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POD Treaty of Portsmouth (1905) grants Japan all of Sakhalin. (only up to 50°N in OTL)
Korean coalminers on Sakhalin
Korean immigration to Sakhalin began as early as the 1910s, when the Mitsui Group began recruiting labourers from the peninsula for their mining operations. In 1920, ten years after the annexation of Korea by Japan, there were fewer than one thousand Koreans in the whole of Karafuto Prefecture, overwhelmingly male.[6] Aside from an influx of refugees from the Maritimes, who escaped to Karafuto during the Russian Revolution of 1917, the number of Koreans in the province did not rise very rapidly; as late as the mid 1930s, there were fewer than 6,000 Koreans in Karafuto.
Second POD Oil is discovered earlier, in 1938.

Map of Sakhalin Hydrocarbon area.

Sakhalin is a classic "resource economy" relying on oil and gas exports, coal mining, forestry, and fishing. Limited quantities of rye, wheat, oats, barley and vegetables are grown, although the growing season averages less than 100 days.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and economic liberalization, Sakhalin has experienced an oil boom with extensive petroleum exploration and mining by most large oil Multinational corporations. The oil and natural gas reserves contain an estimated 14 billion barrels (2.2 km³) of oil and 96 trillion cubic feet (2,700 km³) of gas and are being developed under production-sharing agreement contracts involving international oil companies like ExxonMobil and Shell.
In 1996, two large consortiums signed contracts to explore for oil and gas off the northeast coast of the island, Sakhalin-I and Sakhalin-II.
America has less hold over the Japanese economy. They aren't drawn into war in 1941. What happens?
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