Speaker 1: Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander, an
Speaker 1: Eagle one from Eagle Speak at seer Shure your home
Speaker 1: for a discussion of national security issues and all things maritime.
Speaker 1: And good day everybody. Thank you for joining us for
Speaker 1: another edition of mid Rats. I'd like to make a
Speaker 1: do my little altar call as usual. If you are
Speaker 1: with us live. If you go ahead, and you should
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Speaker 1: other time, mid Rats will always be ready for you
Speaker 1: during your commute or when you have an extra moment
Speaker 1: lying around. So hey, let's get on with today's show.
Speaker 1: What we're going to look at is we're going to
Speaker 1: look at the People's Republic of China and what they've
Speaker 1: been doing grow their influence in the Pacific island nations,
Speaker 1: many of which, when you actually look at their names,
Speaker 1: will sound very familiar to anybody who has studied or
Speaker 1: World War two, or even watched a few of the movies.
Speaker 1: The islands are the same, the geography is the same,
Speaker 1: and their importance is just the same, and especially in
Speaker 1: case of any type of additional conflict, and they may
Speaker 1: take place west of the International date Line. And we're
Speaker 1: really looking forward for the next hour because our guest
Speaker 1: is the perfect person to talk about this, Cleo Pascal.
Speaker 1: She is a non resident Senior Fellow focusing on Indo
Speaker 1: Pacific region at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Cleo,
Speaker 1: welcome to Midwest.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. This is very exciting and as
Speaker 2: I think I mentioned, a little bit daunting. It's like
Speaker 2: sort of getting to go on the Johnny Carson Show
Speaker 2: in the seventies or something. It's for for our group
Speaker 2: of people, this is it doesn't get much better than this,
Speaker 2: So thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you will we will try to make sure
Speaker 1: our questions match your your enthusiasm for being on board.
Speaker 1: We're just really happy to have you here and for
Speaker 1: our guest, I think let's let's set the scene when
Speaker 1: we talk about the Pacific Island nations during the course
Speaker 1: of the next hour. What are the Pacific island nations
Speaker 1: that people should think of when they hear that phrase.
Speaker 2: Great, so this is essential starting point. If you draw
Speaker 2: it'd say it usually you'd say a triangle between like
Speaker 2: Hawaii and Japan and Australia. Everything in the middle of
Speaker 2: that would probably qualify as a Pacific island. You can
Speaker 2: actually make it a square and go down to kind
Speaker 2: of offshore from Chile, and then you can also include
Speaker 2: some of the like for example, French Polynesia that whole area.
Speaker 2: So it's by some calculations about a fifth of the planet.
Speaker 2: The islands themselves, they vary in the way that they're
Speaker 2: politically structured, from completely independent countries to essentially colonies, for
Speaker 2: example in the case of the French ones, to free
Speaker 2: association with the US, which we can talk about, or
Speaker 2: part of the realm of New Zealand, like the Cook
Speaker 2: Islands is where they say they're independent, but they carry
Speaker 2: New Zealand passports. So there's a whole range of political identities.
Speaker 2: But from a national security strategic perspective, the thing to understand,
Speaker 2: and it's very obvious if you look at a map.
Speaker 2: We've been we've been having a problem understanding I think
Speaker 2: how important the region is because we've been we look
Speaker 2: on our school walls, for example. We grew up with
Speaker 2: these twentieth century Atlantic centered maps. But if you have
Speaker 2: a Pacific centered map, you know the Indo Pacific is
Speaker 2: going to be to the twenty first century what the
Speaker 2: Atlantic was to the twentieth century. It's where the trade is,
Speaker 2: it's where the strategic contest is, all that stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: you've got this huge buffer zone between Asia and the Americas,
Speaker 2: and you if you don't control it, or if somebody
Speaker 2: else who is hostile to you controls it, you have
Speaker 2: a problem. So I'd say that when you're thinking about
Speaker 2: it from a strategic perspective, you might tend to think
Speaker 2: because we've seen in the news more recently violence like
Speaker 2: Solomon Islands might be important side of the Battle of Guadalcanal,
Speaker 2: for example, but they're actually down below the equator. They're
Speaker 2: off the coast of Australia. They are obviously important, but
Speaker 2: from a US strategic perspective, the islands that are critical,
Speaker 2: the Pacific islands that are critical are the ones that
Speaker 2: are north of the equator, that are in the corridor
Speaker 2: between Hawaii and Guam. And of course Guam is an
Speaker 2: American is the United States of America, and you've got
Speaker 2: this sort of broad quarrider between them. That's about three
Speaker 2: thousands about three thousand miles from Hawaii to Guam. And
Speaker 2: in that zone you have three independent countries. You have
Speaker 2: sort of I'm going up a little bit south of
Speaker 2: Guam as well a little south and west Palau, Federay
Speaker 2: States and Micronesia and Marshall Islands. As you mentioned Marshall,
Speaker 2: these are all we're all battle sites. Marshall Islands was
Speaker 2: Battle of Quadlon and it's where the base is today.
Speaker 2: Federary States, Gronesia's Truck Lagoon, Palalis Pelulu, that zone. They
Speaker 2: are independent countries, but they've given exclusive defense and security
Speaker 2: rights to the United States of America, and that's what
Speaker 2: allows the US unrestricted access across the middle of the Pacific,
Speaker 2: through those Pacific islands to the parts of the US
Speaker 2: that are right off the coast of Asia. Guam Kamal
Speaker 2: with the Northern Marianas come with the Northern Ania is
Speaker 2: part of the United States of America. It has a
Speaker 2: maritime border with Japan. So yes, we could talk about
Speaker 2: all of the Pacific islands. But if you're looking really
Speaker 2: at the core of US strategic interests, the place which
Speaker 2: was that whole zone, that middle zone that I just
Speaker 2: described was controlled by Japan from nineteen fourteen to nineteen
Speaker 2: forty four. That allowed the Asian defense perimeter to be
Speaker 2: pushed all the way close to Hawaii. It allowed the
Speaker 2: bombing of Pearl Harbor. And then after the war, after
Speaker 2: the the troops died all the way across liberated it.
Speaker 2: Then this compact was put in place to make sure
Speaker 2: that the border was pushed all the way to the
Speaker 2: west and to be kept off the coast of Asia.
Speaker 2: So I'd say that that zone, that those three compacts
Speaker 2: of free association countries plus Guam plus the Comwealthan and
Speaker 2: the Marianas both American, are really the core of US
Speaker 2: security interests in the region.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 3: where the rub is with China. In this region. And
Speaker 3: I think you've covered really well in one of the
Speaker 3: articles I put up on our chat room uh island
Speaker 3: hopping with Chinese characteristics, that the Chinese have a comprehensive
Speaker 3: national power metric that they use. How does that, how
Speaker 3: does that rub up against what the US and our
Speaker 3: allies and our territories are facing in in in that
Speaker 3: in the region we're.
Speaker 2: Talking about, right, So this comprehensive National power outlook is
Speaker 2: relevant obviously for much more than just the Pacific Islands.
Speaker 2: It helped me very much understand how the region operates,
Speaker 2: and in fact I learned quite a bit about it
Speaker 2: from retired coastguard who just who knows it incredibly well,
Speaker 2: Bernard Morland. And effectively, what the Chinese were doing, I'm
Speaker 2: not quite sure what they're doing now because it's always
Speaker 2: been a little bit opaque, but what they were doing
Speaker 2: for a very long time was ranking countries numerically by
Speaker 2: their comprehensive national power and the idea is that eventually
Speaker 2: China will be number one in the world in terms
Speaker 2: of comprehensive national power. And the calculations that go into
Speaker 2: the metric seem to vary by CCP or PLA, think tank.
