“I’ll tell you right away what the average CNMI government official, and the average Marianas Variety comment-writer, will say in response to this: It’s the overstayers! It’s the Chinese Guam-boaters and car-washers and watermelon-farmers that are the enemy! No they’re not. The criminals and gangsters are the people you see shaking hands with CNMI government officials and smiling at parades.” – Mabel Doge Luhan
“The spies and gangsters are the very people our so-called leaders laud as our economic saviors — what they mean, of course is they’re their personal saviors.” – Mabel Doge Luhan
By Mabel Doge Luhan
Chinese tourists aren’t coming because they don’t have the money or the desire to come
Isn’t it great to hear from experts?
The legislature’s resident expert on business, economics, and tourism Edith [Deleon Guerrero] recently wrote a letter to the [Department of Transportation], asking for the CNMI to somehow be exempted from federal law. (To be fair, when she was the CNMI DOL’s resident constitutional law scholar, she may have thought the CNMI was already exempt from federal law.)
Edith was quoted in the Marianas Variety article “‘NMI economy faces complete collapse’” by Emmanuel Erediano (Article date? The Variety doesn’t put dates on its articles; too much work!):
“In the meantime, she said, the CNMI’s economy ‘is worsening and slipping into crisis mode.’ She said it is critical that the CNMI be allowed to bring in Chinese visitors to augment the loss of revenue from the CNMI’s low visitor arrival rates since the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Apparently, the CNMI is not allowed to “bring in” Chinese visitors?
Does Edith know that unlike her human-trafficking friends in the garment industry, we no longer actually “bring in” people to visit us?
And that it’s true that no, we can’t “bring in” anyone to the CNMI, but that Chinese people, like all people, are perfectly free to visit the CNMI? In fact, the CNMI lacks the main obstacle that stops Chinese people from visiting the mainland US: the requirement for a US visa.
And yet, we still don’t have many tourists from China. Edith has decided that this is not because of the global trend for Chinese tourists to stop international travel, nor China’s worsening economy, nor the CNMI’s awful reputation as a tourist destination. No, Edith has decided that the reason we don’t have Chinese tourists is that — listen carefully — Chinese tourists are apparently incapable of taking connecting flights, and therefore, we need an exemption from federal law so that all those Chinese tourists can take nonstop flights to the CNMI.
According to Edith, if we just get an exemption from federal law, we’ll have Chinese tourists pouring in! Because all that’s standing between them and a vacation in the CNMI is that damn pesky connecting flight. I mean, who’s ever heard of taking a connecting flight? It’s simply impossible! Nobody would ever take a connecting flight to go on the vacation of their dreams!
Say what you will about Chinese tourists, but I’m quite sure they are capable of taking a connecting flight. Heck, even the Malaysian Vacation Association managed several connecting flights on all its CNMI government paid journeys to Australia, New Orleans, Langkawi, Tokyo, and Singapore!
Also, there are nonstop flights from Hong Kong to the CNMI. The Hong Kong airport is a short subway ride — literally, a short subway (or ferry or bus) ride — from mainland China. Do we have many takers? Nope. We’ll see how long those flights last.
There were Asiana flights from China to the CNMI, connecting in Seoul. Some Chinese people did take them. They were perfectly capable of figuring out a connecting flight. But the demand was small.
Why the obsession with connecting flights? Because it’s the only connection the old Torres gang can weave between the weak economy and Governor Palacios. It’s about as weak as the Bush gang’s attempt to pin 9/11 (religious extremism) on Saddam Hussein (a hardcore secularist). But the facts and a lack of connections never stopped demagogues.
No, the lack of nonstop flights is not what killed the CNMI’s economy. The Torres gang’s robbing and looting may have had something to do with it — and may have helped to drive our infrastructure to such a state that nobody wants to visit us. And Chinese tourists are not traveling internationally now. They’re just not. Korea and Japan make much more sense as tourism markets, but that doesn’t fit the political messaging of “Governor Palacios killed the economy,” does it now?
