Best Korea Challenge

Okay, starting with whatever POD needed after 1900, have Best Korea be the only Korean nation in existance by 2010, have it be a relatively decent nation, and still have Kim Jong Il as the leader.
 
The Soviets never agree to stop at the 38th parallel, instead taking the entire Korean Peninsula (perhaps invading Manchuria earlier than OTL). The Republic of Korea never exists and only the Democratic People's Republic of Korea exists.

Perhaps Operation Downfall is at least attempted and fails or works at a terrible cost, allowing the Soviet Union to move further and take Seoul.
 
The North eventually captures Pusan, and the Incheon landing is either called off or is a total failure. The UN and the DPRK sign a peace treaty recognizing the entire Korean Peninsula as red.

Kim Il Sung, now more confident than in OTL, charts a more independent path, especially after de-Stalinization. He condemns both the Soviet Union and Mao and becomes Tito's Asian ally. He always allows a degree of market economy and private enterprise, so that buying basic goods won't involve long lines. This fact is exploited for propaganda purposes. From the early 1980s, Kim Il Sung purges the remaining Stalinists from the Party and permits foreign private investment in a consumer goods export industry and local private enterprises. While he's in fact inspired by Deng's initiative, the propaganda machine claims precisely the reverse to preserve Kim's face. By 1985, the reforms are solidified by the first Japanese private investment in Korea, made possible after the last of the hardliners (who had opposed any relationships with Japan) are sent into retirement.

Kim is still respected as a fatherly figure, but more along the lines of LKY in Singapore than with the bizarre personality cult of OTL. This means the death of Kim Sr. and Kim Jr.'s ascendance is more institutional as a new generation of technocrats continues the pace of economic reforms while managing the social problems which come with them. Per Capita GDP is $10000 and grows steadily at 6-7%. Korea is still a repressive one party state, though with reasonable personal freedoms similar to the PRC. Chinese state-owned companies wield large economic influence, but Kim appeals to nationalism to save his face.
 

Sumeragi

Banned
Kim Il Sung dies in an assassination in 1947, making Pak Hon-yong the leader of DPRK. Being as much of a Korean as his southern counterparts, he works with Yuh Woon-Hyung, Kim Kyu Shik, and Kim Gu to unify Korea under the People's Republic of Korea. Being similar to a left-wing version of Austria, it develops greatly from being able to utilize its northern heavy industry, which is upgraded from investment from the US and USSR. It becomes the wealthest country per capita in East Asia, as Japan is transformed into a deindustrialized Asian Switzerland and China is in perpetual civil war between Mao and Chiang. In 1996, Kim Jong Il becomes President of the PRK, using the legacy of his father's partisan activities and support/contributions from the various military families (who were mostly of the Manchurian partisan facion).
 
Truman offers back chanell deal to Japan (perhaps via Switzerland) You surrender we let you keep the Emporer and will not hang too many low down people

Or you fight on and you not only get US Occupation but probably Soviet as well.

Japan surrenders all of Korea to Western allies
 
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