The reason why the South American country of Chile is famous, an important label is that Chile is the narrowest country in the world.
Geographically, Chile is the furthest country from China, about 19,629 kilometers, and is on the other side of the globe (the straight-line distance of the geographical centers of the two countries). Digging vertically down from China, it is theoretically possible to reach Chile.
From the southern tip to the northern tip, Chile is 4352 km long and spans 38 latitudes. From the Pacific coast at the eastern tip to the Andes Mountains bordering Argentina, the widest is 362.3 km and the narrowest 96.8 km. The country is narrow from north to south, and short from east to west, like a snake straddling South America.
So, how did Chile's "serpentine" land come into being?
Legend of the Andean Saint Seiya
Chile is the "Zhijia" recorded in the "Biography of Peru" in the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty", and it is also the "Zhili" in the "Kunyu Wanguo Quantu".
The original Chilean soil looked more like a "key".
At first, it was inhabited by Indians such as the Arauca, Mapuche, and Tierra del Fuego. Among them, the Ulu, Khonsa and the Central Arauca in the north are mainly engaged in agricultural and animal husbandry production, combined with fishing, and some have been able to make bronze and gold and silver ware; The Ona and Yagan people in the south depend on fishing and hunting for their livelihood.
After the conquest of Peru by the Spanish colonist Francisco Pizarro in the 1530s, he sent his subordinates Almagro to invade Chile in 1535. Attacked by Indians, he fled back to Peru in 1538. In 1540, Pizarro sent Valdivia to invade Chile again, successively establishing towns such as Santiago and Valdivia, and Chile became a Spanish colony. Thereafter, the Indians continued to fight, with the Araucans long in control of the territory south of the Biobio River.
In order to facilitate the rule, in 1778, Spain established a separate governorate of Chile. Affected by the terrain, the Chilean metropolitan area has formed a narrow geographical feature of north and south, but the north-south span at that time was only half of today, which is the national prototype of Chile.
At that time, the Portuguese colonists relied on local gold and tropical cash crops to make a windfall, and the colonists remained poor. The rule of the colonizers provoked a revolt among the peoples of the Americas. But the two sides were vastly different in strength, and the revolt of the American people was quickly suppressed by the Spanish and Portuguese colonizers.
At the end of the 18th century, the North American War of Independence and the French Revolution inspired the confidence of the People of the Americas to resist, and Chile was no exception. In September 1810, the Chilean people deposed the Spanish Governor in Chile, and the Chilean War of Independence broke out.
At the beginning of the War of Independence, Spain quickly defeated the Chilean army with strong military strength, and the chilean independence process was severely damaged. But the initial defeat did not dampen their confidence, and chilean ethnographers, under the leadership of O'Higgins, crossed the Andes to rendezvous with the army of Saint-Martin.
In 1817, the army marched into Chile under the command of San Martin, and on 12 February defeated the colonial army at Chacabuco, severely damaging the counterattacking Spanish army. In the same year, O'Higgins was elected Supreme Consul of Chile. On February 12, 1818, O'Higgins officially declared Chile independent and established a republic.
Backed by the insurmountable Andes Mountains and facing the vast Pacific Ocean, the distinct geographical conditions give Chileans a sense of uneasiness and oppression, as if the new country was destined to expand from the beginning, and the Chilean army was highly effective under the tutelage of O'Higgins and Saint-Martin, and Chile's naval strength was second to none in South America, and it had established great merits in the Latin American War of Independence. In order to gain more living space, Chile can only choose to open up its territory in two directions: "north" and "south".
The northern part of the chilean territory at that time was the Atacama Desert region. Although it is close to the sea, it has long been controlled by subtropical high pressure and has been dry all year round. This, combined with the strong Peruvian cold current on the west coast, cools down and reduces humidity, making precipitation here even rarer. During the Western Colony, the desert was divided into the Viceroyalty of Peru (which belonged to Peru after independence), the Viceroyalty of La Plata (within Bolivia) and the Governorate of Chile (Chile).
The unclear demarcation of the border laid the groundwork for the post-independence struggle between the three countries. However, after independence from Spain, the three countries all took the stabilization of the domestic situation as the first priority, did not compete for this place, and the atacama desert area was dry and rainy, and there was no grass, and the three countries did not pay attention to it at first.
