Sealing the Interagency Cracks: The United States in Oceania

In a new age of U.S.-China competition, Washington’s attention is often fixed on the big flashpoints, like trade wars or Taiwan. But this is a global contest, and some of the most critical challenges are taking place in the nooks and corners of the world. An interesting case in point is China’s infiltration of Saipan, a U.S. territory in Micronesia, where an immigration loophole has led to a potentially massive security and counterintelligence threat. Chinese nationals are exploiting migration policy by arriving by plane and then traveling on gang-operated boats to Guam and engaging in “suspicious activities” near U.S. military installations. Addressing this loophole—and some of the issues that the loophole raises for U.S. policy—is a critical first step towards reducing U.S. vulnerabilities to Chinese political warfare in the region.

Distance Between Saipan and Guam

What Is the Visa Loophole?

Saipan is the largest island of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) introduced a rule that allowed Chinese nationals to temporarily visit the CNMI for 45 days without a visa. The purpose of this exception was to support the CNMI’s tourist industry and migrant labor needs. In 2019, the threshold was lowered to 14 days due to cited national security concerns. This authority constitutes the only mechanism that allows Chinese citizens to visit U.S. territory without a visa and has long been a matter of concern: In 2023, then-Senator Marco Rubio cosigned a letter with his colleagues asking the DHS to terminate the visa waiver program.

“Braids,” China, and Political Warfare

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a track record of exploiting bureaucratic and political seams, as well as economic and legal vulnerabilities, to accomplish its strategic objectives without resorting to overt violence. As leading analyst Cleo Paskal notes, “the CCP and its proxies use a range of methods, including public and private loans, bribery, blackmail, coercion, investment, and influence to advance their interests. . . . Often an approach is ‘braided,’ with three mutually reinforcing strands: commercial, strategic, and criminal elements.” Chinese criminal elements in Oceania have been linked to drug smuggling, human trafficking, and other illegal activities.

As the United States recalibrates its military posture toward future conflict with China, Oceania has become a major focus of U.S. defense and military construction investment, including rebuilding airfields and infrastructure. These U.S. territories are referred to in both U.S. and Chinese texts as the “second island chain” (the first being Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines). They are the first line of defense for the United States and a critical logistical pathway for Pacific conflict. Any logistical chain for Taiwan, for instance, would run through this region.

Beijing is using a range of methods to infiltrate U.S. territories like the CNMI and to create local political support for continued Chinese presence in the region. The CNMI economy is ripe for manipulation and exploitation. The islands are poor, with a per capita income of less than $24,000 in 2022. In this context, the PRC can easily afford to buy enormous influence for relatively small amounts. Indeed, as CNMI Governor Arnold Palacios recently argued, “. . . for almost forty years now, the [PRC] has had a firm foothold in our islands. Chinese investors were always conveniently there when we needed them, offering new industries and revenue sources that also directly or indirectly advanced the interests of the PRC in the Marianas. . . . To this day, we are continually asked to open up to Chinese investment once again. That same kind of pressure ripples across the Pacific in various ways.”

The CCP has long made use of organized crime. A major part of this is gambling, building on the triad-connected casino world of Macau, a Chinese territory. In conjunction with insufficient law enforcement resources, this allows for easy concealment of both money laundering and bribery. In 2014, China established casinos on Saipan—some managed by criminal elements—in order to gain a foothold on the island. Although the casinos have been shuttered, today, criminal networks are being utilized to transport Chinese nationals from Saipan to Guam. Guam, which hosts major U.S. military installations, is only 120 miles away, typically around a 10 hour boat ride.

That Chinese gangs are transshipping people from Saipan to Guam is hardly surprising. Guam is the United States’ hub of military activity in the region and represents a major node of the United States’ Indo-Pacific military strategy. In December 2024, seven Chinese citizens were arrested for illegally entering Guam via Saipan—four of whom were discovered near a military installation—at around the time that the United States conducted a key missile interception test.

Interagency Frictions and Solutions

China’s strategy is to find and exploit as many U.S. government seams and vulnerabilities as possible. A sensible package of solutions to this situation therefore needs a holistic approach that balances local economic and political concerns with national and international security interests in a manner that makes these frontline U.S. territories more safe, secure, and prosperous. Such solutions include the following:

• End the two-week visa waiver program. Triage demands stopping the bleeding first. China is exploiting a visa loophole in the CNMI to get people to Guam—and the sensitive military sites on that island and elsewhere. Heavily pregnant Chinese women have also exploited the loophole for birth tourism. Some members of CNMI’s business sector argue that the exemption allows for the inflow of Chinese tourists—tourists that are needed to bolster a locally fragile economy. Yet Chinese tourists comprise just 7.2 percent of visitors to Saipan. The marginal gains associated with the visa loophole are vastly outweighed by the risks.

