OPINION:
Adm. Sam Paparo, leader of the U.S. Indo-Pacific command, ought to get on the phone to FBI director Kash Patel and tell him: “I’m doing my job. How about you do yours?”
The U.S. military has belatedly woken up to the China threat in the Central Pacific and is now bolstering its defenses. This includes refurbishing World War II-era airfields on Tinian (near Saipan) and Peleliu, and expanding the airfield on Yap in Federated States of Micronesia. Improved port facilities and logistics storage are also in the works.
Spreading out makes U.S. forces a harder target, but it also allows more effective operations.
However, the military can do its part – and still lose if it doesn’t address decades long Chinese political warfare and subversion in the region.
The Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), the site of the bloody World War II battles of Saipan and Tinian, is a prime case in point. CNMI is part of the U.S., and those living there are U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.
Gov. Arnold Palacios died last week. This is a tragedy beyond the loss of a fine gentleman. He was trying to do something about endemic corruption in CNMI. The corruption was a problem in its own right, but it is also a fast lane for Chinese political warfare to enter, undermine and ultimately control these strategically located islands.
Palacios understood that and was trying to hold back the Chinese political warfare tide before it swamped his people and territory.
He faced long odds and fierce opposition from local Chinese proxies. He repeatedly asked the U.S. government to send out investigators (and accountants). He got no help from either the Biden or Trump administrations.
PRC subversion thrives on corruption and there’s always been plenty of it in CNMI. A former chief justice of CNMI Supreme Court despairingly remarked a while back, “Is government corruption now a normal part of the way we practice local self-government?”
In the early 2010s, the Chinese-owned Imperial Pacific International (IPI) casino group came along offering prosperity. Throwing cash around, it built up a local pro-China constituency of politicians and business groups that lobby for PRC interests – such as visa free entry of Chinese nationals – unlike anywhere else in America.
Such casinos don’t operate without Chinese Communist Party backing. In 2019, while Beijing was reining in Macau casinos, IPI was still allowed to operate – and it was moving a lot more money across a handful of tables in a duty-free mall than the major Macau casinos.
It was a bargain for Beijing if it established Chinese influence and presence in a strategic U.S. territory – and near the major U.S. bases on Guam.
In the late 2010s, FBI agents raided then-Gov. Ralph Torres’ office, home, car and IPI-related sites and hauled off documents and other materials.
And IPI related corruption was just part of CNMI’s problem.
Palacios, Mr. Torres’ successor, described how, when he came into office in 2022, he tried to find out what happened to approximately $1.6 billion in federal funding that had been given to the CNMI (population around 45,000) during the pandemic era.
He said: “the last thing we want to … see, is for the CNMI community to suffer over a long period of time because of some of the careless squandering - or even criminal squandering - of resources that were given to us by the federal government … We saw it, I saw it, a lot of people in the community saw it happening. And so, we wanted that to be validated by a robust financial investigation. We needed to come clean … I wasn’t about to cover up all these things.”
The governor repeatedly asked federal agencies to help.
As recently as April 24, 2025, in a letter to CNMI’s delegate to the United States House of Representatives, Rep. Kimberlyn King-Hinds, Palacios requested that FBI Director Kash Patel do “intensive investigations of public corruption” into CNMI. He mentioned that he had “considerable evidence to provide.”
He needn’t have bothered.
In the you-can’t-make-this-up category: Rep. King-Hinds legislative director was formerly Mr. Torres’ chief of staff. He has since been appointed deputy assistant secretary of insular and international affairs at the Department of Interior – the agency responsible for handling CNMI affairs.
On July 1, 2025, after Rep. King-Hinds met Mr. Patel, the FBI issued a letter terminating the investigations into Mr. Torres and IPI.
It was a gut punch to honest people on CNMI. The PRC and its local proxies no doubt rejoiced.
Just over three weeks later, on July 23, Palacios died.
Kash Patel and the Trump administration have some explaining to do.
It’s easy to ignore what goes on in the distant Central Pacific – a place few Americans know about (unless they are related to one of the 100,000 Americans who died in the Pacific in World War II).
But do nothing and Chinese political warfare will continue to erode the American position in the region – and U.S. sailors, Marines and airman will one day pay for it with their lives. Again.
Kash Patel should send in the feds – and fast – and address Chinese-backed corruption and influence in CNMI. Adm. Paparo ought to demand he do so. If the FBI fails, it’s the U.S. military who will pay. For starters.
• Grant Newsham is a retired U.S. Marine officer and former U.S. diplomat. He is fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute and the author of “When China Attacks: A Warning to America.” Follow him on X @NewshamGrant
Please read our comment policy before commenting.