Chilean expansionism
Chilean expansionism refers to the foreign policy of Chile to expand its territorial control over key strategic locations and economic resources as a means to ensure its national security and assert its power in South America.
Under the uti possidetis iuris principle that delimited the international boundaries of the newly independent South American states, Chile bordered at its north with Bolivia in the Atacama Desert and at its east with Argentina.
This uncertainty presented both challenges and opportunities for Chile, with regional instability creating a precarious state of diplomatic affairs but also allowing the growth of Chilean power ambitions.
To its south and east, Chile used military force and colonization to occupy Araucanía (1861–1883) and successfully dispute Argentine claims over westernmost Patagonia and the Strait of Magellan—the outbreak of war only narrowly avoided in multiple occasions.
The country's mistreatment of the non-Chilean inhabitants of its conquered territories, particularly the state-sponsored forced cultural assimilation process of "Chilenization", have further led to internal tensions and calls for greater autonomy, if not independence, from the Mapuche and the Rapa Nui.
Its southernmost settlement was Concepción, a few kilometers north of the frontier fortifications between Chile and the Araucanía, the territory that the Mapuche indigenous peoples had successfully retained after defeating Spain in the Arauco War.
The economy began to boom due to the discovery of silver ore in Chañarcillo, and the growing trade of the port of Valparaíso, which led to conflict over maritime supremacy in the Pacific with Peru.
[5] To its south and east, Chile used military force and colonization to occupy Araucanía (1861–1883) and successfully dispute Argentine claims over westernmost Patagonia and the Strait of Magellan—the outbreak of war only narrowly avoided in multiple occasions.
Through the founding of Fort Bulnes by the Schooner Ancud under the command of John Williams Wilson, the Magallanes region joined the country in 1843, while the Antofagasta area, at the time part of, Bolivia, began to fill with people.
The governor of Magallanes, Óscar Viel y Toro, commissioned by Minister Adolfo Ibáñez Gutiérrez, was in charge of founding the settlement, which would only last six weeks after the diplomatic agreement between this country and the Argentine Nation.
[6][B] The first stage of the country's expansionism into the Pacific began a decade later, in 1851, when—in response to an American incursion into the Juan Fernández Islands—Chile's government formally organized the islands into a subdelegation of Valparaíso.
[9] By 1861, Chile had established a lucrative enterprise across the Pacific, its national currency abundantly circulating throughout Polynesia and its merchants trading in the markets of Tahiti, New Zealand, Tasmania, and Shanghai; moreover, negotiations were also made with the Spanish Philippines, and altercations reportedly occurred between Chilean and American whalers in the Sea of Japan.
The following year, and as a way of settling the Chilean claims, the President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla opened the Base General Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme, the first official visit of Head of state to Antarctica.
In 1978, amid direct negotiations attempting to settle the Beagle conflict, Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet assured that Chile had no expansionist intentions, but that his government would "defend the patrimony that belongs to it by right.
"[22] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chile temporarily resolved its border disputes with Argentina with the Puna de Atacama Lawsuit of 1899 and the Cordillera of the Andes Boundary Case, 1902.
[23] According to Chilean diplomat Juan Salazar Sparks, the political theories of Andrés Bello and Diego Portales were neither expansionist nor interventionist; rather, he argues, they believed that Chile's status as a maritime nation and its role as a promoter of Pan-Americanism rested on its moral leadership, cultural influence, and success in maintaining the regional balance of power.
[24] Chilean researcher Felipe Sanfuentes also argues that Chile was not an expansionist country and considers that this perspective is promoted by Argentine irrendentism over Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia.
