African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1272: Chapter 281: Agreement

Palau Island, which was the Palau Republic in the past, is located between the Philippines and the United States’ Guam base in the past.

After World War I in the past, because Germany lost, Palau Island fell into Japan’s hands, but now it’s obvious that Japan cannot seize this opportunity.

After East Africa took over Palau Island from Germany, it paid great attention to it, mainly because Palau Island serves as a maritime bridge between East Africa’s Mindanao Colony and New Guinea Colony, with no other large islands existing within thousands of kilometers of sea around.

Meanwhile, this island is also the final backup route for East Africa to reach the Far East, although aside from military use, it is estimated that few ships from East Africa would choose to travel to the Far East via here.

Kaiboer said, ”Although East Africa is targeting many strategic locations this time, they seem important, but they are quite insignificant to our country.”

”After all, we in the Netherlands have declined to a certain extent and do not need to consider global strategy; selling these islands to East Africa is not at all impossible.”

He pointed to a map and said, ”For a small country like ours, fate is always manipulated by Great Powers such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and East Africa.”

”If we truly offend any side, even if we occupy these strategic locations, they can easily sever our connections with the colonies or our trade routes.”

Kaiboer’s words are not exaggerated in the slightest; the United Kingdom, France, and Germany are right beside the Netherlands, and the fate of the Netherlands is not autonomous at all; otherwise, it would not have been possible to maintain a neutral position in the ongoing European war, which is actually a helpless choice. Offending any of the three belligerent countries poses a national extinction threat to the Netherlands.

And although East Africa is quite distant from the Netherlands, East Africa can effortlessly sever the Netherlands’ connection with the Dutch East Indies in the Indian Ocean or intercept the Dutch trade with the East. Although there isn’t a national extinction threat, it’s enough to deal a severe blow to the Netherlands.

After all, as a commercial nation, the Netherlands relies most heavily on maritime trade; once the United Kingdom replaced the maritime dominance of the Netherlands, it began with the United Kingdom issuing the Navigation Act.

This act stipulated that all goods entering the United Kingdom’s territorial waters must be transported using only domestic British vessels and not foreign ones.

This legislation ostensibly protected the interests of British vessels but was, in reality, aimed at the Netherlands, as the shipbuilding industry in the Netherlands was prosperous at the time, and Dutch business associations were efficient and well-organized, basically monopolizing the maritime transshipment business.

The issuance of this act led to increasingly intense struggles and frictions between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, and the natural result was the failure of the Netherlands and the rise of the Royal Navy.

Therefore, as long as a certain country can cut off the Netherlands’ maritime trade, it essentially means having a hold on the lifeline of the Netherlands.

”And we don’t rely on these strategic places either; the most important thing for our government right now is to ensure that East Africa, along with other nations, has aspirations toward the affluent regions of the East Indies.”

”Only places like Java Island, Sumatra, which are populous or rich in minerals, deserve our attention.”

”So selling these dozen islands and island groups to East Africa poses no major harm to us. If we insist on keeping these places under our control, it might instead lead to disaster.”

”After all, East Africa is still willing to negotiate and communicate with us now, which is the best news; if we truly refuse, Siam serves as a negative example.”

Kaiboer’s mentioning of Siam, this unlucky fellow, was evidently convincing to Queen Wilhelmina.

East Africa not only snatched the Kra Isthmus from Siam, but instead, Siam had to pay East Africa a huge sum to settle the matter, making them lose out greatly.

So Wilhelmina agreed understandingly, ”What the Prime Minister says is indeed reasonable; if we don’t comply with East Africa’s requests, East Africans might not feel discouraged, but instead become thrilled. Thus, they wouldn’t have to consider the rapport between our two countries, and they might freely target the colonies in the East Indies.”

Kaiboer sighed and said, ”This is also what I worry about the most. Currently, the international situation is quite favorable to East Africa; apart from the United States, which other Great Power can counterbalance East Africa?”

