Japan buys Baja California in the late 80s

Fernsong

Fernsong

A while ago, I recalled watching a video a couple of years ago that told of a story where Japan allegedly tried to buy Baja California from Mexico during the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid. What the video said was that at the time, Japan offered to pay off all of Mexico's external debt in exchange for the peninsula, an offer that Mexico declined and Japan respected, not pushing the issue any further. What I'm interested in finding out is:
A) Is there any evidence that such an offer was made or even being considered?
B) Would it have been possible (and worth it) for Japan to make such a purchase?
C) How would the people of both countries react to such a purchase (maybe even from other countries, perhaps we see the US try to give their own offer to Mexico, would the US even look kindly on this deal)?
D) If the deal was to somehow go through, how would the territory develop under Japan?

The video for those interested, it's in Spanish as a heads up though.
 

General Tirpitz

Fernsong said:
A) Is there any evidence that such an offer was made or even being considered?
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Never heard of this. It is that kind of story which would be probably mentioned in all histories discussing the Bubble as an example of its excesses (too a good story not to tell), so I am pretty sure it didn't happen.
Fernsong said:
B) Would it have been possible (and worth it) for Japan to make such a purchase?
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Although there were all sorts of non-sensical projects during the Bubble, this would really take a cake. I don't really see how Japan would benefit from it.

Can't really comment on the video as I don't speak Spanish but I wonder if there is some confusion about what was actually happening. Usually when you see "Japan buying something" in the context of 1980's, it is actually some Japanese company doing purchases, not the government. So my assumption is that this sort of urban myth is probably a result of a Japanese corporation planning some sort of huge investments in the area and that somehow turned into "Japan is trying to buy the whole state." Or it is just a myth resulting from the zeitgeist of the period and has no basis on anything really.
 
marathag

marathag

Banned
Mexicans have laws preventing foreigners from owning any land on the coast or border with the USA. I believe it's 30 miles in, and even then, owning property isn't easy
I can't see them giving up Baha without a War
 

YYJ

Leasing part as a special economic zone, perhaps. NAFTA or whatever it is called now has some kind of treaty zones in Mexico.
 

YYJ

Or, alternately, the deranged elderly crew of a holdout Japanese submarine that refused to surrender at the end of World War Two could invade. :)
 

YYJ

Actually, your original premise could make a cool setting for a timeline. After the economic boom, and the zone has become run down, a down on his luck alcoholic Japanese detective fights crime and reflects on his failed marriage.
 

overoceans

General Tirpitz said:
It is that kind of story which would be probably mentioned in all histories discussing the Bubble as an example of its excesses (too a good story not to tell), so I am pretty sure it didn't happen.
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Yes. Within the context of the imminent Lost Decade, this would be viewed as the ultimate example of Japanese hubris.

re: "Japan bought..." being used to mean that a Japanese company bought X, I've usually heard the phrasing as "The Japanese bought...".
 
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General Tirpitz

overoceans said:
re; "Japan bought..." being used to mean that Japanese company bought X, I've usually heard the phrasing as "The Japanese bought...".
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Yeah, that one was quite commonly used in American reporting at the time, sometimes to the extent that the company in question might have been only barely mentioned in articles, "the Japanese" being main actors.
 

Machiavelli Jr

Fernsong said:
A while ago, I recalled watching a video a couple of years ago that told of a story where Japan allegedly tried to buy Baja California from Mexico during the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid. What the video said was that at the time, Japan offered to pay off all of Mexico's external debt in exchange for the peninsula, an offer that Mexico declined and Japan respected, not pushing the issue any further. What I'm interested in finding out is:
A) Is there any evidence that such an offer was made or even being considered?
B) Would it have been possible (and worth it) for Japan to make such a purchase?
C) How would the people of both countries react to such a purchase (maybe even from other countries, perhaps we see the US try to give their own offer to Mexico, would the US even look kindly on this deal)?
D) If the deal was to somehow go through, how would the territory develop under Japan?

The video for those interested, it's in Spanish as a heads up though.
Click to expand...
Sounds like the kind of thing a populist candidate would make up - "those bastards in office are going to sell a whole state to the perfidious Japanese", or alternatively a joke suggestion to sort the National Debt, "the Japanese have plenty of money, we have crippling external debt, what have we got to sell them, oh fuck it we could offer them Baja I suppose haha." I can't see why the Japanese Government would ever offer it, though General Tirpitz's suggestion makes sense.

I could definitely see this being the setup for an '80s US action movie, too. Like Red Dawn but with ultra-high-tech Mexican-Japanese invaders...
 
V-J

V-J

Yeah, I'm not buying this for a moment unless someone can give us a completely serious source. This sounds like classic eighties/early nineties 'Japan is on course to own the world' mythologising/prognostication.
 

Hugh Third of Five

marathag said:
Mexicans have laws preventing foreigners from owning any land on the coast or border with the USA. I believe it's 30 miles in, and even then, owning property isn't easy
I can't see them giving up Baha without a War
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And even if for some reason they were willing to sell it you can bet the USA would ensure that no one else got it.
V-J said:
Yeah, I'm not buying this for a moment unless someone can give us a completely serious source. This sounds like classic eighties/early nineties 'Japan is on course to own the world' mythologising/prognostication.
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This has always seemed weird to me. Cars, cameras, walkmans, and video game consoles from Japanese companies start selling well and people see it as a sign Japan is about to take over the world?
 