Speaker 2: But they're much much more broad than what we would include.
Speaker 2: So we would include things like economic power or military power,
Speaker 2: things like that, but they would include even things like,
Speaker 2: you know, if you have a lithium mind, but a
Speaker 2: Chinese company is mining that lithium, that that counts towards
Speaker 2: China's comprehensive national power, not towards years. And they would
Speaker 2: and in kind of very overt ways. You know, if
Speaker 2: they've got bribery material, or if they have economic control,
Speaker 2: or if they're putting a bri projects in your country,
Speaker 2: that limits your conference and national power and increases theirs.
Speaker 2: And part of the way that this can manifest is
Speaker 2: that we think of competition in terms of getting better,
Speaker 2: but if you have a relative metric, then you can
Speaker 2: go down, but as long as the other guy goes
Speaker 2: down more than you do, you win. So this is
Speaker 2: what helped me just personally understand how there could be
Speaker 2: logic behind If you know you have and for example,
Speaker 2: an epidemic running through your country that's making a lot
Speaker 2: of your people sick, and you know it's a problem,
Speaker 2: and so you've stopped internal flights from a place like Wuhan,
Speaker 2: for example, you will you could logically keep pushing for
Speaker 2: external flights to say, Okay, if we're going to get hit,
Speaker 2: then we want everybody else to get hit as well,
Speaker 2: and we're going to use the buffer time to try
Speaker 2: to position ourselves in a little bit of a better place.
Speaker 2: And that particular pushing, continuing to push for those external flights.
Speaker 2: We know because there are Pacific Island leaders. There are
Speaker 2: many of them that are incredibly honest and courageous, and
Speaker 2: one of them was President of the Federal States of
Speaker 2: Micronesia at the time, and he wrote letters which became
Speaker 2: public to regional leadership describing the sort of pressure he
Speaker 2: was being put under by by the Chinese to keep
Speaker 2: flights coming in even though internal flights within China were
Speaker 2: being blocked. So it's not just a kind of in
Speaker 2: the DC things. Might you get an idea that sits
Speaker 2: in a think tank and it sounds very grand and
Speaker 2: nobody ever acts on it, but this comprehensive national power
Speaker 2: mentality seems to have actually translated into action that affects
Speaker 2: the way that they were willing to interact with the region.
Speaker 2: It also shows why I think that their approach is
Speaker 2: not just zero sum game. They will go into negative
Speaker 2: if the other side loses more So it's a very
Speaker 2: it's a different mentality. It takes a I think as
Speaker 2: a kind of you know, sort of rational person who
Speaker 2: cares about community and has a different point of view
Speaker 2: on the world to accept it. But for me, it's
Speaker 2: explained a lot of things that I otherwise found inexplicable.
Speaker 1: I had the same little mini journey when I was
Speaker 1: reading about it prepping the show, because when I saw
Speaker 1: the comprehensive National power, I went, Okay, somebody is translating
Speaker 1: from Mandarin into English what we call the hole a
Speaker 1: government approach or the inner agency. And then as I
Speaker 1: started to read up more on it, I went, no,
Speaker 1: it's closer too. You know, we talked about the whole
Speaker 1: of government or the inner agency. We're really internal looking
Speaker 1: like what are we doing, not really focused on what
Speaker 1: the effects are externally to the other targets, like what
Speaker 1: do we have in our little bureaucratics due that we're
Speaker 1: doing right, irrespective of what it might happen when it
Speaker 1: leaves the Beltway. But the comprehensive national power, if the
Speaker 1: in collectorm line, it says almost like it makes sense
Speaker 1: from the Chinese Communist Party's perspective because it almost has
Speaker 1: a flavor of their internal social credit score, where we're
Speaker 1: going to put metrics on things. I think that there
Speaker 1: are some things that are hard to quantify, but you can,
Speaker 1: if you have the right metrics, get close to it.
Speaker 1: They said, no, we need we need something that we
Speaker 1: can rack and stack all the other nations against. And
Speaker 1: we're going to use this process. And it's external looking.
Speaker 1: It's not focused on Oh, I'm sure the CCP has
Speaker 1: at'll bureaucracy that's interly focused, at least this view of
Speaker 1: international relations. It really is externally focused on what's worth
Speaker 1: their effort and not. And I wanted to quote a
Speaker 1: bit from You have an article that went out at
Speaker 1: the US Naval War College in twenty twenty three titled
Speaker 1: Island Hopping with Chinese Characteristics that I kind of stole
Speaker 1: that title for something else last week, so I'll give
Speaker 1: you appropriate credit. We dire the second paragraph there is
Speaker 1: a real interesting quote. I want you to pull the
Speaker 1: thread on for me. It's an hour long, so i'll
Speaker 1: do an extended quote. So quote in his twenty eleven
Speaker 1: book The Pacific Islands in China's Grand Strategy, Small States,
Speaker 1: big gains, professor, professor, and I'm gonna mispronounce it. Forgive
Speaker 1: me yan Yang rights. China's growing involvement in the South
Speaker 1: Pacific is part of Chinese China's growing involvement worldwide. The
Speaker 1: discussion of Chinese involvement and policy towards the South Pacific
Speaker 1: should be placed within this bigger picture. An isolated study
Speaker 1: without understanding China's grand strategy and overall foreign policy goals
Speaker 1: can be misguided and of extended quote. So it's you'll
Speaker 1: look at in isolation, that's a problem, but it is
Speaker 1: a cog in this larger plan that they seem to
Speaker 1: be rolling out.
Speaker 2: Yes, and chen yank So it's interesting. It's very interesting
Speaker 2: what you said about whole government because it's social credit.
Speaker 2: So those two concepts really really show how they are
Speaker 2: different and how they are. Yes, exporting a social credit system,
Speaker 2: and they don't stop that. Whole of government. This is
Speaker 2: you know, it's communis system, it's whole of systems. So
Speaker 2: what they have, for example, if you look at the
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen National Intelligence Law in China, you are compelled,
Speaker 2: if you're a Chinese company or Chinese citizen to support
Speaker 2: Chinese intelligence operations. You'll be rewarded if you do, and
Speaker 2: you'll be punished if you don't. That's the law, and
Speaker 2: it is, you know, extremely difficult to be a Chinese citizen.
