A diplomat specializing in the Indo-Pacific, John Hennessey-Niland is the former United States Ambassador to Palau (2020-2022), a graduate of the international cycle of the ENA (class of 2006), and a professor at the Bush School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.
You served as the United States ambassador to Palau. This archipelago, like the American possessions and associated territories of the Pacific (Hawaii, the territories of Guam and the Northern Marianas, the associated states of Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands), is part of an American device to counter the influence of China…
Some say that American interest in the region is recent and only due to China. This is false. Historically, we have been looking to Asia since 1784. That year, a ship named Empress-of-China traveled from the United States to mainland China to develop trade relations. In 1844, the United States opened its first consulate in the Indo-Pacific, in Fiji. And in 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry landed in Tokyo Bay [pour ouvrir le Japon au commerce]. These posts were essential to maintaining sea lines of communication so that the United States and Asia could trade. The westward movement continued with the annexation of Hawaii in 1898 and culminated in the end of the Spanish-American War and the takeover of the Philippines and Guam. By the early 1900s, the United States was truly a Pacific nation.
Would you describe this presence as colonization?
As a diplomat, I avoid slogans because they can be pejorative. There was certainly friction. But the United States replaced colonial powers that were already there, after conflicts, Spain in 1898 and then Japan after the Second World War. I think the role of the United States was more benevolent than that of, for example, Spain. We were a young Republic and our interest was, above all, commercial. We did not send garrisons and did not have a massive military presence in the Pacific. This was deployed only after the Second World War. Some see it as just another step of imperialism after the Europeans and the Japanese, but we deployed more educational and social programs. It was not altruistic, we wanted to ensure peaceful relations. Of course, there were people who were opposed to the American presence and who still are.
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