”But the United States also competes fiercely with East Africa in America, and in the South Sea Region, their strength is far from comparable to East Africa, and collaborating with the United States might lead to inviting disaster. If this indeed happens, it would be the worst scenario, because East Africa only has designs on a dozen islands, but Americans might have ill intentions toward the entire East Indies.”

”Therefore, I believe our attitude toward East Africa should be that as long as East Africa does not engage in activities that harm the core interests of our nation, some minor issues can be completely agreed upon with East Africa.”

Kaiboer’s concerns are not unfounded; in the South Sea Region, the United States only has the Philippines, and not even the entire Philippine Islands. In contrast, East Africa, in addition to the South Sea Region, has a considerable number of colonies, even in the entire Pacific Ocean territory, outside of the South American West Coast, there exist East African colonies.

So relative to East Africa, which has already been half-sated, it’s instead the United States, a still hungry nation, that poses greater threats to the Netherlands.

Moreover, the relationship between East Africa and the Netherlands has always been good; although there may arise some contradictions due to colonial properties in the South Sea Region, it does not affect the relationship between the two countries at all, at least at the governmental level. East Africa has always been good in its attitude towards the Netherlands.

It’s similar to how the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, in the past, had quite a few conflicts abroad, yet the relationship between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom was in fact good overall.

This kind of government-level attitude is often related to national circumstances; the Netherlands, even if some discord arises with the United Kingdom, Britain is still the Netherlands’ reliance to prevent being invaded and annexed by Germany and France.

Furthermore, the economic significance of East Africa to the Netherlands far surpasses that of the East Indies to the Netherlands; from Ernst to the era of colonial development in East Africa, there have been many collaborations with the Dutch, especially after the rise of the Rhein Empire.

East Africa, being an external country, always emphasizes developing friendly relationships with some small European countries; of course, Portugal is an exception, but that’s only because Portugal blocked East Africa’s path of local expansion.

In fact, since the 20th century, the relationship between East Africa and Portugal has also started to warm up, particularly after the outbreak of European wars, rapid developments in economic cooperation between the two countries have begun.

After all, Portugal is one of Western Europe’s gateways; trade between East Africa and Western Europe cannot circumvent Portugal. As for the past disputes between the two countries in Africa, they have almost completely dissipated with the passage of time.

Wilhelmina said, ”Since you already have concrete plans, the next step is just to do well with parliament’s work; at the same time, the public opinion on this territorial transaction must be carefully managed, so as not to trigger domestic issues.”

Prime Minister Kaiboer said, ”I believe parliament will approve our reasons; after all, our country has never really had autonomy, not having the right to refuse before East Africa. As for domestic opinion control, now the attention domestically is all focused on the European war, so it won’t stir up a storm.”

The European war dominates the Netherlands’ domestic headlines every day, with every breeze and movement on the Western Front attracting the attention of the entire Netherlands.

After all, if things go wrong, the Netherlands might become a battleground for the two major camps, following in Belgium’s footsteps. Just looking at the neighbor Belgium’s current dire situation, the Dutch have no leisure to pay attention to the sovereignty changes of mere island territories thousands of miles away.

After all, when East Kalimantan was taken by East Africa last time, it didn’t garner significant attention domestically; unless it’s Java Island or Sumatra, any damage to these core overseas interests of the Netherlands, these are places whose names can still be recognized, but the dozen or so islands East Africa wants, ninety-nine percent of the nationals likely don’t even know them.

A day later, the Dutch parliament was smoothly persuaded by Kaiboer; of course, the underlying threat contained in East Africa’s Foreign Minister Frier’s undertones was the key factor in making the Dutch parliament decisively back down.

Comparing selling a few islands to ensuring the safety of the entire East Indies, the Dutch government has no better choice. East Africa doesn’t even need to send troops; just providing some support to the native resistance forces on the East Indies would make the Dutch government feel inadequate.