If Ito Hirobumi had not been killed in 1909

Neroon

Banned
Difficult to answer, because IMHO the answer depends almost entirely on Japanese internal political power struggles. It's possible that the hardliners win out anyway and history pretty much proceeds as OTL. Best case IMO would be a Korean - Japanese "Ausgleich" as seen in LacheyS "In his own Right" timeline.
 
There was once this korean alt-hist movie about this man, the Prime Minister of Japan in four different occassions, not being assassinated in 1909 and that leading to a different Japan...

Good movie, except for the ending. Spoilers: The Korean detective, our main character, is informed that his Korea could have been independent. Note that the ATL Korea is a) united, b) prosperous, c) the Japanese mildly look down on Koreans, and try and hid it, and that's it.

He decides that a free South Korea is worth not only North Korea and all that suffering but also Japanese treatment of Chinese/Asians in WWII (in the ATL Japan is an Allied power) which—IOTL—killed more people than Hitler and possibly Stalin. You tell me, is he a retard? Obviously the movie didn't present it in those terms, but I was pretty disgusted.


Difficult to answer, because IMHO the answer depends almost entirely on Japanese internal political power struggles. It's possible that the hardliners win out anyway and history pretty much proceeds as OTL. Best case IMO would be a Korean - Japanese "Ausgleich" as seen in LacheyS "In his own Right" timeline.

Yep, politics in Japan were fiendishly complex back then. Worst case is the Commies (or equally crazy people) getting the whole country, and I agree that the best case is the one presented in "In His Own Right" (plus, if I recall correctly, I suggested it :).
 
Well IIRC Korea was going to get the better of Japan overtime (and reunited) if it had not been of that particular intervention and off course the guy wasn't explain the full picture of OTL (so it probably weight on his descision) history and we can presume a Korean-centrism from the film maker
 
Oh I know, but the film maker himself (presumably) knew the historical picture and so the way he presented it as a choice bugged.


Back on topic:

How would a realistic united Japan-Korea impact on world history? Do they stay united? Do the Japanese learn to treat other cultures decently (that would really help if they go on non-Chinese conquering sprees)?
 
Well the theme of enduring Japanese Empire was never throughly discuss (maybe one of the reason cause we expect them to have them beat by the american one way or another more than the Nazi)

Well I'm pretty sure that if they lasted more than a decade they would have end up slacking off one time or another. One way they could market the Co-prosperity sphere to those living in it would be "asian empowerement" rather solely japanese one.

Could "Korea united with a Tolerant Japan" end up with Japan developping the same identity problems that Canada/Quebec have?
 
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Well the theme of enduring Japanese Empire was never throughly discuss (maybe one of the reason cause we expect them to have them beat by the american one way or another more than the Nazi)

Well I'm pretty sure that if they lasted more than a decade they would have end up slacking off one time or another. One way they could market the Co-prosperity sphere to those living in it would be "asian empowerement" rather solely japanese one.

Could "Korea united with a Tolerant Japan" end up with Japan developping the same identity problems that Canada/Quebec have?

The theme of an enduring Japanese Empire starting around WWII is discussed, and promptly dismissed as very unlikely. However if we start further back, perhaps things can work out better.

Exactly what I was thinking. Acknowledge nationalism, take over the top level but run the place loosely assert Japanese cultural superiority because they were the only ones to industrialize and fight off the West, promote their culture as the goal to aspire to and once you're there you're a proper member of society no matter where you happen to be from. How the British did it, to some extent, in their imperialistic days.

Canada doesn't have an identity problem, nor does Quebec. We have a certain disagreement about some things that are well outside the realm of this thread. (Short version: Quebecois decline to accept reality, nobody else particularly cares.)

As for Japan-Korea I think the Japanese will go for cultural superiority (instead of just being racist, as IOTL). Will it work? I don't know, but I imagine a lot of back and forth influences.
 

maverick

Banned
So the consensus is that if Ito Hirobumi survives, Korea and Japan get along better in an Austro-Hungarian kind of way, (but without other ethnicities)?
 
No. The consensus is, that an "Ausgleich" outcome is possible, but a best case.

Agreed. Best case, though, might be a pan-Asian Federal Japanese Empire. That approaches being implausible, but could likely be done.

The problem, as always, is the Americans.
 
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