Speaker 2: You are controlled to a very very high degree. And
Speaker 2: what you're starting to see, and one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why the Pacific Islands are so interesting is because you
Speaker 2: can they're so small enough so that you can see
Speaker 2: the levers that China goes after when it targets a
Speaker 2: country very quickly. And in the case of the Solomon Islands,
Speaker 2: for example, there was again another extremely courageous leader, Daniel Sudani,
Speaker 2: who is the leader, he's the premier of was premier
Speaker 2: of one of the provinces there. Alomon Islands is a
Speaker 2: really good case study because they switch from Taiwan to
Speaker 2: Trina in twenty nineteen, so you can there's a starting point,
Speaker 2: so you can start to see what they go after,
Speaker 2: you know, they and what pieces of equipment they want
Speaker 2: to get installed, including of course the Huawei towers. And
Speaker 2: in his case, he tried to stand up to it,
Speaker 2: so he blocked any Chinese Communist Party linked investment in
Speaker 2: his province. When he came in, his government put out
Speaker 2: this communicate explaining why. And one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: was they believe in freedom of religion and they didn't
Speaker 2: want to have the term they used was systemically atheist
Speaker 2: entity operating within their province. They thought it was bad
Speaker 2: for their society, and they went after him. There was
Speaker 2: a lot of Chinese linked money that went after getting
Speaker 2: him out of his premier and then he had his
Speaker 2: actual elected seat taken away. And the grounds for that
Speaker 2: from the pro PERC central government that took away his
Speaker 2: provincial seat, so it would be like the federal government
Speaker 2: taking away the seat of a state senator for example,
Speaker 2: was that he refused to accept China's definition of one
Speaker 2: China policy. So it was the first time I know
Speaker 2: where there was this exportation in the political world of
Speaker 2: essentially a social credit system. If you don't accept China's
Speaker 2: view of the world, you get canceled in your country
Speaker 2: through the PRC's proxies. So it's it's it's kind of
Speaker 2: that that is a pure display of comprehensive national power,
Speaker 2: and there are there are all of these quite big
Speaker 2: units that have been set up like United Front that
Speaker 2: push comprehensive national power and are trying to get themselves
Speaker 2: in a position to enforce. This signification or ccpification is
Speaker 2: actually more accurate of domestic politics in countries when it
Speaker 2: gets enough influence. So yeah, understanding that it's coming, it's
Speaker 2: coming into the US. It's coming into the US, and
Speaker 2: you can see it very clearly in the in a
Speaker 2: lot of different ways domestically. I mean, fentanyl is a
Speaker 2: classic example of unrestricted warfare to support comprehensive national power.
Speaker 2: It's kills at a minimum seventy thousand Americans last year.
Speaker 2: And for every American that dies, that destroys a family,
Speaker 2: and there are a lot that don't die who are
Speaker 2: addicts that are also destroying families. This is extremely an
Speaker 2: unrestricted warfare. Of course, is another term that came out
Speaker 2: of the PLA. It was a book written by two
Speaker 2: PLA Air Force kernels in nineteen ninety nine which includes
Speaker 2: drugs warfare as one of the twenty plus warfares that
Speaker 2: it talks about. So there we can see this happenings
Speaker 2: across a broad spectrum of interventions, and it is functioning
Speaker 2: to decrease the US's comprehensive national power and in a
Speaker 2: relative sense, increase China's comprehensive national power, and just quickly
Speaker 2: if you don't mind, because he quoted Jianyang. So Jianyang
Speaker 2: was who wrote that book, and that was one of
Speaker 2: the first books I saw in English about China's view
Speaker 2: of the Pacific Islands, and this reference to comprehensive national
Speaker 2: he himself, I met him. I met him in New
Speaker 2: Zealand when he was running the New Zealand Institute of
Speaker 2: International Affairs. He was a professor I think the University
Speaker 2: of Auckland. He then went on to become a member
Speaker 2: of Parliament in New Zealand and was leading or very
Speaker 2: can I put it, he was conduit for a lot
Speaker 2: of the ministerial meetings between China and New Zealand. And
Speaker 2: it later came out that before coming to New Zealand,
Speaker 2: he had spent about a decade teaching at a Chinese
Speaker 2: spy academy, and so he himself had sort of seemed
Speaker 2: to embody what he described in his book as the
Speaker 2: responsibilities of overseas Chinese, which which is to basically, if
Speaker 2: he can continue to help the homeland. Now, there are
Speaker 2: a lot of overseas Chinese who have fled China and
Speaker 2: who just want to get away from that whole system,
Speaker 2: and we see the biggest victims of the system, obviously
Speaker 2: of the Chinese people, but we see these setting ups
Speaker 2: of these illegal police stations and prosecutions of dissidents, and
Speaker 2: using family left in China, our business interests, lefts in
Speaker 2: China in order to try to course people who still
Speaker 2: have a tie back to China into being useful to
Speaker 2: this CCP if they can be. So it really is,
Speaker 2: it's operating in it and of course all of this
Speaker 2: to advance China's comprehensive national power. So it really it
Speaker 2: does operate in a completely different way. And in the
Speaker 2: Pacific Islands, because they're so small, you can really see
Speaker 2: it and you can see what it does to a
Speaker 2: society and how quickly it just erodes and destroys all
Speaker 2: of the pillars of democracy, transparency, accountability, human rights, the
Speaker 2: basic kind of freedoms that one hundred thousand Americans died
Speaker 2: for eighty years ago as they went across the Pacific.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's one of the reasons I raised that comprehensive
Speaker 3: national power thing. Is that quote from from Captain Moreland
Speaker 3: about for the Chinese Communist Party, comprehensive national power is
Speaker 3: measured by a CNP SCOPS is a goal in itself
Speaker 3: in pursuit of CNP justifies just about everything. And when
Speaker 3: you go through the the island hopping uh piece you
Speaker 3: have from the Naval War College, you know, you talk
Speaker 3: about entropic warfare and the way that if they can't
Speaker 3: they get things head on, then the way then they
Speaker 3: they're trying to go around the back door. Talk about
Speaker 3: about the approach they're taking to like with the the
Speaker 3: Northern Marianas. What what are they doing there to get
Speaker 3: to get their talents into into that area.
Speaker 2: So the coll the Northern Marianna is is zone. So
Speaker 2: Guam is Southern Mariana Island right basically. And it's so
Speaker 2: there's this chain of islands, the Mariannas that go from
Speaker 2: Guam and then if you go north you hit Rooda, Tinian, Saipan,
Speaker 2: and then for the north you get kind of Pagan
Speaker 2: and other islands up there. So the Commonwealth of Northern
Speaker 2: Marianna is that string of islands to the north of Guam,
Speaker 2: and they were kind of ethnically similar at least originally
Speaker 2: Tomorrow people were there and Carolinian people were there are there,
Speaker 2: but Guam became part of the United States through the
Speaker 2: Spanish American War, the US took the Philippines, obviously in
Speaker 2: Guam few other things, but didn't take a lot of
Speaker 2: the other Pacific islands that had been Spanish possessions, including
Speaker 2: what's now the Commonwealth of Northern Marianna Islands. So the
Speaker 2: Spanish sold them to the Germans, and including whole other
Speaker 2: swaths like Yap and stuff was sold to the Germans,
Speaker 2: who understood how strategic these locations were. One hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty years ago we talked about undersea cable issues. Now,
Speaker 2: the telegraph cables were the issues then, and Yap was
Speaker 2: a hub for German telegraphy at that time. Then the Germans,
Speaker 2: of course were on the wrong side of World War One,
Speaker 2: and the Japanese took those German possessions, and from nineteen
Speaker 2: fourteen to nineteen forty four, the Japanese controlled what is
Speaker 2: now the Komwalth in Northern Mariana's Palau, Federal State's Micronesia
Speaker 2: and the Marshall Islands. That whole zone which covers an
Speaker 2: area of the surface area the planet about the size
Speaker 2: of the continental United States. And then the Americans went
Speaker 2: through beat the Japanese, and then then that whole zone
Speaker 2: was all part of the Trust Territories. And then after
Speaker 2: that they became those three independent countries that I mentioned,
Speaker 2: and CNMI, Komwalth and North Amyanas voted to join the
Speaker 2: United States of America. So this is the newest part
Speaker 2: of the United States of America. These Saipan Tinian those
Speaker 2: are Americans in an American territory. They sent a represent
Speaker 2: counative to Congress that they have a governor who goes
Speaker 2: to the Governor's meetings. Very interesting place. Highly recommend every
Speaker 2: American go visit their fellow Americans out there. They serve
Speaker 2: in the US military at very high rates. The patriotic people.
