That bit of news coupled with the recent public pronouncements by a couple NMI legislators that they don’t want to be an American which presumably reflects the sentiments of some (not all) of their constituency must raise eyebrows at the State Department in Washington, and perhaps the naval brass on Guam as well as several members of the U.S. Senate.
While the above offer, if accepted, requires that the island not be used for military purposes one must assume that any lessee, if a sovereign nation, will control the entry and egress to the island and therefore, for all intent and purpose, establish (or could) the island’s own “de facto” immigration policy.
I presume the offer was related to one of the northern islands — but Rota would probably be of greater interest to the Chinese, in my opinion.
It’s my understanding the islands of Asuncion, Guguan, Maug, Sarigan and Uracas (Farallon De Pajaros) are maintained as uninhabited places.
Presently no permanent structures can be built and no persons can live on the islands except as necessary for the purposes for which the islands are preserved.
The Legislature may substitute another island for Sarigan if that other island is as well suited for preserving its pristine environment and natural habitat for wildlife.
Of course, the legislature can change the rules as it often does for the birds and bees as well as the Chinese.
Farallon De Pajaros (Uracas) has been used by the U.S. military for bombing practice. I’m not sure how the Chinese would react to being bombed if this island was leased. Perhaps the U.S. Navy could be convinced to bomb the ocean rather than the island and thus offer an additional incentive to the Chinese by providing all the dead fish they can scoop up.
The permanent status given the preserve on Maug is based upon the unspoiled environment of the botany, ornithology, etc., of the three islands that are collectively known as Maug.
I recall during the first worldwide fuel oil crisis in 1973 when the NMI was still a part of the Trust Territory there was a proposal to establish a large oil storage depot consisting of anchored super tankers with the protected confines of the three islands to hold part of Japan’s fuel reserves until needed and called forth. The proposal was advanced by a firm known as MITR. I can’t remember the meaning of the initials — which matters little since the project never materialized.
I have a better idea for the use of a northern island. Make one of them an international penal colony and charge foreign governments a hefty annual fee to incarcerate their most hardened criminals. There is not even a need to build a fence around the place. Make it a sort of modern day Devil’s Island but without television, cable, personal computers and conjugal rights since there are goats on the island. It would be different from those correction facilities now in use in the United States or China and more humane.
If you are a liberal — think about it — what prisoner would not be delighted to trade a damp prison cell of a few square feet of concrete in exchange for a location on a beautiful, exotic tropical island, brushed by a warm ocean breeze rattling palm fronds beneath a clear blue sky.
The first mandated activity of those confined would be to cut and burn all the trees to avoid their use as a raft and reforest the area with teak, mahogany or ironwood, all such vegetation classified as “sinkers” since this type of wood doesn’t float. We can’t have these permanent guests rafting along a Saipan beach ogling female tourists.
Charter boats from Saipan could sail up north and lay off the beach a short distance and charge the tourist a fee to throw rocks at the convicts.
It would be another attraction and could lead to a whole new industry.
Brush aside all the platitudes about the NMI’s affiliation with the United States — my opinion is that the islands current relationship with the U.S. is a product of the Cold War. Had that era’s economic and military competition not been in the background of the negotiators on the U.S. side one wonders if the military would have ever supported such a close relationship with the U.S. Of some who considered the future relationship — and the times within which it was considered — I expect many believed it was the “policy of denial” which was the major influence behind the offer of a commonwealth status. Briefly stated that concept was predicated upon the belief (by some) that the U..S. really didn’t need the islands north of Guam — but didn’t want anyone else to control them. The military manipulators didn’t want a foreign power in close proximity to the huge military bases on Guam. That certainly makes sense — and still does.
In my opinion the appeal of the Marianas is to both military planners and political strategists. With few exceptions among the trading nations of the world sea routes are valuable national assets and the power to control or influence these traffic lanes is a matter of importance to all nations which border the sea. The ocean, and today the air, are avenues of commerce — lifelines to carry a nation’s industrial blood, whether it be raw materials or its processed products to world markets.
Sea and air power and supporting land bases are necessary to protect these trade routes. But since all navies depend upon bases of fixed facilities for replenishing, repairing and refueling their vessels, some islands in the Pacific still play an important role.
Islands most prized by the military are frequently those which can provide a navy with a protected deep water anchorage.
In former times islands served as coaling stations, relay stations for transoceanic cables, locations for radio transmitters, etc. Today they are sites for radar, earth satellite communication systems and fueling stops for the jet “clippers” of the skies, which more often than not land on air strips which were first constructed to service the military.
As the United States closed its bases in the Philippines, the Mariana Islands of Guam, Tinian and Saipan took on added importance to American strategic requirements in the western Pacific. It is because of their geographic location in proximity to the Asian Continent as well as the Great Circle Sailing Routes (shortest distance) between the United States and the Philippines, the Strait of Malacca at Singapore and the Lombok Straits in Indonesia that the United States is expected to continue to exhibit great interest in the area far into this century. The Malacca and Lombok Straits are the passages through which super tankers and their vital cargo of oil from the Middle East must travel en route to the United States’ west coast and the ports of its Japanese ally and trading partner as well as China
The Mariana Islands are geographically situated so as to be the farthest United States possessions in the Pacific west of Hawaii.
However, the islands may have lost much of their strategic appeal as geographic assets. Not only is the land area available for military use limited, but a diminished threat from the former Soviet Union (now the Commonwealth of Independent States) and the modern technology of weapon systems has certainly reduced the strategic importance of the islands.
Geopolitics in the western Pacific will continue to be influenced by the United States with China becoming an increasingly major player. This could be viewed with alarm by the United States as a future threat in the Pacific and elsewhere unless the two giants form an economic and military union, the likes of which has never before been witnessed in the world.
Editor’s note: In the sixties the author studied the “Economics of National Security” from the College of the Armed Forces (now the U.S. Defense University). He is a former State Department foreign service officer with a rank equivalent to lt. colonel and a recipient of the Department of Defense “Cold War Certificate” for services rendered to the United States government.
