Im doing an alternate history scenario with a friend and this is my map for 1980. I wanted some fresh eyes to look at this and give some history changes.
the only relavent alteration of history i have here is that I changed the result of the Ecuadorian elections which made it less dependent on the USA.
West Europeans and Japan and Australians (and Canadians) not being labeled as vassals is inaccurate, but depends on your audience if they'll fixate on screeching about that (real reality) instead of the broader picture youre trying to paint. US literally occupied the continent and Gladio'd everyone but friendlies by using all the nazis they hired into West German intelligence (and every other W. German government and social institution) and their collaborator networks, in collaboration with the (fascist) Vatican and also a bunch of mafia figures. Then subsumed the Europeans' individual militaries in large part into NATO which is blatantly led by the USA. Vassals.
When Australia tried to close US military bases and kick out the CIA the US collaborated with the UK to coup their government, including by having the Queen leverage her absolute powers. Vassal. Japan was bombed to shit and then militarily occupied by the US; and after the US-led government let the (those still-unexecuted) communists out of prison and used them to rebuild the country --- which made them very popular --- when the communists were going to handily win in a democratic election (which would likely too have meant removal of US military occupation) MacArthur literally stepped his boot down and abolished their election until the communists could be ousted --- and initiated a heinous purge and white terror against the communists and splitting the communist movement in half between those who would capitulate and those who sought protracted peoples war in response. Vassal.
Yeah, i had a some difficulty trying to quantify US vassalage. For canada I put them under NATO since it would be an Imperial Core country (despite US vassalage). I know the history you point out, but i will say that japan in the 80s was more economically independent from the US, to an extent where america had to take drastic action to wrestle it under control.
As @thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net pointed out, OECD is a more exact representation of the imperial core countries than just trying to do my previous system, so I will be changing the way the imperial core is represented.