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The Pacific Islands' Billion-Dollar Gamble
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14728 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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11 / 1988 |
3,314 Words |
| Author
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Michael Eastly
Michael Eastly presently works for the federal government in
the Office of Territorial Affairs. |
When bad news from the Philippines ripples across the western Pacific, waves of expectation wash ashore in Micronesia. Every headline pertaining to the U.S.-Philippine multimillion-dollar base renegotiations and every story of political instability threatening the Aquino government raise the level of interest, concern, and financial speculation in Guam, the Northern Marianas, and Palau.
These U.S.-affiliated islands, arcing 1,200 miles along the western reaches of the Philippine Sea, share a common strategic as well as geographic bond: They are the primary candidates for a possible relocation of U.S. military forces from America's troubled Philippine bases.
In the minds of island leaders, the market value of their airfields, ports, landing beaches, and jungled interiors has steadily escalated over the past two decades as the implications of the Nixon Doctrine became clear, the Philippine situation deteriorated, and U.S. defense planners sought contingency base rights in Micronesia in case a rollback of U.S. forces from the Asian rim became necessary.
Undulating in response to the waves of anticipation, the islanders' efforts to upgrade their relationship with the United States have varied in tempo, intensity, and tactics as each group sought to maximize its negotiating leverage.
Guam and the Northern Marianas, the most strategically important islands because they are only 1,500 miles from Japan and the Philippines, have chosen U.S. commonwealth status. But both also seek unprecedented amounts of local autonomy and financial assistance. Sovereignty, self-determination, indigenous rights, and payments for U.S. base rights have become the salient elements of these "negotiations."
Because of the numerous air and naval bases on the 209-square-mile island, the U.S. territory of Guam ranks third in the nation in federal spending among states and territories (with $681 million annually for a population of about 130,000) and has the highest standard of living in the region. Yet the commonwealth status proposal Guam presented to Congress earlier this year adopts an adversarial posture, seeking recognition of the "right of self-determination" for the islands' indigenous people and annual base rental-like payments from the federal government.
The Northern Marianas, previously part of the U.S.-administered United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific, became a
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