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Philippines

The Philippines.

The Philippines is an archipelago nation southwest of Asia, occupying the area between Taiwan and the Dutch East Indies. Between 1936 and 1950 it was a de facto dependency of Kramer Associates and the location of the company's corporate headquarters. Its capital city is Luzon.

The Philippines have been inhabited since prehistoric times. The first European to reach the Philippines was Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 during his circumnavigation of the globe. Magellan claimed the archipelago for Spain before dying there a month later. The Spanish began settlement of the Philippines in 1565, and the archipelago became part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, along with Guam and the Marianas Islands.

Sobel does not say whether the Philippines rose up against Spanish rule along with Spanish America. However, by the time John Jackson became President of Kramer Associates in 1926, the Philippines were a presidential republic. At that time, a contract between the President of the Philippines and K.A. had given the company control of its economy. Following the attempt by Mexican President Pedro Fuentes to control the corporation, Jackson announced on 24 February 1936 that K.A. would move its corporate headquarters from San Francisco, California to Luzon "to be closer to our Asian interests."

During K.A.'s residency in the Philippines, Jackson had company officials in Australia and Japan meet with those countries' leaders in 1939 and 1940 to warn them of plans by Mexican President Alvin Silva to attack them. In 1940, Jackson proposed an informal alliance between K.A. and the two countries "to guarantee peace in the Pacific, and, more particularly, defend the area against a potential Mexican challenge." The alliance was agreed to, so that the Japanese and Australians were prepared for the attack launched by Silva on 1 January 1942. During the next six years, K.A. spent over N.A. £20 billion to subsidize the anti-Mexican effort in China, and an equivalent amount in the rest of the Pacific area. Sobel states that in contrast to Mexican attempts to invade Japan and Taiwan, K.A.'s private army was sufficiently intimidating that Silva made no effort to attack the Philippines. However, Admiral Paul Suarez advocated a naval war against the Philippines during his campaign for the presidency during the 1950 Mexican elections.

Taiwan came under the control of K.A. in 1948, and shortly after succeeding to the office of President of the company in September 1949, Carl Salazar ordered the island's industrialization and the abandonment of Luzon. Although Sobel never mentions any political instability in the Philippines under K.A., he notes Taiwan's greater stability as Salazar's reason for the move, along with its better climate and more skilled population. K.A. evidently still maintained control over the Philippines after Salazar's abandonment, since President Vincent Mercator was sending Mexican warships to patrol the western Pacific not far from the archipelago in 1959.

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