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The Japanese reportedly want formal recognition by China and security guarantees for the remaining land held by their puppet states in Mongolia and Manchuria.
Some sources report that the Japanese are also seeking commercial concessions, including access to vital raw materials, in return for Japanese technical expertise and investment to help develop the Chinese economy.
Three days after the UN Security Council had refused to recognise the status of the Communist Chinese government, Ambassador Malik left indefinitely, saying that the USSR would not participate in the Security Council while Nationalist representative T. F. Tsiang remained at the table.
I understand the Soviets blocking Nationalist China from joining the Security Council but I really don't see any point to the over-blown theatrics from their ambassador.
US Secretary of State Dean Acheson delivered his 'Perimeter Speech' on 12 January, outlining the boundary of US security guarantees, South Korea was not included within the area subject to American protection. Without saying it out loud, they were clearly leaving it as primarily a 'Japanese problem'.
On 31 January the Soviet Union countered this move by announcing recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, led by North Vietnamese Communist Ho Chi Minh. Soviet-Japanese relations sunk to an even lower level as tensions rose commensurately.
But on 23 January 1950, former Netherlands Army Captain Raymond Westerling led a force of 500 soldiers in an attack on the city of Bandung, seeking to lead a revolution to overthrow the government of President Sukarno, and to bring the former Dutch East Indies under the control of the Dutch-sponsored Republic of the United States of Indonesia.
Without a communist China, Stalin will have a harder time suppling Korea & Vietnam. How long can Stalin keep a large contingent in the Far East without morale problems/desertions? US does not have a very warm relationship with Japan. Thanks
And in local Turkish news, early manoeuvring had begun ahead of the legislative elections due in May, where the President would be chosen indirectly, via the legislature.
Good update. Russia may well regret leaving the SC unopposed for a while. They did OTL when they let the Korean War be a UN mission without their veto...
Thank you. The Russian stalking-off may well come back to haunt them, though the circumstances here are somewhat different, especially with the RoK still not fully independent, operating under Japanese supervision. How will Japan now handle things as they fear, but cannot be sure, that Kim will invade. Or how far the Soviets may be willing to go to support them.
Maybe, but Chinese confidence and Japanese desperation and a desire to slowly change course could produce some surprises. Can Chiang be that patient (as the PRC was with Hong Kong, for example) and is Japan that desperate? Korea rather than the short term fate of Manchuria could be more important there. But the outcome of the negotiations is really uncertain at this point.
I understand the Soviets blocking Nationalist China from joining the Security Council but I really don't see any point to the over-blown theatrics from their ambassador.
To a certain extent, yes. Japan's difficult task is to make the US and the West more widely care enough about what happens in Korea to help them balance DPRK-USSR aggression. Not an easy one to bring off, but they will try.
Without a communist China, Stalin will have a harder time suppling Korea & Vietnam. How long can Stalin keep a large contingent in the Far East without morale problems/desertions? US does not have a very warm relationship with Japan. Thanks
Agreed. Good point re the Soviets in the east, though they maintained large forces there for a long time in OTL and in TTL, there was the huge and long Soviet-Japanese War (which the Japanese largely had been winning until late on) and the lack of the OTL threat in the West. The US may not like Japan much, but they also have other geo-strategic interests in Asia that may create some 'strange bedfellows' if pressed.
A little bit more on that in the coming February update. But the dice will resolve the actual, election (which will be affected by the imagined impact of these reforms in the ATL environment).
Recap. The Soviet Ambassador to the LN had stalked out of a session of the League of Nations Security Council on 10 January and three days later announced it would boycott LNSC meetings indefinitely. This was because of differences over the recognition of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist China as the sole representative of China in the LN and a majority-supported offer to China to participate henceforth in the LNSC as a ‘non-veto permanent member’ of that body, increasing its size by one. After which China had been offered interim observer status in the LNSC following a Soviet veto of the original proposal.
During recent months, after the success of the ‘separate but complementary’ campaign by China and Japan to defeat Mao’s Communists as a credible fighting force within China, Japan had begun to move ever larger groups of units from occupied China by sea to South Korea. Against this backdrop, secret China-Japan talks had been under way on and off for some months and, according to credible reporting, this dialogue had deepened and intensified during January 1950.
The old Imperial Palace in Beijing’s Forbidden City was the symbolically significant (and well-secured) venue for the key China-Japan negotiations held in February 1950.
While the substance of the talks remained largely secret at this time, the first public evidence of their progress was confirmed on 10 February. A series of joint communiqués began to be announced to the world from where the final rounds of talks had convened in Peking (Beijing) at the beginning of February. This series of agreements became known colloquially as the ‘Peking Protocols’.
‘Protocol 1’ announced that China confirmed it had no further territorial claims on the territory of the pre-GW2 territory of Mongolia, now divided along a line of demarcation between the Soviet-held communist regime of North Mongolia, with the southern half absorbed into the Japanese puppet state of Mengkukuo. China professed its neutrality in any dispute between the Soviet Union and Japan over the future of Mongolia and expressed a hope that the matter could eventually be resolved through League of Nations mediation.
Japan announced it Protocol 2 that it would, having abstained in the last vote, support China’s admission as a permanent non-veto member of the LNSC. In Protocol 3, both nations committed to ensuring the current talks would lead to an interim agreement over the future of occupied China (ie that territory occupied by Japan in 1937) in the short term.
