China’s been busy all around us, and perhaps even inside the CNMI’s business institutions

The Chinese Communist Party’s recent provocations right around us need to be connected in public debates to the relentless propaganda by the Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands (HANMI) and the Saipan Chamber of Commerce to allow more communist China investments into the CNMI. Of course, we have to say so since none of Saipan’s newspapers will.

Over the past year, HANMI and chamber officials have been pushing Governor Arnold Palacios to reverse his Palacios Pivot, a cornerstone policy of the administration that essentially refuses to bank on CCP-backed investment into the CNMI that historically has led to get-rich-quick schemes for the few at the expense of the public who endure the post-scheme collapses. The pivot also is in play to assure the American government of the CNMI’s solidarity against CCP interference in light of the military buildup. That assurance has brought the federal image of the CNMI quite away from the one ruined by Mr. Palacios’ predecessor, Ralph Torres.

When these powerful businessmen failed to get the governor to reverse course, they began to spread lies that Mr. Palacios was against tourism from China.

I wonder what they have to say this week, and why the newspapers in Saipan are so silent about current events that affect the Marianas.

On June 20, Sky News reported a skirmish between Philippine and Chinese soldiers last week.

“Filipino soldiers used their ‘bare hands’ to fight off armed Chinese coastguard in the disputed South China Sea, a Philippine military chief has said,” according to the Sky News report. An affiliated story by its Asia correspondent, Cordelia Lynch, says “The latest confrontation in the South China Sea is a new low in relations between China and the Philippines. It is a simmering dispute that threatens to drag the United States and others into global conflict.”

Guess which part of the United States is closest to this potential global conflict.

But China didn’t stop with its dispute with the Philippines, a key American ally.

The Japan Times two days later reported that “Two Chinese coast guard ships that had been repeatedly intruding into Japanese territorial waters off the Senkaku Islands in the city of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, since Thursday left the waters shortly after noon on Friday.”

According to the report, this was the twenty-first time this year that Chinese official ships intruded “into the Japanese waters near the Senkakus.” The Senkaku Islands are in the city of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture. Thousands of U.S. Marines currently stationed in Okinawa will be moving to Marine Camp Blaz in Dededo, Guam in December, starting the most prolific buildup of Marine Corps forces in Guam since World War II.

The entirety of the military buildup and the associated multibillion dollar Pacific Deterrence Initiative is the American and allied response to Chinese aggression and fears of planned hegemony. For decades the State and Defense Departments have warned that part of the CCP’s strategy has been and will continue to be to infiltrate the economies of Pacific islands – especially Guam and the CNMI – to establish dominance.

Yesterday, Taipei Times reported “China sent 77 military aircraft around Taiwan over a two-day period ending [Saturday] morning, an uptick in its activity over the past few weeks.”

The episodes violated Taiwan’s air defense identification zones (ADIZ).

“Of the nine aircraft that crossed the median line’s extension, were seven fighter jets and two drones that flew around the southwestern ADIZ and entered airspace off the country’s east coast, some flying as close as 31 nautical miles (57.4km) from Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, ministry data showed.”

Over the same period, according to the story, seven Chinese army vessels “were detected in waters off Taiwan.”

The CCP is not our ally. The CCP is not our friend. America is our country. And we should not be advocating economic policy that disadvantages our own defense and security in favor of greedy businessmen bordering on treason for – ironically – the almighty Dollar.

This question needs to be part of the public discourse: Why are HANMI and the Chamber of Commerce so obsessed with Chinese money? Is it just because it’s a quick way for some of their members to hog it all? Or is something nefarious at play here?

Who sells out their country for 30 pieces of silver?