Chinese Meiji



This alternative history explores the possibilites of China rapidly industrializing, modernizing, and militarizing in the beginning of the 19th century as the Japanese had done during the Meiji Restoration.

The result, as presented in this alternate history universe, would have been a radically different world order during the 20th century.

Prehistory-1830
Same as Old Time Line. The Point of Divergence is around 1830, and assumes a group of progressive-minded Chinese government officials had toured Europe, and among them was a particularly vocal individual named Wang Yiwei.

The Late Qing Era
See Transition Period (1830-1850) for more information.

Early Developments
In the first few years during the reign of Emperor Daoguang (1820-1850) several governmental officials were sent overseas to observe how the Europeans were doing in affairs concerning war. The most influential military observer was Wang Yiwei, who was sent to tour England and France. When he returned in 1836, the Emperor reluctantly agreed to his request to start and train a Western-styled army using hired military advisors from Europe, known as the “Experimental Army,” albeit with very limited funds and hardly any support from the ruling class.

Meanwhile the Emperor appointed governmental official Lin Zexu to try to solve the vexing issue of the British opium trade. When rioting British seamen murdered a Chinese man in July 1839, the ensuing debate over extraterritoriality escalated tensions and eventually erupted into to the Opium War. During the beginning phases of the war, the traditional Qing military were repeatedly defeated by the superior British troops. A turning point occurred when Emperor Daoguang decided to mobilize the yet-untested Experimental Army. Though not fully completed and lacking a competent officer corps, the Experimental Army won two Pyrrhic victories and forced the British into a stalemate. By the Treaty of Peking, the British recognized Chinese jurisdiction and agreed to respect the ban on opium, and in exchange, the Chinese greatly modified the Canton trading system to make it less restrictive, allowing trading in nearly all major port cities.

The Chinese experience with the war led them to be disillusioned with the traditional, hereditary Qing military. The Experimental Army proved far more effective in battle than the Bannermen and Green Standards, but it had been destroyed during the course of the fighting. Wang Yiwei and military officials quickly set about restructuring the Chinese military, making drastic reforms such as non-ethnically segregated conscript army under direct control of the Board of War, Western-style academies in which to train officers for the army, abolishing the Bannermen, and hiring military advisors from Europe.

Revolution
Growing Anti-Manchu sentiment had led to the 1848 Revolution in China, inspired by the ones happening all over Europe and led by Zhang Luoxing. The movement quickly gained momentum all over the countryside, and deposed the Qing government. The rebels had rallied behind Zhu Chongqing who claimed descent from of the Ming Dynasty rulers, and installed him as the new Yonghe Emperor of the Second Ming Dynasty. The new national government was a constitutional monarchy.

The Yonghe Era
See Second Ming Expansion and Imperialism (1850-1914) for more information.

Yonghe China was ruled by a small cadre of top ministers who had a far-reaching program to modernize the country. European nations greatly benefited from the less restrictive trade provisions in the 1841 Treaty of Peking, and the volume of trade between China and the West increased dramatically. Throughout this period the Ming government tried to maintain fair relations with European nations and the United States.

In 1854, China declared war on Russia and joined the Allied side of the Crimean War. In China, the war was called the “Walk-in War” because the Chinese armies basically “walked in” and did very little fighting. By the Treaty of Paris, signed on March 12, 1856, Russia recognized the validity of the Treaty of Nerchinsk, ceded to China territories south of the Shilka River, the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (which would remain as a major Chinese naval base to today) and surrounding territories in Kamchtka, and the Komandorski Islands on the Aleutian Island Chain.

In 1861, Japanese lords overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate and the emerging Empire of Japan maintained close ties with China, partially due to the cotton trade. The economic relationship was formalized by the 1875 Oriental System, and a political alliance was achieved in 1889. Another nation that shared a close relationship with China was Germany, which formed a mutual defense treaty against Russia in 1894.

Domestically, internal unrest, government focus on domestic development, and the people’s generally anti-imperialistic outlook prevented China from vigorously pursuing a global empire. Throughout the Yonghe period, however, China did on several occasions exert its influence locally. The 1881 Treaty of Hanoi signed with France in the aftermath of the Nam Đình Incident granted China a sphere of influence in northern Vietnam (Tonkin). In 1893, China leased from Siam a section of the Ithmus of Kra and completed the Malay Canal there in 1907, with the exclusive control of shipping through it. China also jointly occupied the Philippines with Japan following the Spanish-Japanese War.

The Great War
See The Great War (1914-1921) for more information.

A complex web of alliances, colonial competition, and ethnic and nationalistic rivalries are all contributing causes to the Great War. When the global conflict erupted in August 1914, it pitted the Central Powers and the Oriental Alliance against the Entente Powers and the United States. Paris fell in a matter of weeks and France surrendered to Germany. Italy, though originally a member of the Triple Alliance, remained neutral until Germany’s spectacular victory over France convinced it to join the Central Powers.

After France’s defeat, the European theater shifted to Africa, where the Germans and the British poured in armies to fight over the colonies, and where the Free French forces of the exiled French government rallied troops in defiance of Metropolitan France’s surrender to continue fighting the Germans.

Russia surrendered to Germany and China in 1916, but Britain and the USA continued to fight on. In February 1918, Germany signed a separate peace with Britain and the United States, which the Chinese viewed as betrayal. In September 1918, US agents engineered a coup in Japan that deposed the pro-Chinese government and replaced it with a pro-American dictator. Japan made peace with the Allies and declared war on China.

In January 1921, the hawkish government in China fell, and the replacement National Republican government, which adopted a more conciliatory tone to its enemies, agreed to an armistice and a peace based on Wilson’s Sixteen Points. In the negotiations at London, diplomats from Europe and the United States redrew the world, but China was not invited to participate.

The resulting Treaty of Thames placed extremely punitive measures against China, and reduced its land area by almost 50%. Mongolia and Tibet were created as independent nations, while Xinjiang joined the newly-created Turkestan. In China, riots erupted in all the major cities in protest of the very unfair treaty terms, and the country threatened to collapse into anarchy and revolution.

National Republican Era
See National Republican China (1921-1931) for more information.

When China stabilized, the National Republican party held dominance in the government for a decade. During this period, China experienced social unrest, runaway inflation, economic depression, and massive corruption.