Two days later, Protocol 4 advised that the thorny issues of the status of those parts of formerly Chinese territory in ‘Mengkukuo’ and Manchuria would be discussed in longer-term talks, which may take months or even years, perhaps with the assistance of some (unspecified) form of ‘third party mediation’. China re-asserted its claims to such territory as part of an undivided ‘One China’, while Japan restated its position that the two states were ‘sovereign nations and independent members of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. But both countries committed to a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the issue.
On 20 February, the highly significant Protocol 5 made the momentous announcement that China and Japan had agreed to a staged hand-back of ‘Post-1937’ occupied Chinese territory over the coming five years. In return, Japan would be granted ‘most favoured nation’ trade access and the legality of Japanese investments and companies in the occupied territories would be guaranteed by the Chinese government, so long as they complied with ‘all reasonable Chinese national laws and taxation requirements’. The hand-over of the first border provinces would be ceded to China by mid-1950, with a one-year transition period, as a demonstration of ‘good faith’, to test the provisions and act as a ‘confidence building measure’ for both nations.
The public signing ceremony by the foreign ministers of the Republic of China and Japanese Empire for Protocol 5, Beijing, 20 February 1950.
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Confidential Reporting: The Secret Protocols
It would later emerge that secret protocols relating to this process were agreed between the two parties, with the US acting as an ‘honest broker’ between the two and offering their informal and discreet mediation services in the event of any disputes along the way that the two parties could not resolve themselves.
The first five public protocols were momentous enough and would obviously create concern and pause for thought for Soviets, who had managed to so alienate both parties that it had forced them into a hesitant but substantive rapprochement. Both Stalin and Kim Il-Sung would have been even more alarmed if they had fully understood the some the other secret protocols agreed before the end of February 1950. And, given the 1939 experience of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the expression ‘hoist by one’s own petard’ might have been applied to the belligerent Soviets, who in retrospect might conclude they had overestimated the strength of their position, the enmity between China and Japan [noting in TTL they did not have the massive war from 1937 through to 1945 that played out in OTL].
The US and Japan were identifying increasingly common positions, in part through the latter’s desperation in a deteriorating strategic position and slowly embarking on a domestic liberalisation and international normalisation program, including through their membership of the LNSC P5, together with a hardening anti-communist sentiment in the West. This included the future of the nations of South East Asia in addition to the Philippines and most immediately the perceived imminent Communist threat to South Korea.
This both propelled Japan into the China talks, but also played out in concurrent negotiations with the US designed to further rehabilitate Japan in the West in the hope of gaining support to either deter Communist aggression in Korea or, if it eventuated, either external support for the South Koreans or at least a deterrence of any direct Soviet attack on Japan across their long shared border in Mongolia and Manchuria. More on that separate but related set of negotiations will be dealt with below. Suffice it to say that for now, this ensured more US influence on the China-Japan talks and their encouragement of both sides to come to terms with the hint of greater US economic engagement and support for both nations if that occurred.
Protocol 6 therefore agreed that both sides would sign a ‘private’ pact of non-aggression, witnessed by the US, but kept secret until such time that both the signatories decided to make it public. The Pact would last for five years and be subject to renewal at that point. By that time, the planned hand-back of occupied Chinese territory under Protocol 4 would be complete and both sides would be able to assess its success (or otherwise) as they considered the pact’s renewal.
The commanding generals of the Army of the Republic of China and the Imperial Japanese Army exchange copies of Protocol 6, the secret non-aggression pact signed as part of the Peking Protocol negotiations, Beijing, 26 February 1950.
There was one final secret protocol agreed but that will be discussed in the next section of this report.
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Korea Nears Boiling Point
Recap. On 30 January, during a public visit to Moscow, North Korean Chairman Kim Il Sung, had been privately informed of Joseph Stalin’s pledge of support for Kim's plan for an invasion of South Korea. Japan was unaware of this specific pledge, but both its puppet government in South Korea and its own intelligence services were warning of an imminent threat of invasion. South Korea had begun to raise a nascent Self Defence Force, but relied primarily on Japanese military support for its security.
Secret Reporting. It later transpired that the Peking Protocols had also contained another secret agreement, Protocol 7, whereby Japan pledged to grant immediate formal independence to South Korea, which would then be free to apply for membership of the League of Nations and to negotiate all economic and security arrangements with whomever it chose. In return, China agreed to fully recognise South Korea and support its membership of the LN, in part also as a secret corollary for Japan’s support for China in the LNSC. The US, called in as a ‘good faith broker’ on this matter (not on Protocol 7), endorsed this approach and pledged their own support for the admission of a genuinely independent South Korea to the LN.
On 24 February, Japan formally granted full independence to the new Republic of Korea, with the old Autonomous Region of Korea (ARoK) ceasing to exist. Syngman Rhee was elected by the National Assembly as the first President of the Republic of Korea (RoK) that day. In a carefully orchestrated diplomatic move, a letter of request to join the League of Nations was submitted to the Secretary General at the Palace of Nations in Geneva that morning (Swiss time).
Syngman Rhee, elected President by the newly renamed Korean National Assembly on 24 February 1950.
Korean independence day being celebrated in Seoul, 24 February 1950.
The request was rushed to the LNSC, proposed by Japan and seconded by the US and approved unanimously (the Soviet Union still being absent due to its boycott). In any case, when the application was then advanced on the floor of the General Assembly, which was then in session, it easily received more than the two-thirds majority required for approval (irrespective of LNSC endorsement). By the end of the day, despite a half-hearted attempt by the Soviets to muster a no vote in the general assembly based around its satellite states and a few sympathetic countries, the RoK was a fully-fledged member of the LN.
