Once in a while we have discussions of how we could get (East) Asian countries such as China and Japan to establish colonies like the Europeans (without counting Japan's heavy handed and far too late attempts), but most often we run into the problem of lack of motivation.
Here, I would like propose a different approach to the subject matter. It is not uncommon in the history of European colonialism for non-European peoples to be brought into the colonies as labourers, traders or something else. The most prominent example of this, is, of course, African slavery in the new world. But it is know nto have happened with Asians as well. There are at least two cases, Dutch Taiwan and British Singapore, where an imported East Asian population (in both of these casses Chinese) ended up becoming a majority despite the actual colonizers being Europeans. The US state of Hawaii has an Asian plurality as well, and if we do not restrict ourselves to East Asians speciffically, the Indian and Javanese communities of Suriname are also an interesting example.
The challenge that I propose to the forum is to have this type of thing happen more often, and, if possible, to offer some details on what these hypothetical colonies, as well as any possible countries evolving from them, would be like.
Here are some ideas that have occured to me:
Here, I would like propose a different approach to the subject matter. It is not uncommon in the history of European colonialism for non-European peoples to be brought into the colonies as labourers, traders or something else. The most prominent example of this, is, of course, African slavery in the new world. But it is know nto have happened with Asians as well. There are at least two cases, Dutch Taiwan and British Singapore, where an imported East Asian population (in both of these casses Chinese) ended up becoming a majority despite the actual colonizers being Europeans. The US state of Hawaii has an Asian plurality as well, and if we do not restrict ourselves to East Asians speciffically, the Indian and Javanese communities of Suriname are also an interesting example.
The challenge that I propose to the forum is to have this type of thing happen more often, and, if possible, to offer some details on what these hypothetical colonies, as well as any possible countries evolving from them, would be like.
Here are some ideas that have occured to me:
- A Portuguese sandalwood-harvesting colony in Australia using mostly labourers from China, Timor and parts of modern day Indonesia. See here for more details.
- A similar thing, but with the Dutch.
- Still in Australia, an alternate British colonization that follows the original proposal by James Matra, which involved drawing settlers from China and the pacific islands.
- A surviving kongsi/lanfang republic as a British protectorate.
- Spain settling OTL California with Filipinos and Chinese (it was actually in a very convenient location in the Acapulco-Manila) at some point (possibly during the 18th century to counter more successful Russian incurssions).
- Portugal settling the coasts of present day Mozambique and Tanzania with large numbers of Indians, Malays and Chinese in order to secure a consistent food supply for its various Asian possessions and to counter troublesome African tribes.
- The US build the Panama canal earlier and use Chinese labourers to do it.