This is CBS, I on the World. I'm John Batchel, 7,500 miles between where I'm sitting in New

England and where Cleo Pascal, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is sitting

on woolly eye, a toll, part of the Federated States of Micronesia.

She is several days' boat journey from Yap, the main island, and the capital of the FSM,

and why she's there has to do with the contests between the People's Republic of China, their construction companies, their agents,

and once upon a time, the United States of America, that liberated this part of the world

from the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. However, that was 80 years or more ago. And we come up to date with Cleo to begin with,

where in the world is Cleo Pascal,

and how did she get there?

Cleo is a very careful and hardworking member

of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy

generally headquartered on North America.

She is no longer North America.

She's in Oceania, this vast spread of water and sovereign states.

Three of those states are critical to the understanding of how to resupply the Philippines

and Japan and Taiwan in the event of hostility.

There are three sovereign states that come under the defensive perimeter of the U.S. in order to hold Hawaii in the event of war.

The three states, FSM as one of them, begin the Marshall Islands closest to

Hawaii, then the FSM, and then Palau. Cleo has reported on Palau at length. She's now reporting

on FSM because the Chinese are very present and very active. We begin, however, how she got to where she is

in a very generous family, giving her room in their home in order to broadcast to us and in order

to write the stories she can about the Chinese presence.

...