-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
It's funny really, because that happens a lot in my games (usually Pop Demand Mod).
Russia always seems to languish due to never industrializing and Switzerland somehow manages to get enough prestige to rival their military score. Thus, it's usually Switzerland that becomes a Great Power over Russia in my games. Else, Russia loses its position to one of the other runner up nations, like Bavaria or the Netherlands.
- 2
It'll take a lot to take down the UK. As China I had a hard time trying to take down even Japan from Great Power status (at least five wars and one Great War waged against them and they're still at rank 8 with their military and prestige ranks at 0 and reduced to about four states on their home islands), while they can knock me down to rank 16 in just one Great War.
- 1
im curious what happen to the royal families of England and Russia?fled to the new world or executed?
Nothing has happened to them yet, as no governments have been toppled yet.
- 1
Sorry to see this going on hiatus, but I'll be following it when it comes back for sure!
Last edited by a moderator:
Shame to see this on hiatus but glad you wrapped up the war before stepping out. The old order has been decisively smashed, great stuff. Come back soon
I have followed this on and off for over a year and it's been a hell of a journey.
Time to witness the total sinification of the entire world...
Time to witness the total sinification of the entire world...
- 1
I've been reading this aar for aeveral days nos and it was impresive! Both your in-game exploits and the narration and historical flavour have been fantastic. And I counxur in the motability of your literacy rate.
I can (but cannot) wait to see how the time of nation-chainging reforms develops
I can (but cannot) wait to see how the time of nation-chainging reforms develops
This is a great AAR. I started using this account just to commend you
- 2
So yeah. I never resumed this AAR in January, like I initially planned to, because I lost interest in Victoria 2 during the intervening months and moved onto other games. However, I feel bad leaving all the readers of this AAR hanging, so I will try to summarize the events of the rest of the game via an epilogue. But the rest of the game is just China curb-stomping everyone, so maybe that's for the best. Either way, sorry to anyone who wanted to read the full story, and thank you for sticking with it for so long! ^^
With the conclusion of World War II, the future was decided. The 20th century world would be dominated by the East, not the West, as had been the last few centuries. History was hardly over, however, to say the least.
The world in the year 1910:
India remained a den of civil war and chaos, with Chinese military forces and advisers desperately trying to prevent the fragile new nation from collapsing under the weight of bankruptcy and a near-nonexistent military; a task not helped in the least by the fact that competition from cheaper Chinese synthetic dyes effectively destroyed the global market for one of India's biggest exports. But slowly, freed from the yoke of British colonial authorities, over the next decades, the Empire of India slowly began to modernize and adjust to the drastically changed economic circumstances.
Meanwhile, America was forcibly brought under the yoke of the Qing Empire in a brutal multi-year conquest. It was a naked war of aggression by any measure, and there was much international outcry; the Swiss even declared war on the Qing in retaliation, but they were easily crushed. Guangxu had had no desire to start the war, but a coalition of business leaders, the semi-retired Empress Dowager Cixi, and expansionists among the Council of Scholars and the military formed a coalition that prevailed upon him to bring America into the Eastern world once and for all. In particular, the Chinese economy seemed in severe danger of entering a massive depression as a result of increasing resource shortages and lack of export markets, and business leaders were eager to exploit the vast natural resources of America.
The Americans resisted with everything they had, but it was for naught; in the end, after the last American resistance forces were driven into mountain hiding spots, the Chinese unilatery declared a peace. Every piece of land except for Washington D.C. itself was annexed by the Qing Empire. Congress and the Presidency theoretically continued to exist, and had sole authority over governing D.C., but outside of D.C. they were little more than ceremonial Chinese puppets. The incredibly bloody war destroyed the once thriving American economy, with most of its once thriving factories either reduced to rubble or dismantled for spare parts. In essence, with the exception of New York and California (which had already been assimilated into the Chinese sphere, and thus were unharmed by the war), the rest of the formerly proud United States of America largely became a Chinese agricultural colony. (also, Oklahoma was returned to full Native American governance) The United States of Central America was also dismantled and replaced with a collection of newly formed Chinese tributaries, as punishment for joining the war on the side of the USA.