The vote by the General Assembly of the League of Nations to approve the application for membership by the Republic of Korea, 24 February 1950.
The Soviets’ dudgeon became even higher as their boycott of the LNSC continued (any veto they may have attempted would have been over-ridden by the General Assembly in any case). And North Korea (DPRK) refused to countenance joining the LN, especially after Kim denounced the “despicable act of that reactionary body to recognise the illegitimate puppet government in Seoul.”
US General and Extraordinary Presidential Emissary Douglas MacArthur was sent to pay a quick visit to Korea, meeting Syngman Rhee on 28 February. Many speculated that a series of private meetings with Rhee and the commanders of his nascent Korean Self Defence Force may have discussed the seemingly North Korean military threat to the newly liberated country. It was also (correctly) interpreted as a ‘signal without commitment’ by the US to give Kim (and the Soviets) pause for thought before any military adventure might be launched.
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South East Asia Evolves
Recap. On 29 January the Japanese Diet [the French National Assembly in OTL] had voted to approve limited self-government for the State of Vietnam, under the former Emperor Bao Dai. In response, on 31 January the Soviet Union countered by announcing recognition of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, led by North Vietnamese Communist Ho Chi Minh.
A map showing the areas of Communist insurgency throughout Indochina in February 1950.
On 2 February 1950, the Japanese Diet [French Assembly in OTL] approved the Saigon Convention, granting sovereignty and promising eventual independence to the State of Vietnam, under the leadership of former Emperor Bao Dai.
The newly self-governing State of Vietnam did not yet have a standing army of its own, but in February 1950 steps were taken to recruit and train new Civil Guard units throughout the south. They would receive weapons, training and support from the IJA and be linked into its formations for command and control purposes.
Five days later the US gave diplomatic recognition to the Japan-supported governments in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, with the aim to help "the establishment of stable, non-Communist governments in South East Asia".
President Truman announces the diplomatic recognition of the governments of Indochina at his weekly press conference at the White House, 7 February 1950.
On 15 February, shortly after the announcement of the first four Peking Protocols, Japan ‘clarified’ its policy regarding the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere (GEACPS). Japan considered it to be purely a grouping for free trade and economic cooperation. Any military or other security cooperation would be negotiated bilaterally between Japan and the ‘free and independent states of the GEACPS’, who would all be free to conclude whatever other arrangements they may choose to make with ‘friendly third countries’.
Naturally, Japan glossed over its continuing dominance and ‘guiding role’ in the fortunes of the members of the GEACPS, but this was nonetheless recognised as an important symbolic concession – and one that would eventually and inevitably have significant practical consequences in the longer term. The deal brokered between the US and Japan over the Philippines, where independence was granted but Japanese influence remained strong and the country remained within their sphere of influence was seen as something of a pilot for these latest moves in South East Asia - and even Korea, to a certain extent.
At the end of February, Japan requested American economic assistance to aid their efforts to establish Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as ‘stable, anti-Communist nations’. Truman’s Administration undertook to consider this request carefully and ponder how such assistance might be propelled through Congress, given the recent rejection of a similar package of economic aid to Korea. However, the climate in America was shifting, given both the startling recent realignment of relations in Asia and some domestic developments that began to ramp up anti-Communist alarmism.
The effect these dramatic diplomatic arrangements might have back in Japan, and especially amongst the increasingly isolated and frustrated IJA hard-liners, remained to be seen.
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The Middle East – Peace is Given a Chance
On 17 February King Abdullah I of Jordan and Mossad Director Reuven Shiloah of Israel met at the King's winter palace at El Shuneh, where the King presented a seven-point treaty proposal.
Egypt and Israel signed a General Armistice Agreement at Auja al-Hafir, a town on the border between the two nations, on 22 February. The Agreement defined the boundaries of the Gaza Strip as a neutral zone between the Muslim and Jewish countries, which had fought a war less than two years earlier.
Two days later, representatives of Israel and Jordan initialled a five-year peace treaty that provided for joint control of Jerusalem and commerce between the two nations, but the pact would need to be ratified by both sides. [In OTL it was not, but in ATL the jury remains out. The dice will probably decide it.]
Representatives from Jordan and Israel sign a provisional peace treaty on 24 February 1950. However, the agreement was still subject to ratification by both sides.
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The British Elections of 1950
The British election campaign of 1950 saw the two leaders from the 1945 election once again leading the two major parties: Labour’s Prime Minister Clement Attlee and the old Conservative war horse Winston Churchill, who had narrowly defeated Anthony Eden in a party room vote a week after the 1945 election. But in the intervening years, the two had managed to ‘bury the hatchet’ (in public anyway) with Churchill making prominent speeches nationally and internationally in the years since and Eden staying on as heir apparent a foreign spokesman.
Clement Attlee campaigning with his family, February 1950.
Winston Churchill making another a ‘stump speech’, February 1950.
The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first ever to be held after a full term of Labour government. The election was held on Thursday 23 February 1950, and was the first held following the abolition of plural voting and university constituencies.
The government's 1945 lead over the Conservative Party shrank, but Labour was returned to power with an overall majority reduced from 80 to 49. There was a national swing towards the Conservatives of around 2.4%, who gained 38 seats (the minor parties, mainly through a large loss for the Liberals, shed 8 seats to Labour and the Conservatives compared to 1945).
