WI: DPRK given part of Manchuria?

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The Soviets plowed into Machuria and subsequently Northern Korea towards the end of WWII, occupying both until eventually giving Korea to Kim-il-Sung and Manchuria to Mao.

But what if the deal was different?

What if Stalin felt the American presence in South Korea was a more immediate threat to Soviet policy in the region and saught to further empower Kim, slicing off a part of lower Manchuria and redrawing the borders of North Korea to add everying from the Yalu River up to Shenyang and Harbin.
The rest is then given to Mao as per OTL.

What are the effects on both the Chinese Civil War and later Korean War.
 
There are some areas of Korean majority near the border according to wiki...
800px-Ethnolinguistic_map_of_China_1983.png


...but nowhere near the extent you envision.

Mao accepting this would IMHO delegitimize him immensely in the eyes of his countrymen, bringing back memories about unequal treaties and stuff like that, whilst Chiang would not stop talking about how Mao is giving the country away to his puppet master.
 
Manchuria all the way to Harbin, not a chance. Border adjustments to include Yanbian and other Korean-language areas, maybe. Would Mao accept either? Heck no. Outer Mongolia was the absolute most he was willing to part with (mostly because there isn't really much of worth there). Anything more may result in an earlier Sino-Soviet split.

Would be funny to see how the Korean War (if ever) plays out with a Sino-DPRK border beyond the Yalu.
 
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The problem is that Stalin would be losing any influence on China to increase influence in North Korea. that would be stupid in the extreme.
 
This would cause a lot of bad blood, not to mention the places Stalin is slicing off of Manchuria are filled with Han Chinese. It may well result in the Chinese not lifting a finger to help Kim at the eleventh hour. Either that, or the PVA "saves" the DPRK only to never leave.
 
This would cause a lot of bad blood, not to mention the places Stalin is slicing off of Manchuria are filled with Han Chinese. It may well result in the Chinese not lifting a finger to help Kim at the eleventh hour. Either that, or the PVA "saves" the DPRK only to never leave.

You mean PLA. :p

But yeah, Stalin isn't going to piss a very huge ally just for a much smaller one. The border is pretty much set in stone at the Yalu and Tumen since the Joseon dynasty, so moving it northward is not going to bode well. If Stalin ever tried anyway, well, it's not like North Korea can voice any complaints once China reacquires them.
 
There are some areas of Korean majority near the border according to wiki...
800px-Ethnolinguistic_map_of_China_1983.png


...but nowhere near the extent you envision.

Mao accepting this would IMHO delegitimize him immensely in the eyes of his countrymen, bringing back memories about unequal treaties and stuff like that, whilst Chiang would not stop talking about how Mao is giving the country away to his puppet master.

Do we actually know exactly when Stalin promised Manchuria to the Chinese communists? because if its before any deal is struck then I dont see how Mao stands to lose face.
 
Do we actually know exactly when Stalin promised Manchuria to the Chinese communists? because if its before any deal is struck then I dont see how Mao stands to lose face.
Manchuria had been part of China since 1644 (although parts of Manchuria had been part of China off and on before then), so Mao giving it up would be like an American President surrendering Florida. Worse still, since Mao was at this stage relatively subservient to Stalin it would look like a puppet doing what his master told him to do.
 
Manchuria had been part of China since 1644 (although parts of Manchuria had been part of China off and on before then), so Mao giving it up would be like an American President surrendering Florida. Worse still, since Mao was at this stage relatively subservient to Stalin it would look like a puppet doing what his master told him to do.

Well to tbf, the Chinese also had Outer Manchuria up to certain point and gave that up permenantly to the Czar (Amur Aquisition) so I really dont see why a second, smaller deal couldnt have been worked out
 
Well to tbf, the Chinese also had Outer Manchuria up to certain point and gave that up permenantly to the Czar (Amur Aquisition) so I really dont see why a second, smaller deal couldnt have been worked out
Because Outer Manchuria was barely populated when the Russians took it. That spurred mass Han Chinese settlement of the remainder of Inner Manchuria. There's no chance either Kim or Mao would agree to such a deal which helps neither, regardless of Stalin's antics.

And besides, the PRC wasn't proclaimed yet. There were no grounds for Mao to agree to any border changes anyway.
 
Well to tbf, the Chinese also had Outer Manchuria up to certain point and gave that up permenantly to the Czar (Amur Aquisition) so I really dont see why a second, smaller deal couldnt have been worked out
Unequal treaties like what happened in Outer Manchuria were one of the reasons that the Chinese people lost faith in the Qing Dynasty, causing it to collapse. If Mao were to accept something that goes back to the era of unequal treaties the Chinese would lose faith in the Communists, and support of the population is something you need to win a civil war.
 
Chinese Communist Party will be mighty pissed because they brutally purged their Korean comrades precisely to avoid this. It was perceived to be a Japanese conspiracy to use turn the Koreans against China by promising them parts of Manchuria, which is why the Korean Communists who mostly operated out of Manchuria under Chinese leadership were decimated by the Chinese who were convinced many Korean Communists were Japanese agents.
 
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