US to move troops from Okinawa to Guam [1]
Thursday, June 29, 2006 - 18:20. Updated on Monday, October 6, 2014 - 11:49.
by Pesi Fonua
There will be very little change to the U.S. Foreign Policy toward the Pacific, a US foreign policy advisor, Charles B. Salmon Jr., told a Tongan audience in a public lecture on June 28 at the University of the South Pacific 'Atele Campus.
He described the US Foreign Policy toward the Pacific as being characterised with continuity, along the same path as it had been after September 11. He said that the US Foreign Policy is influenced by domestic issues in the USA, such as the War in Iraq, the 12 million illegal immigrants who are living in the USA and the escalating cost of energy.
Charles, who is currently the foreign policy advisor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies APCSS, in Honolulu, Hawaii, and a former US Ambassador to Laos, said more American troops are to be stationed in the Pacific region.
He said that of the 100,000 American troops that are stationed in Japan and Korea, 90,000 will be moved from Okinawa to Guam. The presence of American Troops in Japan and Korea is part of a Security Relations Treaty that the USA has signed with these two countries. He said that their presence in the region was welcomed by the countries of the region, "even the Chinese think so."
With regards to the USA relationship with the Pacific Islands he said that the USA was rebuilding its relationship with New Zealand. The relationship between the two countries was broken when New Zealand during the early 1970s banned nuclear-powered American war ships from entering New Zealand territorial waters, but he said that recently top military brass from the two countries had been meeting and talking again.
With regards to the threat of terrorism he said, "you are living in a fools paradise if you think there is no need to worry about terrorism. I suggest that terrorism can happen anywhere."
Globalisation
The issue of globalization he said was one that, "if you don't want to be part of it, you will get left behind".
Charles said that Tonga was the last of six countries in the region he visited during this lecture tour, which is funded by the State Department. He visited the Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga. He said that during his time in these islands he found that it was very common in all these countries that people were interested in accountability, transparency, unemployment, the price of energy, transnational crimes, terrorism and the environment.