A New Political Status for Micronesia

Abstract

S TRETCHING across the Pacific from Hawaii towards Indonesia and the Philippines are the more than 2,000 islands in Micronesia, all under American control. They are the only territory in the western Pacific over which the U.S. either claims sovereignty or has the assurance of extended political hegemony. As the era of containment has come to a close and the U.S. has withdrawn military forces from the mainland of Asia, Guam, and the other islands in Micronesia which form the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, have become of increasing geopolitical significance. The expansion of national power over the open seas which has accompanied technological advances in exploiting the deep-sea has also enhanced the potential importance of these now economically unimportant islands around which a 200-mile fishing zone will be extended in July I979. One crucial determinant of Micronesia's future importance in supporting American foreign policy in Asia will be the extent to which it is politically integrated into the domestic political orbit of the U.S. Political status negotiations have been underway since i969, although Micronesian-wide talks have languished since I972 when the U.S. initiated separate negotiations with the Northern Mariana Islands where the Department of Defense then had plans to construct a large multi-service base on the island of Tinian, in anticipation of having to withdraw from Okinawa following reversion. That did not come to pass and, except for periodic amphibious exercises, plans for the Tinian base are frozen. But in I975, agreement was reached with leaders in the Northern Mariana Islands for the I4,000 people there to become permanently affiliated with the U.S. under a commonwealth arrangement similar to that linking Puerto Rico and the U.S. The first elected governor took office in January i978 when a new constitution went into effect, marking the first outright territorial acquisition of the U.S. since the purchase of the Virgin Islands in i9 I 7. Talks with the rest of Micronesia remain unresolved because of a series of disputes over the inclusion of tuna fishing into the 200-mile