It wasn't until the 1860s that a large amount of bird droppings and saltpeter were found here, and tensions were on the horizon.
Guano can be used as fertilizer to increase the yield of crops, especially food crops. Saltpeter is an important raw material for the manufacture of gunpowder. The strategic value of the Atacama Desert suddenly became apparent. Chile, Bolivia and Peru all want maximum sovereignty here.
In the previous division, Chile was only divided south of 24 degrees south latitude, but the guano and saltpeter sets were distributed in Bolivia and Peru. Chile therefore wishes to occupy this land by force and to fulfil its desire to expand its territory.
Naturally, Chile's ambitions have alarmed Peru and Bolivia. To prevent Chile's monopoly, Peru and Bolivia formed a secret military alliance.
In 1879, Chile and the Peruvian-Bolivian Coalition broke out into the South Pacific War. In the war, the gap in strength between the two sides is huge. The Peruvian Navy has been out of battle for a long time, and its combat effectiveness is difficult to guarantee. Bolivia's naval equipment has reached a negligible level, and the army equipment has remained in the era of cold weapons.
Chile, on the other hand, quickly built a modern army and navy with british help. In the end, Chile won a big victory.
After the war, Peru and Chile signed the Treaty of Ancon, ceding the southern province of Tarapacá to Chile and giving Chile jurisdiction over Arica and Tacna, the northernmost part of the desert.
In the end, Peru recovered only the Tacna region in the north, while the Arica region was assigned to Chile. Bolivia's fate was even worse, as they ceded all the Pacific Coast to Chile. Since then, Bolivia has transformed itself from a coastal state into a landlocked country. The disadvantage of not having a coastline has seriously constrained the development of bolivia's economy since then.
The seizure of Bolivian and Peruvian territory meant that Chile had completed a step of northward expansion and extended its territory northward to the Atacama region. At the beginning of independence, Chile's north-south span was only about 2,000 kilometers, and after the seizure of the northern region, the territory extended nearly 1,000 kilometers to the north.
While expanding northward, Chile also began to "go west" and "south" the pace. To the west, Chile set its sights on Easter Island, an isolated island in the Pacific. Due to its small size, remoteness from the mainland, and lack of resources of interest to the Great Powers, the Great Powers were not interested in the island.
Similar to Easter Island, the south is also a "borderlands". Before the arrival of the Spanish colonists, the Arauca lived in the valley south of the Biobio River.
Due to the influence of the terrain and climate, the Alauca people have always lived a life of fishing and hunting. Until the Spanish colonizers, the Mapuche lived a clan life, with a lower level of economic development than the Indians in the north. Due to the bravery of the Araucans, the Spanish colonists have not been able to penetrate deeper into the area.
In 1818, Chile, independent of Spain, could not wait to incorporate the area south of the Obio River into its territory.
Chile's desire to acquire this land was stronger than that of its suzerainty, Spain. Chile has adopted a way of encouraging immigration and increasing the proportion of Chileans. The Chileans brought advanced agricultural production methods and constantly encroached on the land of the Arauca. After Chile moved in here, it drove its troops here.
Even if they were good at fighting, the Araucans could not resist the offensive of the Chilean army. Chile annexed mapuche land with great military might, extending the territory to the south by more than 1,000 kilometers. Naming the newly annexed land after the Biobio River, he founded the city of Concepción, Chile's second largest city after the capital Santiago.
Chile's successful strategy of expanding its territory "north" and "south" drew alarm to Argentina on the other side of the Andes.
Around 1870, Argentina made a quick start and firmly grasped the Patagonian Plateau in its own hands.
This action also played a very important role in the formation of modern Chile' territory, directly extinguishing Chile's dream of becoming a country that occupies both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Compared with Argentina, a South American power, Chile does not have the upper hand in terms of military strength and faces a serious problem of armaments supply. As a result, Chile abandoned Patagonia.
Abandoning the Patagonian Plateau, Chile began to travel south along the western foothills of the Andes To acquire large tracts of land. At the same time, Argentina also began to "go south".
