Challenge: More of East Asia comparable to Western Europe

Have a situation where more of East Asia is First World in standards of living. And thus Eurasia becomes like buttressed on two ends by (more) wealthy nations.

Points if it isn't a "KMT wins Chinese Civil War therefore all of China becomes Taiwan standards of living LOL" scenario.

Don't forget SE Asia as well.

Points also if you consider more of the Pacific Rim, like having the Oceanian island statelets get more developed.
 
Well, a less succesfull CCP would help, but more in the case that it could mean a smaller/no North Korea (and even with the inevitable reduction in the South's prosperity that'll still be a net gain), and if Vietnam doesn't go Communist then Indochina will be more prosperous without the knockon effects in Laos and Cambodia.

Actually that's probably going to help more. Perhaps if we can get the French out of Indochina earlier and more amenably (harsher WWII and less prosperous 50s?) then we have a better foundation for economic strength there. Avoiding the Burmese Junta as well as Pol Pot's regime could be included as a butterfly in this situation. No/reduced communist insurgencies in Malaya and Indonesia could lead to more stability and thus more investment, though I think we need to get rid of Suharato to really affect Indonesia.
 
WI Mao actually succeeds in industrializing China in the 50s and 60s, relying on Soviet and Eastern European expertise rather than his own crazy ideas?
 
WI Mao actually succeeds in industrializing China in the 50s and 60s, relying on Soviet and Eastern European expertise rather than his own crazy ideas?

That might work, though it could just leave China with huge amounts of outdated heavy industry and infrastructure, as well as autarky.
 
I would suggest that East Asian in the "Fight and Be Right" TL fits your criteria with China and Vietnam and Korea all doing quite well.... but the POD is in the 1880's...

For post-1900 the Anglo-American Nazi War TL by CalBear has Vietnam and the rest of Indochina, plus the Philippines and maybe Korea (not to mention India which is not East Asia) all stable democracies with booming industry. Of course, Japan and China are basketcases so that kinda doesn't work either :rolleyes:
 
I think I can make this easier. China can be analogous to... Russia: it's the giant that just can't quite get its act together, which is understandable because how many prosperous giants are in the world? Pretty much just the U.S. in terms of both population and territorial size. So how can the rest of East Asia be more wealthy? I'm thinking about what if the Southeast economies worst hit by the Asian financial crisis were at say '80s or even early '90s Taiwan status right now, and as developed and politically stable.
 
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