China might have megafreighters but no foreign port in 1945 could handle them. Modern container ships are twice the tonnage of an Iowa or Yamato-class.
The smaller container ships used to move stuff from port to port would like a word.
They are relatively shallow draft, and come with cranes, so are still very well usable.
And intermodal containers were designed to fit on older WWII era flatbed rail cars just fine.
English tunnels were some of the tightest around, because Early Adopter penalty...
I calculated how big a box could fit at or above platform level for my own fic's early containerization, and I got almost exactly the dimensions of an intermodal container, about 2.4 x 2.5m x 12m (just shy of 40 foot) long (I forget the exact numbers).
Piers commonly had train tracks running up the pier... You can see where this is going.
And how many of those smaller ships are available to the rest of the world in 1945? Modern steel cargo containers didn't even EXIST before the late 1940's and weren't ISO compliant until 1968.
And don't forget that YELLOW PERIL/RED SCARE is going to be in full effect for most of the world so if you think the average Chinese is ignorant enough to not rally round the flag in this moment of crisis, I have a bridge to Terebithia to sell ya.
And how many of those smaller ships are available to the rest of the world in 1945? Modern steel cargo containers didn't even EXIST before the late 1940's and weren't ISO compliant until 1968.
Fit some cranes onto the bigger ships and... those become floating depots trans-shipping from outside some other major port via the smaller ships. Sure it's not the best solution but it's something for hte near future while China's shipyards furiously crank out more small container ships.
And intermodal containers do fit on WWII flatcars.
Yeah actually the (Second) Red Scare was actually triggered in no small part by the fall of China to communism.
That said, while some people might get taken in by the PRC's apparent pretensions to communism and rule by the Chinese Communist Party well... the modern PRC couldn't really be described as even nominally communist except insofar as it maintains the political structures of a communist state.
That said, I don't think we should underestimate the not-inconsiderable presence of anti-Asian prejudice in the United States and other Western countries. We are just coming off of WWII and mass internment of Japanese-Americans in the US after all, it's pretty safe to say there are a lot of people with deeply-felt prejudices.
The problem is, it's hard to see how much influence this kind of group is going to have: the balance of power would be massively one-sided in China's favour and the desire and need for Chinese goods and technology is going to vastly outweigh any questions of their political system and the like.
But I can't see a path forward to that: China wouldn't want it, and various Korean resistance and independence movements wouldn't accept it.
By 1945, Korea has been under direct Japanese rule for 35 years starting from the annexation of Korea in 1910. Since then, resistance movements of varying stripes have all emerged to fight Japan with the ultimate goal of Korean independence: some, such as the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea led by Syngman Rhee, sought a more moderate regime modeled off of liberal republicanism. Others such as the communists sought a far more radical transformation of post-liberation Korea. But exactly none of them wanted to join another nation. Even when Korea was a tributary of China, it was still always an independent state, albeit one that was almost exclusively bound to China in its foreign affairs.
Koreans won't forget their decades-long struggle for independence from one nation only to immediately surrender it to another. Korea in this setting would obviously be extremely close to China diplomatically, but Korea is going to want China as a "first among equals" not as an overlord.
That said, I don't think we should underestimate the not-inconsiderable presence of anti-Asian prejudice in the United States and other Western countries. We are just coming off of WWII and mass internment of Japanese-Americans in the US after all, it's pretty safe to say there are a lot of people with deeply-felt prejudices.
Let's wait for the new and inexperienced Korean government, once China concludes its hand-holding, to muck up its first major economic crisis.
You're going to hear a LOT of grumbling, and a LOT of the Koreans would by then have Chinese blood ties or have outright Chinese citizenship.
Hmm, China WILL want direct access to the Sea of Japan under its own sovereignty, which means asking for a small land sale in the north-northeast of Korea... yeah, the Chinese would probably offer a lot of governmental support, so likely no accidental petition for annexation.
