Suppose by whatever means North Korea ceased to exist by 1955 as a separate entity.
Would a United Korea be a huge economic power house
In otl South Korea is significant. I had also heard the prior to partition the North was more industrialized and advanced
It really depends on the specific situation, but a United Korea would probably have a slightly smaller GDP per capita than the OTL South, as it would most likely have focused more on exporting resources instead of manufacturing, which would have caused it to pursue an entirely different economic path than the South had done for decades IOTL.
North Korea was initially more industrialized. South Korea did not begin to really develop its economy until Park Chung Hee began export lead economical development. If we assume the same development trend will happen for united Korea as for the South, we can map this out.
South Korea has population of 50 million and GDP of $1.2 trillion for per capita GDP of $25,000. North Korea has population of 24 million and GDP of $12.4 billion for per capita GDP of $506. Let's assume the northern half of united Korea has population more like 30 million since there's no famine and more prosperity, and GDP per capita equal to the south. I am assuming things like military spending is about the same since Korea is still notionally threatened by Communist China and USSR during the Cold War.
United Korea therefore has population of 80 million with GDP of $2 trillion placing it in top ten world economies. This places Korea on the same economy as Italy, but with 20 million more people. Its population is about the same as Germany and more than France or Britain. It has about 40 million less people than Japan. Per capita is less than Spain, but it certainly has a more dynamic economy with stronger growth potential.
So it would be a serious world power. It would likely overtake UK and France in the next one to two decades and be one of the top five world economies, behind the US, China, Japan, and Germany. When Japan and Germany are your future peer group, it's not a bad place to be.
This is probably a tad optimistic. Park Chung-hee decided to embark on major economic reforms precisely because of the North's looming existence, as he realized that there was no other reasonable way to counter the impending threat. If the pressure is removed, however, there is significantly less of an impetus for the South to shift its production towards manufacturing, as it can both utilize and export natural resources, not to mention that a significantly larger portion of the budget would have been geared toward military spending in order to counter the Chinese and Soviets, as the Americans would have been less involved (militarily and financially) in this situation. In other words, a Unified Korea would probably have a nominal GDP per capita of around 15,000-20,000, or 20,000-25,000 in terms of PPP (as opposed to the south's current 25,000 and 30,000, respectively), which would still be significant, as its GDP (nominal) would be around $1.2-1.6 trillion, but its general economic influence would generally be at par with that of the South IOTL.
Well if the ROK were to take over the North in 1955, WITHOUT the Chinese and /or USSR stepping in, and assuming all other things work out more or less as they did OTL, than we have something like our ROK covering the whole peninsula.
That is a few more 'If's' than I am comfortable with, but it is a nice idea. One more 'IF' though has to do with Korean attitudes to Japan. A Korean I worked with once asked me what I thought they would do if Korea was ever united.
I said I had no idea.
He said. "Invade Japan."
He wasn't kidding and from what I have seen in other sources, eg online Korean newspapers, he was not saying anything considered totally weird or extreme.
So a Korea united without communists in 1955? Maybe the Chinese attack, maybe the Soviets do, maybe they both do, or maybe they decide to keep the US tied up keeping the peace between Japan and Korea by encouraging the hatred.
Probably a peaceful democracy glaring at Japan across the water.
Historically, Korea has been invaded countless times from numerous states, but it had never attempted to directly embark on a major offensive campaign against consolidated entities, in part due to the fact that it had been continuously surrounded by larger neighbors for over two millennia. As a result, it generally attempted to settle issues indirectly by attempting to form stable diplomatic and trading ties. Invading Japan might make sense from a radically nationalistic perspective, but would be suicidal on a logistic level, so the generals in charge would eventually have abstained from carrying out such a devastating plan. While the Chinese or Soviets might attempt to invade the peninsula if tensions increase, fierce Korean resistance and a minor American presence within Japan would force them to think twice. As a result, Korea's northern neighbors would restrain themselves from dragging the conflict into a potential WWIII, in which the Americans would have had a distinct advantage in terms of nuclear weapons until the mid 1960s or so.
However, tensions between Korea and Japan would probably be much worse than the situation IOTL, which may or may not affect trading relations.
should we assume that Japan still has the OTL economic growth spurt it had?
most of the wealth it accumulated was due to the Korean war and its prolonged stalemate- which resulted in the US being "forced" to help Japanese entrepreneurs by allowing them to produce military-grade materials, i.e. jeeps and guns. TTL Japan has much less of this, as the war is much shorter (less than 1 year). If original policies for Japan continued, and the Korean war proved the spread of Communism to stop at China in the Far East, Japan would undergo its OTL industrial disarmament- lowering its industrial and economic capabilities.
Japan would probably be affected economically as well, although the specifics would be uncertain, as many of the economic policies had been carried out by entrepreneurs under significant government intervention, which may or may not have changed the main issues in the long run. However, this would then cycle back to affect Korea, as politicians would have been much less willing to openly adopt Japanese economic policies wholesale, due to much more significant nationalist sentiment without a divided peninsula.