In Europe, however, China adopted a different approach - instead of naked conquest, they sought to aid their allies to strengthen Eastern influence over Europe. With vast quantities of Chinese advisers, investment, and military forces, the Ottomans underwent a resurgence, launching wars of reconquest against Romania and Greece - large parts of Greece, and all of Bulgaria, fell to a resurgent Ottoman Empire. While the Ottomans had performed abysmally in the Second World War, against these smaller nations they proved far more effective, especially with heavily concentrated Chinese support. With the incredible victories, the Ottomans finally began to cast away their reputation as the Sick Man of Europe, and the Ottoman dictatorship finally gained a measure of stability. Even the Ottoman economy began to recover, as the regime's formerly failed extreme laissez-faire policies finally began to see some benefits thanks to an enormous wave of investments from Chinese business people who were worried about a potentially overheating economy back in China.
Those European nations outside the League, however, did not do well. Revolutions occurred in Britain, France, and Russia practically once a year, as Reds fought Fascists fought Anarcho-Capitalists fought pro-democracy forces. The once proud British monarchy actually ended up taking up residence in Australia, having fled the country after they got tired of the latest dictator using them as a puppet or locking them up in jail cells to await excecution (only to be turned back into puppets when the newest revolution occured). Under such circumstances, combined with the economic isolation of being outside the League of Universal Prosperity, the once Great Powers of the West floundered into a state of dire poverty. The general national malaise caused by the humiliating defeat in World War II did not help (and neither did the expensive war reparations, which every dictator made sure to pay as their armies were in no condition to fight China and Germany at once). Those Western thinkers not killed by the latest dictator to take power in their country bemoaned a new Dark Ages of Europe.
Austria was one of the few nations that escaped these horrors of defeat, being kept under German protection. So grateful were the Austrian people for Germany's largesse, especially as they saw the extreme poverty of their former fellow citizens in Hungary. Soon, Germany finally triggered the referendum provision of the Second World War's peace treaty, and after a solid majority of Austrians voted "yes" to union with Germany, Austria was formally absorbed into the German Empire.
The nations of Africa, meanwhile, largely prospered, though many of the smaller ones remained technologically backwards. Benin in particular was becoming a stronger and stronger nation, and the Chinese finally began negotiations with the Empire of Benin to cede full sovereignty to them.
Australia and New Zealands' economies had survived the war untouched almost uniquely among Western powers, thanks to their efforts to remain neutral, but with ties with their former British suzerain largely lost, they had little choice but to become part of the Qing sphere of influence.
Italy, meanwhile, desperately tried to play Germany and China off against each other, as it became increasingly clear that the Sino-German alliance was preparing to split their former ally into rival spheres of influence. It worked for a time, as the Germans busied themselves with absorbing Austria and China with absorbing America, but soon that peace ended, and the Chinese and Germans marched in to partition Italy. The war was bloody, but ultimately a foregone conclusion; China annexed southern Italy and Germany the north.
The outrage of the Italian partition finally brought the remains of the Western powers together, as the various dictators from Russia, France, and England came together in an alliance to protest the naked aggression of China. (after about the 50th revolution all three of the nations finally had achieved enough stability to conduct foreign affairs again) Dubbed the Fascist Alliance by Eastern propaganda, they actually represented a wide variety of ideologies, though all were authoritarian dictators who'd committed unspeakable atrocities to their own people. Things came to a head when Germany demanded a major re-adjustment of the borders of Poland, Germany, and Poland-Lithuania, with the Fascist Alliance intervening to demand Poland's territorial integrity be respected.