As I quoted the Economist Intelligence Unit writing a few columns ago, Chinese outbound international travel is in the crapper. Here’s Reuters saying the same thing. I know the article is not Facebook or TikTok or a “training” in Waikiki or Boise, and requires actual reading, but perhaps you could take a look:
As I quoted in several columns, the CNMI’s reputation among tourists is in the crapper. But fixing that would require actual work, not just begging to be exempt from federal law — so that’s always swept under the rug.
Korean tourists are out on social media screaming about what the problem is — outrageous taxi and food prices, for a large part — but nobody cares to fix the problem. It could be fixed for a lot less than the $12 million MVA wants. It could probably be fixed for less than whatever UltraSuperNew is getting paid. But when the “main goal is getting MVA its funding,” (Saipan Tribune, June 24 2024, “Former managing director is MVA’s newest board member”) that’s not going to happen.
And now, speaking of things that are not going to happen:
According to the Marianas Variety, “[Edith] Deleon Guerrero said the CNMI is requesting to restore an exemption that is already authorized and existed prior to the pandemic, and not requesting a new exemption.”
No biggie. We just want a temporary exemption from federal law that has since expired to be started again. We’re not asking for anything new. I mean it happens all the time, right? Tiny Pacific commonwealths with a history of massive corruption getting exemptions from federal law, right?
I HAVE BEEN WRITING THE DOJ, FDA, AND DEA FOR SEVERAL DECADES NOW DEMANDING A REINSTATEMENT OF THE 1914 HARRISON ACT THAT KEPT OPIUM LEGAL, TO NO AVAIL!
(That’s the correct use of the word “avail,” by the way, Marianas Variety.)
https://museum.dea.gov/museum-
According to the Marianas Variety, “the business community” wants that exemption from federal law! The Variety never lists actual names of the people who will go on the record as begging for this exemption from federal law. No, it’s just “the business community.” Absolute peak weasel language, because this statement can never be proven wrong. You could make up anything and clothe it in those terms and it could never be false. Why, the thinking-people community, the grammarian community, and the anti-corruption community all demand that Zaldy Dandan resign immediately! Can you prove me wrong? List names and on-the-record statements if you want to be a factual newspaper and not a propaganda rag.
And second of all, who gives a hoot. “The business community,” whoever it is, is not the government’s constituency. The CNMI isn’t a third-world corporatist croney-capitalist dictatorship. At least not yet it isn’t. At least not fully.
We don’t have to wait for the Marianas Variety to tell us who “the business community” is. It’s the same people who have always been courting Chinese “investors” in the CNMI.
Does anyone know what an actual investor is, by the way? And why the Chinese gangs we bring to operate here are not investors? Especially because they are almost always playing with other people’s (mom-and-pop Chinese investment scam victims’) money, not their own?
And among all the “trainings,” “conferences,” and “seminars” Edith and the MVA attend, have they ever picked up a newspaper and read about Cambodia? That’s a country in Southeast Asia. Yes, it’s kind of near Langkawi, to give you a reference point.
Casinos, drugs, and human trafficking: From Cambodia to China to the CNMI
In the early 2010s, Cambodia was filled with Chinese “investors.” They had previously built garment factories, but had switched to building hotels and casinos.
This isn’t relevant to us at all, is it? Still, despite the lack of similarity to the CNMI, let’s glance at this article from 2016:
https://thediplomat.com/2016/
Some quotes from the article:
Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong stated that Cambodia’s development “could not be detached” from Chinese aid. Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan enthused: “Without Chinese aid, we go nowhere.”
…
Indeed, Cambodian politics is ruled by a patronage network where money floats all the way to the top, seldom trickling down, and where one’s position rests on the backing of a superior.
…
Foreign aid flows one way, and profits the other.
…
China could be said to be the prime guarantor of the CPP’s security. It has allowed Hun Sen to rule in a way that would have resulted in sanctions and international censure from the other countries.
…
As Myanmar’s National League for Democracy (NLD) found out following its victory at the polls last year, the natural inclination for “pro-democracy” parties to gravitate closer to the United States proves problematic when in power.
Why, I have no idea why I’m wasting your time with these quotes, because this situation has nothing to do with us!
It gets better though.