Reflecting the need to equalise for natural swings and to roughly mirror the 1950 possibilities, a swing table was used that nationally favoured a swing to the Conservatives of 3% (which is what was rolled).
On the 1945 results, a swing of around 5% would have been needed to beat Labour (if not gain a majority in the Commons). The seat-by-seat swings made the result more volatile and in the event, Labour’s result was improved by an average of 0.61% across the 57 ‘seats’ rolled (each of which counted for 10 in the result – one was split 5-5 in a dead heat, while there were some minor adjustments from separate die rolls for the minor parties.
In the 1950 elections for the United Kingdom's House of Commons, the Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Clement Attlee, retained its majority despite losing 78 seats. Labour went from having 393 of the 617 seats to a slim majority of 315 of 617. Winston Churchill's Conservative Party increased its share from 197 to 282. Attlee was able to form a new government and continue as Prime Minister.
Attlee would take the government forward for its new term, while the newly expanded Conservative party room would meet in early march to see if Eden (or anyone else) wished to challenge Churchill after his improved but still losing result.
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Other World News
In Germany, the Ministerium fur Staatssicherhetsdienst, a secret police organisation more commonly known as the "Stasi" rather than the MfS, was established on 8 February. From this point, the Stasi would spy and maintain files on every resident of the German Democratic Republic. And their first specific target was the Prime Public Enemy and War Criminal’ Otto Skorzeny, then in hiding after a series of high profile terrorist attacks during 1949.
The emblem of the feared German ‘Stasi’.
In a speech to the Ohio County Republican Women's Club on 9 February at the McClure Hotel in Wheeling, West Virginia, US Senator Joseph McCarthy opened the era of "McCarthyism" as he told listeners that Communists had infiltrated the U.S. State Department. The rest of February would be filled with speeches and high profile espionage trials that further inflamed anti-Communist feeling in the US.
Joseph McCarthy (b. 14 November 1908) was elected as a Republican US Senator from the state of Wisconsin in 1947.
Electoral reform was enacted by Turkey's Grand National Assembly on 16 February, adopting the secret ballot and the open counting of ballots for the first time for the coming elections.
The stand-off between the Princely State of Kalat and the new Government of Pakistan continued unresolved throughout February. [From here, the resolution die roll will change from 1/12 to 1/6 per month.]
Electoral reform was enacted by Turkey's Grand National Assembly on 16 February, adopting the secret ballot and the open counting of ballots for the first time for the coming elections.
Feel like the USSR is being nerfed by the author here, and Japan has been buffed. Sure they didn't get bodied in the same way that they did OTL, but they're still essentially bankrupt, have an extremely unstable population and army system, and even considering real poltik, xenophobia both outwards towards China and the rest of Asia, and well as towards them from the Americans, really should be impacting relationships more than it is.
Leaving China is just not something the imperials would do, given that doing so is essentially submitting to eventual Chinese dominance over Asia.
I view it differently. The USSR has been riding high (though they were still behind in their war against Japan when peace came. And incidentally did all they could during the negotiations to use the Japanese against the Allies (or at least in favour of their own objectives), in the process going much of the way to entrenching Japan solidly in the new world order.
it has been Japan’s very dire strategic position that has driven them into this desperate approach. Their strategic weaknesses are the very things driving them to react for their very survival. The Imperialists drove them to the edge of defeat in GW2 before, with Soviet complicity in Geneva, they managed to salvage far more than they would have got had the war continued (witness the quick fire Allied invasion that would have wiped Japan out in 1946 while the IJA was still deep in Soviet and Mongolian territory.
with their post-war support of communist movements and insurgencies in Asia, especially Korea, did they think Japan and the US/West would simply stand by and do nothing? Especially when, as often stated, in the TTL both the US and China had had significantly different experiences (and so far less of the unbridled animus) that applied in OTL. I don’t think we can apply the same framework to Japan as applied in OTL.
Sure they didn't get bodied in the same way that they did OTL, but they're still essentially bankrupt, have an extremely unstable population and army system, and even considering real poltik, xenophobia both outwards towards China and the rest of Asia, and well as towards them from the Americans, really should be impacting relationships more than it is.
Per above. They were near the high water mark of their conquests when the war ended, even if it had begun to turn against them. I don’t see them as being in quite the dire and bankrupt state described here. The Soviets have had a massive drain as well, still suffering plenty of war damage, enormous losses in the Far East and a presumably crippling cost in trying to support and supply a massive army in the East. Look what happened in 1905!
And the Japanese are now hopping aboard the anti-communist bandwagon, as you’d expect them to do. They are a P5 LNSC member. They have their own (admittedly dodgy) regional grouping. And have been whipped into desperation by the threat of imminent nuclear armed Soviet support for North Korea, plus Soviet support for communist insurgencies throughout Indochina! Of course they will react to survive with as much as they can. And the rest of the world has increasing reasons to engage, including economically.
But this is the point: they are no longer pure Imperials any more. The hard line Imperialists had a virtual failure in GW2 and have been in a steady decline of influence ever since, while also desperate to maintain their very difficult position vis the Soviets, unable to cope with all the other bushfires as well. Almost all as a result of communist activity.
China has already largely won, coming off a long peace and rapidly progressing reunification and a successful civil war against Mao. Could the Japanese seriously contemplate trying to hold on there, in Manchuria-Mongolia and Indochina all at once? Given their diminishing resources/position?
