im looking into some new borders for various southeast asian nations in my ATL. i decided to expand the add another country, Laos, into the mix (in the old version, Laos and Vietnam were merged together as "Indochina")
aside from that, though, im looking into some plausibility factors concerning two or three nations in particular at the moment: Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia. ill admit that my ATL is kind of ASB in that it is loosely based on a pre-existing work, so im trying to figure out how plausible one border from the source material in particular is. according to a map, roughly the southern half of Thailand goes to Cambodia, along with all of continental Malaysia
anyway, ill default to roughly OTL borders if all else fails, but im trying to figure out if theres any plausible way that Cambodia ITTL could come to control these regions. the history and PODs of this ATL which is relevant to this region is roughly as follows:
any help on this? this is especially important to me because southeast asia is the last part of my newest map that i need to finish up before i can properly present it in the map thread and finish it up with new colors
id also prefer to keep the focus on cambodia itself for this thread: there will be another time and place where we can deal with the pretty much utterly ASB parts also mentioned as being part of this ATL, but its not here
aside from that, though, im looking into some plausibility factors concerning two or three nations in particular at the moment: Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia. ill admit that my ATL is kind of ASB in that it is loosely based on a pre-existing work, so im trying to figure out how plausible one border from the source material in particular is. according to a map, roughly the southern half of Thailand goes to Cambodia, along with all of continental Malaysia
anyway, ill default to roughly OTL borders if all else fails, but im trying to figure out if theres any plausible way that Cambodia ITTL could come to control these regions. the history and PODs of this ATL which is relevant to this region is roughly as follows:
- during the Pacific War (1937-1946), Japan invades much of the Asia-Pacific region, annexing the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan and establishing the puppet state of Manchukuo. They also invade the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina, which ultimately causes the colonial governments in these regions to collapse. Japan is allied to the United States ITTL, so they are virtually unhindered. The Japanese invasion forces eventually falter and they retreat, mostly because of Chinese interference.
- with the region in disarray, the Indochinese natives rebel against the remainder of the French colonial government and expel them from the region, which then splits into the three countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (or their equivalents of that time; my actual knowledge of this time and place is relatively limited and could be easily remedied if I wasn't so sleepy).
- communism does not spread to this part of the world or to China. As a result, there is no communist dominance in Cambodia and China and no Vietnam War.
- China, still imperialist, over the remainder of the 20th century, invades several other regions of eastern Asia following Tibet (specifically, they invade Mongolia, Indonesia, and Manchukuo), and as a result become much more powerful and influential.
id also prefer to keep the focus on cambodia itself for this thread: there will be another time and place where we can deal with the pretty much utterly ASB parts also mentioned as being part of this ATL, but its not here