A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The tiny island nation of Palau might not be on your radar, but it's certainly a focus of the world's two big superpowers, America and China. They're competing for influence over Palau and other Pacific Island nations because of their strategic military value. NPR's Emily Feng went to Palau to find out what that competition looks like.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Palauan Godwin Sadao takes me around the World War II ruins on Palau's island of Peleliu.
GODWIN SADAO: September 15, 1944, the first Marines come from the water to here.
FENG: We're driving through jungle. But scattered around the tropical island are crumbling concrete pillboxes and rusting tanks.
SADAO: This is a Japanese Mitsubishi bomber.
FENG: Peleliu in southern Palau was where the U.S. and Japan fought one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific arena during the Second World War. The Palauans native to Peleliu, like Sadao's grandmother and mother, were all evacuated. They came back to nothing but scorched earth.
SADAO: My mom said, when they coming back, they could not recognize Peleliu. You know, the people lose lifestyle, lose everything, farm. They were all gone.
FENG: Because of Palau's strategic location in the western Pacific Ocean, much of its history is shaped by the twin forces of colonialism and war. Today, Palau is its own independent country. But starting in the 1990s, under an agreement with the U.S. called the Compact of Free Association, Palau gets U.S. funding and U.S. military protection in exchange for letting the U.S. military make use of its territory. Over the last year, as the U.S.'s rivalry with China heated up, the American military announced plans to build a radar facility on Palau, extended a World War II era airstrip on Palau and made plans to dredge a Navy seaport. Here's the country's president, Surangel Whipps Jr.
PRESIDENT SURANGEL WHIPPS JR: We believe strongly on the principle that you get peace through strength and presence is deterrence. And I think the people of Palau don't want to relive World War II.
FENG: Whipps has also proposed letting the U.S. set up a missile installation on Palau. This does not sit well with some Palauans, like newspaper editor Kambes Kesolei, who fear the U.S. military makes Palau a target if there is war with China.
KAMBES KESOLEI: Having military personnel there in uniform does not fit the description of an island, a nation, that is pristine paradise.
FENG: To make things more complicated, Palau is one of only 12 countries in the world, including the Vatican, that still recognizes the democratic Island of Taiwan as a country, choosing it over China, which has said it could invade Taiwan one day. Whipps says that already makes Palau a target of pressure from China, which has been rapidly winning influence in other Pacific Island nations like Nauru and the Solomon Islands. In 2018, China cut off its commercial flights and tour groups to Palau in punishment, Palau said, for its ties with Taiwan. But a former Palauan ambassador to Taiwan, Dilmei Olkeriil, says this pressure will not work. Emotional ties between Palau and Taiwan run deep, she says, because many Palauans go to Taiwan for critical health care and education. And Palau, for better or worse, has chosen to throw its lot in with the U.S. She says Palau feels protected by the U.S.
DILMEI OLKERIIL: I just believe that the U.S. military is unbeatable. Palau would be easily defended by them.
FENG: Palauans, by the way, are also allowed to enlist in the U.S. military. And they do enlist - at a rate that far exceeds that of American citizens. But that means any war in the Pacific would impact Palau doubly hard. Norbert Yano spent more than two decades in the U.S. military, served in Vietnam and has had a front row seat to the U.S.-China push and pull over Palau.
NORBERT YANO: But if there is a war break out, anybody can come to Palau. They don't have to ask us anything.
FENG: Like most Palauans, Yano is resigned to the idea that the fate of their country, by dint of geography alone, is tied up with that of China and of the U.S. on the opposite side of the world.
Emily Feng, NPR News, Peleliu, Palau. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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