There may still be a hard line reaction, but how would that play out, even if they won? assailed by the Soviets, a resurgent China, the West and a swathe of liberation movements? Likely a quick destruction. A path baulked against November 1944 in TTL. They may still crash and burn, and the Soviets still hold a strong hand - though they may have overplayed it.
Great debate anyway. This is one where I’ve deliberately tried to reimagine this world as fundamentally different to ours. I hope I haven’t gone too far, but have carefully considered some plausible difference in some outcomes while acknowledging wider trends - whether the same or divergent from OTL.
I think for the most part it's been very interesting, though I also think the red scare thing for this timeline would both be a bit reduced in the US (the Russians did exactly what they said they were going to, WE were members of THEIR comintern alliance, and on the international stage we've actually created several far reaching organisations together, plus they'veplayed conistently nice with the capitalist turks for nearly a decade) whereas in Europe it'll be even more intense than OTL (the Soviets literally took out/over pretty much all of Europe bar France and Turkey is their puppet!).
I think once Stalin is dead, the rebalnce will be complete and it'll be less of a cold War with East v West...because there's not much to compete over, and both sides are already more committed to each other than OTL. The splitting point is Asia, but in ten years China will be recovering, Japan will be back on the home islands (almost certainly), and the former colonial possessions will have an interesting array of potential backers rather than a binary choice that locks them into one side.
All valid views too. Though the thought of Stalin ‘playing nice’ and being trustworthy about anything may be a bridge too far. No matter how well behaved his chief negotiator at Geneva was. The US Comintern thing was a quirk of gameplay and the move of the since failed and ejected Roosevelt. The prevailing US view now was that it was a mistake and all they did was provide lend lease support to put the Soviets and Turks in the driver’s seats while Roosevelt sat back and let everyone else run the war and the world.
The US feel rather betrayed and embittered about the settlement and the west is fearful of the fact Germany has been left United and entirely under Soviet control. And the British revisionist war historians are certain Churchill’s Plan V invasion of Japan would have been a roaring success and that they were cheated of victory at Geneva, without which they would have been in a very powerful position in the new world order. Even if Attlee is now being rather a milk toast, according to Churchill anyway!
I value the counter view from the Warsaw Pact perspective though. And there are a few more twists I have in mind, plus some uncertainties planned where I won’t know how things play out at some crisis points, with either RNG or mini game creations (not HOI 3) to decide some things. For now, we’re following a very alternate path for Japan, whose survival largely intact with its conquests was one of the biggest changes from OTL, along with Turkey’s rise.
Not sure where it will end: just as Japan has not just sat like a rabbit in the headlights, nor should one expect Stalin to just sit by and smile indulgently at how well Japan has played a mediocre hand! And the elections and their aftermath in Turkey could also throw a fork into the road. Don’t know what will happen there, or what the implications for the slowly cooling but still cozy UGNR-USSR relationship might be. Then there’s Stalin’s increasing age and declining heath too …
If I were turkey, I'd be a bit freaked out by the goings on in Asia by all sides, and try to stay as far away from it as possible. Work with the US in securing the middle east and north africa for the UGNR, and the Soviets for everything else (far fewer strings attached).
As for the UK, they got exactly what they deserved based on how ww2 went for them and how they fought it. They basically did nothing, and thus suffered no damage themsevles, but left the empire, the french, the dominions and all their puppets to die. Thus, they have burnt every bridge and tie to the outside world, and are kinda screwed. At least they don't have to fix any blitz damage I guess, and they do still have their army and very large undamaged air force and navy...but they can't afford any of them, plus there's nowhere for them to deploy these days so what's the point?
There won't be a proper reaproachment with the 'free' bits of Europe for quite some time, esepcially France, who were really done dirty by, and I doubt Austrlia and New Zealand will ever forgive them, they're permanently in the American camp now.
The Soviets not Turkey is the group that needs to retreat from Asia. Asia is a market for Turkey. The Red Sea and Persian Gulf give Turkey ports. Russia has Vladivostok which requires the railways, that Japan destroyed in much of Siberia, be rebuilt. Without China, Indochina can only be supplied by sea. UK/US/Japan navies will prevent any major Soviet supplies. Middle East is off to a decent start.
‘Protocol 1’ announced that China confirmed it had no further territorial claims on the territory of the pre-GW2 territory of Mongolia.
Protocol 6 therefore agreed that both sides would sign a ‘private’ pact of non-aggression, witnessed by the US, but kept secret until such time that both the signatories decided to make it public.
Japan announced it Protocol 2 that it would, having abstained in the last vote, support China’s admission as a permanent non-veto member of the LNSC.
On 20 February, the highly significant Protocol 5 made the momentous announcement that China and Japan had agreed to a staged hand-back of ‘Post-1937’ occupied Chinese territory over the coming five years.
Protocol 7, whereby Japan pledged to grant immediate formal independence to South Korea, which would then be free to apply for membership of the League of Nations and to negotiate all economic and security arrangements with whomever it chose.
Japan ‘clarified’ its policy regarding the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere (GEACPS). Japan considered it to be purely a grouping for free trade and economic cooperation. Any military or other security cooperation would be negotiated bilaterally between Japan and the ‘free and independent states of the GEACPS’, who would all be free to conclude whatever other arrangements they may choose to make with ‘friendly third countries’.
