Divided Japan
From Alternative History
[edit] The POD
In 1945, as the Second World War is coming to a close, Harry Truman is not as forceful as he was in OTL. Thus, nuclear weapons are not used (so no Hiroshima or Nagasaki) and the Russians and Americans prepare to invade Japan. The Japanese surrender after a bloody battle for part of the island of Kyushu, and the country is partitioned among the Republic of China, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union, like Germany had been between four countries.
[edit] The Timeline
June 1946 - Japanese surrender. Occupation begins among four countries. Americans hand Kyushu over to the British and leave for mid-Honshu. (Kyushu is the southernmost of the big islands, and Honshu, in the middle, is the largest. Shikoku is the island reserved for the Republic of China, and Hachirogata (northern Honshu) and Hokkaido are in the Soviet zone. The British, in addition to Kyushu, also have southern Honshu.
1950 - Mao Zedong, others take Beijing for the Communists, thus inaugurating People's Republic of China. Republic of China forces flee to Taiwan; ROC continues administration of its zone of Japan, a fact bitterly contested by Mao and his allies.
1952 - Korean-Japanese War. Douglas MacArthur asks for permission to test atomic bomb. He is granted permission and Sapporo (a major city in the Soviet zone) goes up in flames, followed by Pyongyang in North Korea. Russia is caught without nukes (no nuclear secrets have been handed to the Soviets by Julius or Ethel Rosenberg, and the Soviets saw no need to rush to build a device that had not really been tried on a city to that point.)
1956 - Korean-Japanese War put in limbo with stalemate armistice (a la OTL Korean War). Soviet Union builds first atomic bomb; threatens to use it on Seoul. American military reacts with further "saber-rattling".
1959 - Soviets wall off their part of Japan and Tokyo along with their part of Germany and Berlin. Japan remains a Cold War hotspot...