Speaker 2: They're about forty fifty thousand people who live on Saipan.
Speaker 2: The challenge that they've had is they are very far
Speaker 2: from the mainland, and so when they joined the US,
Speaker 2: they were given control over certain aspect economic aspects like
Speaker 2: labor laws for example, and so they set up garment
Speaker 2: factories and the Chinese ran the garment factories there, and
Speaker 2: you may remember stories about some of the abuses that
Speaker 2: were happening those Chinese garment factories, and there were also
Speaker 2: issues around birth tourism and things like that. But what
Speaker 2: that did was that allowed the Chinese influence to come
Speaker 2: in via these money flows that affected of course politics,
Speaker 2: so it was very difficult to extricate that until the
Speaker 2: US allowed trying to join the World Trade Organization. And
Speaker 2: the value of those garment factories in Saipan was that
Speaker 2: they could slap they could be Chinese factories and you
Speaker 2: could slap it made in the USA label on it,
Speaker 2: and then it could go into the US market. But
Speaker 2: when they when China was allowed to join the WTO,
Speaker 2: that dropped in value. They had already started to set
Speaker 2: up these economic, entrenched economic interests that permeated other sectors,
Speaker 2: including aviation, and then it started to build up in
Speaker 2: tourism as well. And they kept pressure through the proxies
Speaker 2: that they had in politics and in the business sector
Speaker 2: to maintain this unusual access for China into the bloodstream
Speaker 2: of American politics and economics and the current state. I'm
Speaker 2: jumping through a lot of different things, like, for example,
Speaker 2: they had casinos, Chinese linked casinos that were running billions
Speaker 2: of dollars in Saipan. There was one in Saipan, there's
Speaker 2: one Atinian. There's Looking at it from the outside, it's
Speaker 2: very hard to see how that didn't involve some sort
Speaker 2: of money laundering, but there there were never never any
Speaker 2: proper investigations done. The current state is common Wealth and
Speaker 2: nor the Marianna Islands, part of the United States of America,
Speaker 2: is the only place in the US that allows Chinese
Speaker 2: to arrive without a visa. So any Chinese can get
Speaker 2: on a plane in Hong Kong and fly straight into CNMI,
Speaker 2: say I'm here for two weeks of tourism, Get off
Speaker 2: the plane, no visa. What's happening with that is we're
Speaker 2: starting to find them. They're not supposed to leave the
Speaker 2: common wealthannr the Marianas, but there have been court cases
Speaker 2: where people have been convicted for taking them illegally to Guam,
Speaker 2: and they have been found on wandering around military basis
Speaker 2: in Guam. They're using the US Postal Service for distributing drugs.
Speaker 2: Are the woman who ran the Bureau of Motor Vehicles
Speaker 2: has been convicted of selling driver's licenses to Chinese illegally,
Speaker 2: specifically to Chinese. So it's this kind of soft entry
Speaker 2: point through this no visa thing. And Congress has written
Speaker 2: to Secretary of New Yorkis to ask why this is
Speaker 2: continuing and the answer is that Chinese contributed a substantial
Speaker 2: amount to the tourism sector of CNMI in two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight or two thousand and nine, so that's why
Speaker 2: now at the same time, Russians could arise visa around then,
Speaker 2: and that privilege was yanked for national security ground. So
Speaker 2: there's no reason it couldn't be yanked for national security grounds.
Speaker 2: So you've got this that situation, and the current governor
Speaker 2: of CNMI would like to see that loophole closed. But
Speaker 2: the Chamber of Commerce of CNMI is doubling down now
Speaker 2: and saying, not only do they want to keep this
Speaker 2: loose visa access for Chinese, they also want a lifting
Speaker 2: of caps on direct flights from inland China directly into CNMI.
Speaker 2: They want those caps lifted. You know, we've got this
Speaker 2: situation where you have honest political leaders in the conwealth
Speaker 2: and Rithmerannas the governor included, who has testified before Congress
Speaker 2: and said, please clean up our system. Please send a
Speaker 2: resident district attorney, Please send treasury. I'm opening up all
Speaker 2: of my books, please investigate us, please help us get
Speaker 2: rid of this corruption. And nothing is happening. And the
Speaker 2: longer you wait, the more you get this pressure coming
Speaker 2: in for visa free access for direct flights, and at
Speaker 2: the same time on Tinian the Air Force is trying
Speaker 2: to put in four hundred million dollars to rehabilitate those
Speaker 2: runways and a new Chinese casino has opened up on
Speaker 2: the port.
Speaker 1: It's amazing when you watch this unfold that you want
Speaker 1: to look over at Foggy Bottom and you want to
Speaker 1: look over and you know, you mentioned treasury as well
Speaker 1: these others. Who's minding the store here, because it's clear
Speaker 1: that the people are Probabic of China has a plan
Speaker 1: And you mentioned in one of your articles at the
Speaker 1: at one of the Chinese universities the government funded, which
Speaker 1: is kind of repeating myself because everything funded by the
Speaker 1: government there. Yea, they have the Center for Pacific Island Countries.
Speaker 1: It has a staff of forty And I remember a
Speaker 1: conversation I had over a decade ago with Dimitri Gornberg,
Speaker 1: who's over at the over at CNA, and he mentioned
Speaker 1: that before things got interested with Russia, he was the
Speaker 1: Russia shop there. So you know who is working these
Speaker 1: issues on our end, because part of that that you
Speaker 1: outlined is the PRC. Again, if you want to know
Speaker 1: what they're doing. Read their stuff that they have a
Speaker 1: braided approach to how they want to pursue their means.
Speaker 1: The three braide, commercial, strategic, and criminal. And when you
Speaker 1: look at how they're influencing and like you said, the
Speaker 1: casino going next to our new strategic airfield, call your
Speaker 1: local mortar team. This stuff is serious and they really
Speaker 1: look like they're following a from an objective point of view,
Speaker 1: a logic and a commendable plan to pursue their national goals.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like it and it's effective. It's not perfect,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't have to be perfect because as you
Speaker 2: pointed out, there seems to be very little defense. So
Speaker 2: it's you've got a case of the current situation come
Speaker 2: with and the marianas you have open goal. Even though
Speaker 2: you have this very dedicated office in the governor and
Speaker 2: the people around him that are scrambling to try to
Speaker 2: figure out any way, they can't tot after the corruption
Speaker 2: and it's braded approach that you mentioned.
Speaker 4: This is.
Speaker 2: Where their weakness, weak spot really is. So they'll come
Speaker 2: in with this commercial approach. We're just here to do business.
Speaker 2: You know, economy is struggling, so of course you need
Speaker 2: the Chinese tourists. It has this strategic undercurrent. Who knows
Speaker 2: might be slipping it with those other Chinese tourists. And
Speaker 2: nobody's saying don't have Chinese tourists. We're just saying, why
Speaker 2: can't you apply for a visa like every other place
Speaker 2: in the United States. It's not like they're no Chinese
Speaker 2: tourists in the rest of the US. It's just they
Speaker 2: have to wait a week to get a visa, So
Speaker 2: you know, why can't they do it for CNMI. But
Speaker 2: this third element, and so you know, I got that
Speaker 2: commercial and the strategic, which everybody kind of knows and
Speaker 2: is embodied in the term dual use, and that's kind
Speaker 2: of pretty common. But this third element, there's always this
Speaker 2: criminal component. And China, the Chinese Communist Party in the
Speaker 2: PLA work very closely with Chinese organized crime. So in
Speaker 2: the case of Palau again, which is one of these
Speaker 2: highly strategic locations for the US, it's one of these
Speaker 2: in a compact of free association with the US, they're
Speaker 2: putting in the over the horizon radar installation or trying
Speaker 2: Broken tooth, who is one of the big triad leaders
Speaker 2: was based out of Palau for quite a while, effect
Speaker 2: almost under US jurisdiction because of the Compact of Free Association.
