A Seoul-less South Korea (Mao accepts January 1951 UN cease-fire resolution)

ok fair enough, I wouldn't agree, Busan is the largest city now in the country and likely the most economically important, so kind of a natural place for a capital, regardless of where it is, if they want to lay down a flag of "we're not scared of you North Korea!" as they kind of did in OTL by staying in Seoul just south of the DMZ as it is, the second most southern city doesn't really seem to ring out that message, Daejeon is better for making a stand and saying they're not scared

I'm too busy to write sentences. You bring up interesting points and here is why I still believe Taegu will be the capital city:

Why not Pusan:
1. capital cities does not need to be the largest city, although Seoul did eventually grow to be the largest
2. people think gov't wanting to escape as soon as it looks like shit goin down
3. can be victim to incursion, large or small(as form of battle, this cannot be beyond the range thought possible for SK gov't)

Why Taegu:
1. message of confidence to North(debatable)
2. easy to defend(compared to Taejon)
3. historically large city, thus much infrastructure/industry
4. central location in TTL ROK(main railway: Taejon to Pusan, now Taegu becomes midpoint)(Why not Chonju, you may ask then - because they are not well connected by railway)

(Why not Taejon:
1. The route to Taejon is just plains and easier to attack; invasion to Seoul OTL was mainly divided into 3 routes; and is same distance to DMZ as is Seoul OTL)
 
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It was Busan because Rhee was actually planning to escape to Japan.
Everybody thought it was all over.

I read somewhere that Rhee was planning on staying in Busan to the bitter end, but he also said that right before Seoul fell to the communists so it probably doesn't mean much!
 
I read somewhere that Rhee was planning on staying in Busan to the bitter end, but he also said that right before Seoul fell to the communists so it probably doesn't mean much!

The story is that, after he escaped from Seoul, he went all the way to Busan but had to go back to Taejon, as his officials felt he had went "too far". From there the capital city moved to Taegu to Busan.
 
The story is that, after he escaped from Seoul, he went all the way to Busan but had to go back to Taejon, as his officials felt he had went "too far". From there the capital city moved to Taegu to Busan.

Can't say I blame him for escaping, apparently there were communist lynch mobs looking for the ''puppet traitor''.
 
Can't say I blame him for escaping, apparently there were communist lynch mobs looking for the ''puppet traitor''.

then there were counter-communist lynch mobs, then there were counter-counter-communist lynch mobs...
the situation became highly tragic, especially as Seoul changed hands so many times.
 

The Sandman

Banned
Bigger question here: how long before the Second Korean War in this scenario, and how much more favorable is the situation for the DPRK than it would have been IOTL? Especially given that the POD would also seem to involve Taiwan being thrown under the bus and therefore even less US interest in East Asia beyond maintaining control of Japan.
 
Bigger question here: how long before the Second Korean War in this scenario, and how much more favorable is the situation for the DPRK than it would have been IOTL? Especially given that the POD would also seem to involve Taiwan being thrown under the bus and therefore even less US interest in East Asia beyond maintaining control of Japan.
Maybe this even leads to the US never intervening in Vietnam. And then the only "fortress of freedom" in East Asia becomes Australia, the Philippines and Japan.
Makes life a lot simpler, I guess.
Would NK attack? Now, this is an interesting question. There were several times in ROK history when an NK attack would have been severely crippling, but they never occurred(1960 4.19; 1961 5.16; 1979 10.26; etc). They always waited for an "internal pro-Communist movement".
Kim was very used to the idea of a nation mainly becoming Communist due to its own internal rebellions. This was seen in China and the USSR - outside forces were only for the effect of bolstering the post-rebellion world into a Communist structure. If SK sees large number of protests, NK can attack.
But the war truly depends on whether or not the US wants to deploy troops in SK.
 
Maybe this even leads to the US never intervening in Vietnam. And then the only "fortress of freedom" in East Asia becomes Australia, the Philippines and Japan.
Makes life a lot simpler, I guess.
Would NK attack? Now, this is an interesting question. There were several times in ROK history when an NK attack would have been severely crippling, but they never occurred(1960 4.19; 1961 5.16; 1979 10.26; etc). They always waited for an "internal pro-Communist movement".
Kim was very used to the idea of a nation mainly becoming Communist due to its own internal rebellions. This was seen in China and the USSR - outside forces were only for the effect of bolstering the post-rebellion world into a Communist structure. If SK sees large number of protests, NK can attack.
But the war truly depends on whether or not the US wants to deploy troops in SK.
The whole Korean peninsula fully under the control of the DPRK might not be as bad as one might think it is. Of course it would be at cost of the fantastic south korean economic success that South Korea would later achieve.Without no ROK sitting across the border, North Korea wouldn't be so defensive and more willing to reform their economy. Without no ROK the North Korean leadership wouldn't have to worry about an East German style collapse, the communist apparatus would remain in power like in China and Vietnam, their economy would open to western investment. Basically Korea would resemble Vietnam today, Korea might be a bit more pro US to counter the Chinese hegemony in the region.


