by Tim Marshall
In the present century Japan has altered its defence policy to allow its forces to fight alongside allies abroad, and changes to the constitution are expected to follow to put this on a more solid legal footing. Its 2013 Security Strategy document was the first in which it named a potential enemy, saying: ‘China has taken actions that can be regarded as attempts to change the status quo by coercion.’
The 2015 defence budget was its biggest to date at US$42 billion, mostly going on naval and air equipment, including six US-made F-35A stealth fighters. In the spring of 2015 Tokyo also unveiled what it called a ‘helicopter-carrying destroyer’. It didn’t take a military expert to notice that the vessel was as big as the Japanese aircraft carriers of the Second World War, which are forbidden by the surrender terms of 1945. The ship can be adapted for fixed-wing aircraft but the defence minister issued a statement saying that he was ‘not thinking of using it as an aircraft carrier’. This is akin to buying a motorbike then saying that because you were not going to use it as a motorbike, it is a pushbike. The Japanese now have an aircraft carrier.
The money spent on that and other shiny new kit is a clear statement of intent, as is much of its positioning. The military infrastructure at Okinawa, which guards the approaches to the main islands, will be upgraded. This will also allow Japan greater flexibility to patrol its Air Defence Zone, part of which overlaps with China’s equivalent zone after an expansion was announced by Beijing in 2013.
Both zones cover the islands called the Senkaku or Diaoyu (in Japanese and Chinese respectively), which Japan controls but which are claimed by China too. They also form part of the Ryukyu Island chain, which is particularly sensitive as any hostile power must pass the islands on the way to the Japanese heartlands; they give Japan a lot of territorial sea space and they might contain exploitable underwater gas and oil fields. Thus Tokyo intends to hold on to them by all means necessary.
China’s expanded ‘Air Defence Identification Zone’ in the East China Sea covers territory claimed by China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. When Beijing said that any plane flying through the zone must identity itself or ‘face defensive measures’, Japan, South Korea and the United States responded by flying through it without doing so. There was no hostile response from China, but this is an issue that can be turned into an ultimatum at a time of Beijing’s choosing.
Japan also claims sovereignty over the Kuril Islands in its far north, off Hokkaido, which it lost to the Soviet Union in the Second World War and which are still under Russian control. Russia prefers not to discuss the matter, but the debate is not in the same league as Japan’s disputes with China. There are only approximately 19,000 inhabitants of the Kuril Islands, and although the islands sit in fertile fishing grounds, the territory is not one of particular strategic importance. The issue ensures that Russia and Japan maintain a frosty relationship, but within that frost they have pretty much frozen the question of the islands.
It is China that keeps Japanese leaders awake at night and keeps them close to the USA, diplomatically and militarily. Many Japanese, especially on Okinawa, resent the US military presence, but the might of China, added to the decline in the Japanese population, is likely to ensure that the post-war USA–Japan relationship continues, albeit on a more equal basis. Japanese statisticians fear that the population will shrink to under 100 million by the middle of the century. If the current birth rate continues, it is even possible that by 2110 the population will have fallen below the 50 million it was in 1910. Japanese governments are trying a variety of measures to reverse the decline. A recent example is using millions of dollars of tax payers’ money to fund a matchmaking service for young couples. Subsidised konkatsu parties are arranged for single men and women to meet, eat, drink and – eventually – have babies. Immigration is another possible solution but Japan remains a relatively insular society and immigration is not favoured by the population. Given that an increasingly assertive China has a population of 1.4 billion, Japan, itself a re-militarising power with a quietly hawkish outlook, is going to require friends in the neighbourhood.
So the Americans are staying in both Korea and Japan. There is now a triangular relationship between them, as underlined by the intelligence agreement noted above. Japan and South Korea have plenty to argue about, but will agree that their shared anxiety about China and North Korea will overcome this.
Even if they do go on to solve a problem like Korea, the issue of China will still be there, and this means the US 7th Fleet will remain in the Bay of Tokyo and US Marines will remain in Okinawa, guarding the paths in and out of the Pacific and the China Seas. The waters can be expected to be rough.
CHAPTER 9
LATIN AMERICA
‘We like to be called the “continent of hope” . . . This hope is like a promise of heaven, an IOU whose payment is always put off.’
Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and Nobel laureate
LATIN AMERICA, PARTICULARLY ITS SOUTH, IS PROOF that you can bring the Old World’s knowledge and technology to the new, but if geography is against you, then you will have limited success, especially if you get the politics wrong. Just as the geography of the USA helped it become a great power, so that of the twenty countries to the south ensures that none will rise to seriously challenge the North American giant this century nor come together to do so collectively.
The limitations of Latin America’s geography were compounded right from the beginning in the formation of its nation states. In the USA, once the land had been taken from its original inhabitants, much of it was sold or given away to small landholders; by contrast, in Latin America the Old World culture of powerful landowners and serfs was imposed, which led to inequality. On top of this, the European settlers introduced another geographical problem that to this day holds many countries back from developing their full potential: they stayed near the coasts, especially (as we saw in Africa) in regions where the interior was infested by mosquitos and disease. Most of the countries’ biggest cities, often the capitals, were therefore near the coasts, and all roads from the interior were developed to connect to the capitals but not to each other.
