Rush Tarquin
Gone Fishin'
What circumstances would allow Korea to pull a Meiji while Japan and China do not? What developments do you think you'd see in Asia in such a situation?
...................Edit Aaaah it seems I have inadvertantly become practitioner of the dark arts.
Korea would then need a different personality. I would set the pod pretty early, make it less conservative and more curious.
Not necessarily. A Korean defeat in the Byeongin Yangyo (French-Korean Conflict) in 1866 could probably place Korea in the position where it would start its modernization.
But then that should have resulted from the US Korean Expedition. Instead military success led to an even harder line of isolationism.
Holding Seoul to ransom might do it, since that's what did it for Japan.
1871 is probably too late since Joseon would only have 4 years before the Ganghwa Incident. We would have to have the Meiji Reforms be halted before than, which makes a too many butterflies for my personal tastes.
I don't think a Meiji Korea would have as much maritime projection as Japan IOTL. Pushing for an independent Manchuria to act as a buffer against both China and Russia would be a possible priority. Wether Korea can do it, even after a Meiji, I'm still not so sure.
Is Japan worth colonizing? Little in the way of natural resources, limited agricultural land...
So probably what China got.
Maritime projection is definitely a possibility. I'm basing that off of both Korea's current Navy as well as the history, turtle ships and such, they most certainly have the naval tradition at least historically to do that, and currently they have one or two helicopter carriers operational out of four planned, which they may be upgrading in-effect to light aircraft carriers if they get some VTOL F-35s. On the other hand, thank you for mentioning the Manchurian option, forgot that what with living in SK on what is in effect an island country. If Korea did go for an independent Manchuria or puppet state, I assume Manchuria would have to be at least big enough to cover all of the Tumen and the Yalu.