The Navidad Incident by Natsuki Ikezawa

new politicians be waiting in the wings, surpassing even Your Excellency in ability, it is still Japanese diplomatic policy to value continuity. Big changes may have bad consequences. Then there’s Your Excellency’s fifty years of relations with Japan.”
    â€œThat’s a big figure you’ve dredged up.”
    â€œI make it my personal duty to know all there is to know about Your Excellency, and I repeat, Japan can ill afford to lose such a good partner in the West Pacific. At present, Your Excellency has disbanded the legislature while a soft martial law stays in effect for the sake of domestic stability, but it is our experts’ opinion that your Island Security lacks effective muscle.”
    â€œWhat you mean is, you’d set me up as a real dictator.”
    â€œNot in so many words. Different countries have different stages of development, and the forms of governance vary accordingly. As Navidad faces up to the stringencies of the twenty-first century, she will need your guidance all the more. Not for just another five or ten years—Your Excellency must lead the way forward for much, much longer. And to guard against instabilities that threaten your benevolent regime, Island Security should be strengthened.”
    â€œThe more you tell me, the more I feel myself turning into a puppet.”
    â€œNot at all. It’s for the mutual good of Navidad and Japan. Both countries need you for decades to come.”
    â€œWho’s to guarantee that what profits both sides will coincide forever? Rather dangerous, dancing so close. More natural for two countries to recognize their respective differences and just check in from time to time. At any rate, I have no intention of becoming another Yuan Shikai selling out a South Seas’ Manchuria.”
    â€œWhat a memory for names you have! I’m not so well up on my history, I really had to think there for a second. No, please don’t forget that the full command of the Island Security would be in Your Excellency’s hands. We would merely offer technical training, nothing more.”
    â€œTechnical training. And secret indoctrination sessions on the side. Brainwashing our best and brightest with the idea that Navidad’s well-being is best served by sucking up to Japan. That’s how they’ll come home. With maybe a couple of rabble rousers in their midst. Or else you’ll send us Japanese technical advisers to keep them drilled. Then one day you’ll turn some upstart with ambitions against me, and I’ll be out just like that.”
    â€œYou exaggerate!” Suzuki protests, unconvincingly.
    â€œHistorical imperative, if you’d care to study up on it. Not that I’m against it necessarily. If I thought it were for the good of the country, I’d gladly step down. I just don’t like being jerked around. And not just me, none of us living on these three islands have ever had much stomach for that. The less that’s brought in from outside, the better.”
    â€œMoving people and things creates wealth.”
    â€œYes, transport brings wealth to one end, but makes the other end poor. Value flows in one direction.”
    â€œNot at all, both sides get rich on exchange.”
    â€œThat’s a basic tenet of trade, I grant you. With my business background, I don’t doubt it.” Matías is beginning to enjoy arguing with Suzuki. Now that the petroleum facility issue and Island Security training have been nicely eased into the background for the moment, time to extrapolate and digress; it makes the game more fun. Size up the adversary’s position, plot out what both sides will say. Intellectual games like these have made Matías who he is today—a shrewd political thinker, confident that no Japanese will ever get the better of him. At least he knows of no race of people worse at debating than the Japanese.
    Matías would happily spend the whole afternoon matching