When the territories east and west of the Andes were divided between the two countries, both sides invariably set their sights on the end of the continent, Tierra del Fuego. Tierra del Fuego covers an area of 48,700 square kilometers and covers an area of 48,700 square kilometers, with its high latitude and low temperatures, which were not noticed by early European colonists.
The discovery of gold on Tierra del Fuego in 1880 spurred the ambitions of Argentina and Chile to monopolize Tierra del Fuego, and the two countries repeatedly fought each other. However, due to Chile's busy pacific war, once Argentina and the Bolivian-Bolivian coalition forces were united, it would lead to Chile's belly and back.
In 1881, in order to stabilize Argentina, Chile signed a treaty with Argentina, and two-thirds of the eastern area of Tierra del Fuego was allocated to Argentina and one-third of the western area to Chile.
However, the two countries have still not resolved the ownership of the islands around Tierra del Fuego, especially on the issue of the ownership of the Beagle Channel, and Chile and Argentina are even more at odds with each other.
In the 1980s, in order to resolve nearly a century-old dispute, the two countries reached an agreement on the ownership of the Beagle Channel and the surrounding islands, and the border between the two countries in the south was demarcated.
After reaching an agreement with Argentina, Chile's north-south narrow pattern was basically formed.
The geographical characteristics of the north-south narrow and long land spanning multiple latitudes make Chile have a number of climate types such as tropical deserts, the Mediterranean Sea, temperate oceans and temperate continental nature.
The advantages of a narrow and long country have made the Chilean economy blossom more. Taking advantage of the advantages of various natural belts, the development of different forms of agriculture has brought considerable economic benefits.
In addition, the long coastline and the powerful Peruvian cold current along the coast bring large amounts of nutrients from the seabed to the surface, allowing Chile to take advantage of this advantage to develop port transport and marine aquaculture. In the face of a general downturn in South America, Chile has become one of the healthiest economies.
The butterfly change from the dream of a military state to the dream of a rich country
In the 1880s, Chile became the hegemon of South America militarily and economically, and began to want to inherit the colonies of the former suzerainty of Spain in the Pacific, so there was a conflict of interest with the United States.
Chile warned the United States to be nosy or send American ships to the bottom of the sea, and the Chilean navy threatened to shell the west coast of the United States. Faced with the threat of the Chileans, the Americans were helpless. The Chilean navy is not inferior to itself, and there is also Britain and Germany behind it, so the United States can only obediently admit it. However, although the Americans admitted it, this incident seriously stimulated the Americans.
By 1891, chilean and U.S. naval power was reversed.
The United States secretly supported chilean naval officer J. Monte in a coup d'état to seize power. At this time, the United States had more warships, and its strength declined after the Chilean Civil War.
On October 16, 1891, after an American sailor spat at a photograph of Chilean hero Arturo Pratt in Valparaiso, the Chileans attacked sailors aboard the American ship USS Baltimore, killing two sailors and wounding 18 others. Chile initially rejected U.S. protests, apologizing and compensating $75,000 after U.S. President Benjamin sent a tough signal.
After that, the United States took advantage of the unstable situation after the Chilean civil war and colluded with the Chilean landlord class to unite with major comprador importers and exporters to control the government through Congress, beginning the so-called "republican period of Congress."
During this period, the Chilean economy developed, but the anti-democratic tendencies intensified, the fascist forces became increasingly rampant, the workers' movement grew stronger and stronger, and the proletariat grew stronger.
In the early days of World War II, Chile remained neutral. War was declared on the Axis powers in 1945. After the war, he continued to follow the United States.
In the 1950s and 1960s, South American countries spearheaded the struggle against superpower maritime hegemony, setting off a wave of nationalization with the recovery of national resources as the main content, and Chile joined.
In 1964, after the election of the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, Eduardo Frei Montalva, under pressure from the people, he implemented a "Chileanization" (i.e., joint venture) of the U.S.-owned copper mining company; At the same time, part of the land of the landlord was expropriated and distributed to the peasants.
However, it was soon pressured by the U.S. government to make Frey's reforms very weak. Chile's right-wing forces are unhappy with touching their own economic interests, while left-wing forces feel that Frey's reforms are too conservative to solve the underlying problems.