Germany ultimately replied by declaring war, with China and Scandinavia joining as allies, and while the subsequent war was indeed called "World War III" and millions died, the end was a foregone conclusion. Scandinavia, China, Germany, Benin, the Ottoman Empire, Ukraine and the other League of Universal Prosperity powers. This time at the end of the war, the European parts of Britain, France, and Russia were partitioned into zones of occupation, and the Eastern Powers portrayed themselves as saviors who'd defeated the evils of genocidal fascism. (author's note: The Fascist dictators were indeed Hitler-style genocidal monsters, so this is completely true in this alternate history, but that said I don't imagine French/Russians/English people welcomed the end of their nations' existence with cheers)
After much negotiations, the annexations began - the China laid claim to the sparsely populated Asian parts of Siberia, not wanting to deal with the difficulties of keeping control over extremely population dense and nationalistic regions of Europe. Most of France was annexed by Germany. Nobody could figure out quite how to resolve the matter of England, so it was just remained under occupation pending negotiations. Scandinavia annexed coastal Russia. Ukraine annexed ethnic Ukranian regions of Russia, and the Ottomans laid claim to Muslim-majority regions of southeastern Russia. (i.e. Real Life Kazakhstan and such; for some reason Kazakhstan doesn't have a tag in Victoria 2, thus why I gave it to the Ottomans)
Meanwhile in Asia, India finally got its act together and began conquering the various independent principalities who had refused to peacefully join the new Indian nation. The one obstacle in this was that many had forged alliances with an expansionist Japan, but China intervened in these wars and forced Japan to accept Indian unity. (I used the console to have India declare war to annex all the principalities) In the eventual peace, Japan agreed to cease attempts to expand abroad, and in exchange, China formally surrendered Kyoto back to Japanese sovereignty in perpetuity, and Japan was fully accepted into the League of Universal Prosperity.
The world in 1930:
However, even as the Qing Empire reached its greatest extent abroad, driven forward by the militarist expansionists, people at home grew frustrated. New political parties emerged, representing business interests calling for laissez faire economics, and representing the working classes calling for more democracy and implementation of socialist reforms. This finally gave momentum to Guangxu's efforts to reform governance abroad, especially after Cixi finally died. Under Guangxu, China transformed from an authoritarian monarchy to a genuine constitutional monarchy. Social security, universal healthcare, unemployment insurance, free and fair democratic elections (with women's suffrage), all of which had once been thought impossible finally became possible through the cooperation of a reformist Emperor and mass movements of reformist liberals and socialists. Gradual free-market reforms meanwhile finally allowed the economy to boom, and together with vast unemployment insurance, China's former unemployment and oversupply problems were largely solved.
These efforts took many decades, but only gained steam as each new war stimulated calls for major reforms by a war weary and often angry populace. By 1936, China was often referred to as a "social democracy," combining a democratic governance, mostly capitalist economy, and a strong welfare state. Even as the West's power died, a new, greater, more progressive democracy had emerged from the East to lead the world, to lead the world in science, culture, and democracy, an unprecedented democratic empire of over a billion citizens.
Korea even finally regained its independence in 1935, as Guangxu ceded to the demands of a growing peaceful independence movement who argued his ancestor the Daoguang Emperor had promised to eventually restore Korean independence as a tributary, and then broken that promise.
Meanwhile, China's Great Power allies had all joined the League Security Council: Germany, India, Scandinavia, Benin, Korea, Canada, and Japan. (Canada got independence when it became a Great Power, same with Benin and Korea)
And so China went into the future, having defeated the West and achieved World Peace under their guidance, and everyone lived happily ever after.
(except the people of Britain, Russia, France, and America)
(if you want a purely happy ending, well for China at least, stop reading here. After this I will imagine a post-game world)
Or so people in 1935 believed. But alas, it was not to be; far too much remained unresolved.
China eventually began to withdraw from its European colonies, as the Germans realized that a more permanent solution than just annexation was needed for the vast non-ethnic German territories they now controlled. Over the next few decades, Germany would organize a "European Union," to which virtually every non-Ottoman and non-Scandinavian nation in continental Europe joined, eager to avoid being invaded. France and Italy were made autonomous parts of that European Union, and while Germany remained dominant within it due to its sheer size, wealth, and power, the organization gradually transformed into a genuinely democratic and multiethnic nation. By the year 2016, the EU was a stable and unified nation that bordered the Ottoman Empire on its southeastern border, Scotland and Ireland on its Northwestern border (both remained independent, but England joined the EU), Scandinavia on its northern border, and Russia on its Eastern border. (Spain and Portugal were members, as was Switzerland)
Russia was restored to independence, albeit as a completely landlocked and impoverished country. Ukraine joined the European Union.
The Ottoman Empire, meanwhile, finally began to transform from a dictatorship into a genuine democracy, as the Chinese lost interest in propping up the dictator - forcing the nation's elite to make concessions, and ultimately becoming a Constitutional Monarchy.
