China's isn't India.
>>18502979Because WWI happened and Europeans shifted their focus to continental affairs. China only unified like 75 years ago. Before then they were getting raped by different groups including domestically grown warlords.
>>18502979Have they though? >OpiuuuuumPoppy was grown in China throughout all the attempted opium embargoes and beyond. It was just that Chinese grown poopy apparently resulted in worse tasting opium than Indian one so when the latter was available it was preferred.By bringing up opium you're basically bringing a myth Chinese opium peddlers made up to try to force competition out.
>>18502979I wish they didn't.Imagine independent Sinkang, Manchuria and Tibet, bigger North Korea and Mongolia and rest of china divided in 3. Taiwan independent and not Chinese
>>18504885>independent SinkangIt'd just be a part of the USSR>ManchuriaWouldn't exist, that area is Manchu in name only and would only be a thing if Japan magically colonized it.>TibetWould exist and be interesting. It'd be a big Bhutan but probably more like a Buddhist Saudi Arabia given the immense mineral wealth and strategic location. It'd probably have good relations with Burma (likely backing the Junta) as well as India and the West.>North KoreaIf China never unified NK wouldn't exist. It'd just be one Korea probably under Monyang and take a very cautious and heavily militarized neutral position during the Cold War similar to Yugoslavia.>MongoliaIt would be cool too if it didn't become a part of the USSR which it very well could. Either way it'd be interesting.>TaiwanThey'd stay a part of Japan. They were the one part of the Empire that was always loyal, stable, and relatively integrated with the home islands.
>>18504885>Taiwan independent and not Chinese>AND NOT ChineseYou're gonna have to go all the way back to the Ming to stop that from happening. Have the local Austronesians be more advanced, more organised.