In some cases, for example in Peru and Argentina, the metropolitan area of the capital city contains more than 30 per cent of the country’s population. The colonialists concentrated on getting the wealth out of each region, to the coast and on to foreign markets. Even after independence the predominantly European coastal elites failed to invest in the interior, and what population centres there are inland remain poorly connected with each other.
At the beginning of the 2010s it was fashionable among many business leaders, professors and media analysts to argue passionately that we were at the dawn of the ‘Latin American decade’. It has not come to pass, and although the region has as yet unfulfilled potential, it will constantly be fighting against the hand it was dealt by nature and history.
Mexico is growing into a regional power, but it will always have the desert wastelands in its north, its mountains to the east and west and its jungles in the south, all physically limiting its economic growth. Brazil has made its appearance on the world stage, but its internal regions will remain isolated from each other; and Argentina and Chile, despite their wealth of natural resources, will still be far further away from New York and Washington than are Paris or London.
Two hundred years after the beginning of the struggle for independence, the Latin American countries lag far behind the North Americans and the Europeans. Their total population (including the Caribbean) is over 600 million, and yet their combined GDP is equivalent to that of France and the UK, which together comprise about 125 million people. They have come a long way since colonialism and slavery. There is still a long way to go.
Latin America begins at the Mexican border with the USA and stretches southwards 7,000 miles through Central America, and then South America, before ending at Tierra del Fuego on Cape Horn where the world’s two great oceans, the Pacific and the Atlantic, meet. At its widest point, we
st to east, from Brazil across to Peru, it is 3,200 miles. On the western side is the Pacific, on the other the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic. None of the coastlines have many natural deep harbours, thus limiting trade.
Central America is hill country with deep valleys and at its narrowest point is only 120 miles across. Then, running parallel to the Pacific for 4,500 miles, is the longest continuous mountain chain in the world – the Andes. They are snow-capped along their entire length and mostly impassable, thus cutting many regions in the west of the continent off from the east. The highest point in the Western Hemisphere is here – the 22,843-foot Aconcagua Mountain – and the waters tumbling down from the mountain range are a source of hydroelectric power for the Andean nations of Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. Finally the land descends, forests and glaciers appear, we are into the Chilean archipelago and then – land’s end. The eastern side of Latin America is dominated by Brazil and the Amazon river, the second-longest in the world after the Nile.
One of the few things the countries have in common is language based on Latin. Spanish is the language of almost all of them, but in Brazil it is Portuguese, and in French Guiana – French. But this linguistic connection disguises the differences in a continent that has five different climatological regions. The relative flatland east of the Andes and temperate climate of the lower third of South America, known as the Southern Cone, are in stark contrast to the mountains and jungle further north and enable agricultural and construction costs to be reduced, thus making them some of the most profitable regions on the entire continent – whereas Brazil, as we shall see, even has difficulty moving goods around its own domestic market.
Academics and journalists are fond of writing that the continent is ‘at a crossroads’ – as in about to embark at last on its great future. I would argue that, geographically speaking, it is less at a crossroads than at the bottom of the world; there’s a lot going on all over this vast space, but the problem is that much of it is going on a long way from anywhere other than itself. That may be considered a Northern Hemispheric view, but it is also a view of where the major economic, military and diplomatic powers are situated.
Despite its remoteness from history’s major population centres, there have been people living south of what is now the Mexico–USA border for about 15,000 years. They are thought to have originated from Russia and crossed the Bering Strait on foot at a time when it was still land. The present-day inhabitants are a mixture of Europeans, Africans, indigenous tribes and the Mestizo population, who are of European and native American descent.
This mix can be traced back to the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal in 1494, one of the early examples of European colonialists drawing lines on maps of faraway places about which they knew little – or, in this case, nothing. As they set off westward to explore the oceans, the two great European sea powers agreed that any land discovered outside Europe would be shared between them. The Pope agreed. The rest is a very unfortunate history in which the vast majority of the occupants of the lands now called South America were wiped out.
The independence movements began in the early 1800s, led by Simón Bolívar of Venezuela and José de San Martín of Argentina. Bolivar in particular is etched in the collective consciousness of South America: Bolivia is named in his honour, and the left-leaning countries of the continent are loosely tied in a ‘Bolivarian’ ideology against the USA. This is a fluctuating set of anti-colonialist/pro-socialist ideas which often stray into nationalism as and when it suits the politicians who espouse them.
In the nineteenth century many of the newly independent countries broke apart, either through civil conflict or cross-border wars, but by the end of that century the borders of the various states were mostly set. The three richest nations – Brazil, Argentina and Chile – then set off on a ruinously expensive naval arms race, which held back the development of all three. There remain border disputes throughout the continent, but the growth of democracy means that most are either frozen or there are attempts to work them out diplomatically.