What would Seoul have looked like? Pretty much as Shenyang or Hanoi looks now (or as Seoul looked in real history back in the 1970s): crowds of cyclists on dirty streets, a few highrise buildings, an occasional slogan about the greatness of "socialism with Korean characteristics", and an occasional chauffeured car of a local cadre-turn-capitalist: light-years behind the current South Korean prosperity, light-years ahead of the current North Korean destitution.




If simultaneous Chinese experience is a guide, I would suspect that those times would have added another few tens of thousands or so dead people to the regime's body count. Without the South across the border, the Pyongyang leaders would have behaved a lot more recklessly in the 1960s, as China did in the bloody decade of the Cultural Revolution. But in the course of time, liberalization would have come easier - as happened in China.

Second, without a powerful South sitting just across the border, the North would have been more willing to experiment and reform. Perhaps it would have started Chinese-style reforms at an early stage - maybe even earlier than China itself. In real history, the North has been afraid that its populace would learn too much about South Korean prosperity and that this would result in the regime's collapse. Without the South hanging around and being so provocatively prosperous and free, bolder domestic policies would have become possible.

In the long run, it is a big question whether the regime would have collapsed around 1990, or would have survived, like those of China and Vietnam. I suspect that the second option would have been more likely.



In a nutshell, "a great victory in the autumn of 1950" would probably have made life for the North Korean minority (one-third of the peninsular population) much more agreeable, but only at the expense of the lives of South Korean majority. The entire country would have been pretty much like Vietnam nowadays: a combination of a still poor but fast-growing economy, with an authoritarian but relatively permissive political regime.

The North Korean military victory in 1950 would probably have put many millions of South Koreans through very tough times, killing a significant part of them in the process. But it also would have saved many North Koreans and probably have made their lives much better.

Well, we should not be surprised too much: it is increasingly clear that the interests of two Korean peoples are not necessarily congruent, as the more than real events of the past decade clearly demonstrate.
Andrei Lankov a Russian historian who is an expert on North Korea.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/II08Dg04.html
 
The whole Korean peninsula fully under the control of the DPRK might not be as bad as one might think it is. Of course it would be at cost of the fantastic south korean economic success that South Korea would later achieve.Without no ROK sitting across the border, North Korea wouldn't be so defensive and more willing to reform their economy. Without no ROK the North Korean leadership wouldn't have to worry about an East German style collapse, the communist apparatus would remain in power like in China and Vietnam, their economy would open to western investment. Basically Korea would resemble Vietnam today, Korea might be a bit more pro US to counter the Chinese hegemony in the region.

The main problem with a North Korean Doi Moi was that they had a dynastic personality cult the the Vietnamese and the Chinese lacked.

Uncle Ho was pretty much a figurehead by the time he died, and even Mao suffered blow to his prestige during the cultural revolution, especially after Lin Biao's death. So in these two countries, the forces of ideological orthodoxy was less prevalent than in TTL Korea. To make matters worse, the Kim cult ITTL would be strengthened by their solid achievement in national unification.

A second problem to TTL DPRK is that they might not view their strategic situation much better than its OTL counterpart view theirs. With US troops out of the peninsular, the Soviets and the Chinese had less incentives to help the North Koreans, exposing Sino-Korean and Russo-Korean relations to potential clash of interests, which are numerous even IOTL. In addition, with the entire country on their hand, they have to face Japan right across the Tsushima Strait. Given the colonial history, even a peaceful Japan would be seen as a massive threat by the Koreans, let alone a Japan that might be allowed to rearm earlier ITTL, due to the US red scare.

A poor country with strong personality cult and high external threat reminds me of countries like Communist Albania and Romania, which are not the best reformers.

That being said, adding a whole lot of southern Korean leftists and communists to the DPRK cadre corp might help diluting Kim dynasty's influences, and given the demographics, DPRK twenty or thirty years after unification might be dominated by southern cadres, with potentially positive influences.
 
Daegu (or Taegu) is indeed located in such strategic place, but had only two direct rail connections by this point (1951), one is the Daegu line (to Gyeongju) and another one is the Gyeongbu line (to Busan). Hardly a central point of railway network.

Also Daejeon (or Taejon) is about 75 km away from the front (assuming the demarcation line is formed at Pyeongtaek). OTL Seoul is 40 km away from the demarcation line, so this ATL Daejeon is far far more distanced from the front than OTL Seoul.
 
(Sorry David for the necromancy.)
Daegu (or Taegu) is indeed located in such strategic place, but had only two direct rail connections by this point (1951), one is the Daegu line (to Gyeongju) and another one is the Gyeongbu line (to Busan). Hardly a central point of railway network.
Well, the Gyeongbu line also leads to Tajeon/Cheonan. While this does make both Jeolla provinces quite remote, connecting them shouldn't be a problem.
Also Daejeon (or Taejon) is about 75 km away from the front (assuming the demarcation line is formed at Pyeongtaek). OTL Seoul is 40 km away from the demarcation line, so this ATL Daejeon is far far more distanced from the front than OTL Seoul.
But the terrain between the TTL-border and Tajeon is much less hilly than OTL-border and Seoul; at least it's possible to make choke points(i.e. at Paju, Uijeongbu, etc) because we know the attack has to come through flat plains. Now it's much easier for North Korea to launch attacks.
 
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