There has never a major US military base on Yap Island itself. The US was just reserving the right to use the island for a military base if the need arose. There was a Coast Guard station there back in the '60s, but it was a small installation that basically monitored the weather.
But I think the thing that I find so hard to digest about the Chinese proposal is that they eventually want 20,000 hotel rooms on an island with a population well under 10,000 people. On the other hand there is no doubt that Yapese culture has already been enormously transformed from what it was 150 years ago. It's just that there's never been a point when there have been more foreigners on the island than natives. (In contrast to Guam or Hawai'i, for example, although now all Hawai'ians are Americans, so Bob's your uncle.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2013-03-14 11:21 pm (UTC)But I think the thing that I find so hard to digest about the Chinese proposal is that they eventually want 20,000 hotel rooms on an island with a population well under 10,000 people. On the other hand there is no doubt that Yapese culture has already been enormously transformed from what it was 150 years ago. It's just that there's never been a point when there have been more foreigners on the island than natives. (In contrast to Guam or Hawai'i, for example, although now all Hawai'ians are Americans, so Bob's your uncle.)