Neutral Korea

Could such a state be formed on the Austrian model in the aftermath of WWII? Obviously it would help greatly if neither the Americans nor the Soviets allow the creation of a Korean government in their zone of occupation.
 
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yourworstnightmare

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It's not impossible, but we need to have both the Americans and the Soviets to think very differently. Asia need to have less geopolitical meaning for this to happen.
 
The big difficulty is that the Koreans themselves cannot agree to a form of government unlike Austria. The US could accept a democratic Austria even if not inside the western military alliance. The USSR could accept a neutral Austria even if democratic. The Austrians themselves just wanted an end to the occupation. The Austrians weren't going to kill themselves over who would lead them. It helped that the Soviets never set up a Communist controlled East Austria like what happened with the GDR.

In Korea, Kim Jong Il wants a Communist Korea controlled by him and Syngman Rhee won't accept the Communists. Any scenario with Kim Jong Il will result in him either taking over, or being killed in a failed attempt to do so.

The US cannot accept a Communist Korea, even if "neutral." It could accept a "democratic" Korea that is not part of its military alliance systems. In other words, Kim Jong Il cannot survive. The USSR could potentially accept it, but the problem is that Stalin is alive after WWII and the Korean War happened under his watch. When Stalin dies, Moscow can give up Austria and not lose face. It can't make such a deal with North Korea because 1) Kim Jong Il would never accept it, and 2) because of the Korean War, they can't afford to "lose" North Korea.

I can only see this happening within certain restrictions:

1) Korea falls under complete US jurisdiction after WWII. Later, the US agrees that Korea will be neutral in order to gain Soviet concessions in other areas.

2) Kim Jong Il dies. No Korean War is launched although the north is Communist. Later, the US and USSR agree to a united Korea that is neutral in order to make both sides happy. Perhaps in exchange for a similar deal in Vietnam.

3) The Korean War happens as in OTL. As the UN forces go towards the Yalu, the US reaches out to Mao and Stalin with an offer that if Korea is allowed to become united under Seoul, that the US will agree for Korea to be neutral provided all powers agree to its unity and respect its sovereignty. They agree.
 
Killing off Kim Il Sung would help, but it would depend on who ends up in charge. The most likely candidates are Park Hon-yong, who would spend more time and effort trying to encourage a communist uprising in the South; Mu Chong, who would probably be a more sophisticated and pro-Chinese version of Kim Il Song; or Ho Ka-i, who would have created a smaller, more Soviet and technocratic regime in the north. Neutralizing Rhee in the south would help as well. Maybe if the North didn't invade, he would fall from power earlier.

A better PoD would be having Cho Man-sik accepting a four-power trusteeship period in which the USSR, US, UK and China were meant to set up an independent government. This would be a much more complicated arrangement than the division in OTL. The USSR thought that they could use Cho, but his intransigence led to them opting to support Kim instead. A messy scenario wherein there are Commonwealth and Chinese occupation zones on the Korean peninsula may provide scope for Cho Man-sik and other nationalists (even, maybe, the domestic communists like Park Hon-yong) to put together a plausible central government and opposing people like Rhee, Ho, Kim and Mu as foreign agents of one stripe or another. This might prove enough of a headache for both sides to agree to a nuetral, democratic Korea with both camps thinking they can fenangle it into their own lines later on.
 
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