African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1091: Chapter 100: The Navy’s South America Expedition

Apart from automobiles, East Africa’s home appliance products attracted exceptional attention at this year’s Nanyang Industrial Promotion Conference.

”An electric kettle, an electric teapot, an electric coffee pot, what’s the difference between these three?”

”The electric kettle, not to mention, is primarily used for boiling water. The electric teapot is a specialized appliance we launched specifically for your nation’s tea culture. As for the electric coffee pot, it’s similar to the teapot but is specially used for brewing coffee. The biggest difference from traditional stoves is that they all use electricity to generate heat to warm liquids rather than fire.”

”So, does that mean I can’t use an electric kettle to make tea or coffee?”

Facing the inquiry from a Far East Empire client, the East African personnel said, ”Sir, you certainly can do so. These items may have functional similarities, but they are more about meeting different needs. Ordinary people may not bother with these distinctions, but people with a certain level of taste or status prefer to stand out. For instance, you could use a rice cooker to cook tea or coffee, but this doesn’t stop many nobles or merchants from using specialized equipment.”

Similarly interesting dialogues were incessantly heard in the East Africa pavilion; this year’s Nanyang Industrial Promotion Conference opened many eyes to the development of external industrial civilization, especially the people of the Far East Empire.

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As East Africa promoted its products to the Far East Empire through the Nanyang Industrial Promotion Conference, a sizable East African fleet was grandly heading towards America over the Atlantic Ocean.

The fleet, comprising two dreadnoughts, two pre-dreadnoughts, and three cruisers among other vessels, sailed westward along the equatorial currents.

A fleet composed of two dreadnoughts, at present, is definitely considered extravagant. Apart from the United Kingdom, only two countries could manage it, namely Germany and East Africa. This East African fleet’s destination was South America.

If the exchange between East Africa and the Far East Empire relied on a cultural dialogue, then the interactions with other regions hinged more on military deterrence.

To explore markets, East Africa participated in the Far East Empire’s Nanyang Industrial Promotion Conference, which was a completely peaceful and friendly exchange platform.

But as for the emerging market that East Africa valued—various countries in South America, East Africa didn’t have such a good temper; after all, East Africa is fundamentally also a member of the great powers.

Rio de Janeiro.

As the capital of South America’s strongest country, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro developed rapidly in the 19th century and now it is in no way inferior to other cities of the world.

Of course, Rio de Janeiro’s development does not have universal significance for Brazil, as only Rio de Janeiro in the entire country resembles a decent appearance. From a nationwide perspective, Brazil now is either undeveloped virgin land or vast plantations and farms; compared to industrial powers in the world, all Brazil is just a big countryside.

It’s no wonder the performance was quite embarrassing in the Paraguayan War of the last century; Brazil won the war, but its size was much larger than Paraguay, especially when Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina joined forces against a single country, Paraguay.

”This is Rio de Janeiro—it looks pretty developed, almost similar to Luanda,” said Chel, the East African Navy Rear Admiral.

As the capital of Brazil, the current population of Rio de Janeiro is only a few hundred thousand, which would be considered a big city in East Africa; it’s just that East Africa has quite a number of big cities compared to Brazil.

”General, Rio de Janeiro is Brazil’s capital and has the best port conditions in Brazil, so its development is fairly good, but Brazil’s overall development is somewhat disappointing. You should know that Brazil’s founding history is much longer than the Empire’s, but now it has been left far behind by us,” said Ambassador Leikamon, who was accompanying him.

Chel said, ”I am not very familiar with Brazil’s situation, but indeed, their development is not comparable to East Africa.”

Ambassador Leikamon said, ”Speaking of population, as early as mid-last century, Brazil’s population exceeded ten million, but now Brazil’s population is over twenty million, not reaching thirty million, so it’s normal for Brazil’s development to be slow. Our population growth rate with the United States is much higher than Brazil’s.”

Chel said, ”After all, Brazil’s former sovereign country, Portugal, didn’t have a large population either. Now, it is quite commendable that Brazil can exceed Portugal in population, unlike us in East Africa. Whether it’s the Far East Empire or the German Region, both of our main sources of immigrants are far superior to little Portugal.”

Leikamon said, ”Besides population, Brazil’s national management is very chaotic, now Argentina’s attractiveness to immigrants even exceeds Brazil’s. Bear in mind that Brazil’s conditions were way better than Argentina’s before.”

In Leikamon’s view, Brazil is in no way inferior to Argentina in terms of natural endowment, and it was even far superior to Argentina before. Although Argentina also had poor development in the mid-19th century, it’s now entering a rapid development stage. In terms of prosperity alone, Argentina, an agricultural nation, even surpasses East Africa and many European countries.

With the support of foreign countries led by the United Kingdom, Argentina’s population has increased nearly fivefold from the 1870s to now, with railways reaching over 30,000 kilometers, and annual wheat exports exceeding 3 million tons, with beef exports surpassing 300,000 tons, making Argentina one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with per capita income levels comparable to Germany and France, the industrial powerhouses.

The contemporary period in Brazil, rather than a booming era, is more like decline. With the Republican Government in power, the Brazilian government has undergone fierce internal strife. Already poor to begin with, the country is further embroiled in turmoil, and with East Africa’s involvement since the 1890s, Brazil’s domestic politics have become more unstable, forming various factions such as pro-America, pro-United Kingdom, pro-East Africa, pro-Germany, pro-France, and pro-Portugal.

Among these factions, the ones with the most influence on Brazilian domestic politics are the United Kingdom, the United States, and East Africa, with these three countries paying considerable attention to Brazil and each holding different attitudes.

However, East Africa’s influence over Brazil is slightly weaker compared to the United Kingdom and the United States, which is a normal phenomenon. After all, in the last century, East Africa didn’t fare much better than Brazil when both were agricultural countries.

Moreover, compared to the United Kingdom, the United States, or even France, they started dealing with Brazil much earlier than East Africa, thus forming a complex network of interests there.

The situation started to change in the 1890s when East Africa defeated Portugal and the United Kingdom in South Africa. For the first time, East Africa emerged in Brazil as a powerful military nation.

After all, Brazil’s sovereign country is Portugal, which, although significantly weakened, was not comparable to Brazil at that time. Defeating Portugal could certainly unsettle Brazil, especially since Portugal had the extremely powerful ally, the United Kingdom, at the time.

And it was in the 1890s that East Africa began to strengthen trade and exchanges with South America, coinciding with the high-speed development of East Africa’s industry at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Under the dual emphasis of influence and industrial strength, the volume of trade between East Africa and Brazil soared rapidly, making East Africa Brazil’s third-largest trading partner today.

The focus here is on industry because if East Africa were still an agricultural nation like before, the trade between East Africa and Brazil would not have been smooth.

Since Brazil is a typical agricultural country, and its climate is similar to East Africa’s, early on East Africa was Brazil’s main competitor in the international agricultural trade market. For instance, Brazil’s rubber industry was crushed by East Africa.

Of course, now East Africa remains Brazil’s primary rival in agriculture, and with East Africa’s shift towards becoming an industrial nation since the 1890s, it was only then that East Africa could establish more trade relations with Brazil. Moreover, due to the shift in East Africa’s foreign policy towards South America, the East African Government sought to gain certain interests to win over Brazil, allowing for wider trade flexibility between the two countries.

The approach was quite simple: East Africa would purchase agricultural products from Brazil and then process and sell them to other regions. For example, East Africa would purchase Brazilian coffee raw materials, process them into finished products in East Africa, and then sell them through East Africa’s trade network to the Far East, Middle East, and other regions.