What if : A red Japan after ww2.

[BAROBA]

Hi guys,

How would the world look today if Japan was taken over by the USSR or China after ww2?
I think the world would be a very different place
And Japan wouldn't be a densely populated as it is today. On the bright side there wouldn't have be a nuclear disaster at Fukushima in our present time, simply because the Japanese weren't allowed to have that technology, or other more frightening options :s
How do you think the world would look like economically speaking? Would China be a world-player is it nowadays?
Would China have allowed Japan to grow as the West did? Or would it have used Japan as a punching bag for past crimes?
Would the USSR tested there first A-bomb on Japan too? Or their H-bomb?I think the USA was also very interested in the effects that the A-bomb had on the Japanese after the bombings. Please post your ideas

Cheers,

Rob

 

[Jemiba]

The chances, that Japan would have been taken over by the USSR were very slim to my opinion.
Relationships between the US and the USSR already were stressed at the end of WW II, so the
US would never have accepted an occupation of complete Japan by soviet troops. Perhaps a
more plausible story would be the take-over of Japan by the Japanese communist party directly
after the war,as a result of the lost war and the fact, that the communists were the only political
power, that acted against the war. Then, later, maybe a kind of coalition/Co-operation with red
China could have been possible and so of course the "peaceful use of nuclear energy" would have
been there, too. So, if Fukushima would have been really a different place today is somewhat
doubtful, I think. :

 

[BAROBA]

Hi Jemiba,
I am aware that the USA would never have allowed it. But the question was, suppose it really did happen?
That the USA had given Japan to the Chinese as a compensation to the losses they had led due to the cruelty of the Japanese?
And then suppose that Mao also had cleaned out Japan many years later, and turned Japan into a real communist country.
Would it still be communist today? I think so, and maybe more communistic then the semi-liberal-communism then China knows today..
But modern Chinese 'communism' is only made possible with billions of dollars from Japan to help build up the hi-tech society China is today...
But it wouldn't have happened if China occupied Japan after the war.. So China in that reality would be a third-world country and the USA would be more powerful then it is now? Or not?
Would more countries has been converted to communism? Korea would be pretty isolated... And the USA would have been very far away....
Food for thought

Cheers,

Rob

 

[Jd_Sec]

I could see the USSR taking Japan after World War Two. It would have been difficult for the United States to have stopped them. More than likely it would end up turn into another decades long extended war.


But if it did happen I think the Soviets would have more to fear from the Japanese than the United States. If the United States stayed out of the conflict then Japan would have taken care of the "Communist" problem on their own.


If it happened I don't think China would be a major player mainly because the Soviets would have the advantage in the region -- given a successful invasion of Japan, there might not even be much of a China left after the USSR absorbed the region.


Economic-wise both the United States and USSR would have been stronger. I think the US would have shifted their sphere of interest more towards Australia and South America and may have stayed in Europe longer.


I can see the two powers of the world being a Soviet-Pacific Bloc and a Pan-American-European Union with India and Africa being the major points of conflict.

 

[Triton]

I wonder what would have happened if the Japanese hadn't surrendered after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it had implemented Operation Ketsugō? The military coup d'etat had succeeded on August 12-15, 1945?
Or that Truman could not drop the atomic bombs? That the United States needed the assistance of the Red Army to carry out Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet (Operation Downfall) the invasion of Japan? Planners expected fanatical opposition of the Imperial Army and civilians to forces invading Japan and heavy casualties. I presume that Stalin would have been given part of Japan as compensation for the use of the Red Army in the invasion of Japan. So perhaps a divided post-World War II Japan like the post-World War II divided Germany. Perhaps a Federal Republic of Japan and a Japan Democratic Republic?

Nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the casualties resulting from the invasion of Japan. To the present date, all the American military casualties of the 60 years following the end of World War II, including the Korean and Vietnam Wars, have not exceeded that number.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Coronet

 

[unclejim]

Real life, Soviets were about to invade Hokkiado during period of invasion of Kurile islands, in mid-August. Perhaps a later push onto Northern Honshu, but months before November start of Olympic. Truman warned off Stalin in private, and he complied.

 

[Triton]

Thanks for the information, unclejim.