Speaker 2: The US could say this is a national security issue
Speaker 2: for the US and go after it, but they're not.
Speaker 2: The Attorney General of Palao has been begging for lawyers
Speaker 2: and laughing just because I never thought that I would
Speaker 2: be in a position of saying the solution is sending
Speaker 2: the lawyers. But we are actually in a position where
Speaker 2: you're way better off sending a special prosecutor or some
Speaker 2: really good district attorney resident investigators than you are sending
Speaker 2: in the mercy or coastguard cut or whatever, because the
Speaker 2: corruption that's happening on the ground is what's feeding out
Speaker 2: into the maritime environment, the air environment, in the entire
Speaker 2: national security bubble and corroding it from the inside. And
Speaker 2: that's where the US has a natural advantage, if you know,
Speaker 2: it says that it believes in accountability, transparency, rule of law.
Speaker 2: So instead of competing with the Chinese on Chinese grounds.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've heard it said, you know in Africa,
Speaker 2: some Chinese guy told that an American We're going to
Speaker 2: win because we have an limited bribery budget. Okay, that's fine,
Speaker 2: So we should have an unlimited prosecution and investigation budget.
Speaker 2: You don't compete on their terms, you compete on our
Speaker 2: terms because fundamentally, I think our systems better. So do
Speaker 2: the things that reinforce our system. And it's gonna, which
Speaker 2: is I mean from a Chinese perspective, is very threatening
Speaker 2: to them. That undermines their comprehensive national power. If we
Speaker 2: truly exhibit what makes us strong. So you know you
Speaker 2: can we can go after that third element to the braid,
Speaker 2: get rid of get raise the cost of taking Chinese money.
Speaker 2: Nobody's going to jail now for taking Chinese money. There's
Speaker 2: no downside to taking Chinese money. If you're in the
Speaker 2: Solomon Islands and you're a rational actor, and you look
Speaker 2: at the current finance minister, who's the former prime minister
Speaker 2: who has out of miraculously, out of nowhere, eight properties
Speaker 2: deep in with China. And you look at the former
Speaker 2: premier of the Solomon of the Malaita province who I
Speaker 2: mentioned lost his job and you know, doesn't have money
Speaker 2: to pay hospital fees. Who was a better bet? If
Speaker 2: you have very little money and you're trying to support
Speaker 2: your family, who's a better role model the guy that's
Speaker 2: taking money from China or the guy that's trying to
Speaker 2: stand up to China. So unless we raise the cost
Speaker 2: of taking the money from China and give breathing space
Speaker 2: that people who are trying to defend their communities and
Speaker 2: the things that they believe in, the equation is not
Speaker 2: going to tip in our favor. And it's that third strand,
Speaker 2: that corruption strand, that is the thread to pull on
Speaker 2: that can unravel all three elements.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think one of the things we need to
Speaker 3: focus on too is that Time is very concerned about
Speaker 3: the first island chain, which Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and
Speaker 3: that you know, they need to break out of that.
Speaker 3: But one of the other things there, what we're talking
Speaker 3: about with this particular topic, is that the second island chain,
Speaker 3: which includes the Commonwealth in Northern Mariana's Guam Palao and
Speaker 3: the marshals and other systems there. This is the second
Speaker 3: island chain, and they are leap trying to leapfrog passed
Speaker 3: it through this by corrupting and corroding the governments of
Speaker 3: those entities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would argue they've leapfrog the first
Speaker 2: and second which is how they ended up in Guadalcanal, right,
Speaker 2: I mean they're in Solomons, they're in Vanuatu. Both Solomon's
Speaker 2: and Vanuatu have made it very difficult for Coastguard ships
Speaker 2: to land recently. Same thing I've heard with Caribis. I
Speaker 2: need to get that. I've only have one source on that,
Speaker 2: but so you need to get that checked. So they are.
Speaker 2: If you take a look at where wang Yi Use
Speaker 2: the Foreign Minister, visited in May June of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: which was at the height of COVID, so the kind
Speaker 2: of trees borders or most of the Pacific islands just
Speaker 2: closed their borders during COVID. But in May June of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, Wangi and a delegation just Island hopped
Speaker 2: throughout the region. All of the restrictions were dropped. They
Speaker 2: met with government leaders, local press to a large degree
Speaker 2: was kept quiet, and they they went. If you take
Speaker 2: a look at the countries that they visited there the
Speaker 2: other side of the First and Second island chain, they
Speaker 2: just completely leapfrogged it and there they've studied very carefully,
Speaker 2: much more than we have the World War II battle
Speaker 2: map from the perspective of both the US and the Japanese.
Speaker 2: Somebody who's written very well on this as Toshiyoshihara who
Speaker 2: wrote a freely available monograph on this which is extremely
Speaker 2: good about what the Chinese, what the PLA has learned
Speaker 2: from world from World War two Pacific theater. And so
Speaker 2: that's why it's not an accident when they go into
Speaker 2: a place like the Solomon Isles after twenty nineteen, after
Speaker 2: they first recognize trying to Beijing comes in in one
Speaker 2: of the first places they try to get a hold
Speaker 2: of is Tulagi. That was one of the first places
Speaker 2: the Japanese attacked, and it was a place that was
Speaker 2: the headquarters for the British. It's very good the geography
Speaker 2: doesn't change now. They didn't. They tried to do it
Speaker 2: through political warfare, through leasing it right and seeing if
Speaker 2: they could get enough political leverage to push through a lease.
Speaker 2: And in that case it was the women's groups of
Speaker 2: Tulagi that pushed back and kind of protected their turf.
Speaker 2: And again it's this thing of you know, we have
Speaker 2: this thing of thinking, oh, you know, you meet the
Speaker 2: officials sitting in the official offices, and that's who the
Speaker 2: country is. But if you truly believe in democracy, you
Speaker 2: are engaging with the wide spectrum of society, and in fact,
Speaker 2: the power maybe there and the people who share your
Speaker 2: values are definitely more likely to be there than sitting
Speaker 2: in the central So if you want to understand what's
Speaker 2: truly going on, you need to do that. And at
Speaker 2: the time in the US didn't even have an embassy
Speaker 2: in Solomon Islands. They've now opened one, but it's it's
Speaker 2: very understaffed, it doesn't even have consular services. So you know,
Speaker 2: we're very very we the Greater West, you know, the
Speaker 2: Free World, are very far behind, not just on understanding
Speaker 2: what the Chinese are doing, but on understanding how the
Speaker 2: people in the region are fighting and what they need
Speaker 2: to be effective in their ability to fight.
Speaker 1: I like the fact that you mentioned the map, because
Speaker 1: none of what we're talking about here is esoteric knowledge,
Speaker 1: but it is so incredibly important. And what the what
Speaker 1: the PRC is doing. I've seen some people dismiss some
Speaker 1: of the coruption going, you know, the money they're investing there.