Still, TTL Koreans will likely see China as a generally benevolent brother/uncle figure.
China would genuinely freak out the Western world and Soviets once everyone understood what they are dealing with, but the CCP Politburo is made up of cautious people, and China will mainly be concerned with stabilizing it's own economy. Taiwan will be in a deeply uncomfortable position, China won't attack immediately, but it will be more threatened than ever. The world economy is greatly affected.
The real question is what happens when all the "future knowledge" gets out and becomes widely known.
Do non-Chinese nationals and shipping is the ISOT'd area get transferred? If the answers yes then I think America's the big winner out of this. Consider that there is almost always a US Warship in port somewhere in Taiwan or the sea zones identified, add in seconded personal and the like serving on Taiwan.
I think it would be easier for 1945 America to absorb modern knowledge than it would be for current day China to absorb the system shock of having a globally integrated economy suddenly un-integrated.
For my tastes there is a bit too much China whitewashing in this thread tbh.
Even today China is a dictatorship that obviously has imperialist goals (*cough* New Silk Road *cough*) , is opposed to human rights and gearing up for Cold War 2: Electric Bogaloo.
I don't see where people see the rationality in the Chinese system of governance. Currently we are able to experience in real time how Xi rebuilds the state towards absolutist rule as a dictator.
So this state, that absolutely needs a modern world economy to function, is thrown into a time where world productivity is at its nadir. Europe is in ruins, Japan is in ruins, India is still an exploited colony and the richest oil fields are basically untapped.
The government derives most of its legitimacy from uplifting the country from crushing poverty.
Its not hard to see how China ITTL would milk the world dry. Decolonization will be "Whoever gets China ressources the quickest". The Soviet Union is quickly going to be relegated to a Chinese satellite. The USA enjoys a high degree of independece from the world market but China absolutely needs access to US markets.
I see a ton of potential conflict and a massive economical collapse for China. So dystopia seems like a fitting description. Especially if we replace democracy and human rights with dictatorship and CPC party line as guideline for rebuilding Europe and Japan.
EDIT: Modern day USA ISOTed to 1945 also would be horrible btw. The economic dynamics of scenarios like this are horrible enough. Collectivist dictatorship is just the cherry on top.
Hmm, spaghetti posting is considered rude, but someone is so full of it that literally every chunk of their arguments needs to be hacked up...
EDIT: Derp I misread the Rules segment below by tunnel visioning on "not necessarily offensive"
A number of other behaviors - while not necessarily offensive to discussion - are disruptive because they make discussion more difficult or raise the barrier to entry for others. Posting long spools of quotes snipped out of posts and responded to individually - "spaghetti posting" - is confusing and frustrating for users who are just browsing. In a similar way, certain sourcing practices - articles or videos in a foreign language without a translation or explanation, articles behind a paywall, videos without text, and so on - make it very difficult for users to participate in a conversation. If you are intending to rely on these kinds of materials, you need to make an effort to identify, isolate, and summarize the relevant parts in your post.
I think it would be easier for 1945 America to absorb modern knowledge than it would be for current day China to absorb the system shock of having a globally integrated economy suddenly un-integrated.
The Chinese are currently still mostly old enough to remember times when there just wasn't enough to eat and they had to tough it out, or remember the looks on their parents' faces as they told them the stories.
They'll tighten their belts and go back to being The Bicycle Kingdom without much fuss, and see this whole mess as a golden opportunity. A lot of the more adventurous ones will emigrate, but overall they'll stay quiet and watch which way the winds blow.
The Chinese are an insular and cautious culture who are still hyper-aware that the world is a dangerous place. They will not have nearly so much a wake-up shock as certain countries where the sheep have become so protected they cannot understand that wolves exist (see Israeli feedback on how naive Western/Northern European tourist women often act, even after only escaping abduction/rape because the driver had to stop at an IDF checkpoint).
A grave economic depression will be expected and prepared for by the Chinese people as a whole, but they know full well that after the recovery, the world is their oyster. The Chinese are very good at delaying gratification.