Faced with the political situation at home, left-wing leader Salvador Allende had the idea of running for president of Chile. In Chile, Allende represents the camp of socialist construction. The enterprises invested by American capitalists in Chile are likely to have been nationalized by Chile if allende's history as president had gone through.
As a result, the United States has erected obstacles and sabotaged the road to Allende's campaign. But Allende ran successfully in 1970 as Chile's new democratically elected president.
Since then, the Chilean subsidiary of the American company ITT has lobbied the CIA to intervene and fund several renegade military forces in Chile in an attempt to force Allende to step down in a two-month window between his election in September 1970 and his swearing-in in November 1970.
However, the US conspiracy did not succeed. The assassination plan between ITT and the US government was exposed by the media, which shocked the Chilean people and the Christian Democrats, and instead sent "God assist" to Allende's inauguration.
However, the United States did not give up, and the opportunity soon came.
In 1973, President Allende copied the Soviet model to increase employment and production, but such blind socio-economic planning was a policy mistake, which directly led to Chile facing a large fiscal deficit and other dilemmas, resulting in Chilean inflation rate as high as 381%.
In addition to the economic crisis, Allende's political career also faced a new dilemma. His firm socialist policy and relations with the socialist countries of Cuba worried the capitalist countries headed by the United States. So then-US President Richard Nixon took turns to exert economic pressure on Chile through multilateral organizational relations.
This made their already bad economic problems worse, and the people's grievances grew louder, but Allende was always reluctant to use the army to suppress or maintain order in the country.
This made the United States overjoyed. In September 1973, the U.S. government secretly bought the Chilean Admiral Augusto Pinochet, took control of cruisers such as the Cochrane and the Pratt, launched a military coup under the guise of holding joint military exercises with the U.S. military, and soon took control of major Chilean fortresses, such as radio stations, transportation hubs, and ports.
At 7 a.m. on September 11, Allende could not believe that Chile was facing an uncontrollable domestic situation while he was in power. He desperately wanted diplomatic support, but he was always reluctant to mobilize popular resistance troops in order to reduce the casualties of innocent people. At 10:30 a.m., the rebels approached the Presidential Palace. In this coup d'état, President Allende was killed in the line of duty and issued a cry that "the President of Chile will never surrender to traitors", staging the tragic grandeur of the Chilean version of "the Son of Heaven guarding the country".
Because of Allende's heroic death, the usurped military government was initially not supported by the Chilean people, forcing Pinochet to impose a political dictatorship during his reign.
It was not until 1980 that the junta amended the constitution, carried out neoliberal reforms economically and achieved remarkable results, created the Chilean economic miracle, and pursued a foreign policy of "Latin American nationalism" in diplomacy, and Pinochet gradually gained the respect of the people.
After 1989, Pinochet "returned the government to the people", the Chilean political situation began to remain stable, the government changed in an orderly manner, social order was good, the economic policy and the continuity of various laws were very stable, the globalized and free economic environment, the low corruption and relatively low poverty rate, and the more thorough market-oriented policy enabled Chile to successfully get rid of the latin American middle-income trap and become the only developed country in South America.
In 2010, Chile became the first OECD member in South America. In July 2013, Chile was recognized as a "high-income economy" by the World Bank and officially became a developed country.
Chile's economy has maintained rapid growth for many years, and its comprehensive competitiveness, degree of economic liberalization, market openness, and international credit rating are the first in Latin America, and it is regarded as a model for Latin American economic development.
Copper mines, wine and Easter Island
Most Chinese people probably first learned about Chile, a South American country. Yes, there are many Chilean cherries, and many are imported into China every year.
In the just-concluded cherry export season from 2020 to 2021, Chilean cherries exported more than 350,000 tons, an increase of 54.4% year-on-year, of which exports to China exceeded 320,000 tons, an increase of 55% year-on-year. According to customs data, the export of cherries to China accounts for 91.4% of Chile's total exports.
However, Chile has not only cherries, but also three major rich mines, namely copper mines, wineries and Easter Island.