The effect these dramatic diplomatic arrangements might have back in Japan, and especially amongst the increasingly isolated and frustrated IJA hard-liners, remained to be seen.
Two days later, Protocol 4 advised that the thorny issues of the status of those parts of formerly Chinese territory in ‘Mengkukuo’ and Manchuria would be discussed in longer-term talks, which may take months or even years, perhaps with the assistance of some (unspecified) form of ‘third party mediation’.
But both countries committed to a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the issue.
This certainly signals China is serious about continuing the rapprochement with Japan for the forseeable future. The only conclusion I can draw is that both sides are far more concerned by the 'communist threat' right now?
Syngman Rhee was elected by the National Assembly as the first President of the Republic of Korea (RoK) that day. In a carefully orchestrated diplomatic move, a letter of request to join the League of Nations was submitted to the Secretary General at the Palace of Nations in Geneva that morning (Swiss time).
The request was rushed to the LNSC, proposed by Japan and seconded by the US and approved unanimously (the Soviet Union still being absent due to its boycott).
The British election campaign of 1950 saw the two leaders from the 1945 election once again leading the two major parties: Labour’s Prime Minister Clement Attlee and the old Conservative war horse Winston Churchill.
The government's 1945 lead over the Conservative Party shrank, but Labour was returned to power with an overall majority reduced from 80 to 49.
Electoral reform was enacted by Turkey's Grand National Assembly on 16 February, adopting the secret ballot and the open counting of ballots for the first time for the coming elections.
Japan did hold onto a log due to no one really fighting them in the war (the UK AFK'd and is suffering the consequences) and then the cominterm bloc backing them, on the assumption that they'd get a lot of stuff done in Europe and the Japanese empire was doomed no matter what.
It turns out they were right, the Japanese empire is doomed, but they're attempting to squeeze as many concessions from the US and China as possible as they slowly retreat. Its quite clever but how many of these will be respected when the Japanese inevitably have a huge internal crisis (the incredibly facist and traditionalist military won them an empire and the civilian governmnet just 'gave' it all away, the average Japanese citizen hasn't seen any improvement in quality of life or economic beneift in decades despite becoming a huge empire, and then chucking it despite sacrifices made by them, AND everyone is going to be angry that for some reason, Japan is now subordination itself to China and the US).
Given how the situation lies across all of Asia...I'm not sure a new war is off the table. Japan may be out because they might be having civil issues/a war with its own miktiary, but Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Korea, Thailand and India all have outstanding beef and claims up in the air, land claims on each other, or backing from two or more great powers.
Might not be so much a Korean war as a full on war, mostly surrounding China but the others as well. Would Stalin do something like that? Maybe, given he knows no one else can stand up to the red army, and no one can intervene directly against the USSR except the UGNR (who can't/ won't, given another land war in the balkans, perisa and anatolia would probably sink their own imperial project before it really gets going).
Maybe the society get fed up and just push the Japanese out of Mongolia. And then it escalates from there, both at the UN and on the ground, until everyone in Asia has picked a side and is fighting a war, whilst the US agonise over whether to get involved in a land war in Asia so soon after ww2, and whether the public will stand for it (no question it would be the bloodiest war the US would ever be involved in if they shipped out).
I really like the new newspaper format. Nothing wrong with letting the readers use their imagination to fill in the blanks. I'm glad it allows you to continue on with your description of this ATL post-war era.
I had some issues with the forum in Chrome (pages not loading properly, the menu bar not working, etc.). I transferred to firefox and it all works like usual, so I'm catching up and commenting again.
Hi all - have had some huge RL distractions the last few weeks that have absorbed very many hours of energy-sapping engagement with things, then in between trying to summon the nervous energy to update the other various AARs before circling back here again. Not quite all done yet but I've managed to squeeze an update in now. Hoping things can ease off a lot soon.
If I were turkey, I'd be a bit freaked out by the goings on in Asia by all sides, and try to stay as far away from it as possible. Work with the US in securing the middle east and north africa for the UGNR, and the Soviets for everything else (far fewer strings attached).
I think they've got their extra-long barge pole out! They've been sailing along OK for now, without any major outbreaks in occupied/UGNR lands for a while and Madagascar simmering along below boiling point. But the next big inflection point will be the impending rather more democratic elections that they're used to.
As for the UK, they got exactly what they deserved based on how ww2 went for them and how they fought it. They basically did nothing, and thus suffered no damage themsevles, but left the empire, the french, the dominions and all their puppets to die. Thus, they have burnt every bridge and tie to the outside world, and are kinda screwed. At least they don't have to fix any blitz damage I guess, and they do still have their army and very large undamaged air force and navy...but they can't afford any of them, plus there's nowhere for them to deploy these days so what's the point?
Well, one way or another de-colonialisation will occur and, by luck and miracle, most of the empire/dominions actually survived! Funnily enough, had the game continued on for a little while longer (as we saw in that little what if exercise a while back) they would have ended up as big winners and occupied all of Japan in fairly short order!
There won't be a proper reaproachment with the 'free' bits of Europe for quite some time, esepcially France, who were really done dirty by, and I doubt Austrlia and New Zealand will ever forgive them, they're permanently in the American camp now.
The Soviets not Turkey is the group that needs to retreat from Asia. Asia is a market for Turkey. The Red Sea and Persian Gulf give Turkey ports. Russia has Vladivostok which requires the railways, that Japan destroyed in much of Siberia, be rebuilt. Without China, Indochina can only be supplied by sea. UK/US/Japan navies will prevent any major Soviet supplies. Middle East is off to a decent start.
