Chapter 735: Three and a Half Billion for Five Years

“President Quirino’s rhetorical question works?” Pamela Mountbatten asked rhetorically with a slight frown of disbelief, “Can he really carry the pressure from Washington?”

“His words were impeccable and spoke to the issue of responsibility. The question of responsibility is a serious one for a world hegemon. Think about why Britain abolished the slave trade more than a hundred years ago, and even took out large sums of money to do the same to countries involved in the slave trade to appease them.”

Alan Wilson continued without stopping his mouth, “Keep in mind that the Philippines is a former colony of the United States, and there are often two opposing but blended ideas of the suzerain power regarding the responsibility of a former colony. On the one hand, it is profit-based exploitation, but among the propaganda to the citizens is to pacify the colony by bringing it into civilization.”

Though this is a hypocritical rhetoric, the propaganda has been propagated over the years and eventually accepted by the majority of the citizens. Citizens of the sovereign state believed that their country had some corresponding responsibility to the former colonies.

Later on, it would evolve into some compensatory hearts and harmless but sincere help. Diplomatic support and small amounts of economic aid usually prevailed.

Naturally, this was a small but indispensable investment compared to maintaining the influence of the former colonies.

This is also the reason why in later times Britain always had some over-the-top concern for Xiangjiang and also India. Britain had countless times more colonies than the United States, and Allen Wilson, still the administrator of an important colony, could easily understand this mentality.

President Quirino’s rhetorical question of American pressure almost blames the United States, on a moral level, for its defeat in the Philippines during World War II, which led to the Philippines being caught in the middle of the Japanese massacre.

In particular, President Quirino’s wife and daughter died in the war, which is a very serious accusation against the United States.

What’s more, by today the US is the world’s hegemon, and is even more guilty on top of its emotions.

“It’s really hard to imagine! Why am I a bit deaf.” Pamela Mountbatten was dismayed as she felt her husband’s words were metaphysical, how could such an idea have come up?

“So you’re not the highest official in the colony, so you might as well be good at business.” Alan Wilson reached out and stroked his wife’s hair, “This kind of contradictory thinking only exists among governments that have had colonies. Countries that haven’t colonized, like Soviet China, don’t have such bullshit ideas.”

Bullshit thinking, that’s what Alan Wilson says about this kind of thinking. To him this so-called moral responsibility is bullshit, nothing more than finding a way to interfere with former colonies.

President Quirino sort of crookedly hit on the particular psychology of the colonial powers. Especially the United States, the United States originally colonies were already few, but also want to support out a benchmark, in 1953 this time, the Philippines is still given high hopes, there is a kind of want to hand over a positive example of the mentality.

In the days that followed, there was no response from Washington to President Quirino’s rhetorical questions, proving Allen Wilson’s judgment. The United States was still quite tolerant of the former colony, the Philippines, which was doing quite well in this day and age.

Even up to the 1960s, the Philippines was generally regarded as a newcomer to the Asian economy, and even came close to squeezing out the Fragrant River as one of Asia’s Four Little Dragons. But in 1965 Ferdinand Marcos came to power, opened a long career in power, the first stage to engage in hemlock-quenching type of economic routes, the middle and latter stages of corruption while killing, it is said that he alone ate three years of the country’s financial budget, coupled with a crazy oppression of the south of the pacifists, and finally, naturally, cut off the entire country’s political economy.

Washington at this time is very difficult, Japan has become the front line of the blockade of the Soviet Union, and the former colony of the Philippines is to pay reparations, but also with the United States of America’s responsibility for the Philippines to question, which is very let Washington down.

A colonial commissioner, who no one understands the psychology of colonial suzerainty better than I do, was on vacation in Australia, and transmitted President Quirino’s questioning of the U.S. back to Manila, which led to a show of solidarity by the citizens of Manila with the President’s meeting in Australia.

After feedback from the embassy in Manila, Washington, after discussion, finally felt that the United States should show more concern for the Philippines as a former colony.

Soon the U.S. Ambassador in Canberra invited President Quirino to be his guest, stating that the U.S. had absolutely no idea of favoring Japan, and that in principle it was also reporting the Philippine claims with understanding.

The so-called pressure does not exist, it is just that the figure is indeed a bit too fanciful, eight billion dollars Japan can’t afford, not to mention the Philippines wants eight billion dollars, what about Australia? What about New Zealand? What about the Netherlands?

Each of these countries is a close ally of the United States, each according to the standards of the Philippines, Japan is not going to be scraped three feet? Wouldn’t Japan have to go back to the early post-war period when the U.S. was constantly pumping blood into the country?