"And do you know why? I normalized diplomatic relations with China in 1979. Since 1979 do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? None. And we have stayed at war," -Jimmy Carter
Who the imperialist country is is pretty obvious, methinks someone is projecting.
Because letting bandwagon violence or incitement of all types run wild has done the US so much good ever since the Salem Witch Trials, lynch mobs, etc... Oh wait...
The Chinese camera network allows its young women to walk alone at 3-4 AM (the weakest hours of the human body) with little fear. In the US saying that such behaviour is voluntarily taking on risk gets you deplatformed for "misogyny", meanwhile the young people of many cities, at least those not in gangs, don't feel safe going out at 3 AM.
The American "Free Press" has gone so far into hyping things up that they're claiming China rounded up... what's the latest number, 3 million Uyghurs?
Xinjiang has 24 million people, about 45% Uyghurs, that's about 11 million people.
Rounding up people on the "pretense" of avoiding radicalism... will almost certainly be mostly targeting working-age men. How many working-age men do you think are in 11 million people? Well how the fuck do tourists still see relatively normal numbers of working age men around??? It's as stupid as telling us that Alabama rounded up 300,000 African-Americans for re-education... and then everyone noting that there's no visible reduction in young men going about their normal everyday business.
Because killing one's own domestic industries like Japan did to Toshiba in 1987 on US demand is a great idea. China is a sovereign nation, not an American puppet, and the Chinese people want it to stay that way.
That is DEMOCRACY, the WILL OF THE PEOPLE.
If China was democratic it would already be in a Cold War if not actual war with the US. The CCP has done marvelously in keeping a lid on the more nationalistic types who are furious whenever the US attacks Chinese interests in some way.
First part of this is incorrect. The Chinese might have to step down a bit but the vast bulk of the population is old enough to remember the times before centralized sewage services.
Second part... Well China's got the factories standing ready to flood the world market and fill that productivity shortage, as soon as they sort out the shipping issues (which will be really fast given small container ships that have their own cranes exist and can be built quickly).
Looking at trade balances and who can produce all they need on their own, you've flipped the countries pretty hard. The US service sector provides most of its jobs, and the service sector, especially finance, is the MOST dependent on international commerce.
Meanwhile, China is going from manufacturing to technocracy.
EDIT: Modern day USA ISOTed to 1945 also would be horrible btw. The economic dynamics of scenarios like this are horrible enough. Collectivist dictatorship is just the cherry on top.
The USA would go on a moral crusade of Manifest Destiny, forcing its ways on others.
China would just shrug, do business and let others adapt to them over time.
Forcing someone with clear threats is morally inferior to shrugging and going to do business with their rivals.
You can see this in how well the West has gone in improving Africa since decolonization with all their "charity". Meanwhile China is actually building infrastructure there with the understanding that shortening economic distances is how you a) tie a country together and b) encourage economic activity and productivity.
The behaviour of the West toward Africa has in recent times at least mainly been a matter of moral grandstanding by dispensing alms. China has taken up building roads and means of production. Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish (when you can see he's not just about to starve to death) and he'll eat for much longer and possibly be able to make something of himself.
"It doesn't matter if it's a black cat or white cat, as long as it catches mice, it's a good cat." -Deng Xiaoping-
The guy's old (born 1953, he's 66 already) and doesn't have Sith techniques of BS life extension, so let him try out being leader for like 15-20 years. Men of his age range without the ability to breed more (see emperors and Trump's remarriages) will focus on what sort of legacy they leave, if they had the willpower to even get where he is now. And that means he's going to do the following:
a) everything he can to keep the country improving.
b) make sure the books are cooked as little as possible, as being debunked in the future would be bad for his legacy.
c) Almost certainly either work himself to death or retire once he realizes he's working himself to death.
US politicians are lawyers locked against each other in a short-term-popularity contest, while Chinese politicians are engineers locked together in a medium-term to long-term performance contest. Big differences there.