If Turkey can hold it all together, they could be a big New World Order player. But there are plenty of vulnerabilities in there as well. Post-war nationalism could play a role in their wider sphere of interest, as could domestic political developments. But for now, they are sitting quite strongly.
Absolutely. And China is in the box seat and knows it. Japan is just trying to survive and see if it can develop some partners (or at least no-longer-enemies) in a world that is very dangerous for them, given how overstretched they will be as time goes on and maintaining such a huge peacetime military and hegemony with fractious military politics still a thing becomes ever more of a strain.
Per above - they feel they have little real choice, strategically and diplomatically. They'd rather get something now and improve their international standing and try to eliminate regional enemies that have it taken by force at some point anyway - particularly when their back is turned in Korea, Vietnam, etc etc, plus the highly charged and taxing long border with the Soviets.
This certainly signals China is serious about continuing the rapprochement with Japan for the forseeable future. The only conclusion I can draw is that both sides are far more concerned by the 'communist threat' right now?
Yes, this is a fair assumption. And if Chiang can get what he wants by peaceful means and patient diplomacy, all the better for his recovering and still-reintegrating RoC. He likes bite-sized morsels that can be consumed comfortably, while burnishing his wider reputation as a statesman of world standing.
Attlee may not be a brilliant statesman, but he's still won a decent working majority. Again, if he can hold it all together for the next five years without too many 'splitters'!
Japan did hold onto a log due to no one really fighting them in the war (the UK AFK'd and is suffering the consequences) and then the cominterm bloc backing them, on the assumption that they'd get a lot of stuff done in Europe and the Japanese empire was doomed no matter what.
It turns out they were right, the Japanese empire is doomed, but they're attempting to squeeze as many concessions from the US and China as possible as they slowly retreat. Its quite clever but how many of these will be respected when the Japanese inevitably have a huge internal crisis (the incredibly facist and traditionalist military won them an empire and the civilian governmnet just 'gave' it all away, the average Japanese citizen hasn't seen any improvement in quality of life or economic beneift in decades despite becoming a huge empire, and then chucking it despite sacrifices made by them, AND everyone is going to be angry that for some reason, Japan is now subordination itself to China and the US).
A good read of the situation. They've been walking the tightrope so far, but if they slip badly enough just once ... it's a long way down! A key point there: if gradually increasing political and economic reform can bring benefits at home and the sapping overseas military losses and overextension can be mitigated, they might just make it through substantially intact. Or not.
Given how the situation lies across all of Asia...I'm not sure a new war is off the table. Japan may be out because they might be having civil issues/a war with its own miktiary, but Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Korea, Thailand and India all have outstanding beef and claims up in the air, land claims on each other, or backing from two or more great powers.
Asia really is the major world centre of overheating right now, probably even more so than it was in OTL given the lack of a heavy and confrontational cold war in Europe itself and the Japanese 'Asian elephant in the room' of this ATL. Increasingly a potential Paper Tiger?
Might not be so much a Korean war as a full on war, mostly surrounding China but the others as well. Would Stalin do something like that? Maybe, given he knows no one else can stand up to the red army, and no one can intervene directly against the USSR except the UGNR (who can't/ won't, given another land war in the balkans, perisa and anatolia would probably sink their own imperial project before it really gets going).
There's always a risk of spread and escalation, but there will also be many who are trying to stay out of the really hot water and utilise the limited and/or proxy war options. And remember, the Soviets had a lot of trouble in the Far East in OTL and would have great difficulty supply and sustaining such a large force so far away from the industrial heartland. They may feel the need at some point to shift something back to both Europe (especially if Germany gets difficult) and the Motherland, plus maintaining too large a force-in-being too long will badly drain their economy. It's not all a rose garden for them either.
Maybe the society get fed up and just push the Japanese out of Mongolia. And then it escalates from there, both at the UN and on the ground, until everyone in Asia has picked a side and is fighting a war, whilst the US agonise over whether to get involved in a land war in Asia so soon after ww2, and whether the public will stand for it (no question it would be the bloodiest war the US would ever be involved in if they shipped out).
Possible, but I'm not sure likely. I don't think anyone really wants another huge war at this point. Especially as nukes start to proliferate. Proxy, insurgent and later asymmetric wars could become all the rage in coming years.
I really like the new newspaper format. Nothing wrong with letting the readers use their imagination to fill in the blanks. I'm glad it allows you to continue on with your description of this ATL post-war era.
Recap. On 20 February 1950, Peking Protocol 5 between China and Japan agreed to a staged hand-back of ‘Post-1937’ occupied Chinese territory over the coming five years. In return, Japan would be granted ‘most favoured nation’ trade access and the legality of Japanese investments and companies in the occupied territories would be guaranteed by the Chinese government. The hand-over of the first border provinces would be ceded to China by mid-1950, with a one-year transition period, as a demonstration of ‘good faith’.
With former Communist Shanxi ‘in the bank’ for the ROC already, on 5 March China and Japan agreed on a timetable for the initial handback of occupied territories under Protocol 5. It would start with border provinces that were partly occupied by Japan, beginning with northern Heinan on 30 April 1950. All going well, the northern edge of Zhejiang would follow on 31 May then the larger northern tract of occupied Anhui on 30 June.
