Given the current state of naval development around the world, East Africa's naval scale was far from sufficient if it wished to cope with the future—or rather, reap the spoils of war.
"When the cannons roar, gold is worth ten thousand taels." The outbreak of war inevitably consumed enormous resources and wealth. Besides military-industrial enterprises potentially profiting in the short term, the prices of crude oil, gold, metal materials, and the like would all rise.
Especially with the World War II that East Africa might face in the future—a war unprecedented in human history—if preparations were not made in advance, the price paid then would only be greater.
Simply put, wartime was a seller's market. Demand created by war would drive up the prices of all kinds of supplies, and many things might be unavailable even with money in hand.
Ernst said, "During the Eighth Five-Year Plan period, East Africa must begin stockpiling strategic materials, especially resources such as tungsten ore, rubber, and petroleum. Even if we do not use them, we can resell them for a tidy profit."
There was no need to say much about tungsten ore, a resource scarce across the globe. Even though world tungsten prices were already relatively high, once war truly broke out, demand would only grow larger, and supply would fall short of demand.
East Africa's tungsten resources were not abundant either, with production areas concentrated in the mountains between the Great Lakes Region and the Congo Basin.
In 1934, the world's major tungsten-exporting countries were the Far East Empire, Portugal, Myanmar, Bolivia, Spain, and Australia. Apart from them, only a few other countries had small outputs, and those basically met their own needs, such as East Africa and the United States. Although both possessed domestic reserves and extraction operations, they still mainly