This post has been updated to correct that Yun was speaking at the Hudson Institute on Friday. The Freely Associated States lying between Hawaii and the Philippines are crucial to the United States remaining a Pacific power, the special envoy to these three island nations said Friday. To China, the Republics of the Marshall Islands and Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia “are the Second Island chain” in defining its historic territorial claims across the Pacific, Joseph Yun said. “Anyone with ambitions wants to control waterways.” The islands, with a combined population of about 100,000 people, were vitally important … Continue reading Island Nations Key to U.S. Maintaining Position as Pacific Power