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The larger issues
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Posted on Aug 14 1999
While the U.S. Department of Interior, the labor unions and their human rights comrades lambaste the CNMI on false charges of labor abuse, larger issues are being callously ignored, to the detriment of vital American national interests.
Remember that the Asia-Pacific region is still a hot spot for conflict. At this very moment, tensions between India and Pakistan–two nuclear powers with substantial populations–have reached crisis proportions. While on the other side of the Asian mainland, the Communists in North Korea are preparing to launch yet another test missile in complete defiance of Japan, South Korea and the United States. To make matters worse, the United States still has yet another problem in the region: the China-Taiwan affair.
In each of these instances, war could conceivably erupt at any given moment. India could invade Pakistan. Such a conflict could easily turn nuclear. North Korea could launch an all-out attack upon South Korea. The North Koreans may already have nukes. The Chinese could probably take Taiwan with relative ease. The Chinese, of course, have nukes. What would the United States do in each or all of these instances?
Would it worry about the CNMI’s OSHA-inspected garment factories? Would it worry about the CNMI minimum wage or its local immigration control?
Despite the end of the Cold War, the Northern Marianas still remains a strategic American outpost in the Pacific. America needs us. In certain respects, Asia has become much more dangerous than it was during the Soviet era.
The people of the Northern Marianas endured enormous hardships during World War II. And even after the war, NMI economic development was deliberately held back, as the NMI was isolated for covert CIA activities during the Cold War.
Today, we have a Covenant Agreement that entitles American forces to NMI access. We are still making contributions to American security objectives–to vital U.S. national interests.
We are keeping our part of the bargain. Let the United States live up to their own commitments: that the CNMI be allowed local self-government, that the CNMI be allowed economic growth and development–that the CNMI remain free.
