This is CBS I In The World, I'm John Bachelors.

The Indo-Pacific, a vast canvas, in the Indo-Pacific is what is called Oceania, the vast

network of islands, sovereign, some colonial, some influence, some of the U.S., all across

this map is a way of understanding the present contest between the People's Republic of

China and the United States and its allies in the Pacific Australia, especially but also

New Zealand, Japan, Philippines, all of those states threaten because of the Chinese threat

to the Taiwanese and the promised the swearing by Xi Jinping that the People's Liberation

Army will recapture Taiwan's at some point in the immediate future.

This makes the map of the Pacific part of the struggle right now ongoing, the People's

Republic of China's PLA to prevent or interrupt the U.S. Navy, driving to the Eastern Pacific

in the event of war.

It's all quite fantastic, but it's happened before.

It was called the Second War and from the Hawaii Islands, you can drive across the quarter

of freedom to the Philippines and on from there to Taiwan and the South China Sea.

But the People's Republic of China is watching, so I welcome Cleopascal of the foundation

for the defensive democracies who travels Oceania and we're going to start in the North, the

Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands.

This is U.S. territory, it abuts Japan, it's north of Guam, and right now there are unused

casinos on two of the islands, Saipan and Tinian.

And I know this begins like a mystery, but Cleo will help us understand what those casinos

represent, what they can now turn into and why the People's Republic of China is again

interested in gambling on U.S. territory.

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