However, although Guam has been incorporated into the United States for more than 100 years, it is directly under the jurisdiction of the federal government, and all local residents hold American passports, but it has never been able to become 1 state of the United States. What is going on?
Geographically, Guam belongs to Oceania, located in the western Pacific Ocean, at the southernmost tip of the Mariana Islands, about 6,000 kilometers east of Honolulu Lu Lu, the capital of Hawaii, with a land area of 549 square kilometers and a population of about166,000, with Argana as its capital.
Guam is a multiracial region, in which Chamorro people account for about 37. 1%, and the rest are mainly Filipinos and immigrants from the mainland of the United States. Chamorro and English are widely spoken, and Catholicism is the main belief.
Guam was originally the residence of Chamorro aborigines. It was occupied by Spanish colonists since 1565, but it was not colonized until 1668. 1898 After the Spanish-American War, defeated Spain was forced to cede Guam to the United States, thus ending its colonial rule for more than 300 years.
During World War II, Guam was once occupied by the Japanese, and 1944 was recaptured by the US military. Today, Guam has become the largest naval and air base of the United States in the western Pacific region, and various military facilities account for about 1/3 of the island area.
According to American law, Guam is an "unincorporated territory". Although local residents have obtained American citizenship and the right to elect a governor, and can participate in the US presidential primaries and the caucuses of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party, they cannot vote in the presidential election.
Moreover, the people of Guam have no representation in the US Congress. Although the local representatives elected by them are resident in the House of Representatives, they can only attend relevant meetings and have no corresponding voting rights.
This unfair treatment has made the people of Guam become "second-class citizens", which has not only deprived them of many employment opportunities, but also prevented them from enjoying other civil rights. Therefore, there are many people who complain and demand that Guam become a state of the United States/KLOC-0. Some even call for independence, but few people respond.
In fact, the reason why the United States refused to "righting" Guam and make it 1 state has its own unspeakable difficulties, which can be summarized as follows:
Military considerations
. Guam is the most important strategic air base of the United States overseas, and plays a central role in the US military base system in the western Pacific. There are about 1.9 million American soldiers stationed on the island, and the base covers about 1/3 of the island area.
During the Korean War and Vietnam War, Guam, as an important strategic base of sea and air, played an important role in gathering troops, transporting ammunition and supporting long-range bombing, and its military value became more important after entering the 2 1 century.
In view of the extraordinary military value of Guam base, the United States has always maintained an indifferent and even rejected attitude on the issue of making Guam a 1 state.
There is no other reason. Once it becomes a 1 state in the United States, Guam's affairs will be decided by the state government itself. If the US government wants to expand the scale of military bases and increase the number of soldiers or equipment, it is bound to negotiate with the state government. Once there is wrangling, it will inevitably affect the implementation of military strategy, which is definitely not what the US government wants.
Consideration of party politics
. According to the US Constitution, each state can get two seats in the Senate and at least 1 seat in the House of Representatives. These senators and representatives have full voting rights, and can introduce bills, make laws and even impeach the president.
Not only that, each state can be allocated different numbers of electors according to its population, and the only duty of electors is to vote for the president.
Although the United States is a multi-party country, the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party are the strongest, and they take turns to govern for a long time, and members of Congress are all members of these two major political parties except a few individuals.
In this case,
The establishment of each new state will change the number of members of parliament and electors, thus strengthening or weakening the strength of a political party and affecting the outcome of the two parties in the general election.
Because we are not sure which party NSW prefers, neither the NSW nor the Democratic Party dare to take risks to support the establishment of NSW, and the resistance Guam faces can be imagined.
Worried about "conformity effect"
. In fact, Guam is not the only "unincorporated territory" in the United States. Similar to it, it also includes Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana, American Virgin Islands, American Samoa and other regions, all of which are willing to become 1 state of the United States.
Puerto Rico, in particular, has held five referendums since 1973, and strongly hopes to become the fifth1th state in the United States, but all of them have been declined by the US government. Imagine, if the United States "righted" Guam, what reason can it take to reject other regions?
For the above reasons, the United States government has always refused to change the status quo, and Guam's dream of becoming a 1 state has thus become far away. Fortunately, Guam's strong economic development, coupled with a large number of financial subsidies from the United States government, has made the living standards of local people quite high, with a per capita GDP of $35,000.
Therefore, Guam, which fully enjoys the "dividend", is different from Puerto Rico. Although it also wants to become a 1 state of the United States, its desire is not very strong, which is in line with the expectations of the US government.