Speaker 1: It's a rounding error. And I mentioned this on a
Speaker 1: substack post i did last week, that you cannot put
Speaker 1: a geography may have a certain value at peace based
Speaker 1: upon GDP and stuff like that. But when a nation
Speaker 1: or the globe goes to war, a very cheap piece
Speaker 1: of real estate like Gibraltar is a perfect example if
Speaker 1: you just looked at the natural resources and everything like that,
Speaker 1: like it's a it's a semi arid rock, it's not
Speaker 1: much there. But when you go to war, what is
Speaker 1: cheap at peace is so incredibly expensive. At war, nations
Speaker 1: will kill and be killed and the tens of thousands
Speaker 1: or more just for a few square miles because you know,
Speaker 1: these these are very poor nations, These are very resource
Speaker 1: thin nations. But the map is so incredibly important, and
Speaker 1: I liked in your Naval War College article, your figure
Speaker 1: one is that map from forty one to forty five
Speaker 1: where you had the two big thrust that went either
Speaker 1: of you know, palal Guam, Saipan. Because they were hard.
Speaker 1: They once they're occupied, they're hard to get to. But
Speaker 1: you can see how if you wanted, if you saw
Speaker 1: a place in the future where you're going to have
Speaker 1: a conflict with America, America, if they want to come
Speaker 1: west of the International Dateline, they can only come a
Speaker 1: few different directions. Technology has changed, but the ranges are
Speaker 1: the same, so we know what they did, like there
Speaker 1: aren't very many other options they could do, and something
Speaker 1: I did a few years ago and I do again
Speaker 1: now and then, and I like this approach better. But
Speaker 1: I also like to remind people how important even Vunatu Island,
Speaker 1: if you do a great circle route from California to
Speaker 1: our ally at the low population, large size, big resource Australia,
Speaker 1: they go right through all of these islands, which is
Speaker 1: why the Imperial Japan there was the Battle of Coral
Speaker 1: Sea right there off of Papua New Guinea in the
Speaker 1: backyard of australiax months after Pearl Harbor, because they knew
Speaker 1: this how important that was if you were going to
Speaker 1: isolate America and from her allies in any Great Pacific War.
Speaker 1: Kind of a long overview of how much I love maps.
Speaker 1: But it's part of the problem we're having explaining this
Speaker 1: to people is the fact that we there's too many
Speaker 1: words and there aren't enough pictures to be able to
Speaker 1: explain this to people to get serious about it. On
Speaker 1: our side, the people's are probably China seems to be
Speaker 1: able to allocate resources and incentives towards that, but for
Speaker 1: some reason on our side, being the anglospheric and allied
Speaker 1: nations in the Pacific. We're not getting attraction on the
Speaker 1: importance level. Where are we failing to communicate to our
Speaker 1: own decision makers about how important this is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really important. And just going back to your
Speaker 2: point about the think tanks, and China has at least
Speaker 2: half a dozen think tanks that look at the Pacific
Speaker 2: eye and I can pretty much I'd be very surprised
Speaker 2: if there aren't more people in Beijing who understand the
Speaker 2: Compacts of Free association, and there are in Washington, and
Speaker 2: the compacts came very close. So the compacts, this is
Speaker 2: the agreements with those three countries that secure we talk.
Speaker 2: You can't have enough maps on this because we talk consistently.
Speaker 2: But the first island chain and maybe the second island chain, right,
Speaker 2: but how do you think you're going to get it.
Speaker 2: You don't magically teleport into the first island chain. You
Speaker 2: have to get across the center of the Pacific. So
Speaker 2: if you're going to do that, then you need those
Speaker 2: three countries, those Compact of Free Association countries, Palow Marshall Islands,
Speaker 2: Federal States and Micronesia need to be a safe zone
Speaker 2: for the US because otherwise, like you mentioned, like you
Speaker 2: you know, for that World War two map, you have
Speaker 2: to go south and west and then come up, you know,
Speaker 2: that middle zone controlling that. So why at the beginning
Speaker 2: that middle zone is something kind of off the charts
Speaker 2: in terms of importance. So those contacts are free association,
Speaker 2: they're different. The financial and services component to it get
Speaker 2: renewed every twenty years, and they are so tied to
Speaker 2: the US that not only do they serve in the
Speaker 2: US military at very high rates even though they're from
Speaker 2: these independent countries, they even have US postal codes, so
Speaker 2: they're considered domestic mail, which makes a which is a
Speaker 2: means they can order off of Amazon, and considering how
Speaker 2: far they are down the supply chain, that makes a
Speaker 2: very big difference for them. Those that twenty year renewal
Speaker 2: cycle technically expired last year. I mean, it's quite complicated,
Speaker 2: but it was very, very difficult to get that renewed,
Speaker 2: and the amount of money involved was I can't remember
Speaker 2: the exact amount, but it was about six point two
Speaker 2: billion to cover the three countries for twenty years. And
Speaker 2: this is to cover things like postal service or head
Speaker 2: start programs or just basic programs to ensure that because
Speaker 2: those countries have given over so many of their rights
Speaker 2: to the US, that's limited their economic ability and other sectors.
Speaker 2: So this is, you know, to be able to keep them,
Speaker 2: to be able to sustain themselves while they do other activities.
Speaker 2: And it came down to a two point three billion
Speaker 2: dollar offset required by Congress, and it almost didn't go through.
Speaker 2: Two point three billion dollars to cover this corridor freedom
Speaker 2: across the center of the Pacific for twenty years, which
Speaker 2: was a promise made to the people of the region. Remember,
Speaker 2: the US did sixty seven nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands,
Speaker 2: which still has lingering effects. You know, however, many Americans
Speaker 2: died in order to maintain or to gain this relationship,
Speaker 2: all of that sort of stuff talking you talking about errors, right,
Speaker 2: two point three billion, and it almost didn't go through.
Speaker 2: And part of the reason I would argue is because
Speaker 2: for a long time DoD didn't get involved. So that
Speaker 2: the people who who should understand this the best are
Speaker 2: in d D and specifically sitting in Hawaii because they're
Speaker 2: the logistics people. Know they have to get all the
Speaker 2: way across this quarter of freedom, so to speak, in
Speaker 2: order to be able to get to the base in Japan,
Speaker 2: and the and the and in Korea, and to reach
Speaker 2: the treaty allies. But they were conspicuously absent on the
Speaker 2: hill when the discussions around the compacts are going on,
Speaker 2: possibly because they didn't want to be on the hook
Speaker 2: for the money. The money theoretically goes through Department of
Speaker 2: Interior for historic reasons and state, but they weren't briefing.
Speaker 2: And part of the reason for that, I think is
Speaker 2: there are actually very few people in DD even in Hawaii,
Speaker 2: who understand the importance of it. They've just been taking
Speaker 2: it for granted. They've just been taking for granted that
Speaker 2: they would have this unrestricted access from Hawaii to Guam,
Speaker 2: this three thousand miles across the center of the Pacific, unimpeded.
Speaker 2: But of course, just like what you were saying in
Speaker 2: terms of the US, that center was hardened by Japan
Speaker 2: during World War Two, so the US had to go
Speaker 2: down and come back up. China has been from a
Speaker 2: Chinese perspective, that center has hardened for the US. So
Speaker 2: they've been going down through political warfare and getting Guadalcanal
Speaker 2: in all those places through political warfare, and they are
Speaker 2: now coming up into the compact of free associate association
Speaker 2: eras area through political warfare and gaining influence in incredibly
Speaker 2: effective ways. So this assumption I think that DoD has
Speaker 2: been riding on in the wargames and elsewhere, that they'll
Speaker 2: just always be able to run across the center of
Speaker 2: the Pacific has meant that they haven't been educating people
Speaker 2: on the hill as much as they possibly should. They
Speaker 2: haven't been studying the situation. There's of course very little
Speaker 2: interest in the thinks in DC on this topic, and
Speaker 2: the result is that the Chinese have been romping through
Speaker 2: the area, including the United States. In the area, including
Speaker 2: places like Comwalthn or the Marianna, is largely unimpeded.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we might have been distracted for the
Speaker 3: last twenty years or so with other things. But as
Speaker 3: someone who's sailed through the Solomons and gone down the
Speaker 3: slot and dropped to wreath an iron bottom sound lived
Speaker 3: on Guam, understand a lot of that area and have
Speaker 3: you know it is a big area and these islands
Speaker 3: are extremely vital to us. Well, I know there's a
Speaker 3: Congressional Caucus on the Pacific Islands or they they have
Speaker 3: any use or are they understand that we need to
Speaker 3: get in here. And I think you said block and
Speaker 3: block and build to help our interests and our friends.