Although the country is long and narrow, Chile is rich in mineral resources. Famous for its abundant copper production, it is known as the "Kingdom of Copper". Copper reserves, production and exports are the world's first, with proven reserves of more than 200 million tons, accounting for about 1/3 of the world's reserves. The reserves of iron are about 1.2 billion tons and coal is about 5 billion tons. In addition, there are lithium, saltpeter, molybdenum, gold, silver, aluminum, zinc, iodine, oil, natural gas and so on.
In addition to the above energy sources, the winery is another mineral deposit in Chile.
Thanks to the influence of the Cold Snap in the Pacific Ocean and Peru, it has a very stable Mediterranean climate, with the cooler and humidity the further south it goes. Overall, there is sufficient light, which is conducive to the ripening of the grapes and the yield is stable. Since the 19th century, grape varieties such as Camena, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Syrah, Merlot and other grape varieties were brought to Chile from Bordeaux, providing unique conditions for the cultivation of high-quality grapes because of their unique climatic conditions and geographical location.
Because the grapes produced in Chile have a unique flavor, laying the foundation for their production of high-quality wines, coupled with the ancient European winemaking methods, chilean wines are both European traditions and South American flavors, giving people a feeling of overlapping old and new, which is the unique feature of Chilean wines.
In the second half of the 19th century, when the famous wine critic John Biron compared the smoothness of Chilean muscardine wines to the popular Portuguese wine Madeira at that time, Chile began to rise wineries. Among them, these include the famous Château Des Driss, Château Spectos, Château Santa rita, Château Montes, Château Caledra, Château Casanova, Château Bica, Château Solana and many more.
In recent years, Chilean wines have been loved by the public for their low taxes and unique tastes, and the main sales in China are Carmena wines from Chile's Central Valley.
It is worth mentioning that according to the research of relevant sommeliers, the best vintages of Chilean wines mostly occur in odd-numbered years.
Of course, I must introduce Easter Island at the end.
Easter Island, located in the eastern South Pacific Ocean, is about 3600 km east of mainland Chile. The island's indigenous Polynesians considered the island to be the "center of the world", so they also called it Rapa Nui Island, meaning "the navel of the world".
Legend has it that on April 5, 1722, the fleet of the Dutch navigator Jacqueb Rocheffin discovered the island. Since he discovered that the island happened to be Easter, he immediately named the island after Easter, and the name has been used ever since.
Easter Island is one of the most isolated islands, also 2075 km from the settled Pitcairn Islands. The island is shaped approximately triangular and consists of three volcanoes. From space, it looks like an island created by an alien race.
The island is home to more than 900 huge stone statues with an average height of more than 6 meters. Mainly made of volcanic rock, some stand on the seashore and gaze at the Pacific Ocean. Some are crookedly inserted into the surface, looking up at the sky, like confused travelers.
The view of the island is particularly open, full of soft grass, and at night, the visibility of Easter Island is also excellent, you can see the vast Milky Way and the brilliant starry sky. Under the stars, each stone statue seems to be a "space-time observer" stationed by an alien planet.
The island's inhabitants are mixed, predominantly Polynesian, long-eared and short-eared, living almost exclusively in the village of Angaroa on the west coast of the barrier, with a permanent population of about 5,760.
In 1888 the island was incorporated into Chile, which leased almost all of its land to raise sheep. In 1954 the Chilean naval authorities took over the sheep pasture. In 1965, the Chilean government appointed a civilian governor, and the islanders became full citizens of Chile.
In just 30 years, the Resurrection Islanders have fully adapted to the cultural standards of mainland Chile, but have not forgotten to respect their own ancestors and the crafts and customs of their ancestors, and a small number of islanders use cattle farming to switch to writing the "Lango Lango" script. This is a very old script.
Every February, Easter Island hosts the "Birdman Festival", which comes from a myth that in ancient times, the creator Marco Marco taught religious rituals and sacrificial items to the island's priests, the seabird eggs, and designated two reefs in the sea as the places to take bird eggs. During the festival, men, women and children participate in competitive activities to relive the island's past arts and customs, including carving, tapping, weaving reed boats, and traditional songs and dances.
Therefore, if you are interested in visiting Easter Island, the best time to visit is from November to February. Today, the island is inscribed on the World Heritage List as a national park.
Whether it is eating, drinking, or history and culture, Chile is definitely a country worth knowing.