From the Spanish Sea to the United States Ocean: A Geopolitical Transition

Abstract

The Pacific Ocean was integrated into the global economy when it was possible to travel from the Philippines Islands to New Spain, thanks to the navigator and explorer Andrés de Urdaneta. The Ocean discovered by Núñez de Balboa in 1513 and explored by the Magallanes-Elcano expedition, in its circumvallation of the Earth, between 1519-1522, focused the interest of other European powers in the 17th and 18th centuries that, until then it was just a Spanish sea. Dutch, British, Russians, Americans and finally French colonialism transformed the Ocean into the geopolitical core of their colonial disputes and their mercantilist interests. This situation was possible due to the existence of a weak Chinese Empire, where the colonial powers established their areas of influence for decades, and an isolated Japan with its medieval status, which used Western influences to become a great empire with expansionist purposes. The German Empire had little influence on the Pacific Ocean. This article shows that, at the end of the 19th century, the collapse of the Spanish Empire gave way to the new American imperialism and it was the origin of the influence of United States of America in the Pacific Ocean and transformed it into the geopolitical and geoeconomic center of gravity of the new world order.