At present, the predicament facing the East African economy was very similar to that of the Far East Empire in his previous life. At the high-end industrial and technological levels, the countries holding the advantage were still the traditional European and American industrial powers—Britain, France, Germany, and the United States.
East Africa occupied an awkward position, neither high nor low. Although East Africa had made leaps and bounds in recent years through relatively rational industrial and research planning,
compared with East Africa's current economic scale, its mid-to-high-end industries were still relatively weak.
From the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century—generally referring to the first twenty years of the twentieth century—the United States, Germany, and East Africa had faced similar circumstances. However, the former two had deep reserves and could achieve a great eruption after long accumulation. Before World War I, both countries had basically overtaken Britain and France in industry and technology by taking the bend.
Since its independence, the United States had scarcely ever suffered bad luck. Its development had been smooth sailing. Geography, climate, resources, the foundations for agricultural development, and every other basic condition—using the words of his previous life, it truly deserved to be called a "land chosen by heaven."
In Ernst's view, unless Europe could unite into a single country, objectively speaking, nowhere in the world possessed better conditions for the Industrial era than the United States.
As for East Africa, although it had become the world's largest economy through half a century of effort, the price it had paid was far greater than that paid by the United States.
Take the steel industry, for example. The United States possessed not only abundant coal and iron ore reserves, but also relatively concentrated distribution of both resources. Coupled with Great