Karl Theodor von Inama-Sternegg, Japan und Mexiko. Eine Parallele (1906)

Karl Theodor von Inama-Sternegg’s 1906 Austrian periodical article is a compact comparative essay on two Pacific-facing states that entered accelerated modernization in the late nineteenth century: Meiji Japan after 1868 and Porfirian Mexico after three decades of Díaz’s rule. Its scope is economic, demographic, infrastructural, and geopolitical. The central thesis is double: Mexico’s progress is real and admirable, yet Japan provides the stronger case of self-directed modernization and world-economic ascent.

Unwillkürlich reizen die fast gleichzeitig eingetretene Modernisierung zweier uralter Staatswesen und die in beiden energisch betätigten Kulturbefreibungen zu einer Vergleichung. Wie groß auch im übrigen die Verschiedenheiten beider Staaten in Geschichte, natürlichen und kulturellen Verhältnissen sind, so bleibt doch die fast unvermittelte Aufnahme und Assimilierung aller modernen Mittel der Technik und Volkswirtschaft ein Vergleichspunkt von besonderer Anziehungskraft. Es ist wie ein Experiment, am lebendigen Leibe eines ganzen Volkes ausgeführt, das wir in seinem Verlaufe und in seinen Wirkungen zu beobachten Gelegenheit haben.

English translation: The almost simultaneous modernization of two ancient states and the vigorously pursued cultural transformations in both inevitably invite comparison. Great as the differences between the two states may otherwise be in history, natural conditions, and cultural circumstances, the almost unmediated adoption and assimilation of all modern instruments of technology and economic life remains a point of comparison of particular fascination. It is like an experiment performed on the living body of an entire people, whose course and effects we have the opportunity to observe.

That “experiment” supplies the structure. Inama-Sternegg first measures geography and population: Mexico is vastly larger but sparsely populated, while Japan is compact, dense, and already outward-moving through migration and imperial expansion. He then follows the institutions of modernization—railways, post, telegraph, banking, foreign trade. The pattern is consistent: Mexican gains are impressive in absolute terms, but Japanese growth is faster, denser, and more economically intensive. The sharpest divergence is merchant shipping: Mexico exports through foreign carriers, while Japan builds its own fleet and commercial reach.

Denn es hat sich leicht zeigen lassen, daß Japan in noch weit energischerer Aufwärtsbewegung sich seine dominierende Position in der Weltwirtschaft errungen hat, dasselbe Japan, das noch zu Ende der sechziger Jahre des abgelaufenen Jahrhunderts in weltwirtschaftlichen Angelegenheiten kaum genannt war, dessen Bevölkerung damals europäischer und zivilisatorischer Art noch viel fremder erschien als die Nachkommen der Spanier und der mit ihnen schon seit fast vier Jahrhunderten vermischten Azteken.

English translation: For it has easily been shown that Japan, in a still far more vigorous upward movement, has won its dominant position in the world economy—that same Japan which at the end of the sixties of the past century was scarcely mentioned in matters of the world economy, and whose population then appeared far more alien to European and civilizational character than the descendants of the Spaniards and of the Aztecs, mingled with them for nearly four centuries.

This is the essay’s correction to official Mexican self-celebration. The numbers refute uniqueness, not achievement: Japan’s rise shows that Mexico is not the singular miracle claimed by its admirers. Yet Inama-Sternegg’s comparison remains balanced. He credits Mexico with emerging from civil war into administrative order and productive labor under Díaz, just as Meiji Japan reconcentrated authority under Mutsuhito.

Dann aber besteht doch die Tatsache, daß Mexiko aus eigener Kraft mit der Beendigung der mehr als fünfzigjährigen Bürgerkriege in eine Periode staatlicher Ordnung, friedlicher Arbeit und kultureller Kraftentwicklung eingetreten ist, welche volle Anerkennung, ja sogar Bewunderung verdient.

English translation: Yet the fact remains that Mexico, by its own strength, upon the ending of more than fifty years of civil wars, has entered a period of state order, peaceful labor, and cultural vigor which deserves full recognition, indeed even admiration.

Leadership, however, is not his final explanation. A core conceptual move is to shift from rulers to the social and international conditions that allow modernization to endure. Mexico’s colonial past and proximity to the United States leave it commercially encircled by foreign shipping companies, manufacturers, and importers. Japan, by contrast, appears as carrier, trader, and strategic actor in its own right. The decisive distinction is between improved infrastructure and active economic agency.

Mexiko erscheint wohl mit seinen Produkten auf den Weltmärkten, aber nicht im aktiven Handel. Ganz anders ist die wirtschaftliche Lage in Japan von jeher gewesen. Das Land ist im hohen Grade aktiv und unternehmungslustig.

English translation: Mexico does appear with its products on the world markets, but not in active trade. Quite different has the economic situation in Japan always been. The country is in the highest degree active and enterprising.

The conclusion turns from diagnosis to possibility. Inama-Sternegg imagines Pacific ports such as Mazatlan, Acapulco, and Topolobampo as future links between Mexico and Asia. The article’s relevance lies in this early twentieth-century European attempt to rank modernizations not only by railways, banks, and exports, but by sovereign participation in world trade.

Und dann wird auch die Zeit gekommen sein, in welcher Mexiko aus seiner Passivität im Handel heraustreten und aktiven Anteil erringen kann, getragen von dem wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Plan, mit dem es sich innerhalb der letzten 30 Jahre in das Konzert der Kulturstaaten eingeführt und mit sittlichem Ernste seine trübe Vergangenheit hinter sich gelassen hat.

English translation: And then, too, the time will have come in which Mexico can step out of its passivity in trade and attain an active share, borne by the economic and cultural plan with which it has introduced itself over the last 30 years into the concert of cultured states and has, with moral earnestness, left its gloomy past behind.

The parallel ends by asking whether Mexico can convert order and infrastructure into maritime and commercial initiative.