Nitpicky, but Japan never had all of Sakhalin; they just had the southern half.
Not nitpicky, my mistake. In the TL I envision they have the island entirely eventually. Just jumped the gun a few years in my question.
... Anyhoo, I have real trouble seeing the US leaving Korea in Japanese hands if they went so far as to occupy the Japan ...
Yeah, my thoughts were to that effect as well. The TL actually has no US or Allied occupation, but I was just curious how much of a positive effect the occupation might have had in the postwar economic recovery. That's all relative to the degree of destruction Japan faced during the war, but I won't jump into details of that pending the interest level.
... I'd estimate the population to end up between 230 and 250 million.
Hmmmm ... I guessed at least 200 - 250 million so that lines up with what I have planned. Korea (all of it) will boom in more ways than one in the planned TL.
The GDP of this country would be 6.5 trillion if you sum all of 'em up. Again, this is without butterflies.
Thanks, that helps put some things in perspective.
I don't know what kind of economic developments your alt-Japan will see. It could well be higher or lower although I expect the Cold War to be roughly similar, perhaps going positive for the Japanese who can act as a buffer against communism.
The Japanese act as a third middle man during this Cold War that doesn't change much globally as the Japanese focus is on Pacific and Asian interest exclusively. They are aggressive to the US and UK due to being on opposite sides of the 'Pacific War' and also extremely hostile to Soviet and Communist interest due to the Red China that popped up after the forced strategic withdraw of Japanese forces on the Mainland. Due to the proximity of Red China, Japanese policy slightly favors the Western bloc.
This GDP is almost half of the current US GDP to give you an idea and about 4 times that of Russia and close to that of China. Again, these estimates are based on OTL levels so I might well be off.
I'm divided on allowing the Japanese keeping all or parts of Manchukuo. The timing favors the state remaining in the status quo (aka Japanese). The puppet state was well established and recognized by the USSR during the time of the ATL 'Pacific War' so there was much less a cry for its
return to China than the other annexed/occupied and thus some mixed interest in the Manchuria region. During this time Japan was effectively forced to withdraw from China proper and the coastal regions. Soviet attitudes will change when the Chinese communist movement begins to take shape and after the Civil War will advocate Manchurian annexation by China but that will be after the 'Pacific War' and with Japan again established as a power in the region, albeit a more humbled one by with curbed ambitions. I think by OTL 1945 there were close to a million Japanese in the state. Were these located in certain areas or just spread out across the puppet state? Just wondering how likely or unlikely some of the puppet state might have been held if there were regions of high concentration of Japanese power/populations and areas of almost zero. That might influence withdraw limits.
Also, I might add that during the ATL the Japanese gain '
administration' of Sulawesi (with claims on Borneo) after the Dutch-Indonesian partition in the 50's but I don't think the island could add that much to the Empire's GDP.