What happened after the Chinese casinos and factories in Cambodia basically failed as legitimate businesses? Oh, they were taken over by vicious criminal gangs. Specifically, those Chinese “investments” in Cambodia are now an epicenter for Chinese money laundering (for Chinese as well as Latin American drug cartels), and for running the violent, exploitative, slavery-fueled “pig butchering scam” that produces HALF of Cambodia’s GDP. And most of that money either goes back to China, or is paid as bribes to local officials. No, this has nothing to do with us at all!
Watch the YouTube video about money laundering Troy Torso posted, but also watch this video about the pig butchering scam.
Chinese gangs are now using the factories and casinos built by Chinese “investors” in Cambodia, in conjunction with bribes to the local government, to have an operating base they entirely control — free from any real law enforcement.
This has nothing to do with us, does it?
Time Magazine wrote about it:
https://time.com/6899646/
—-
A stunning aspect of Southeast Asia’s scamdemic is how so much happens in plain sight, abetted by venal local officials.
…
The Cambodian police had visited the complexes where Chin and Lim were held but “were useless,” says Chin. “They would come in for a short while and leave.”
…
Three of the most prominent investors in Cambodia’s scam industries are Dong Lecheng, She Zhijiang, and Xu Aimin, who have all been convicted in China of financial crimes totalling tens of millions of dollars. Dong’s company, Golden Sun Sky Entertainment, developed an area in Sihanoukville dubbed “Chinatown” that became a notorious hub of scam prisons. In December, as part of a coordinated sanctions campaign alongside the U.S. and Canadian governments, the U.K. sanctioned both Dong and She for their involvement in scam rackets, while Sihanoukville’s K.B. Hotel, owned by Xu, was also listed. All three have high-level government connections.
…
The only authority with any real clout is that in Beijing, given China’s role as regional superpower and the fact that its nationals are both victims and perpetrators. Pig-butchering scams are almost without exception run by triad gangs who set up on China’s periphery, where the transnational nature of the crime, fuzzy jurisdiction and venal local authorities make cases difficult to prosecute. “All the bosses were from China,” says Yoong.
Chinese “investors,” really gangsters, bought off the Cambodian government. They were acclaimed as Cambodia’s saviors. And now they use Cambodia as their headquarters for transnational crime.
IPI reported $3.3 billion USD in revenue, right?
I’ll tell you right away what the average CNMI government official, and the average Marianas Variety comment-writer, will say in response to this: It’s the overstayers! It’s the Chinese Guam-boaters and car-washers and watermelon-farmers that are the enemy!
No they’re not. The criminals and gangsters are the people you see shaking hands with CNMI government officials and smiling at parades. Donald Trump may be stupid enough to actually believe that the dirt-between-the-toes peasants presenting themselves at the southern US border are Chinese spies, but you shouldn’t be that gullible. China has about four million college-educated, English-speaking, technology savvy citizens who have US business or tourism visas; if they wanted to enter the US and spy, and they do, they wouldn’t be taking rafts to Guam or walking through Mexico.
We already know who the gangsters are. Even China has indicted Cui Lijie and Ji Xiaobo for their criminal activity, and that’s saying something. That’s a no-brainer.
But I can also tell you off the top of my head who the obvious Chinese spies in the CNMI are. They’re not in hiding, and they’re certainly not washing cars or growing watermelons. FBI Counterintelligence is perfectly aware of them as well. And those spies are not the people buying rafts to sneak into Guam. But that would be not just what the Trumpists want you to think, but what the real spies and the CCP want you to think. The spies and gangsters are the very people our so-called leaders laud as our economic saviors — what they mean, of course is they’re their personal saviors.
Or maybe you think Serafin Camacho is a real estate genius, IPI was in the tourism business, the Flower Tea House deserved its BOOST grant, and getting an exemption from a federal regulation on flights from China is for the good of our people. If so, I’ve got an island in the Northwestern Pacific to sell you. Unless it’s already been sold.
_____
Mabel Doge Luhan is a woman of loose morals. She resides in Kagman V, where she pursues her passions of crocheting, beatboxing, and falconry.
1 Comments
Joe
07/11/2024 at 9:41 AM
Thank you, Mabel for the information. Whether or not Edith is aware of such but writes anyway to make herself look good to those so-called businesspeople, it gives me reason to believe that she’s not worthy of my vote. She has 5 months to fix this anyway.