WI: The Republic of Minerva survives?

[SunDeep]

The little known Republic of Minerva was a failed microstate, established as a project by the Las Vegas-based real-estate millionaire Michael Oliver and his Phoenix Foundation in 1971 to create a nation on an artificial island in the Minerva Reefs. IOTL, its declaration of independence in January 1972 was greeted with great suspicion by other countries in the area, and at a conference of the major Oceanian nations (Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji, Nauru, Samoa, and territory of Cook Islands) in February 1972, Tonga made a claim over the Minerva Reefs, and the rest of the states recognized its claim. Tonga subsequently sent an expeditionary force, and annexed the islands within the year. But WI, in an ATL (perhaps by paying the Tongan monarch Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV for the atolls, given that he was always open to outlandish schemes to increase national revenue), the Republic of Minerva succeeds in gaining international recognition? Will it just be a one-off, or will it open the door for a whole host of oligarchic micro-states around the world (such as the various states of the Antarctic Micronational Union, and the Conch Republic?)

 

[ColeMercury]

Maybe this is just my bias talking, but I doubt it'd get recognised by anyone. Hell, if no countries can bring themselves to recognise Somaliland...

 

[SunDeep]

Maybe this is just my bias talking, but I doubt it'd get recognised by anyone. Hell, if no countries can bring themselves to recognise Somaliland...

The founders of Somaliland weren't multi-millionaire American property magnates. Money rules, seccessionists drool...

 

[asnys]

I'm kind of skeptical they'd survive even without outside intervention. I mean, just going by the description in the wiki, this sounds like it was basically a pile of rocks with a flag, not somewhere someone could actually, you know, live.

 

[Corbell Mark IV]

If the organizer had bribed the King of Tonga to "renounce" Tonga's claim...


But, I think you'd need SOME people actually living there.

 

[SunDeep]

I'm kind of skeptical they'd survive even without outside intervention. I mean, just going by the description in the wiki, this sounds like it was basically a pile of rocks with a flag, not somewhere someone could actually, you know, live.

Sure, they wouldn't have been able to support themselves (no more so than Monaco, Luxembourg or Macau) but that's not really an obstacle by the time you get to the seventies. And so long as you have regular supplies coming in from outside, the climate's hospitable enough. If the shipwrecked crew of a vessel that was constructed back the 1900's could survive for three months and make it back to Fiji (back when the atolls were still submerged), you'd assume that millions of dollars of investment in infrastructure would make the islands 'liveable'. And you only need a token population to support a tax haven, or an offshore gambling economy.

 

[TFSmith121]

The problem with the "create a microstate" concept is:

the competition.

Between the former Soviet Union, Southwest Asia, and Africa, there are plenty of microstate possibilities that don't even raise the (extremely) limited level of scrutiny found in various currently existing European, Caribbean, and Central American banking havens.

Anyone who has serious amounts of money to launder or otherwise shield has plenty of places to park it, and the gaming industry is perfectly happy doing business in its chosen microstates...

The Republic of Lavanderia already exisits, in multiple locations.

Best,

 

[Simon]

Maybe this is just my bias talking, but I doubt it'd get recognised by anyone. Hell, if no countries can bring themselves to recognise Somaliland...

IIRC that's got more to do with the whole sanctity of borders/people not liking the idea of parts of countries breaking away, an entirely new country on unclaimed land could potentially sidestep those issues. The big trouble is going to be getting the US and other permanent members of the UN Security Council to recognise them, without that they're going to be locked out of most of the global economy and international diplomatic relations.