Particularly bitter is the relationship between Bolivia and Chile, which dates back to the 1879 War of the Pacific in which Bolivia lost a large chunk of its territory, including 250 miles of coastline, and has been landlocked ever since. It has never recovered from this blow, which partially explains why it is among the poorest Latin American countries. This in turn has exacerbated the severe divide between the mostly European lowlands population and the mostly indigenous peoples of the highlands.
Time has not healed the wounds between them, nor those between the two countries. Despite the fact that Bolivia has the third-largest reserves of natural gas in South America it will not sell any to Chile, which is in need of a reliable supplier. Two Bolivian presidents who toyed with the idea were thrown out of office and the current president, Evo Morales, has a ‘gas to Chile’ policy consisting of a ‘gas for coastline’ deal, which is dismissed by Chile despite its need for energy. National pride and geographical need on both sides trump diplomatic compromise.
Another border dispute dating back to the nineteenth century is indicated by the borders of the British territory of Belize and neighbouring Guatemala. They are straight lines, such as we have seen in Africa and the Middle East, and they were drawn by the British. Guatemala claims Belize as part of its sovereign territory but, unlike Bolivia, is unwilling to push the issue. Chile and Argentina argue over the Beagle Channel water route, Venezuela claims half of Guyana, and Ecuador has historical claims on Peru. This last example is one of the more serious land disputes on the continent and has led to three border wars over the past seventy-five years, the most recent being in 1995; but again, the growth of democracy has eased tensions.
The second half of the twentieth century saw Central and South America become a proxy battlefield of the Cold War with accompanying coups d’état, military dictatorships and massive human rights abuses, for example in Nicaragua. The end of the Cold War allowed many nations to move towards democracy and, compared to the twentieth century, relations between them are now relatively stable.
The Latin Americans, or at least those south of Panama, mostly reside on, or near, the western and eastern coasts, with the interior and the freezing cold far south very sparsely populated. South America is in effect a demographically hollow continent and its coastline is often referred to as the ‘populated rim’. This is less true of Central America and especially Mexico, where the populations are more equally distributed; but Mexico in particular has difficult terrain, which limits its ambitions and foreign policies.
In its far north Mexico has a 2,000-mile-long border with the USA, almost all of which is desert. The land here is so harsh that most of it is uninhabited. This acts as a buffer zone between it and its giant northern neighbour – but a buffer that is more advantageous to the Americans than the Mexicans due to the disparity in their technology. Militarily, only US forces could stage a major invasion across it; any force coming the other way would be destroyed. As a barrier to illegal entry into the USA it is useful, but porous – a problem with which successive US administrations will have to deal.
All Mexicans know that before the 1846–8 war with the United States the land which is now Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona was part of Mexico. The conflict led to half of Mexico’s territory being ceded to the USA. However, there is no serious political movement to regain the region and no pressing border dispute between the two countries. Throughout most of the twentieth century they squabbled over a small piece of land after the Rio Grande changed course in the 1850s, but in 1967 both sides agreed the area was legally part of Mexico.
By the middle of the twenty-first century Hispanics are likely to be the largest ethnic group in the four US states listed above, and many will be of Mexican origin. There may eventually be Spanish-speaking political movements on both sides of the US–Mexican border calling for reunification, but tempering this would be the fact that many US Latin
os will not have Mexican heritage, and that Mexico is unlikely to have anything approaching the living standards of the US. The Mexican government struggles to control even its own territory – it will not be in a position to take on any more in the foreseeable future. Mexico is destined to live in the USA’s shadow and as such will always play the subservient role in bilateral relations. It lacks a navy capable of securing the Gulf of Mexico or pushing out into the Atlantic, and so relies on the US navy to ensure the sea lanes remain open and safe.
Private companies from both nations have set up factories just south of the border to cut costs in labour and transport, but the region is hostile to human existence and will remain the buffer land across which many of the poor of Latin America will continue to cross as they seek entry, legal or illegal, to the Promised Land to the north.
Mexico’s major mountain ranges, the Sierra Madres, dominate the west and east of the country and between them is a plateau. In the south, in the Valley of Mexico, is the capital – Mexico City – one of the world’s mega capital cities with a population of around 20 million people.
On the western slopes of the highlands and in the valleys the soil is poor, and the rivers are of limited assistance in moving goods to market. On the eastern slopes the land is more fertile, but the rugged terrain still prevents Mexico from developing as it would like. To the south lie the borders with Belize and Guatemala. Mexico has little interest in expanding southward because the land quickly rises to become the sort of mountainous terrain it is difficult to conquer or control. Extending into either country would not enlarge the limited amount of profitable land Mexico already has. It has no ideological territorial ambitions and instead concentrates on trying to develop its limited oil-producing industry and attracting more investment into its factories. Besides, Mexico has enough internal problems to cope with, without getting into any foreign adventures – perhaps none greater than its role in satisfying the Americans’ voracious appetite for drugs.