Workable Goblin

Workable Goblin

Hugh Third of Five said:
This has always seemed weird to me. Cars, cameras, walkmans, and video game consoles from Japanese companies start selling well and people see it as a sign Japan is about to take over the world?
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It wasn't just that they were "selling well," it's that the Japanese economy was skyrocketing on paper while the U.S. economy, well, wasn't. For a brief period of time at the end of the boom, Japan actually had a significantly higher per-capita GDP than the United States ($43 000 versus $29 000, in 1995; ironically, this is proportionally similar to how much larger the U.S. per-capita GDP is than Japan's now), to the point where it seemed like they would simply have a bigger GDP period soon. Of course now we know it was unsustainable and somewhat paper growth, but at the time it looked like the U.S. was simply being totally outcompeted.
 
varyar

varyar

Workable Goblin said:
It wasn't just that they were "selling well," it's that the Japanese economy was skyrocketing on paper while the U.S. economy, well, wasn't. For a brief period of time at the end of the boom, Japan actually had a significantly higher per-capita GDP than the United States ($43 000 versus $29 000, in 1995; ironically, this is proportionally similar to how much larger the U.S. per-capita GDP is than Japan's now), to the point where it seemed like they would simply have a bigger GDP period soon. Of course now we know it was unsustainable and somewhat paper growth, but at the time it looked like the U.S. was simply being totally outcompeted.
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Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers is probably the best serious look at this era. I haven't read it in years, but I remember Kennedy also noted some of the Soviet Union's growing problems but didn't (IIRC) imagine they were just a few years away from complete collapse.
 

General Tirpitz

Hugh Third of Five said:
This has always seemed weird to me. Cars, cameras, walkmans, and video game consoles from Japanese companies start selling well and people see it as a sign Japan is about to take over the world?
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In the context of Japan bashing of the period, many Americans thought that any product bought from Japanese companies was away from American ones. There were many people who felt that Japan was pushing American firms out of the business, and this feeling reached its peak in the late 1980's, combining with other fears which developed towards perceived Japanese actions.
Workable Goblin said:
It wasn't just that they were "selling well," it's that the Japanese economy was skyrocketing on paper while the U.S. economy, well, wasn't. For a brief period of time at the end of the boom, Japan actually had a significantly higher per-capita GDP than the United States ($43 000 versus $29 000, in 1995; ironically, this is proportionally similar to how much larger the U.S. per-capita GDP is than Japan's now), to the point where it seemed like they would simply have a bigger GDP period soon. Of course now we know it was unsustainable and somewhat paper growth, but at the time it looked like the U.S. was simply being totally outcompeted.
Click to expand...
The value of Yen also went up following the 1985 Plaza Accords where Japan had agreed to appreciate its value. The most significant result of this was the asset bubble in Japan but it also meant that American properties became much cheaper relatively speaking for Japanese investors. This led to these purchases which are usually mentioned in the context of Japanese Bubble, like Sony buying Columbia Pictures and Mitsubishi getting Rockefeller Center, both in 1989. Many of these purchases weren't necessarily that big, when you look at the whole US economy, but they were very notable and got lots of attention in the media due to symbolism involved in Japanese companies buying assets which were seen culturally important by many Americans.
 

raharris1973

I suspect the skeptics are right. Maybe Japanese companies were talking about buying up the fishery companies in the area, or a hefty share of the resorts in Cabo San Lucas, but nothing like a buy, govern, evict, settle, abolish the state governments plan for the state.
 

raharris1973

General Tirpitz said:
In the context of Japan bashing of the period, many Americans thought that any product bought from Japanese companies was away from American ones. There were many people who felt that Japan was pushing American firms out of the business, and this feeling reached its peak in the late 1980's, combining with other fears which developed towards perceived Japanese actions.

The value of Yen also went up following the 1985 Plaza Accords where Japan had agreed to appreciate its value. The most significant result of this was the asset bubble in Japan but it also meant that American properties became much cheaper relatively speaking for Japanese investors. This led to these purchases which are usually mentioned in the context of Japanese Bubble, like Sony buying Columbia Pictures and Mitsubishi getting Rockefeller Center, both in 1989. Many of these purchases weren't necessarily that big, when you look at the whole US economy, but they were very notable and got lots of attention in the media due to symbolism involved in Japanese companies buying assets which were seen culturally important by many Americans.
Click to expand...

Indeed, the campaign of ridicule and complete marginalization of economic nationalism and protectionism had not reach its maximum strength in US culture and the elites hadn't completely established belief in unconditional free trade as a marker of elite herd identity yet in the 1980s, or even the early 1990s. That point was not reached until the late 1990s and 2000s.

The result of that is that the reaction to the rising China trade surplus was long delayed compared to Japan, and resentment has only been allowed to be voiced about China on trade and economics issues in polite society over the last 5-6 years.
 
Gillan1220

Gillan1220

Baja would probably be a resource sink for Japan. Even 1980s Japan, her navy and merchant fleet was not suited for power projection. As pointed out earlier, it could become a special economic zone. Without going further into current politics, this is what China is doing with their exclusive ports located in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and East Africa.
 
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