Part 42: Sino-German Friendship
Germany's entry into the war was absolutely vital to China's plans. China lacked the power projection capability to menace the American east coast; and if America's vast Atlantic fleet abandoned the Atlantic, sailed around South America, and arrived in the Pacific, China risked having its entire invasion force cut off without hope of reinforcement from mainland China. However, if America was threatened by the prospect of a German invasion from the east, America would be unlikely to do that. Thus, China launched a massive diplomatic offensive to strengthen ties with the German Empire.
Under Chinese pressure, Germany had finally enacted a law prohibiting racial discrimination against Chinese people, and setting strict penalties for racial hate crimes committed against Chinese people. The measure was actually quite popular in Germany itself - racists who followed social Darwinistic theory were increasingly forced to admit that according to their own racist theories, the insistence on Chinese racial inferiority was increasingly becoming ludicrous. Slavic people, black people, other Asians, and so forth were however unprotected by the new laws; but Chinese propaganda ignored this unpleasant detail, and the state presses published glowing assessments of Germany as a nation that had cast aside its barbaric European roots and joined the civilized world.
German nationalists were, however, was growing increasingly frustrated with their country's role as an inferior to China in official relations, and taking advantage of China's quiet feelers for support against America, the German government sent a series of demands to China.
1. All official Chinese diplomatic correspondence would refer to Germany as an "ally" rather than a "tributary." In addition, China agreed to cease referring to trade with Germany as "tribute."
2. German citizens in China would be entitled to all the same rights and protections of Chinese citizens under Chinese law, including most controversially a Chinese pledge to not deport Germans before their visas expired, or seize their property, without a formal trial proving they were guilty of a crime. The rules would only apply to those Germans who entered the country legally, of course. German citizens would also be allowed to pursue citizenship the same as the citizen of a Chinese tributary would, even though China had agreed to stop treating Germany as a tributary.
3. The German Ambassador would still perform the kow-tow ritually, but in Germany's case it would purely be a symbolic gesture of respect to the Emperor; rather than a gesture of submission, like it was for other tributaries.
4. China formally agreed to recognize Germany as a civilized nation.
In short, China was forced to agree that henceforth in the relationship between China and Germany, China would merely be first among equals, rather than viewing itself as an overlord.
This was very controversial in China, and many conservative and reactionary officials objected fiercely; Germany, they argued, was still very much an uncultured barbarian power, and to claim a status nearly equal to the Middle Kingdom was ludicrous beyond words to them. However, others countered that while Germany still had much to learn, their steadfast loyalty to China's leadership proved they were well on the path to civilization, leaving their barbaric past beyond; and while it would indeed be presumptive of Germany to claim such high status for itself, if the Emperor chose to award such status to Germany in return for its great aid to the civilized world against the European barbarians, he had every right to give such a magnanimous reward. China would still be the true center of world civilization, after all, but it was entirely possible for there to be lesser centers of civilization who would look to China for guidance. One noted liberal scholar declared,
"Was it not true that the Daqin (Roman), Indian, and Muslim empires of the past had learned much from China, nearly abandoning their barbarian ways before China absence allowed them to fall to the forces of barbarism? China must not withdraw from the world again, and China must support all those nations who would look to the Middle Kingdom's leadership! Germany is a shining beacon, spreading the light of our civilization to the barbaric lands of Europe."
The Emperor agreed to all of Germany's demands, in the end, but the controversy would go on for a long time.
Nevertheless, the new legal protections were to be the beginning of a massive golden age of commerce between the German Empire and China. Many trade treaties were swiftly signed between the two powers; German industrialists were eager to purchase the near limitless supplies of luxury goods and raw materials coming out of China and its vast array of tributaries, and the Chinese were eager to purchase and study more modern German technologies and goods. This led to a massive boom in China's shipping industry, which grew at an alarming rate that threatened to equal the British Empire's vast trading empire; though China was still held back by a lack of steam engine technology, many Chinese merchants took it upon themselves to sell their old wooden hulks and instead buy new, German-manufactured steamships. China's small but very wealthy population of capitalists eagerly invested money in Germany, in part because they felt investment in Germany's more market-oriented economy might be more secure and profitable than reinvestment in China's state capitalist and heavily merchant-phobic economy. German business-people replied in turn, eagerly buying up stocks in China's factories; while China's 51%-state controlled rule made it impossible for the Germans to seize control of any of them, the heavily state-subsidized Chinese textile industry presented a very secure and high-growth investment alternative for Germans worried about the volatility inherent to free markets.
Other European powers were increasingly alarmed at how Germany's economy seemed to be drifting out of the Western bloc, fearing Germany had permanently aligned itself with the Qing Empire against their fellow Europeans. And it was against this background that Germany tentatively began to agree to support Chinese plans for expansion.
Alas, efforts to justify the war were still fraught with problems.
Meanwhile, the island of Shumshu, once nothing more than a Chinese military base, appealed to the Emperor for full recognition as a province of China proper; the Emperor granted the request.
Meanwhile, the Balkan War commenced in Europe, with the Ottomans mounting a perhaps ill-conceived attempt to liberate Bulgaria from Romanian control, which Romania had held ever since the Ottomans lost an earlier war. However, Greece and Serbia rose to the defense of Romania, and the decaying Ottoman regime had difficulty facing all of them at once.
At the same time, war broke out in Europe, as Belgium demanded Polish independence. All the great powers in Europe joined in on side or the other, though ultimately the war would end without Russia losing Poland. China payed little attention to the conflict.
Meanwhile, America finally noticed the massive military build up in Fusang, and America's leaders began to fear a Chinese invasion was imminent.
Chinese propaganda efforts to smear the Americans, painting the Americans as aggressors who were planning an unprovoked attack on Fusang, did not exactly reassure the USA.
Nor did China's unilateral annulment of prior military access treaties with the Americans, signed during the war against Mexico. (Picture taken from before the war in Europe broke out, used here instead for narrative reasons)
Nor did the realization that with China's rapidly expanding tributary network in Africa, a second front from the east was a very real fear.
In even more alarming news, China's government decided to refocus its efforts from promoting scientific theory and philosophy, to a massive encouragement of military and industrial modernization, as China's economy geared up for a massive war. If China was to defeat the more modern American army, a serious program of military modernization was needed.
In one last major philosophical advance, however, social science underwent a massive revolution, as Chinese academics increasingly devoted themselves to studies like linguistics, archaeology, economics, law, and other less technical sciences.
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But it was becoming increasingly clear to the entire world that a Sino-American War was an inevitability; the only question left was when it would break out.