I'm wondering what the possibility is for Korea to be reunited after the end of the Cold War (late 80s early 90s). With the Kims both having personality cults, it'll probably be hard to pull off, but maybe not out of the realm of all plausibility. What would need to happen to make this plausible?
Korean re-Unification after end of Cold War
- Thread starter Bmao
- Start date
Sumeragi
Banned
This. While most likely not straight out centralization into a single country, we would have at least a confederation.
It's going to be hard for the North Koreans to accept a union after they've been told how it's ruled by barbarous American soldiers and their puppet government all their lives. I'm not sure the south would want a confederation with a North with a free falling economy and a populace starting to die of starvation, in addition to the WPK still being in charge.
Why would Kim want such a thing? Unless he throws up some severe travel restrictions people are going to cross the DMZ and see how poor they really are.
By the early 1990s Pyongyang was the only city with regular electricity (not sure it had water)and food shortages were starting to kick in in the more remote provinces. By 1998 hundreds of thousands were starving every year.
Sumeragi
Banned
That has been part of the plans for both Koreas ever since the German reunification. Something most people tend to miss and go "but there would be flood going south, sinking the economy!"
Since we know very little about North Korean internal politics, it would be hard to make a POD for this. For all we know such a POD is ASB. We simply lack information!!!!
There's always the ever-present bribery, and once some go over the others will want to too.
Very true. What's the North Korean equivalent to Kremlinology by the way?
Sumeragi
Banned
This one is easy because Kim Il Sung WAS God. What he said goes, even if it meant destroying the country. If he wanted something, then the regime would twist and turn everything to fit his wishes. If he says "We'll be forming the Confederation of Koryo", almost all of the country will follow the order.
Not a valid argument for the "flood" theory. All proposals have registering the entire population of DPRK into the Korean ID system, so as to be able to track who is in ROK at a specific amount of time. Bribes at this point would be getting permits faster, not crossing the border.
hmmm.....good point. But would SK actually want such a Union? Would either China or the U.S. like it?
IOTL Thather confided in Gorbachev that a United Germany was in the interests of noone before the collapse of the Berlin wall.
Although they say they do, the majority of South Koreans right now do not want reunification, as it would cause a lot of turmoil in their country. The United States would back South Korea's position and the Chinese would not want it under the South Korean system as they wouldn't want U.S. military forces along their border. Japan wouldn't want it either as it would be a threat to their economic hegemony. On the other hand, even Germany is feeling the aftershocks of reunification to this day.
But, North and South Korea's differences are far more vast than East and West Germany's were before the Berlin Wall was torn down in 1989, and thus Korean reunification is way more difficult and problematic than Germany's was.
Sumeragi
Banned
We're looking at the time of Kim Young Sam, where there was still a high level of automatic "we want reunification!" mentality, so not really an issue.... for this scenario.
This is sort of a swing vote thing. Given that both Koreas are not under any treaty obligations like the Germanys, the opinion of PRC isn't that important at least in the mid 1990's. Furthermore, I would need to look at this, but the establishment of official relations between ROK and PRC in 1992 formally declared that PRC would support any moved towards reunification. At this point PRC does not have the influence it has in OTL 2000's.
Yes, but who are the Japanese to say anything in the mid 1990's?
A bit arguable. DPRK in the 1990's wasn't in as crappy a situation has it is in the 2000's, so if the right amount of investment was done while keeping the borders separate, there is still that chance to avoid the growing gap which happened in OTL. 1994~1996 was pretty much the last chance for a reunification on relatively "equal" grounds.
this will create butterflies galore. No NK nuclear muscle posing, for one thing. Also, I'm assuming that KOMID gets shut down. Good for world peace
, since NK isn't actively exporting missile and nuclear technology.....
OOC:
come to think of it, I'd wonder about an ISOT scenario over in ASB where an ATL Korea from a POD where Korea unified in the 1990s is ISOTED to OTL
, since NK isn't actively exporting missile and nuclear technology.....OOC:
come to think of it, I'd wonder about an ISOT scenario over in ASB where an ATL Korea from a POD where Korea unified in the 1990s is ISOTED to OTL
I'd agree that the gap would be far smaller than today, but "equal" grounds is too much, even with quotation marks. After all, the South either was already or was to be soon considered a first world country, whereas the North sees his people die from hunger within short time. That just don't happen without a significant gap to begin with.
Anyway, I don't really know how unification can happen. A confederation is a nice idea - but will North Korea accept Southern leadership and privileges for decades? After all, there's no need to restrict travelling or investing of Southerners in the North. There's no question that the South keeps Democracy and the North shall develop one - yet with certain restrictions at the beginning (get the cadres on board, restrict travelling, economic necessities...). There wouldn't be any "compromise of systems" between stalinist North Korea and democratic South Korea, could there? Will the Chinese be happy with a system that inevitably drags away North Korea from their orbit (although the extent of Chinese influence is IMHO somewhat questionable)? And finally there's the question if the South is willing to pay for the whole thing.
We should totally do that sometime
already posted it.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=5471862#post5471862
Sumeragi
Banned
Equal as in politically equal. Currently there is no real reunification process left except pretty much outright "colonization" of DPRK by ROK. However, 1994~1996 still had that margin where we could have a confederation where DPRK has a proportional say on things.
This would be before the IMF bailout, and I'm thinking most of the non-performing loans which ultimately led to the crisis might have gone north, which would be somewhat shield from the turmoils of the world economy.