WI: United and independent Korea emerging after World War II?

What if Korea emerged as a united and independent nation after World War II, just like Austria, it could be a neutral buffer state between China and Japan. Obviously, Stalin would not agree to such an idea but would any American presidents? Would Korea still have a prosperous economy today?
 
What if Korea emerged as a united and independent nation after World War II, just like Austria, it could be a neutral buffer state between China and Japan. Obviously, Stalin would not agree to such an idea but would any American presidents? Would Korea still have a prosperous economy today?
In order for this to happen you might have something like a communist Greece in order for the soviets to be okay

I don’t think any American presidents would disagree with this either
 
In OTL, American policy makers thought they were lucky to get the Soviets to agree to the 38th parallel. However, Michael Sandusky apparently argued in *America's Parallel* (I have not read the book and am quoting R. A. Harris' post on it) that "given the positions and strengths of all allied forces as of 15 August, and their logistical capacities, the Americans could have beaten the Soviets to northern Korea up to the 40th or 41st parallel in Korea and the Liaotung peninsula if they were inclined to do so and optimized their deployments for such a purpose. He asserts that the rate and inevitability of Soviet advance was overestimated at the time and in years since..." https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...had-different-korea-maps.301686/#post-8860722
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
In addition to what David said, I think it is even more plausible if the US puts a little bit more thought into postwar Korea earlier in the war. If the Americans set up ties with Korean exiles during the war and then go on to recognize the self-proclaimed Provisional Government of Korea living in exile in Chongqing, as Korea, during the war and therefore has a visible interest in the land the Soviets may be persuaded to talk to that regime as well (as they talked to the Chinese nationalists) and seek to guarantee their economic and security interests on the peninsula without setting up a Communist government. While Korea certainly was an area Russia had interest in, and in Europe and Iran the Soviets clamped down hard to control their sphere in Europe (but not Iran), I think a consistent expression of US interest in Korea's future and treating Korea as a provisionally recognized actor rather than a blank slate, could have persuaded Stalin to tread with more caution at the end of the war. Their military intervention there at the end of the war might not be as extensive, and they may mainly go in to loot the place and maybe win some economic and security concessions in the northeast, like they did in Manchuria. The noncommunist Koreans are probably not going to be rabidly anti-Soviet if the Soviets are trying to negotiate with them but recognizing their primacy and not trying to set up a Communist administration they totally control in the north.

Kim Gu was the head of the Chongqing exile regime.
 
With respect to R.A.
Harris regarding the Soviet Union's security interests, and therefore the interests of the "Moscow" and "Kim" lines, regarding Chongqing Korea, I do not believe this extends to the security or economic interests of:
* the PRC
* the CCPs Korean section
* Korean "indigenous" Stalinists
* revolutionary Korean workers

Unless the US is unwilling to lose Korea when they lose China, a fraternal intervention is likely.

Yours,
Sam R.
 
The Bomb is ready a month sooner. OTL, the Soviets scheduled their entry into the Pacific War for mid-August; they had to move prematurely after Hiroshima. IMO, if the Bomb dropped in June, the Soviets would be nowhere near ready to attack. If Japan surrenders immediately, China may demand that the USSR stay out of Manchuria. That would make Soviet occupation of northern Korea problematic. Even if the Soviets do get to occupy the area, without Soviet/Red Chinese cover to the west, any Communist regime set up there would be shaky. Stalin would probably see that, and try to arrange a neutral Korea instead.
 
I wonder if it is possible for the US to restore the Empire of Korea, if a united korea emerges after ww2?
 
I really thought of the back story of the manwha/drama series "Goong"/"Princess Hours" as the potential PoD (without the mushiness of the manhwa/drama series)....
 

althisfan

Banned
What if Korea emerged as a united and independent nation after World War II, just like Austria, it could be a neutral buffer state between China and Japan. Obviously, Stalin would not agree to such an idea but would any American presidents? Would Korea still have a prosperous economy today?
Austria was a buffer state between US influenced Western Europe and USSR influenced Eastern Europe (I'm using Cold War geopolitical terminology, and not anachronistically using current usage which IMHO is ridiculous putting Poland in Central Europe). Korea in your hypothesis would be between two messed up nations, a Japan that is destroyed and can't have a military and is not a threat to anyone and under US protection, and China also a US ally but which is in a civil war and no one would ever think would be in the position it is today (China was a basket case undeveloped nation and lucky as all heck to get a seat in the UN Security Council, and that was as the US allied Republic of China, and not the communist regime). There's no reason to have a neutral buffer state, especially in the view of the Soviet Union, I'm sure they'd much rather see an independent Hokkaido as buffer state. By the time there's the PRC in 1948 it's too late for a buffer state, lines have been drawn and established and the USSR will see no reason for a buffer state- they just won China in their eyes. Now if the PRC had been in better shape at the "end" of the Korean War then I can see the USSR and US being able to negotiate a buffer state, but they simply can't when the PRC isn't exactly going to follow Soviet leadership the way the Soviets expect other communist nations to do, especially after all the Chinese blood PRC shed (and no, we STILL don't have a peace treaty with North Korea, the war is still ongoing just paused under an armistice).
 
IIRC it literally came down to two guys and a NatGeo magazine. It was possible that if the Americans did more research and asked the Soviets to divide their spheres of influence at the Yalu rather than an arbitrary delineation across the 38th parallel, North Korea could have been written out of history.
 
IIRC it literally came down to two guys and a NatGeo magazine. It was possible that if the Americans did more research and asked the Soviets to divide their spheres of influence at the Yalu rather than an arbitrary delineation across the 38th parallel, North Korea could have been written out of history.

Why would the Soviets agree to just the territory by the Yalu? Weren't there Soviet troops in Korea?
 

althisfan

Banned
Why would the Soviets agree to just the territory by the Yalu? Weren't there Soviet troops in Korea?
To keep Manchuria instead of agreeing it was an integral part of "China", which he really only agreed to not annex it in order to give it to the Communist forces to use as a base in the Chinese Civil War which the communists were losing at that point.
 

althisfan

Banned
IIRC it literally came down to two guys and a NatGeo magazine. It was possible that if the Americans did more research and asked the Soviets to divide their spheres of influence at the Yalu rather than an arbitrary delineation across the 38th parallel, North Korea could have been written out of history.
Most decisions, including troop movements in Europe, were done with NatGeo maps actually.
 
US policymakers briefly floated the idea of making the Korean peninsula a United Nations mandate along the lines of the League of Nations mandates in Iraq and Palestine. If the Korean mandate is given to a country seen as nonaligned like Sweden, Korea may gain independence as a single entity.
 
So, if say Americans manage to take Korea up to say 40th or 41st paralel, would the Stalin even bother with DPRK or will just take Korean SSR into USSR?
 
Why would the Soviets agree to just the territory by the Yalu? Weren't there Soviet troops in Korea?
Most decisions, including troop movements in Europe, were done with NatGeo maps actually.

But this was different: Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel, with literally no knowledge of Korea whatsoever, arbitrarily proposed an administrative division of the peninsula at the 38th parallel, which the Soviets accepted immediately. I don't think the Soviets particularly cared about puppeting Korea, since their own stance at the Moscow Conference in 1945 and subsequent negotiations in 1947 was for a single, self-governed Korean state. The rejection of the Soviet proposals combined with the deepening of Cold War tensions was what led to the present division of the country; a consequence of Rusk and Bonesteel's demarcation line evolving into the national frontier between two sovereign entities.
 
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