• Work with local leaders to make the local economy more resilient—including by diversifying the CNMI’s tourism base. The reason the loophole exists in the first place is because, as Governor Palacios noted above, Chinese presence at one point contributed to a growing, but fragile, economy—and Chinese actors are persistently seeking mechanisms to reestablish economic and political footholds in the region. Given that the CNMI constitute the United States’ front line in its competition with China, it makes strategic sense to open up investment in the Marianas in order to make it less susceptible to Beijing’s influence campaigns. Engaging with the private sector and venture capital firms to encourage investment could help; Business Executives in National Security might be a group to collaborate with toward this end. Another key pathway for doing so: helping the Marianas diversify its tourism base so it is not reliant on visitors from any one country and preferably increases tourist flow from friendlier locations such as the Philippines, India, and Japan. As Congresswoman Kimberlyn King-Hinds argues, “The State Department’s support in securing new air service agreements and expanding outreach in key markets is critical to our long-term success.” Investing in the domestic economy in this manner is also consistent with President Trump’s economic and national security agenda.
• Rethink sources of migrant labor and their visa requirements. Another reason that the visa waiver exists is due to the need for competitively priced construction labor—a gap that Chinese laborers have been able to fill. The United States might usefully explore backfilling sources of Chinese labor with those from other countries such as the Philippines or Indonesia. Doing so would likely require relooking at H-2B work visa allocation for the region. This would have the added benefit of increasing the pool of necessary workers to support Department of Defense build-up in the region, while lowering overall labor costs.
• Increase maritime surveillance and patrolling. In part due to the permissive visa policies, Chinese gangs have been able to penetrate the region—creating networks for human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, and other illegal activities. Such networks are also utilized to transport Chinese nationals to Guam. Clamping down on the visa waiver policy alone is unlikely to solve the problem of Chinese gangs and other gray zone activity in the region. Rather, an enhanced maritime surveillance presence based on leveraging open-source geospatial data platforms like Optix alongside expanded partnership agreements through the Quad, a strategic security grouping comprising the United States, India, Japan, and Australia, will help prioritize where and when to vector in enhanced U.S. Coast Guard patrols. This surveillance network, coalition engagement, and calibrated maritime force posture will help the United States deter gangs and other criminal networks. This may require examining Coast Guard and naval capacity to do such patrolling, agreements with key partners like Japan to exchange maritime surveillance, and using creative vehicles like contracted intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) to cover gaps.
• Reexamine U.S. military construction in the region to mitigate counterespionage and counterintelligence threats. Even if a relatively small number, it is likely that multiple Chinese individuals are tasked human assets reporting back to Beijing. These tools of espionage and coercion appear to have been able to openly collect on U.S. activities and the construction of military infrastructure in the region—both of which are critical to national security. This represents a huge counterintelligence threat. Additionally, Beijing may have already identified critical infrastructure vulnerabilities in the region that could be exploited in the event of a conflict or crisis. As a matter of urgency, the U.S. government should take a deep look at critical infrastructure in the region and mission reassurance, ensuring that key sites are resilient and not at risk of cyberattacks, espionage, or even sabotage during a crisis with Beijing.
• Establish a multinational and interagency “hub” in the CNMI to coordinate regional policies, information sharing, maritime domain awareness, and law enforcement information. This could be structured similarly to the Joint Interagency Task Force West that coordinates interagency operations to counter malign influences, including criminal networks, in the Caribbean. Establishing such a center is also likely to win local support, given that Governor Palacios recommended that such a body be established in Saipan that could also create a platform to embed national security advisors in different U.S. territories in Micronesia. A military component of this could include coordination with allied nations that have an interest in Western Pacific security (Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the Philippines) to broaden out domain awareness of PRC military and illicit activities, increase joint presence near allied and U.S. territory, and expand deterrence capabilities.
• Explore creative options for adapting AUKUS Pillar 2 to support maritime domain awareness and homeland defense in the Pacific. Addressing the challenge of Chinese malign and malicious activity against U.S. installations and interests is necessary but not sufficient. It also requires investing in new capabilities—consistent with AUKUS Pillar 2—that increase the ability of the United States and its partners to visualize the threat across the vast expanses of the ocean. That will likely include options for codeveloped undersea and cyber capabilities that complement contracted ISR and open-source geospatial intelligence.

Allowing one of the United States’ main adversaries the ability to enter the CNMI with fewer restrictions than other points of entry into the United States is objectively absurd. But the visa policy was introduced for valid reasons. It would be equally foolish not to take the underlying issue at stake seriously: The security and economic development of the United States’ frontline territories must be improved so they can better withstand Chinese political and economic pressure.

Kathleen J. McInnis is a senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Benjamin Jensen is the director of the Futures Lab at CSIS.