The Arab nations, meanwhile, united by fear of a resurgent Ottoman Empire, would unite to check any further Ottoman expansion, and quietly support insurgencies in the Levant and Ottoman Africa. Eventually, prevented from declaring war by shared League membership, the Ottomans agreed to abandon their territories in Africa by referendum (which overwhelmingly voted for independence), in exchange for all the Arab states accepting their rule in the Levant in perpetuity. This shared successful resistance to the Ottomans laid the groundwork for Arabia, and by the year 2016, the nation of Egypt and the various states of the Arabian peninsula formed a union; Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli did not join the Union (voting no in referendums), but formed close alliances with each other and remained on friendly terms with Arabia. With the Middle East largely at peace and increasingly ruled by stable democratic societies, the War on Terror and such never happened, though ethnic tensions often flared in the vast multiethnic Ottoman state.
Africa underwent major upheaval, and ultimately referendums were held that redrew large parts of the map to better conform with ethnic populations; but the many nations of Africa nevertheless entered a new era of prosperity, and Benin transformed into a democratic great power that was a global economic powerhouse.
India's economy finally recovered and boomed as it industrialized rapidly.
But China, meanwhile, underwent a catastrophic economic depression in the late 1930s, and began a long fall.
The depression was perhaps inevitable - the economy had undergone nigh-ceaseless growth for the last hundred years or so, thanks to sometimes desperate efforts of the Empire to prop it up with subsidies, wars, and exploitation of conquered resources. With the world at peace, the bottom finally fell out as the Chinese economy went through an incredibly painful "correction."
Most people in China proper were disinclined to armed rebellion, kept satisfied by the newly extant welfare state. The welfare state also succeeded in halting the downward economic spiral, as the government began running heavy deficits to stimulate the economy according to newfound Keynesian economic theory.
But alas, the people in overseas China were not so lucky, especially in America. In many cases the economy had been terrible to begin with, and the welfare state was patchy or nonexistent in much of overseas China. Some armed rebellions occurred and were put down, but in the newly democratic China, many channeled their anger into voting instead.
Riding this wave of discontent, the Governor of New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, decided to form a new political party, the "New Deal" party, and united a coalition of disaffected Chinese working class people and overseas Chinese. An American who had been raised in heavily Sinified New York, he excelled at appealing to both mainland Chinese and overseas Chinese in places like America, shocking the political establishment. In the 1940 elections, his new party became the single biggest party in Parliament, and forming a coalition with various Parliamentary socialist parties, became the first ever Overseas Chinese person ever elected Prime Minister of China.
He was nearly overthrown in a coup by xenophobic Chinese generals, but an elderly Guangxi managed to help avert the coup and instead worked with FDR to address the deep problems facing China.
In the end, the New Deal program of FDR brought about further social and political reforms that helped make China a more inclusive society, and helped end the so-called Overseas Depression, but also demanded independence referendums for Overseas Chinese, and an end to China's costly wars of world domination.
In the end, the Chinese Empire was partitioned to a great degree. The former United States voted overwhelmingly for independence, though now as separate states rather than as a united nation (with the exception of California/Fusang and New York, where the people had actually been largely integrated into Chinese society). Most of China's overseas puppet states also took advantage of the opportunity to become truly independent, and of course China's territories in Europe were abandoned to the rising EU. China's depression soon ended, and deprived of much of its former voter base, the New Deal party dissolved soon after FDR's death. Guangxi, too, would soon die, and so bringing about the final end of monarchical influence on politics (none of his successors ever exercised such undemocratic influence ever again, up until 2016). The old jingoists would soon die of old age, too.
Nevertheless, by 2016, China remains the world's premier superpower, though many think the EU might someday overtake it. However, its lands are limited to mainland China (including Siberia and Vietnam), California/Fusang, New York, and a few scattered islands in the Pacific ocean.
Problems remain in the world: Most of the newly independent Americas are impoverished nations, considered "third world" countries; but overall, in 2016, the world is at peace, and China is a prosperous multiethnic constitutional monarchy with democratic governance.