Reddick Williams was the US ambassador to Australia, but of course he was actually a New York bank manager who was only rewarded for his service after Eisenhower came to power and was on the Republican Party’s list of recommended ambassadors to Australia.

American moneymen have been entering politics through ambassadors to other countries for a long time, except that the public support started with Nixon, and before that it was a subterfuge, not an explicit reward for merit.

Riddick Williams, while more familiar with money, was not exactly a professional diplomat, and it was a good thing that the embassy had professional response diplomats to help him intervene in this claims negotiation.

“Dear President, I have called Mr. Ikeda for a meeting, and we should all come up with a figure that has the operability to reach a win-win situation.” Riddick Williams rushed at President Quirino, “The United States is definitely not pulling its punches, please understand this, Mr. President.”

“Fine! I’ll hear what he has to say.” President Quirino finally nodded, he also knew in his heart that it was impossible to just say a number and the Japanese would agree.

This time, the secret talks at the American Embassy, which Allen Wilson knew about right away, was mentioned by President Kirino on his own initiative.

Hearing this matter, Allen Wilson some sighs, even a small country with little strength also has the right and left and this understanding, seriously is not to be underestimated.

“Mr. President, what is the purpose of you telling me about this matter?” Alan Wilson smiled and asked rhetorically.

“Naturally, it’s for the sake of profit, to be able to get the Philippines as much as possible.” President Quirino said without hiding anything.

Alan Wilson nodded his head and thought for a moment before speaking, “In that case I’m still willing to help, being able to establish a personal relationship with a country’s president might benefit Britain in the future.”

The imperial public servant’s ownership mentality was instantly aroused again, who let him just like to uphold justice? There was no way around it by nature, and was willing to help with zeal for the sake of an unaffiliated country.

The point is that instead of favoring Japan, the U.S. is pressuring the claimant countries, and after such a rhetorical question from President Quirino on the issue of security responsibilities, the U.S. is now at least partially understanding the claim.

The gap opened by the Philippines’ claims, which would not stop no matter what, would eventually be exploited by more than one country. In a certain sense, it has broken the red line of claims prohibited by the U.S. in the San Francisco agreement.

In this sense, it is extremely significant that the Philippines has persisted in its attitude toward claims from the postwar period to the present day.

The claims talks in Canberra have attracted the attention of the countries involved except for Japan, which has been very quiet as far as Japan is concerned, with most newspapers not reporting on similar issues.

“Sell the country or Japan will sell, and Churchill is not similar.” Once sold West Berlin, just on the second brother happy imperial civil servant, made such a comment.

Claims negotiations in Canberra by now, Japan’s attempt to muddle through is already completely bankrupt. In the Philippines, Ikeda was unable to make any headway in the claims talks, which were followed by the other three countries.

In contact with Tokyo, Ikeda told Shigeru Yoshida that he hoped the Japanese prime minister would be prepared for the possibility of the Korean War’s impact on development opportunities.

Ikeda could only try to work on the numbers, so that he would have one less piece of the puzzle to work with.

In the four-country negotiations, Japan’s compensation figure changed from eight billion U.S. dollars claimed by the Philippines alone to a total of eight billion U.S. dollars from the four countries, which Ikeda said was still too high and far beyond Japan’s capacity to bear.

The figure has been slowly declining, and the payment plan has changed from a one-time payment to an installment payment. Ikeda, of course, wanted to pay in installments over as many years as possible, so as not to put economic pressure on Japan.

Alan Wilson, of course, did not want this to happen in the future, and time was far more important than money for the country. If you can’t keep up at a critical time, it will take several times the effort to achieve the same thing later.

“The Netherlands can only accept installments of up to five years, and no more.” Van Dijk made a strong statement, “The women of the diaspora who were taken by the Japanese soldiers in the Southeast Asian theater of operations cannot continue to suffer their wounds alone.”

The representative of Australia well New Zealand agreed, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to answer to their citizens who were following the claims negotiations.

“I want domestic recognition!” Isato Ikeda sighed, and seeing the tone of these representatives, he replied as such, realizing that there was little room left to fight for it.

On November 20, nearly a month into the claims negotiations, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands were at the end of their claims against Japan.

At 4:00 p.m., Isoru Ikeda signed the Japan-Philippines Compensation Agreement with Philippine President Quirino, followed by identical compensation agreements with the governments of Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, respectively.

The reparations agreement stipulates that Japan will pay the four countries US$3.58 billion in cash over a five-year period as reparations for damages caused to these countries during the war.