North Korea collapses in the late 1990s, what happens?

so what would happen if the North Korean famine of 1994-1998 was some what worse and the North Korean government tries to ride it out with out food aid and thus collapses, what happens to the North Koreans? who (if any one) steps in? is reunification really on the table? if so what would look like? if not what would post Kim North Korea look like?
 
It's reabsorbed by South Korea over a number of years (they're too different to merge immediately - you have to fix North Korea first) probably officially reuniting sometime around 2010.
 
As long as the US dosen't put any new bases in former NK they shouldn't be excessively alarmed.

If there are no new bases in NK they are probably quietly relieved. That is one thing less to worry about. They will then start making noises in the UN about how the US should leave Korea altogether as it no longer needs the bases to keep an eye on NK.
 
The primary responsibility falls on SK, sure, and the end result will inevitably be a united Korea, but the process could be very different. For one thing, the U.S. and China could be involved a good deal more - China out of some measure of necessity, since NK leadership brainwashes the people into believing both the U.S. and SK are grave enemies.

One possibility, albeit a somewhat far-fetched and probably unworkable one, is a divided NK split into three, along with a split Pyongyang (in other words, NK becomes the new post-WWII Germany.) The most logical split is for China to take the far north, SK to take the area near the border, and the U.S. to fill in the gaps. Pyongyang is near the western part of mid-NK, so the problem that plagues Berlin during the Cold War likely doesn't exist here, although I doubt that China keeps NK on the same level of lockdown that the USSR did with East Berlin.

There will probably be a treaty involving the handover of NK to a united Korea with Seoul as capital. It may come all at once or may be handed back in pieces, especially if SK exercises more jurisdiction right off the bat over the southern portion of NK.

Realistically, though, we're looking at a reunification over time, NK being an occupied state for some time, and many, many pockets of dedication to the old NK regime. I'm picturing several compounds or areas throughout NK dedicated to Juche, which would be viewed by the vast majority much the way Americans view the Warren Jeffs compound. Leaders of these compounds end up spending time in prison, but the sects are hard to break up due to a fundamentalist-level dedication to the NK cause.

It's unclear what industries would be put into NK to keep it afloat, although in the beginning of the new regime, it's probably a lot like China in terms of working conditions and jobs available.
 
At least initially, I expect some militant groups will try to seize the government or break away - basically, various groups will arise in a power vacuum. And be the ones to throw out Kim Jong Il in the first place.

This will probably be about as clean and quick as, well, Syria right now. The UN will want to interfere as peacekeepers, and any force will be effectively perceived as South Koreans and Americans by locals and probably by China, resulting in bad feelings from both. Not sure where it'd go from there.

If US forces ever get into the country, they WILL build bases and stay indefinitely unless China somehow dissuades them.
 

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As long as the US dosen't put any new bases in former NK they shouldn't be excessively alarmed.
That what certain rumors say NOW. Would they be true in 1990s though?
This will probably be about as clean and quick as, well, Syria right now.
Syrian conflict, so far as I know, has many divisions along ethno-religous lines and has religious fanatic fighters being drawn to it from abroad like moths to a flame. North Korea, being about as ethnically homogenous as you can get and not having any religious groups with great existing and historic animosity towards one another, should not have this problem.
 
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That what certain rumors say NOW. Would they be true in 1990s though?


I think all this worrying about China is a bit anachronistic, to be honest. People who were still young in the year 2000 tend to forget that China was simply not seen then as being a very powerful nation. Remember, in the middle of the 90s the US was still confident enough of its overwhelming power vis a vis China to send a carrier group through the Taiwan Strait. In the year 2000, the US (among others) was confident enough to force China to accept Taiwan joining the WTO as a condition of their own acceptance. The Chinese leadership hated that, but it happened anyway.

At this point in time, China was very much in transition from their old, defensive Cold War mass army to a new, mobile, guided munitions era army. Obviously if China chose to actually go to war over Korea, they could overwhelm the local defenders, but they won't be stupid enough to do that. Short of that, there is little they can do. The long and the short of it is that if in 1998 the US/SK and China disagree over what should be done with the former NK, China will back down. I think the US won't stage troops in the North simply because they don't want to create future enemies, but by the same token, there will not be a Chinese presence there, either.
 
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How would the East Asian economies of the late 1990s respond to the gigantic humanitarian crisis on South Korea's doorstep? I imagine having it so close to the Japanese asset price crash of 1991 might do terrible things for the regional economy.
 
Well the east Asian Financial Crisis is going to hit at roughly this stage and the same basic problems of debt build up and over investment as OTL are going to be the real cause but market worries about the cost of reunification are going to get the blame in this TL.
 
so what would happen if the North Korean famine of 1994-1998 was some what worse and the North Korean government tries to ride it out with out food aid and thus collapses, what happens to the North Koreans? who (if any one) steps in? is reunification really on the table? if so what would look like? if not what would post Kim North Korea look like?