Historians in the Americas, Russia, and western Europe tend to take a more unfavorable view of China's conquest-spree, but in China at least historians generally celebrate China as having defeated the evils of Western Imperialism and brought a new era of global peace and prosperity.
---
And so ends the AAR. I hope you all enjoyed! ^^ And sorry again that I had to skip to the epilogue, but there is no way I'd have finished this ever otherwise.
Epilogue, Part 1: A Chinese Future
With the conclusion of World War II, the future was decided. The 20th century world would be dominated by the East, not the West, as had been the last few centuries. History was hardly over, however, to say the least.
The world in the year 1910:
India remained a den of civil war and chaos, with Chinese military forces and advisers desperately trying to prevent the fragile new nation from collapsing under the weight of bankruptcy and a near-nonexistent military; a task not helped in the least by the fact that competition from cheaper Chinese synthetic dyes effectively destroyed the global market for one of India's biggest exports. But slowly, freed from the yoke of British colonial authorities, over the next decades, the Empire of India slowly began to modernize and adjust to the drastically changed economic circumstances.
Meanwhile, America was forcibly brought under the yoke of the Qing Empire in a brutal multi-year conquest. It was a naked war of aggression by any measure, and there was much international outcry; the Swiss even declared war on the Qing in retaliation, but they were easily crushed. Guangxu had had no desire to start the war, but a coalition of business leaders, the semi-retired Empress Dowager Cixi, and expansionists among the Council of Scholars and the military formed a coalition that prevailed upon him to bring America into the Eastern world once and for all. In particular, the Chinese economy seemed in severe danger of entering a massive depression as a result of increasing resource shortages and lack of export markets, and business leaders were eager to exploit the vast natural resources of America.
The Americans resisted with everything they had, but it was for naught; in the end, after the last American resistance forces were driven into mountain hiding spots, the Chinese unilatery declared a peace. Every piece of land except for Washington D.C. itself was annexed by the Qing Empire. Congress and the Presidency theoretically continued to exist, and had sole authority over governing D.C., but outside of D.C. they were little more than ceremonial Chinese puppets. The incredibly bloody war destroyed the once thriving American economy, with most of its once thriving factories either reduced to rubble or dismantled for spare parts. In essence, with the exception of New York and California (which had already been assimilated into the Chinese sphere, and thus were unharmed by the war), the rest of the formerly proud United States of America largely became a Chinese agricultural colony. (also, Oklahoma was returned to full Native American governance) The United States of Central America was also dismantled and replaced with a collection of newly formed Chinese tributaries, as punishment for joining the war on the side of the USA.
In Europe, however, China adopted a different approach - instead of naked conquest, they sought to aid their allies to strengthen Eastern influence over Europe. With vast quantities of Chinese advisers, investment, and military forces, the Ottomans underwent a resurgence, launching wars of reconquest against Romania and Greece - large parts of Greece, and all of Bulgaria, fell to a resurgent Ottoman Empire. While the Ottomans had performed abysmally in the Second World War, against these smaller nations they proved far more effective, especially with heavily concentrated Chinese support. With the incredible victories, the Ottomans finally began to cast away their reputation as the Sick Man of Europe, and the Ottoman dictatorship finally gained a measure of stability. Even the Ottoman economy began to recover, as the regime's formerly failed extreme laissez-faire policies finally began to see some benefits thanks to an enormous wave of investments from Chinese business people who were worried about a potentially overheating economy back in China.
Those European nations outside the League, however, did not do well. Revolutions occurred in Britain, France, and Russia practically once a year, as Reds fought Fascists fought Anarcho-Capitalists fought pro-democracy forces. The once proud British monarchy actually ended up taking up residence in Australia, having fled the country after they got tired of the latest dictator using them as a puppet or locking them up in jail cells to await excecution (only to be turned back into puppets when the newest revolution occured). Under such circumstances, combined with the economic isolation of being outside the League of Universal Prosperity, the once Great Powers of the West floundered into a state of dire poverty. The general national malaise caused by the humiliating defeat in World War II did not help (and neither did the expensive war reparations, which every dictator made sure to pay as their armies were in no condition to fight China and Germany at once). Those Western thinkers not killed by the latest dictator to take power in their country bemoaned a new Dark Ages of Europe.
