Drive Out the Portuguese

By the end of September, Britain had withdrawn all its troops from East Africa. Portugal, dragging its feet, had also taken away its own troops and some civilians, while even more civilians had gone to Brazil.

The Brazilians felt a certain malicious delight at their mother country's miserable plight. After all, the Portuguese had left behind a rich political legacy in the international community. As the world's foremost Portuguese-speaking power, Brazil naturally believed it should inherit the Kingdom of Portugal's political standing and influence in the Portuguese-speaking world, just as Mexico always wanted to replace Spain as the big brother of the Spanish-speaking world.

But with Mexico's sky-high ambitions, it was destined never to achieve anything great. Spain itself was still sharp as ever, its fig leaf had not yet been torn away by the United States, and a country like Mexico, utterly at the mercy of the United States, had no standing at all in the Spanish-speaking world.

There was also the rapidly developing Argentina in the Spanish-speaking world. Even if the Spanish homeland could no longer hold on, it would not be Mexico's turn to call the shots.

Of course, the history of his previous life had ultimately proven that Spain, as a member of the Western world, had never been comparable to any other Spanish-speaking country from beginning to end. Mexico and Argentina had both eventually been beaten into submission by the United States. Add in the Philippines, Cuba, and Venezuela, and it seemed the United States had singled out former Spanish-speaking countries to shear like sheep.

Yet Spanish-speaking countries were typically marked by severe polarization. There were nations like Mexico that had simply knelt, but there were also small countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Paraguay that dared to resist the powerful. Of course, Paraguay had now