Saipan Island, in the Northern Mariana Islands, has been a US territory ever since it was captured from Japan during a notoriously bloody battle in 1944. Until the 1990s, the island’s economy relied almost entirely on the American military presence. For ten years, beginning in the late-90s, the garment industry exploited unregulated labor regulations and since then, the island has been a fledgling tourist destination.
In 2014 a Chinese casino operation arrived and took advantage of special US tax and labor policies granted to the Northern Marianas. By 2017, though still under construction, the Imperial Pacific was the world’s most successful gambling operation largely due to bribes that allowed the casino to skirt around or ignore US regulations. Despite concerns voiced by locals, the Imperial Pacific had surprisingly been able to continue raking in tremendous amounts of income. A member of the island’s legislature expressed his frustration: “I believe that Imperial Pacific runs this government.” So far, the US government has only begun to address the casino’s dangerous and illegal labor practices.

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