Austria was one of the few nations that escaped these horrors of defeat, being kept under German protection. So grateful were the Austrian people for Germany's largesse, especially as they saw the extreme poverty of their former fellow citizens in Hungary. Soon, Germany finally triggered the referendum provision of the Second World War's peace treaty, and after a solid majority of Austrians voted "yes" to union with Germany, Austria was formally absorbed into the German Empire.
The nations of Africa, meanwhile, largely prospered, though many of the smaller ones remained technologically backwards. Benin in particular was becoming a stronger and stronger nation, and the Chinese finally began negotiations with the Empire of Benin to cede full sovereignty to them.
Australia and New Zealands' economies had survived the war untouched almost uniquely among Western powers, thanks to their efforts to remain neutral, but with ties with their former British suzerain largely lost, they had little choice but to become part of the Qing sphere of influence.
Italy, meanwhile, desperately tried to play Germany and China off against each other, as it became increasingly clear that the Sino-German alliance was preparing to split their former ally into rival spheres of influence. It worked for a time, as the Germans busied themselves with absorbing Austria and China with absorbing America, but soon that peace ended, and the Chinese and Germans marched in to partition Italy. The war was bloody, but ultimately a foregone conclusion; China annexed southern Italy and Germany the north.
The outrage of the Italian partition finally brought the remains of the Western powers together, as the various dictators from Russia, France, and England came together in an alliance to protest the naked aggression of China. (after about the 50th revolution all three of the nations finally had achieved enough stability to conduct foreign affairs again) Dubbed the Fascist Alliance by Eastern propaganda, they actually represented a wide variety of ideologies, though all were authoritarian dictators who'd committed unspeakable atrocities to their own people. Things came to a head when Germany demanded a major re-adjustment of the borders of Poland, Germany, and Poland-Lithuania, with the Fascist Alliance intervening to demand Poland's territorial integrity be respected.
Germany ultimately replied by declaring war, with China and Scandinavia joining as allies, and while the subsequent war was indeed called "World War III" and millions died, the end was a foregone conclusion. Scandinavia, China, Germany, Benin, the Ottoman Empire, Ukraine and the other League of Universal Prosperity powers. This time at the end of the war, the European parts of Britain, France, and Russia were partitioned into zones of occupation, and the Eastern Powers portrayed themselves as saviors who'd defeated the evils of genocidal fascism. (author's note: The Fascist dictators were indeed Hitler-style genocidal monsters, so this is completely true in this alternate history, but that said I don't imagine French/Russians/English people welcomed the end of their nations' existence with cheers)
After much negotiations, the annexations began - the China laid claim to the sparsely populated Asian parts of Siberia, not wanting to deal with the difficulties of keeping control over extremely population dense and nationalistic regions of Europe. Most of France was annexed by Germany. Nobody could figure out quite how to resolve the matter of England, so it was just remained under occupation pending negotiations. Scandinavia annexed coastal Russia. Ukraine annexed ethnic Ukranian regions of Russia, and the Ottomans laid claim to Muslim-majority regions of southeastern Russia. (i.e. Real Life Kazakhstan and such; for some reason Kazakhstan doesn't have a tag in Victoria 2, thus why I gave it to the Ottomans)
Meanwhile in Asia, India finally got its act together and began conquering the various independent principalities who had refused to peacefully join the new Indian nation. The one obstacle in this was that many had forged alliances with an expansionist Japan, but China intervened in these wars and forced Japan to accept Indian unity. (I used the console to have India declare war to annex all the principalities) In the eventual peace, Japan agreed to cease attempts to expand abroad, and in exchange, China formally surrendered Kyoto back to Japanese sovereignty in perpetuity, and Japan was fully accepted into the League of Universal Prosperity.
The world in 1930:
However, even as the Qing Empire reached its greatest extent abroad, driven forward by the militarist expansionists, people at home grew frustrated. New political parties emerged, representing business interests calling for laissez faire economics, and representing the working classes calling for more democracy and implementation of socialist reforms. This finally gave momentum to Guangxu's efforts to reform governance abroad, especially after Cixi finally died. Under Guangxu, China transformed from an authoritarian monarchy to a genuine constitutional monarchy. Social security, universal healthcare, unemployment insurance, free and fair democratic elections (with women's suffrage), all of which had once been thought impossible finally became possible through the cooperation of a reformist Emperor and mass movements of reformist liberals and socialists. Gradual free-market reforms meanwhile finally allowed the economy to boom, and together with vast unemployment insurance, China's former unemployment and oversupply problems were largely solved.
