This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Dach with my colleague, Cleo Pascal, who travels

Oceania relentlessly, a vast part of the planet. And in that vastness is a contest between the

People's Republic of China, America and its allies. That would be Japan and the Philippines,

Australia, New Zealand Zealand to name some.

Right now we're talking about American territory, U.S. American Samoa, Guam, and Northern Mariana's.

We begin with Guam because it's the most well-known. It's heavily fortified, many bases, naval-based Guam.

Cleo includes a quote that says Guam has been and continues to be a linchpin of every Pacific

power. What does Guam need, Cleo? So that quote was from the governor of Guam. I think it also

needs economic diversification.

And part of the problem that Guam has actually comes in, from a strategic sense, comes in from these attacks from China.

You have very serious cyber infiltration of their critical infrastructure.

But also from people, as I mentioned, people can come into the

Commonwealth, Chinese can come into the Commonwealth of Northern Marais without a visa. And by the

hundreds, they're at least, they're legally then going to Guam. It's right next door by boat. And

they're not claiming refugee status. They're sort of disappearing into the society. And some have been found on the military bases and that sort of, that, that

popular population is concerning because in many cases, apart from the strategic aspect of it,

they're funding, they're smuggling route through selling

drugs, which is very socially destructive. So they need help with things like counter-narcotics,

economic growth. But there are all these little regulations that apply to the U.S. generally that make no sense there.

And a big one for them has to do with their costs with transportation, communication, and energy are too high.

And in a case of transportation, there's something called cabotage, which means that a foreign airline cannot fly between two points in the U.S.

Guam is an eight-hour flight west of Hawaii and a four-hour flight east of Manila.

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