WI: No Chinese intervention in the Korean War

How to prevent the PRC from entering the Korean War? And how long will the war continue without the Chinese supporting the North Koreans?
 
It'll require MacArthur never going beyond the 38th parallel, or at least leave Pyongyang alone. And the North Koreans would completely capitulate without Chinese help and the war continued into 1951.
 
It'll require MacArthur never going beyond the 38th parallel, or at least leave Pyongyang alone. And the North Koreans would completely capitulate without Chinese help and the war continued into 1951.

Might not require even that, if the Soviets show more reluctance to assure China about intervention, then China would decide it's not worth possibly jeopardizing.

Although you could have Stalin just write off Kim's gamble as bad move and quickly encourage him to make peace.
 
If China doesn't want to interfere the US cannot go beyond Pyongyang. Then a tiny sliver of buffer zone between South Korea and China exists. And that is where China can most tolerate before it had to invade. If that is the case North Korea won't last long or it might as well be annexed by China to the chagrin of the Korean people.
 
The easiest solution is for the US to realise that China might be feeling somewhat threatened by potentially having American troops on their border and that their warnings are genuine thus causing them to negotiate a back channel agreement that UN forces won't advance any further north than the South Pyongan and South Hamgyong - less the northern halves of Jangin, Bujon, Hochon, and Danchon - provinces creating a 50 mile or so wide unofficial zone from the Chinese border. Any advances beyond that will be made purely by South Korean armed forces, they can also point out that once the matter is settled the UN resolution will have been met and foreign troops can return home.

As for what happens without their intervention the North Koreans are finished with the South Korean forces supported by UN logistics pushing onwards up to the Chinese border. The North Korean leadership evacuates to China, or at an outside chance the Soviet Union, hoping to gain support for re-taking the country but receive little more than refuge and nice words quickly becoming an irrelevance. IIRC Truman had already decided to not run for re-election even though he was eligible so the 1952 Presidential election is still likely to be Stevenson versus Eisenhower, I don't know enough about American politics to say whether victory in Korea would affect the results. At any rate Truman likely gets a better historical write-up than he initially received in our timeline.
 
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