A Wrong Turn Right- Reunified China, 1975

China is the natural sequel here since I lost my train with the Russian write-up just as we were getting to Tsar Alexanders intervention in the ongoing unrest in China. It was a natural move, frankly an inevitable one. The deposed Emperor Puyi had traveled extensively following his exile in 1912, before settling finally settling in St Petersburg in 1926. He was initially a bit of an oddity in Russian high society, but still he was a likeable and well cultured young man so he soon ingratiated himself. He and Tsarevich Alexei would become firm friends in the following years. During the Russian Civil War he had fled with royal court and had even received a commission in the army as the conflict wound down, accompanying the Imperial army east in 1943 as it set out to despose the treacherous general Wrangel.

Of course the entire world could see what was happening when the Tsar made a formal declaration of his intentions to the Duma. Britain, France, and Germany had more or less smoothed over the bad feelings left behind by the War of the Three Emperors (I'll stick with that as the canon name, much more badass), and they all knew that the Tsar had a bad taste still in his mouth from the peace the European Coalition (later Commonwealth) forced him to adhere to at the end of the Civil War. Japan was pretty much in the same boat, though feeling considerably more threatened since Russian intervention in China dramatically increased the chances of war, something which a currently very stretched JIA really didn't want to risk. So European powers renewed the old coalition, and Japan hopped on board, forming l'Entente Asiatique. And just as luck would have it the flailing Kuomintang was in the market for a foreign ally! Of course more than a few of them turned up their noses at the Japanese but hey beggars can't be choosers, who else is gonna help you, the Americans??

Tibet was pretty much guaranteed by the British. The Russians weren't too keen to push into the mountains just to get into a shooting war with all of Europe, the Republicans didn't get much say in the matter. Tibet is pretty similar to 2000's Iran in terms of theocratic government, but there's no internet or mass television industry, so no one really knows about it.

There's currently been a total of two official conflicts between the Imperial and Republican Chinas. The Shanghai War was a brief but very brutal conflict which began in 1956 after the Japanese military cargo ship, the Natsu, had a power outage in the rough, autumn sea, just as it approached Shanghai. It was a damn old ship so that was sort of to be expected at some point, just poor timing really. Shanghai had seen little conflict during the Reclamation, though the Qing position in Haimen, just to the north, had made the position incredibly tense. The city was mostly garrisoned by European and Japanese troops, the Republicans being too nervous of spooking the northerners to order a mass withdrawal. The Natsu faltered out to see, and a Qing patrol boat opened fire. A totally avoidable situation which sparked a major conflict. Fortunately however the war was brief, though brutal. The humanitarian crisis which emerged from the bombardment of Shanghai would become one of the iconic anti-war examples thrown about when people discuss this sort of stuff. Many a Chinese soldier died quiet horribly during the countless attempted crossings of the river, since with no Great War to give us an example of how stupid assaulting fortified positions is people still thought it was doable. Tsarevich Nikolai is killed, along with his entire company of Russian "volunteers" in one such crossing. The peace treaty which came of it all did however officially end the Civil War as well, which is a pub quiz fact in this universe. It would however have wider global impact, such as being part of the catalyst for both Korean and Australian independence.

The second conflict began in 1964 following a diplomatic incident. The usual sort of thing, members of the Japanese consulate in Peking are accused of espionage and backing a pro-republican support network in the north. What can I say? Japan go hard. The Second Shanghai War was surprisingly less bloody than its predecessor, and also very little actually happened in or near Shanghai, except for bi-weekly artillery bombardment. There are also numerous skirmishes on the far western border, Tibetan border guards are minted by the end of this, but the most defining examples of the war however are the long range bombing runs conducted by both Imperial and Republican China. Cities which previously thought little of potential conflict with their neighbour now found themselves under a seemingly never ending barrage of bombs, both conventional and in some cases chemical. By the end of the conflict in 1967 dissatisfaction with both regimes is reaching fever pitch, unrest is brimming, and pirate media outlets are openly calling for increased democratization and the inevitable future reunification of China.

The path has been long and bloody, but both sides are eager to see an end to it all. Tsar Michael, who took the throne in 1965 following his fathers sudden death (his hemophilia got the better of him in the end), was eager to reopen channels to Europe, and saw peace in China as a means to promote this. Similarly his distant cousins Edward VIII and Wilhelm IV were also willing to extend the olive branch towards Russia on behalf of the European Commonwealth*. With the possible exception of France (who viewed Chinese reunification as a potential threat to the Indochinese Union) Japan was the only interventionist power which opposed the reconciliation efforts in China. Currently they're feeling very isolated by the good vibrations coming from mainland Eurasia, and they might even be desperate enough to turn to the isolationist and highly conservative United States or Australian Republic as a future ally.

Oh also a brief explanation on Macondism, which will be appearing a lot more from now on. Macondist ideology was created in Colombia sometime in the 20's, a United Fruit plantation sets up a small Methodist church for the American workers in the village of Macondo and invites in a missionary, who convinces a young man, Jose Manuel Estébanez, of some of the benefits of Protestantisms detached leadership structure and emphasis on good works to help the less fortunate. He'll basically go on to found Liberation theology a few decades earlier. Currently it's very popular in Latin America, even the more oppressive regimes adopting some of it's rhetoric. There's an actual Macondist revolt in Central America against the Fruit companies at the time of this map, which the US has stepped in to put down, along with a less than enthusiastic Mexico. It's become a dominant ideology among anti-colonial groups in Africa, and in much of Catholic Europe since it does blend left-wing radicalism quite seamlessly with Christian moralism. It's very popular in Spain where Macondists are in government, and are responsible for keeping Spain from joining the European Commonwealth*, and in Ireland where the shared "Radical Revolutionary Christ" has created a common ground between independence minded Catholics and Presbyterians who believe that their Unionist leaders are too influenced by greed and their own corruption. The movement managed to grow in China, mostly because the Europeans didn't let the regime crush it immediately since they blended in with the other Christian missionaries. By time they realized what was up they were already fighting in the streets.

Most practitioners are actually quite secular, or at least they're happy to let worship and your personal interpretation of God be up to you just as long as you're helping liberate the masses as Christ wanted. Women are also considered more or less equal, since they consider the Old Testament to just be the history of a theocratic monarchy (Israel), so they don't really care for Genesis either. Just don't ask them about contraception or abortion or you're liable to get your head torn off. Surprisingly for what's basically a Protestant knock-off they do not get along too well with Jews, which could be blamed on the Catholic influences or on the continued stereotyping of Jews as the middle-upper class money lenders.

Luxembergism took a bit of a weird turn in this world, Rosa was tragically killed in a riot following German capitulation in the War of the Three Emperors, however her take on Marxism was adopted and altered by the more radical elements of the SPD to oppose the imposition of a centralising socialist government for Germany. It's mooshed in with a lot of anarchist thinking over the years, after Bolshevism and its collapse discredited authoritarian leftism, but it's still one of the more traditional radical left ideologies. Sanyalism is a recently developed Indian ideology, it's basically just Luxembergism but with some India specific stuff. It's unsurprisingly pretty similar to the Naxalite's of our universe.