These efforts took many decades, but only gained steam as each new war stimulated calls for major reforms by a war weary and often angry populace. By 1936, China was often referred to as a "social democracy," combining a democratic governance, mostly capitalist economy, and a strong welfare state. Even as the West's power died, a new, greater, more progressive democracy had emerged from the East to lead the world, to lead the world in science, culture, and democracy, an unprecedented democratic empire of over a billion citizens.
Korea even finally regained its independence in 1935, as Guangxu ceded to the demands of a growing peaceful independence movement who argued his ancestor the Daoguang Emperor had promised to eventually restore Korean independence as a tributary, and then broken that promise.
Meanwhile, China's Great Power allies had all joined the League Security Council: Germany, India, Scandinavia, Benin, Korea, Canada, and Japan. (Canada got independence when it became a Great Power, same with Benin and Korea)
And so China went into the future, having defeated the West and achieved World Peace under their guidance, and everyone lived happily ever after.
(except the people of Britain, Russia, France, and America)
(if you want a purely happy ending, well for China at least, stop reading here. After this I will imagine a post-game world)
Epilogue, Part 2: All Empires Must Fall
Or so people in 1935 believed. But alas, it was not to be; far too much remained unresolved.
China eventually began to withdraw from its European colonies, as the Germans realized that a more permanent solution than just annexation was needed for the vast non-ethnic German territories they now controlled. Over the next few decades, Germany would organize a "European Union," to which virtually every non-Ottoman and non-Scandinavian nation in continental Europe joined, eager to avoid being invaded. France and Italy were made autonomous parts of that European Union, and while Germany remained dominant within it due to its sheer size, wealth, and power, the organization gradually transformed into a genuinely democratic and multiethnic nation. By the year 2016, the EU was a stable and unified nation that bordered the Ottoman Empire on its southeastern border, Scotland and Ireland on its Northwestern border (both remained independent, but England joined the EU), Scandinavia on its northern border, and Russia on its Eastern border. (Spain and Portugal were members, as was Switzerland)
Russia was restored to independence, albeit as a completely landlocked and impoverished country. Ukraine joined the European Union.
The Ottoman Empire, meanwhile, finally began to transform from a dictatorship into a genuine democracy, as the Chinese lost interest in propping up the dictator - forcing the nation's elite to make concessions, and ultimately becoming a Constitutional Monarchy.
The Arab nations, meanwhile, united by fear of a resurgent Ottoman Empire, would unite to check any further Ottoman expansion, and quietly support insurgencies in the Levant and Ottoman Africa. Eventually, prevented from declaring war by shared League membership, the Ottomans agreed to abandon their territories in Africa by referendum (which overwhelmingly voted for independence), in exchange for all the Arab states accepting their rule in the Levant in perpetuity. This shared successful resistance to the Ottomans laid the groundwork for Arabia, and by the year 2016, the nation of Egypt and the various states of the Arabian peninsula formed a union; Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli did not join the Union (voting no in referendums), but formed close alliances with each other and remained on friendly terms with Arabia. With the Middle East largely at peace and increasingly ruled by stable democratic societies, the War on Terror and such never happened, though ethnic tensions often flared in the vast multiethnic Ottoman state.
Africa underwent major upheaval, and ultimately referendums were held that redrew large parts of the map to better conform with ethnic populations; but the many nations of Africa nevertheless entered a new era of prosperity, and Benin transformed into a democratic great power that was a global economic powerhouse.
India's economy finally recovered and boomed as it industrialized rapidly.
But China, meanwhile, underwent a catastrophic economic depression in the late 1930s, and began a long fall.
The depression was perhaps inevitable - the economy had undergone nigh-ceaseless growth for the last hundred years or so, thanks to sometimes desperate efforts of the Empire to prop it up with subsidies, wars, and exploitation of conquered resources. With the world at peace, the bottom finally fell out as the Chinese economy went through an incredibly painful "correction."
