It is weird that to be recognised you need to declare war on a recognised country.

[Fawr]

@OP: I agree with you. Perhaps being a leading producer of (for the time) advanced goods together with high GDP or a lot of trade should be viable as well. If in 1905 Japan had sent a locally developed all-big-gun battleship on a world tour that equals the UKs dreadnought, this may have had a similar effect as the victory against as Russia.


1905 drove the point home very quickly. But I believe once Japan had started colonizing Asia and become technologically competitive, e.g. by domestically building cutting edge warships, they would have done so anyway, just a bit later. The process had already started in the 2 decades before 1905, as others in this thread have already shown.

It just does not make sense that European powers would not recognize a technologically leading Qing that can deploy its own Dreadnought fleet* to protect its 40% share of world GDP and world trade.

*the 1910s equivalent to microchips and space rockets as a proof of technological prowess

I don't think others would be overly impressed with China building a fleet of big ships and calling them dreadnaughts, at least until their effectiveness had been demonstrated in a serious war against an important country. China has had ships that look big and impressive before.

Part of the reason is that generals always “fight the last war”. In the last war the Chinese fleet wasn't a match for the British, and the only way to change that perception is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new Chinese navy.

 

[EquilinT]

one idea for alternative method for recognition, off of my head, would be: have a GP ally with 100 relations, allow said GP to recognize the country (send events to all other GPs about this, if any disagree they can join a diplo play against host country with the former GP backing them). AI will only accept if it has economic dependence or some other strategic reason (basically almost never).

 

[L-Histidine]

Not only do we have to war them, we have to war them while we're already major power (winning any war against them before that doesn't count. I just took down Russia in a war as Burundi and it doesn't count, because I'm not yet a major power).
And 'them' has to be a great power too, not just anyone.

On top of that, I learned earlier that recognition requires a specific wargoal rather than just winning a war (as in, say, having any of your wargoals achieved), which seems kinda unnecessary?

 

[Kyoumen]

On top of that, I learned earlier that recognition requires a specific wargoal rather than just winning a war (as in, say, having any of your wargoals achieved), which seems kinda unnecessary?

Arguable. Afghanistan successfully threw off being a Britush puppet in the third Anglo-Afghan war but didn't get "recognised" like Japan; it's pretty arguable (and has been argued) whether or not Ethiopia beating Italy did, either.