Speaker 2: In that area, right, So I'll explain block and build
Speaker 2: for a minute, if you don't mind. So this is
Speaker 2: another thing that that the US does, most countries do,
Speaker 2: most Western countries do, which is you sort of have
Speaker 2: the assumption that, well, if we just do something good,
Speaker 2: then it'll be fine, build a hospital or give some
Speaker 2: scholarships or anything like that. But going right back to
Speaker 2: the beginning to the discussion of comprehensive national power, of
Speaker 2: course that's a negative for China in terms of comprehensive
Speaker 2: national power. So anything you try to do that's good
Speaker 2: is going to be seen as a threat by the
Speaker 2: PERC and will be attacked. So, you know, you kind
Speaker 2: of assume that everybody just wants the economies of these
Speaker 2: countries to do well. Actually, China does not want the
Speaker 2: economies of these countries to do well. They want people
Speaker 2: who do business with China to do well, so that
Speaker 2: there is a vested interest in continuing to do business
Speaker 2: with China. But if a country's economy is in poor shape,
Speaker 2: that means it's more likely to want a loan from
Speaker 2: China or to turn to China for help. So actually
Speaker 2: weakening countries through this sort of in tropic warfare which
Speaker 2: we mentioned before, weakening them socially in terms of institutions
Speaker 2: and economically benefits China. So that's you know that that
Speaker 2: block and build component. What that means is while we're building,
Speaker 2: we also have to block. We have to and this
Speaker 2: is just kind of basic military stuff. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you're if you're trying to land on a beach, you
Speaker 2: might be trying to crawl ahead inch by inch on
Speaker 2: the beach, but at the same time you're trying to
Speaker 2: block people from killing you. So you know you want
Speaker 2: to build your beachhead and attack, but also block the attack.
Speaker 2: So if you accept that we are in a period
Speaker 2: of at least political warfare, even though political warfare means
Speaker 2: people still can die I mean, seventy thousand Americans at
Speaker 2: minimum or dying a fentanyl over doses, and that can
Speaker 2: be that the Chinese could stop that if they wanted,
Speaker 2: I mean, at least reduce it by a large amount,
Speaker 2: and they're not going to. So if you accept that
Speaker 2: we are in a form of war, then it's just
Speaker 2: normal to defend. So you block and you build it
Speaker 2: the the same time. So I just sorry, just wanted
Speaker 2: to explain that kind of block and build concept, but
Speaker 2: I've rambled on so long i forgot the rest of
Speaker 2: the question.
Speaker 3: Well, the Congressional Congress, caucasun for the Pacific are they
Speaker 3: doing anything useful?
Speaker 5: That's why I judiciously forgot that question. U. This is
Speaker 5: the other problem, the other problem with the and this
Speaker 5: goes back to your question about what are the Pacific Islands.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just such a the Pacific Islands. You're
Speaker 2: just such a fussy term because if you talk about
Speaker 2: the Caucus for the Pacific Islands, and now that could
Speaker 2: mean that, you know, Solomon Islands or sam Moa. They
Speaker 2: are so different. Then again, these three core countries for
Speaker 2: the US, the Pala Fitterses and Micronesia Marshall Islands, because
Speaker 2: people from those three countries they can live and work
Speaker 2: in the US freely. They can again train the use military.
Speaker 2: People from other Pacific islands can't. And there's also there's
Speaker 2: a lot of fallacies about the Pacific Islands, like they're small.
Speaker 2: Papua New Guinea has a larger land mass and a
Speaker 2: larger population than New Zealand, and it's more strategically located.
Speaker 2: Another fallacy is that these countries are isolated in the
Speaker 2: middle of nowhere. You know, cnm I, the major tourism
Speaker 2: group going there now is from Korea. It's a three
Speaker 2: four hour flight from Korea. It's a two to three
Speaker 2: hour flight from Manila to Palau. So it's you know,
Speaker 2: the countries are really really different. So it's nice to
Speaker 2: have a caucus on the Pacific Islands. They weren't particularly
Speaker 2: helpful during the compact negotiations, you know, it's sort of
Speaker 2: like having a I don't know, a caucus on Asia,
Speaker 2: right that. It's just the region is so different, and
Speaker 2: it has so many different priorities and interests and is
Speaker 2: important to the US in so many different ways that
Speaker 2: it really takes, i think, break breaking it down so
Speaker 2: that you're looking at the different regions in terms of
Speaker 2: different priorities, so that you can actually start to put
Speaker 2: together packages that are effective. A solution for the Solomon
Speaker 2: situation isn't going to necessarily be a solutions for the
Speaker 2: Marshal Lease situation or the CNMI situation. And of course
Speaker 2: we haven't even mentioned American Samoa, which is another bit
Speaker 2: of the US that's right in the heart of the Pacific.
Speaker 1: Over in the chat during the show, Johan he made
Speaker 1: an interesting point because we've been like the iosaur on
Speaker 1: we've have focused on the island nations there west of
Speaker 1: the International Dateline. But the whole Chinese larger product built
Speaker 1: in road. But it's more of a spider web than
Speaker 1: anything else. They just haven't been going in that part
Speaker 1: of the Pacific. Is they are building an absolutely massive
Speaker 1: port in Peru and their companies pretty much run the
Speaker 1: Panama Canal in large regards, what is the connection that
Speaker 1: people can if they're starting to all of a sudden
Speaker 1: getting worried about the what's happening outside of the Pacific.
Speaker 1: You're talking about two to three hour plane flights fly
Speaker 1: out Miami all the time. It's a short flight to
Speaker 1: Panama relatively speaking. Is there a connection between the processes
Speaker 1: they're using in the Pacific and what we're also seeing
Speaker 1: on are into the Pacific from just in Panama down
Speaker 1: to Peru by in other locations.
Speaker 2: Yes, Johann is a wise man. That is a very
Speaker 2: key point because how do you think the Chinese get
Speaker 2: to Latin America? Right that have to go through the Pacific.
Speaker 2: So in the same way that the US has created
Speaker 2: this secure corridor which it's taking for granted across the
Speaker 2: northern Pacific, China has been focused for a very long
Speaker 2: time on getting this sort of diagonal root secure for itself,
Speaker 2: including in places that you might not expect it would,
Speaker 2: for example French Polynesia. So French Polynesia has different visa
Speaker 2: restrictions for Chinese coming into French Polynesia than it does
Speaker 2: for mainland France. And there's the newly arrived Chinese and
Speaker 2: French Polynesia have been gaining. If you get a map
Speaker 2: and take a look at the exclusive economics and a
Speaker 2: French Polynesia, it's huge, and the Chinese are on the
Speaker 2: record is saying that they want to use it as
Speaker 2: a trendshipment point to Latin America for a long time.
