Described as a ‘pocket-sized medium power’, the Netherlands has always struggled with its size. It has never felt satisfied, like a teenager in front of a mirror. Within NATO, the Netherlands has for years wanted to be the biggest of the small. When the large member states had finished talking, often there would be time for just one last presentation by the largest of the little ones.

In 2008, the South Korean electronics company Daewoo agreed to lease 1.3 million hectares of land in Madagascar. Daewoo pays no rent for the land and intends to use it for producing maize and palm oil – not to satisfy the hunger and needs of the local people, but to ship the harvest to South Korea. The Financial Times called it ‘food colonialism’.