Chile is too humble about its success

GUATEMALA CITY -- When I interviewed Chilean President Michelle Bachelet during her visit to Guatemala earlier last week, I started out by asking her about something that has always intrigued me: Why does Chile, the most successful Latin American country, not want to assume the role of an economic model for the rest of the region?
Indeed, Chile leads the region in almost everything: It's the only country that has cut poverty in half over the past 17 years, from 39 percent of the population to about 18 percent, and it's way ahead of its neighbors in life expectancy and other social indicators.
In the 2006 United Nations Development Program annual Human Development Index, a list that measures countries' social as well as economic conditions, Chile ranks 38th in the world, and ahead of all other Latin American countries. By comparison, Uruguay is 43rd, Costa Rica 48th and Cuba 50th.
But, for some strange reason, Chile has not wanted to be a role model, even when Venezuela's narcissist-Leninist leader Hugo Chavez goes around the region claiming that free-trade agreements -- such as the ones that have propelled Chile's success story -- are ruining Latin American economies.
Why don't you like being portrayed as a model country, I asked Bachelet.
"Well, you know that in Chile we never have liked to talk about being a 'model.' Among other things, because when one talks about a 'model,' it tends to be associated with a recipe. And the truth is that there are (economic) experiences that can be very successful in one country, and turn out to be a failure when transferred to another country," she said.
Bachelet said Chile has done well because of its good government, economic stability and financial responsibility. In addition, there is a social consensus about the country's outward-looking development strategy, she said.
"In a country like Chile, of only 16 million people, it is obvious that internal demand alone will not be able to energize the economy, so we opted for a development strategy that focuses on the export sector," she said.
Bachelet recalled that during her recent trip to Vietnam, a communist country in a rapid process of globalization, "The Vietnamese prime minister told me that if you are fishing on the waterfront, you will catch very small fish. But if you are fishing in deep sea, you will get much bigger fish."
She added, "We, in Chile, opted to think that the best thing we could do was to insert ourselves in this [globalized] world, and today we have 54 free-trade agreements. By the end of the year, once we complete our free-trade deal with Japan, we will have a market of 3 billion people."
'Bridge' between countries
Why don't you take a higher profile in the region, I asked. "We are doing it, [but only] as far as we can," she said. Chile sees itself as "a bridge" between countries, she said. "We see ourselves as an amicable country, which wants to work a lot more with its neighbors, but we are very respectful of the freedom and wishes of neighboring countries."
Other Chilean officials tell me that Chile can't play too much of a leadership role because its neighbors already resent its prominence, and because critics inside Chile would say that the country should first tackle unresolved problems at home.
My opinion: I, for one, am a fan of the Chilean model. Chile has stayed the course. And it has proven that you can have leftist governments that reduce poverty without imprisoning oppositionists or closing down independent newspapers.
And I like leaders like Bachelet. I would only like her to aim a little bit higher. She may be right in thinking that it's not in Chile's interest to confront Chavez. But if she just started talking about the emergence of a "modern left" or a "globalized left," she could help modernize the region without attacking anybody. Will she do it? Let's hope she does.
Andres Oppenheimer is a Latin America correspondent for the Miami Herald. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.