The People's Republic of Nihon (Nihon Jinmin Kyowakoku) was immediately recognised by USSR, United States, France and Britain. After the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact the same year, Germany also recognises PRN. Armed conflicts between Imperials and were still occurring two years after the fall of Tokyo in areas around the army and navy strongholds in southern Japan (Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Sasebo). Soviet receives Sakhalin and pledge financial and military support, but only a fraction is actually paid.
Meanwhile, the British unilaterally extend their lease of Chinese territory from Hong Kong to Formosa under the pretence of restoring order. Also, the "Insular" US Government in Philippines (midst of a process to grant independence to the Commonwealth of Philippines) launches an expedition to Southern Formosa, where the US had sent a military expedition in the years following the Rover incident of the 1860s.
The provisional Korean government (supported by Nationalist China) declares independence two days before Tokyo falls.
1941 to 1945
Two years after Tokyo falls to the communists, Britain and France declares war on Nazi Germany. The US, USSR and Japan stay neutral in the conflict. Soviet and Japan declares war against the Axis in 1941. However, Stalin deems orientals unreliable, effeminate and lacking the physical constitution (and Russian skills) to be useful soldiers in the harsh winter wars. The Japanese "Friendship battalion" fights on the Eastern Front - few of them ever returns home.
The attempts to industrialise the
People's Republic of Japan is excruciatingly slow under a planned economy: Its main export staples are the same as at the turn of the century, namely coal, textiles (in particular raw silk) and women. Communist Japan also maintains a large (nationalised) merchant fleet, which becomes the third largest in the world by the time of WWII in Europe. Japan runs the trans-Pacific routes, with cabotage rights into China and the archipelago of US Philippines. Trade flourish with no maritime war taking place in the Pacific.
With little success in industrial goods and raw materials, Japan relies on its services-led economy. Japan is heavily dependent on its ports and personal remittances. One-tenth of the population emigrates overseas - to China, the occupied territories in Asia, or the Americas. Over three decades of civil war, poverty and slow reconstruction have taken their toll. PRN government also pays its debt to USSR by "exporting" dissidents and their families to work in Soviet mines. Depopulation is notable in the rural areas, especially where the "imperial" IJA guerrilla still fights a scorched-earth war using child soldiers.
Communist Japan may have nationalised most means of production and collectivised its farms: Nonetheless it develops an "unhealthy" dependency on "grey market" economics, exports to non-communist markets (e.g. China and the occupied territories, or the United States). By necessity, Japan is much less ideologically orthodox than USSR on economic policy. For Japanese communism, Karl Marx's speech embracing free trade (at the 1868 Brussels Congress) becomes a central economic thesis - and an ideological fig leave.
Formosa plunges into a war. The Army Governor-General of Imperial Japan refuses to acknowledge the general order for disarmament and immediate withdrawal. The Japanese generals in Taiwan proclaim a renegade "Republic of Japan" – a cult-like enclave ruled by a civ-mil government through martial law. The past three Emperors continue to be revered as gods - yet, the cult receives the support of the locals in the light of the British and US claims on the island.
British troops easily takes Peng-hu and launch amphibious assaults on Tainan and reaches Hsinchu. The British navy also embargoes Taipei, while the US navy controls the strip of land along Formosa's east coast. An indigenous communist cell fights in the central mountains with its supplies smuggled from Mao's guerrillas in Fujian. This leads effectively to a three-way conflict and a stalemate between the US and Britain, against the communists and Japanese colonialists. Republic of Japan continues to control the capital of Taipei when WWII ends in Europe.
Republic of Korea under Kim Gu and his provisional government (sponsored by Chiang Kai-Shek) in China declares independence just before Tokyo falls to the Communists. The new foreign minister, Rhee Syng-man, is instrumental in securing American military and civilian support, as Asia moves into a Cold War. Korea comes out ahead of its neighbours economically, as it is spared from the Japanese civil war and have much of its infrastructure, food security and the educational system intact.
The vast majority of IJA forces that leave the Korea peninsula for Japan and are interned by Communists upon arrival. Most of the Japanese veterans perish in the Soviet mines. But a few thousand Japanese IJA soldiers are recruited by Chinese national army to fight Mao's communists in return for an unfulfilled promise to support them to liberate Japan. Republic of Korea supports Chiang in his war against Mao, at one point advancing as far as up to Jilin.
Korean communists are weakened by an internal division between united national communists (Kim Won-bong and Pak Hon-yong) who compete with Stalin-supported communists under Kim Il-sung, a young officer in Soviet Red Army's 88th Manchurian brigade. Kim is rejected by a majority of Koreans as an imposter as he is far too young to be the namesake resistance hero from the Japanese occupation.
By 1945, ROK is a stable entity that opened up a second front against Mao's troops in the north-eastern flank, offering Chiang's nationalists much needed relief. US bases are lined along the Yalu river, but Truman is unwilling to be drawn into the Chinese civil war.
At the San Fransisco Conference, Communist Japan is the only Asian power amongst the victorious. As an ally of Soviet, Japan is the only Asian country to have fought Germany and Italy - while both Nationalist and Communist China had remained neutral. The demarkation line between the Communist bloc (Soviet, Mao, Japan) against the US (the US, Korea and Chiang) runs roughly through the 39th parallel through China.
None of the powers possess a nuclear bomb. The a-bomb was not a necessity to end the WWII in Europe, and the war in the Pacific never took place. Soviet and the US are years away - if not a decades - from a Trinity test.
Remnants of IJA control Formosa, although it is a matter of time before British/American troops take control.