Speaker 2: But of course there are other locations all the way
Speaker 2: along that route. But in the same way that you've
Speaker 2: done these great maps where you talk about the route
Speaker 2: from California to Australia, start drawing maps from Shanghai to
Speaker 2: some of the ports on the west coast of Latin
Speaker 2: America and you'll see how important those islands along those
Speaker 2: routes will be So we've kind of we've forgotten I
Speaker 2: don't know how, but just how important maritime domain is.
Speaker 2: And it's not These distances are vast, So there's this.
Speaker 2: You can be quite dismissive and say, oh, these are
Speaker 2: just little small specs. Well, yeah, how important is a
Speaker 2: small spec when you're crossing a very large chunk of ocean.
Speaker 2: It's exponentially important. So in that same way, you know,
Speaker 2: these little specs, these hoppings, these little islands that you
Speaker 2: can hop across and resupply or go into port, or
Speaker 2: pick up supplies or pick up legal, whatever you're doing,
Speaker 2: depending on what you're doing if you're Chinese, become extremely important.
Speaker 2: So the China's Latin America's story for me has quite
Speaker 2: a large Pacific island chapter to it to underpin its
Speaker 2: its viability.
Speaker 3: Well, we talked about in your article. I think on
Speaker 3: several times we have touched on maritime domain awareness. But
Speaker 3: I think in your in your island hopping piece, you
Speaker 3: talk about maritime domain enforcement, and let's talk about's talk
Speaker 3: about doing that. Let's that's how what should we be
Speaker 3: doing to enforce the rights we have and the the
Speaker 3: openings we have to protect the Federated States of Micronesia
Speaker 3: and the and the Palau and the Marshall Islands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the Port Coast Guard right like they have
Speaker 2: I can't remember how many. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 2: under half a dozen ships to patrol an area, but
Speaker 2: the size of the continental United States, right, So it's
Speaker 2: like patrolling the US with you know, five or six
Speaker 2: police cars that go thirty miles an hour. It's just
Speaker 2: not enough. But you can a lot of damage by
Speaker 2: identifying illegal activity and then going after them in an
Speaker 2: asymmetric way. Colonel Brat Newsham has written books, wrote a
Speaker 2: book about this is actually testified before Congress also, where
Speaker 2: you know, why not just yank the license of the
Speaker 2: banks that bank roll these fishing fleets that are illegally
Speaker 2: going through the region, you know, inflict some real pain,
Speaker 2: go after them in ways that mattered. You don't have
Speaker 2: to do ship to ship, right like you don't have
Speaker 2: to go after bribery with more bribery. You go after
Speaker 2: bribery asymmetrically by increasing the cost of taking the bribes
Speaker 2: in other ways, by publicizing it, but by going after
Speaker 2: and that little thing about switching from maritime domain awareness
Speaker 2: to maritime domain enforcement is the Pacific Islanders. Their relationship
Speaker 2: with the ocean is in many cases is near spiritual
Speaker 2: or at least tootemic. So there was I was talking
Speaker 2: to the attorney general from one of these countries about,
Speaker 2: you know what he thought about this, these Chinese illegal
Speaker 2: trawlers going through and they have from his country. Their
Speaker 2: clans are affiliated to fish, so there might be the
Speaker 2: stingray clan or the shark clan or whatever, and so
Speaker 2: it hurts it a kind of and you're not supposed
Speaker 2: to eat that fish. Those are your ancestors. You can
Speaker 2: know all the other fish, but you can eat that one.
Speaker 2: So for them, the kind of vacuuming of the sea,
Speaker 2: the way that it's the Chinese approach to the environment
Speaker 2: is an assault on his ancestors. And when I asked
Speaker 2: him just we're just chatting, you know, kind of if
Speaker 2: he could have anything from the US, what would he want.
Speaker 2: He said he'd want a submarine so he could go
Speaker 2: around shooting the Chinese ships below the water line and
Speaker 2: sinking them and then taking off and going shooting another matter,
Speaker 2: like there's a real anger. Okay, So they don't need
Speaker 2: more lessons, They don't need more workshops that show them
Speaker 2: satellite imagery of Chinese fishing fleet in their waters. They
Speaker 2: want it stopped. They want the tools to stop it,
Speaker 2: and in a lot of cases, the tools to stop
Speaker 2: it include the intelligence files to go after the corrupt
Speaker 2: Chinese corporations within their own countries that are buying off
Speaker 2: their own politicians to turn a blind eye to it.
Speaker 2: So you know, we need again the sharing of intelligence,
Speaker 2: the investigations, the lawyers, the cleaning up of the court
Speaker 2: system to clean up what's going up on the ground
Speaker 2: so that what's going on in the broader environment becomes
Speaker 2: much more, much more difficult operating environment for the Chinese.
Speaker 1: Hey man, during the course of the show, I did
Speaker 1: a quick look up those watered Okay, who where is
Speaker 1: the FBI field office out there? Well, you have to
Speaker 1: have field office that covers all the islands we are
Speaker 1: talking about that either wear a US flag or are
Speaker 1: associated with it. It's in a Hawaii on the other
Speaker 1: side of the Pacific. I think a great strong act
Speaker 1: would be if my guys going to open up a
Speaker 1: field office in Guam, and that would be nice to see.
Speaker 1: But we've already kept you for an hour and I
Speaker 1: was just starting to go abuse your time for another hour.
Speaker 1: But for the listeners who enjoyed the last hour and
Speaker 1: would like to keep an eye on what you're working on,
Speaker 1: where's a good place they can keep track of you.
Speaker 1: And there are some projects you're working on right now
Speaker 1: that we should keep it in eye open forward coming up
Speaker 1: down the road.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you. You know, my dad's usually pretty good
Speaker 2: at telling people what I'm up to a modern world
Speaker 2: on Twitter attimes. I do that thing. My name, you know,
Speaker 2: Pascal Pska l very inconveniently. I've been working on a
Speaker 2: project looking at utility or not of NASH security coordinator
Speaker 2: positions in Palou Martial Arts federacyes in Micronesia. That report
Speaker 2: was supposed to be out a year ago, so I'm
Speaker 2: not quite sure when it will be out, but when
Speaker 2: it's out, I'm sure it'll be well worth it, I hope,
Speaker 2: but hopefully within about this next six months. So I'm
Speaker 2: mostly focusing on that on this topic, figuring out how good,
Speaker 2: brave people in the region can get the tools that
Speaker 2: they need to be in a better position to defend
Speaker 2: themselves and as it happens, by doing that, they'll be
Speaker 2: defending all of us.
Speaker 1: Perfect. Well, thank you very much for coming to visit
Speaker 1: with us today. It's been a pleasure, clear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, absolutely great. Thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 2: Thank you, gentlemen for all you've been doing for I mean,
Speaker 2: just as a listener, you guys have been north star
Speaker 2: on these issues for so long. I've learned an incredible
Speaker 2: amount and I know the effort you put into it
Speaker 2: with no reward except the gratitude of all of us.
Speaker 2: So as a listener, let me just say thank you
Speaker 2: so much for all you've done our pleasure, and.
Speaker 1: Thank you everybody for join us for another edition. Ed.
Speaker 1: Rats and until next time, hope y'all have a great
Speaker 1: nay to day. Cheers did that last time too?
Speaker 4: Want to marry me and a friend of Cody for
Speaker 4: you being to blame for love me said, folding your
Speaker 4: the name. It's a long way. It's a long way.
Speaker 4: It's a long way to the enemy between the I
Speaker 4: know gor about thick on it. Farewell, listen, well, it's
Speaker 4: a long long way to sit away. It's but my
Speaker 4: my