Chile, Japan, development, and order in the Pacific, 1890s–1940s

Between the 1890s and the 1940s, a diverse group of Chilean diplomats, businessmen, and intellectuals sought to convert Japan into a principal consumer of Chile’s struggling nitrate fertilizer industry (saltpetre). The commercial effort to revive Chile’s export development model through Japanese markets also evolved into an intention to emulate Japan’s formula for sturdy nation-building and for fortifying the economic sovereignty against North Atlantic capital. Ultimately, this article situates Chilean–Japanese relations within a global moment of decolonization and development that sought to reform North Atlantic dominion over international affairs. That Latin American nation- and order-building were shaped not only by the binary embrace or rejection of models from the United States and Europe, but also by ideas from Japan, the Pacific, and Latin America itself, illustrates the possibilities for and sophistication of Global South designs for international engagements and development, even if their counterfactual imaginaries did not always materialize as intended.