How would a unified communist Korea look like nowadays?

Let's say that for whatever reason the North manages to secure the entire peninsula during the 1950s. What would a single Korean communist dictatorship look like by 2009? How would it evolve, if at all?
 
Basically a stronger North Korea? With possibly stronger resistance movements against the government backed covertly by Japan. The more vital effects we can assume are that to the western nations... they may be less inclined to fight proxy wars after the defeat or may actually work harder at them, so in replacement for north/south korea we may still have north/south vietnam???
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Think North Korea, only bigger. Think Japan, only more militarized. Think colleges, only with less Koreans. Fewer Korean bbq joints :(. Also, I don't know if my tailor would have been able to come to America and make me nice clothes!:eek::(:(:eek::(

 
Well, Japan would probably be allowed to develop nukes (Well, they don't have any know but according to CNN and the CIA, they can have one within 3 months). Japan might be planning a invasion.

We could also see a much more nationalist Japan. Picture me, but as every Japanese person in Japan, in a word- Crazy State.

They would still be cool technologically, and even cooler militarily. Even though they might not be as strong as America, but would have cool looking tanks, ships, etc.

This part is ASB, but I had to throw it in, they might develop a Gundam Army.
 
Well, that about sums it up.

No it doesn't. The reason North Korea is hell today is much a result of the pressures from political, military and economic isolation, and the trauma of a divided country. Most likely it would be more like Cuba, if unified. There would be much less reason to turn inwards, to develop a overreaching military-industrial complex, to strentghen central power in face of the southern "threat". Instead North Korea would probable have gone Cubas way, reacting to the fall of the Soviet Union (= economic isolation) with some opening to the capitalist world-market, slashing military spending, etc.
 
There's nothing, including the US, forcing North Korea to do what they are doing. Which, sort of, is the idea in the first place.
 
No it doesn't. The reason North Korea is hell today is much a result of the pressures from political, military and economic isolation, and the trauma of a divided country. Most likely it would be more like Cuba, if unified. There would be much less reason to turn inwards, to develop a overreaching military-industrial complex, to strentghen central power in face of the southern "threat". Instead North Korea would probable have gone Cubas way, reacting to the fall of the Soviet Union (= economic isolation) with some opening to the capitalist world-market, slashing military spending, etc.


He kind of sounds right to me. There would probably still be a militaristic culture, but perhaps China, less worried about the threat of a border with a unified Republic of Korea, would be willing to put pressure on the DPRK to liberalize economically.
 
I think that the DPRK would be inclined to liberalize a la China. It might still be hellish, but methinks it would be more like Vietnam.
 

Thande

Donor
Would the DPRK turn as nasty without the threat of Imperialist American South Korea as their "Eurasia/Eastasia" to act as an external foe and frighten the people? Or would Japan just take its place.

North Korea wasn't quite so bad before the agricultural failures of the 1980s, so if they have the resources of the South to draw upon, it might not turn into OTL's hellhole. Basically something like Vietnam, I suspect, maybe a little nastier but certainly not as bad as OTL.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
No it doesn't. The reason North Korea is hell today is much a result of the pressures from political, military and economic isolation, and the trauma of a divided country. Most likely it would be more like Cuba, if unified. There would be much less reason to turn inwards, to develop a overreaching military-industrial complex, to strentghen central power in face of the southern "threat". Instead North Korea would probable have gone Cubas way, reacting to the fall of the Soviet Union (= economic isolation) with some opening to the capitalist world-market, slashing military spending, etc.

Except China, Japan or Russia could serve as the external threat instead, I really can't see it as a Asian Cuba, I could it see more like China under a continue personal cults. Yes it would likely open more up to world, but we should underestimated the leaders or culture influence on how a state develop.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
I think that the DPRK would be inclined to liberalize a la China. It might still be hellish, but methinks it would be more like Vietnam.

I don't see why. In this ATL, they'd have won. If anything, they'd have less reason to give any concessions to anyone.
 
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