I actually think China would step in before the news got out, if it looked like a potential revolution breaking out, or even a coup. The PLA, even in the Mid 90's was the big dog on the block at that point. I've joked elsewhere about a few divisions "reinforcing" Pyongyang if the current leader tries to start another war, but in this situation, I could see Deng using PLA to restore order in the country PDQ, ideally before UN or South Koreans can act, especially if they can show that the former Supreme Leader asked for their assistance.

By now, DPRK would be looking at opening more facilities like Kaesong and following a Chinese style state market economy. Reunification though is off the menu though.
 
I think if the U.S. can reassure China that Korean reunification isn't a threat to their security, things go fairly smooth. I believe political reunification would happen quickly. You need to have the ability to access the territory to do anything else. Feeding the starving North Koreans will go a long way towards ending the influence of Juche and the Kim cult of personality. Once the North Koreans are free to experience western culture, this will only speed things up. Even today, the most popular shows are from South Korea. If the U.S., Japan and South Korea can start a sort of Marshall Plan for the North, I see a unified, fairly heterogeneous Korea within ten years, maybe less. If a Marshall-type plan can be accomplished, this will probably benefit the Japanese and U.S. economies as well as Korean.
 
Agreed that negotiations with China would be more of an issue in the 1990s than today but the sticking point is always going to be bases. But the thing is, after NK is gone, we're likely to see a pretty substantial reduction in the number of US troops in the area, after the unification is secure. Initially I would think a UN mission would occupy the country. Yes, US troops would be involved, but there's no reason to think it won't be overwhelmingly international.

After the humanitarian crisis is over, and with complaints earlier in the decade about the anachronistic nature of military deployments (i.e. central Europe to fight the commies) we'll reduce those troops in South Korea to a certain extent. China shouldn't have a problem with this at all.
 
It goes down the same route as Cambodia in the mid-1990s and you end up with a UN protectorate with a reunification date for some point in 2020-2030. Food aid floods in massively (even now 1/6th of the population is at starvation level) and you might have rogue elements of the military (ie up to 1/4 of the population) using force of arms to get food. You might see a massive US and South Korea guns for food campaign to attempt to demilitarise the population.

EDIT: Whatever happens you can bet your right arm and more that there will be a deep deep psychological scar on the peoples of Korea (both North and South) for many many years to come. You think the Germans have psychological issues re the Nazis and unification you have no idea. North Korea has concentration camps too. One documentary I watched interviewed a defector who said (and I quote): "If somebody died in the camps during winter we didn't bury them. We left them in a warehouse until April by which point they had rotted away. What was left we pushed into mass graves."
 
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South Korea occupies northern Korea and administers it as a separate unit from the south until such time that individual north Korean provinces are developed enough to fully participate in the Korean government. Likely after a period of direct military/Seoul governance, local government functions are handed to the local population. North Koreans are allowed to travel freely in the former North Korea, but need permission to cross the old DMZ. Some form of internal passports are issued to prevent a flood of refugees heading south. The process of true unification probably takes about 20-30 years; just enough time for a new generation to grow up that never knew life in the old DPRK.

American troops do not cross the old DMZ and stay in southern Korea. There are probably high level talks with China that promise US troops will never be stationed in the former North Korea, although no official treaty or agreement is signed that formalizes this. Eventually the US withdraws the number of troops in Korea to a minimal amount as they no longer have real purpose. A naval and air base probably remains with a token American presence.
 
It's hard to say how that would have turned out, due in large part to the economics of the situation.

Using the German unification as a model, the gap between South Korea and North Korea was vastly larger than the gap between East and West Germany, and West Germany had to bite a huge financial bullet in reunification. Seoul would, for all intents and purposes, need to turn the North into a giant subsidized agriculture and charity state for many, many years. A huge public spending program to bring the infrastructure of the North up to date would generate some jobs and prosperity, but there has never been so backward a territory absorbed into a modern state before.

In China, disparities that are much smaller motivate people to illegally move to the cities, and that causes severe social problems both in the cities and back in the villages. As the South was a democracy by then, what basis would the government have for legally stopping millions of former North Koreans, now citizens, from simply coming south?

It would be very, very hard for the South Koreans to absorb the North, then or now, without massive financial support from the international community. This is so much the case that the stated, public position of Seoul used to be that they were not interested in unification with the North in any way, shape or form. They've stopped saying that in public, but I bet a lot of South Korean leaders look at unification as an economic and social catastrophe in the making.
 
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