US politicians get stopped dead by a few people suing to stop a Californian high speed rail line from being built with an adequately small number of stops to actually go fast (and a parallel bus line with far more stops, which allows easy transfer to). Chinese politicians have the legal environment to do what the engineers, environmental consultants (HSR is laughably more efficient per person-kilometer than cars), planning boards have concluded is most efficient and put the many above the few.
...Though sometimes they have to deal with mass protests demanding high speed rail be built through one city instead of a neighbouring city. These Chinese People Want High-Speed Rail So Badly They Are Fighting Police to Get It
The Chinese are professional delayers of gratification, which means although many Chinese thought HSR would mostly be a flop because it would be too expensive, they were at least willing to wait and see instead of REEEEEEE screeching (in case you don't think Chinese protests work, in numerous easily-searched examples, the government and companies had to decide to build chemical plants elsewhere because of protests against pollution). And most of the leadership understood that changing economic patterns would be a vast net positive.
I believe that while China won't go full colonization mode I still believe they might try to make countries that have resource more agreeable with them. Though they don't care too much about ideology so that should be easier for them without having to fight it out.
I live in country that is country that is rule by military Junta (Thailand) and can say that while political freedom is restricted and some corruption here and there it is not as bad as westerner say it is (compare to democratic days). I can't absolutely say what China is really like but I certainly believe that not all authoritarian regime is inherently bad.
I think,that China would dominate,not conqer world - becouse conqering is good,when you could profit from loot.I think,that any loot would be no worth of efforts,becouse modern war is very,very expensive.
How many Americans in the 1940s could tell a Chinese 'slant-eye' from a Japanese 'slant-eye'? At the 'all-time low' of anti-Chinese sentiment ethnic Chinese people were still banned from owning property. I think you're direly underestimating how racist America was and would be.
How many Americans in the 1940s could tell a Chinese 'slant-eye' from a Japanese 'slant-eye'? At the 'all-time low' of anti-Chinese sentiment ethnic Chinese people were still banned from owning property. I think you're direly underestimating how racist America was and would be.
There definitely was less anti-Chinese sentiment than anti-Japanese.
That was not just the recent war.
There had long been a desire of closer US-China relations, sending missionaries, more trade, and dismay at the Europeans powers spheres of influence in China (remember anti-colonialism was strong for a lot of Americans, c.f. Mark Twain scathing critique of US imperialism in the Philippines, at the same time that Manifest Destiny was ascendant).
We would call a lot of that pro-Chinese benevolence was both paternalistic and orientalist, and that would be correct, but it was not all racist.
I hate it when people of the past are dismissed as all racists, all cruel sadists, all uneducated imbeciles.
Throughout history there have always been people that were unprejudiced. That saw the common humanity in all cultures.Their views might have been rarer and more controversial, but they were absolutely not exceptional freaks. They were often just as mainstream as those that were not.
In many ways, the historical prejudices of modern people (call it 'anachronisticism', 'presentism', 'chronocentrism', whatever) are just as great. Looking down at cultures in a different time can be as easy as looking down at cultures in a different space.
###
Coming back to this particular scenario, there is also like in all isots the cultural influence of the future country.
Whatever cultural views happen to be held, they will be changed by the new information.
It's inevitable that it will reduce the view of the Chinese as objectively inferior. It might increase "Yellow Peril" thinking among some (it will by probably quite a lot), but exactly because of the apparent capabilities of the new China. Regardless, views on China and the Chinese will change radically, for the better and for worse, and both at the same time.
A lot will depend on what the actual geopolitical situation evolves to.
I think it is highly unpredictable.
You could have a turbo-Cold War with Red Peril Yellow Scare on steroids, as easily as China taking the role of the (supposedly) benevolent OTL USA and leading postwar reconstruction with new technologies. And more likely some gray scenarios in-between, with a lot of confusion and insecurity.