Most people in China proper were disinclined to armed rebellion, kept satisfied by the newly extant welfare state. The welfare state also succeeded in halting the downward economic spiral, as the government began running heavy deficits to stimulate the economy according to newfound Keynesian economic theory.
But alas, the people in overseas China were not so lucky, especially in America. In many cases the economy had been terrible to begin with, and the welfare state was patchy or nonexistent in much of overseas China. Some armed rebellions occurred and were put down, but in the newly democratic China, many channeled their anger into voting instead.
Riding this wave of discontent, the Governor of New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, decided to form a new political party, the "New Deal" party, and united a coalition of disaffected Chinese working class people and overseas Chinese. An American who had been raised in heavily Sinified New York, he excelled at appealing to both mainland Chinese and overseas Chinese in places like America, shocking the political establishment. In the 1940 elections, his new party became the single biggest party in Parliament, and forming a coalition with various Parliamentary socialist parties, became the first ever Overseas Chinese person ever elected Prime Minister of China.
He was nearly overthrown in a coup by xenophobic Chinese generals, but an elderly Guangxi managed to help avert the coup and instead worked with FDR to address the deep problems facing China.
In the end, the New Deal program of FDR brought about further social and political reforms that helped make China a more inclusive society, and helped end the so-called Overseas Depression, but also demanded independence referendums for Overseas Chinese, and an end to China's costly wars of world domination.
In the end, the Chinese Empire was partitioned to a great degree. The former United States voted overwhelmingly for independence, though now as separate states rather than as a united nation (with the exception of California/Fusang and New York, where the people had actually been largely integrated into Chinese society). Most of China's overseas puppet states also took advantage of the opportunity to become truly independent, and of course China's territories in Europe were abandoned to the rising EU. China's depression soon ended, and deprived of much of its former voter base, the New Deal party dissolved soon after FDR's death. Guangxi, too, would soon die, and so bringing about the final end of monarchical influence on politics (none of his successors ever exercised such undemocratic influence ever again, up until 2016). The old jingoists would soon die of old age, too.
Nevertheless, by 2016, China remains the world's premier superpower, though many think the EU might someday overtake it. However, its lands are limited to mainland China (including Siberia and Vietnam), California/Fusang, New York, and a few scattered islands in the Pacific ocean.
Problems remain in the world: Most of the newly independent Americas are impoverished nations, considered "third world" countries; but overall, in 2016, the world is at peace, and China is a prosperous multiethnic constitutional monarchy with democratic governance.
Historians in the Americas, Russia, and western Europe tend to take a more unfavorable view of China's conquest-spree, but in China at least historians generally celebrate China as having defeated the evils of Western Imperialism and brought a new era of global peace and prosperity.
---
And so ends the AAR. I hope you all enjoyed! ^^ And sorry again that I had to skip to the epilogue, but there is no way I'd have finished this ever otherwise.
Last edited:
Thank you for finishing this AAR at last.
Interesting that you had the U.S. willingly fragment while the E.U. was forming into a viable confederation. Makes sense that Americans lost their love for the federal model under Chinese rule, but I don't see how Germany would give up their hegemony in Europe for a chance at a viable superstate.
Interesting that you had the U.S. willingly fragment while the E.U. was forming into a viable confederation. Makes sense that Americans lost their love for the federal model under Chinese rule, but I don't see how Germany would give up their hegemony in Europe for a chance at a viable superstate.
- 1
What a great ride. I've enjoyed it all of the way, and found this world quite believable! China's empire may have broken apart slightly, but it is now a constitutional monarchy, liberal, and the world's policeman! Huangdi Wansui! May China reign over the world for ten thousand years!
- 1
While there were some implausible parts (no, Germany would not have comepletely annexed France, and China would not have annexed the USA) overall the future seems bright for the world!
- 2
*England, it lost both Scotland and Ireland, didn't it?Poor Britain
Also, what happened to Chiang Kai-Shek Hethran? I noticed you have the Kuomintang in power.- 1
Amazing ride overall! Though I have to say, that epilogue felt a bit rushed and a tad less realistic than the rest of the AAR. Still, very enjoyable.
Do you have any new AAR projects underway?
Do you have any new AAR projects underway?
- 1