Let's say that in the late 70's Park Chung-Hee is never assassinated and a group of North Korean generals decide that they disagree with Kim Il-Song's succession plan and successfully oust him with Chinese backing. South Korea remains a capitalist dictatorship vying for legitimacy with the occasional white terror while North Korea follows the lead of Deng and Gorbachev eventually becoming a democratic-socialist state. What effect does this have on east-asian politics with the US needing to prop up the South while China gets the easy job of a sane neighbor, if not ally?
I can see America's support for democracy becoming even further suspect and North Korea normalizing relations with the rest of the world but other than that I'm not sure what else would change.
What means of opposite governments?A capitalist government like South Korea?Wow,the upheaval in East Asia.With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is not impossible.But I think it's mainly because the four Asian countries have the tradition of centralization and the capitalist camp in Asia is relatively weak.But it's really strange. Only North Korea is still fighting for ideology, and the other three countries have embraced the market economy.And the North Korean regime is clearly out of the essence of socialism.