The prescribed one-year transition period to bed down arrangements for the first tranche of handbacks would start from 30 June 1950, with full handover to be completed on 30 June 1951. Subsequent discussions between the two countries would determine next steps and timetables thereafter.
Confidential Reporting. In Japan, the Kempeitai began receiving reports of ‘animated discussion’ among some harder-line Army leaders in Occupied China and the Kwantung Army in the north, but as yet no specific indications of any imminent actions or coups. Additionally, Japan established a specific joint command to increase the pace of their atomic research program, which still significantly lagged those of the USSR, the three leading Western nations and even Turkey. But their pace would be limited by the availability of funding as Japan struggled to maintain its high state of readiness along the Soviet and North Korean borders. This was one of the key factors driving their economic, political and diplomatic reform programs so urgently.
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Korea
Recap. On 24 February, Japan formally granted full independence to the new Republic of Korea (RoK). Syngman Rhee was elected by the National Assembly as the first President of the RoK that day, while in Geneva a carefully coordinated process saw their application to join the LN fast-tracked for approval by the LNSC and General Assembly.
On 15 March the United States agreed to provide South Korea with $10,970,000 in military aid in order to deter a possible attack by North Korea. However, the pledged aid would be slow to flow, with no hardware or funds actually sent by the end of the month.
Confidential Reporting. Kim Il Sung, the Communist leader of North Korea, arrived in Moscow for yet another visit on 30 March to meet with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin concerning the proposed invasion of South Korea. Kim and his advisers told Stalin that a war with South Korea would be concluded "within a matter of days" and that the capital, Seoul, would quickly fall. He believed victory could be achieved without the need for direct Soviet intervention – so long as they could keep the Japanese ‘distracted’ (short of war) along their long shared border in Mongolia and Manchuria. A swift action and a ‘fait accompli’ Korean reunification under Communist rule would surely follow. Stalin agreed to ‘do what we can’.
Kim Il-Sung.
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The West
Klaus Fuchs was convicted on 1 March of passing along American and British atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. After the 90-minute trial at the Old Bailey court in London, Fuchs was sentenced by Lord Chief Justice, Baron Goddard, to 14 years in prison.
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (b. 29 December 1911) – Los Alamos ID photo.
Klaus Fuchs is a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly after Great War II. While at the Los Alamos Laboratory, Fuchs was responsible for many significant theoretical calculations relating to the first Allied nuclear weapons.
On 7 March former US Justice Department employee Judith Coplon became the first American to be convicted of spying for the Soviet Union.
Confidential Reporting. After considering the arguments of Edward Teller and John Archibald Wheeler that the Soviet Union would work on developing the hydrogen bomb even if the United States delayed, on 10 March US President Truman issued a secret Executive Order for immediate development of the thermonuclear weapons as "a matter of the highest urgency". Truman approved budgeting sufficient funds for research and for production of up to ten "H-bombs".
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Pakistan
The continuing standoff between the Princely State of Kalat and the Government of Pakistan finally came to a head on 8 March.
Delayed Accession die rolls for Peaceful Persuasion. 1/6 (from Mar 1950) chance per month of resolution roll:
1-90%: accession to Pakistan(no further action)
91-100%: independence asserted (Pakistan reacts)
If independence asserted:
1-95%: armed Pakistan intervention then each month:
1-70% suppressed,
71-90% continue rolling until outcome,
91-95% long term guerrilla activity;
96-100% independence(Pakistan casus belli).
A map showing the Princely State of the Khanate of Kalat in 1947 in the former Balochistan Agency, shaded in darker green. Note that in this map, the ‘Pakistan current border’ in ATL is different to this OTL map, given the different outcome over Kashmir, which went fully to India.
Khan Ahmad of Kalat finally succumbed to external Pakistani pressure and some internal agitation – where many remained against succession and believed it was done under coercion - and agreed [44% die roll] to finally accede to union with Pakistan. Kalat initially retained internal self-government under the terms of the accession. [Note: this was done on 27 March 1948 in OTL.]
Pakistan leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah (left) and Khan Mir Ahmad Yar Khan Ahmedzai (right). They signed the agreement on Kalat’s accession to Pakistan on 8 March 1950.
The Khan’s younger brother, Prince Agha Abdul Karim Baloch, revolted against his decision and took refuge in Afghanistan to wage an armed resistance against Pakistan, with little initial support from the rest of Balochistan.
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Other World News
Elections were held for the Supreme Soviet, the parliament of the Soviet Union, were held on 12 March.
A postage stamp issued to commemorate the 12 March Supreme Soviet elections. A barrel of democratic laughs!
The 671 candidates for the Soviet of the Union (the upper house) and the 631 for the Soviet of Nationalities (the lower house) were all unopposed. Although most were Communist Party members, some were non-members who were designated as "non-party".
The badge of the Supreme Soviet.
On 20 March Jordan and Israel ratified the five-year peace treaty initialled in February that provided for joint control of Jerusalem and commerce between the two nations. [In OTL Jordan did not ratify. In ATL they have, on a 50/50 die roll.]
In a sign of normalising relations, Garuda Indonesia (established by President Sukarno the year before as the national carrier) formed a joint venture with KLM, the Netherlands national airline, on 31 March and began with a fleet of 27 aircraft, a network of airports and a full schedule of flights.
Sorry, I'm just waking up, but wanted to extend my hopes that whatever RL events are sapping your attention and energy are resolved quickly and without undo fuss.
Great update, glad to get the quickly digestible sound bites!
