AHC: Korea is not a Japanese colony

Since the Japanese occupation of Korea plays such a big part in the histories of both North and South Korea, what would need to happen for Korea to not become a Japnese protectorate in 1905 and then outright annexed by Japan in 1910?

(Disclaimer: I am fully aware that the aforementioned events happened after 1900, but since the groundwork happened in the 19th Century, that's why I'm putting it in the Before 1900 forum).
 
Since the Japanese occupation of Korea plays such a big part in the histories of both North and South Korea, what would need to happen for Korea to not become a Japnese protectorate in 1905 and then outright annexed by Japan in 1910?

(Disclaimer: I am fully aware that the aforementioned events happened after 1900, but since the groundwork happened in the 19th Century, that's why I'm putting it in the Before 1900 forum).
Perhaps losing the war against China in 1894-1895 may be useful as their influence and position would be weaker, of course Korea would remain in China's sphere but i think it could be better than ending up as Japan's colony.

After 1900 you could have a Russian victory in the war against Japan, I don't think Russia would annex Korea, it would be more like a protectorate but Japanese ambitions would still be there.

Before the First Sino-Japanese war I can't think of another way to stop Japanese ambitions on Korea, maybe a divided Japan emerging from the Boshin War?
That way Japan would be focused in the reunification of the country.

This is an interesting topic to think about, I wonder how would Korea continue if the Japanese never took the peninsula.
 
Korea declared itself an empire in the late 1890s in order to try to assert parity with Japan, China, and Russia. Perhaps you could have another power decided that coming in as their friend would work? Of course that power MIGHT be Germany...
 
Korea declared itself an empire in the late 1890s in order to try to assert parity with Japan, China, and Russia. Perhaps you could have another power decided that coming in as their friend would work? Of course that power MIGHT be Germany...

Or perhaps France or the United States, who may be interested in countering a pro-British Japan.
 
Have the Russians beat the Japanese and drive them from Korea. Korea ends up either a neutral state or a Russian-leaning one.

Alternatively, split Korea between a Japanese South and an Independent Russian-backed north. Japan has its buffer lands and "Korea" is still independent.
 
A weaker/nonexistent Japanese Empire would definitely be a start. It would be interesting to see how Korea develops as a still-united independent kingdom in the 20th century, without Japanese colonial interference or Cold War division.
 
A weaker/nonexistent Japanese Empire would definitely be a start. It would be interesting to see how Korea develops as a still-united independent kingdom in the 20th century, without Japanese colonial interference or Cold War division.

It'd be really interesting, because Korea's latent potential as a power is surprisingly potent when you think about it. The two Koreas IOTL already have a higher combined population than the UK or France, and you could easily see it be even higher in a TL where there's no psychotic dictatorship or crippling famine in the north. The peninsula also has more mineral wealth than Japan, as well. So long as it doesn't suffer really catastrophic leadership, you would almost certainly expect this Korea to be in the top 10 global economies by the present day (South Korea is number 12 right now), and probably somewhere around number 20 for global population, although that's more up in the air with butterflies in other places. They may or may not get nuclear weapons, but that depends on a ton of other factors, and obviously plenty of significant powers don't have them right now, like Germany, Japan, Turkey, Brazil, OTL South Korea, so who knows.

I wonder about their per capita GDP, since South Korea is still a bit below where countries like France or Germany or especially the US are. Still, it has gotten past the middle income trap where countries like Brazil or Russia or South Africa have stalled out, so that's definitely another point in their favor. They're by far the largest of the East Asian Tigers, too.
 
I wonder about their per capita GDP, since South Korea is still a bit below where countries like France or Germany or especially the US are.

They are doing quite well in terms of GDP per capita, which is on par with EU28 - but their productivity is still lagging compared to the rest of OECD. https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV

Korea (and Japan) are still quite labour intensive and not as efficient as their US or western counterparts. There's a whole literature in productivity economics on this (which I will spare you from) but I've hypothesised how Korea may have ended annexation earlier in WI Japan had turned communist (two posts): https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ahc-communist-japan-in-ww2.458388/#post-18140368

I can also see Korea could have avoided colonisation if it was aligned with a western allied power and not China, i.e. Britain or France, which would have pre-empted a Japanese attack. I've been told that the late 19th century experiences and mistakes shaped how the Korean national security council thought about a future scenario around mid-00s, with emerging China. Opening up of the Korean economy (and the trade agreements with US, EU), are all consequences of the conclusions drawn at that point.
 
Have the Russians beat the Japanese and drive them from Korea. Korea ends up either a neutral state or a Russian-leaning one.
I'm leaning more towards this. I don't see how much control Russia can have over Korea with revolution breaking out all over the empire, but the Japanese are definitely coming back during the Russian Civil War. Maybe even Japan joining the Central Powers to counter Russia.
 
I've got to wonder whether or not Japanese cultural influence on Korea might not be heightened if Japan hadn't colonized Korea and pursued friendly relations.
 
Certainly it would be less loaded.

I think this might well need to be a TL where Korea has advantages over Japan, where Korea starts modernizing earlier or perhaps Japan starts later.
 
What time frame are you working with? the late 1800's I suppose a surviving Korea would need a surviving a modernizing Qing, or western help, anything before that might need either a surviving Ming or a Chinese weak enough for Korea to become an independent power in its own right.
 
Could the POD be something that happens to Japan, rather than something the Koreans do? It was hardly inevitable that Japan should manage their modernization as well as they did. Japan could fall into a prolonged civil war in the 1860's or in the 1870's, or simply fall into the same trap of indebtedness that has plagued many other developing nations. Imagine a Japan where the Satsuma rebellion remains a slow rolling insurgency, and her customs fall into the hands of foreign powers who collect all the revenues for themselves. A Japan struggling to maintain sovereignty at home is one with no time for adventures in Korea.
 
Would it have been possible for Japan to consider seeking out a colonial empire further away? Perhaps Japan could have joined the United States in the Spanish American War and occupied the Philippines and Micronesia? It already had Taiwan by 1900 so it would occupy a continuous chain of islands from the Kurils to New Guinea pretty much.

Korea meanwhile could be industrialising with European help and undergoing a major cultural shift. The Christian missions were already hugely successful OTL, maybe with British or German support they were more influential and a greater cultural exchange occurred. British would likely encourage Korea to be defensible against the Russians while German, as someone else mentioned, would like to play Korea off against Japan. I personally prefer the British option for a more prosperous Korea, albeit a contained one overall. Maybe the Koreans side with the Entente in WW1 and take the German Shandong Territories as a defensive measure against Japan. Perhaps earlier than this they attacked the Russians and took Southern Manchuria and Port Arthur.

In 1918 you could have Korea holding Yanbian to the north of Korea, Liaodong and Shandong which would be a springboard for consolidating Northern China and Manchuria. Meanwhile if Japan wanted Chinese Territory it would have to cross the sea and land in Shanghai (which it actually did OTL anyway) but it's main prize would likely be the East Indies with all their resources and without the meat-grinder that was the Chinese war.
 
There's nothing to "restore", though. The royal family had been in power for five centuries...

If we stop fighting over semantics and ponder about how modernisation/westernisation was attempted in Japan, Korea and China within a time frame of just 30 years apart - by similar groups (young nationalist academics).

What difference a few years of head start made for Japan, and that modernisers had a imperial figurehead that brought them legitimacy, rather than having to fight one.

And China is still paying for that late start.
 
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