• But that is exactly what has happened. China is renovating a WWII-era airfield on Woleai Atoll, Yap State, a component of the  Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) that has a “Compact of Free Association” (CoFA)  with Washington. And this airfield is just 418 miles from the U.S. territory of Guam, arguably the most important American base or military hub for its air force and navy to project and maintain U.S. power in the Indo-Pacific.

   

• However, surprisingly, on May 27, officials from China, FSM, and Yap State broke ground on the project to reconstruct the airstrip at Woleai Atoll. FSM President Wesley Simina and local Yap leaders attended the ceremony.

   

• According to Domingo I-Kwei Yang of  Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, “China aims to establish a Southern Link, connecting Asia and South America via Pacific strategic infrastructure hubs. Control over Pacific ports, airstrips, and ICT systems could serve dual-use purposes, enabling transit, logistics, and expanded influence in the U.S. backyard.”

   
• given Beijing’s policy of military-civil fusion, which enables the People’s Liberation Army to co-opt dual-use facilities.

• Even in 2024, the  Pentagon had said in  its report  on “Military and Security Developments Involving China”: “Since 2015, the PRC  has probably viewed engagement and deliberate corruption in the Pacific Island countries as an opportunity to expand its regional influence, press countries to switch diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, increase influence with regional security forces, and advance the PRC’s responsible great power narrative.”

   

• It may be noted that despite being under the American security umbrella through CoFA, the FSM  maintains diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China, while Palau and the Marshall Islands, which also have CoFA with the United States, recognize Taiwan.

   

• Earlier, these island nations were under the U.S. Trusteeship. They are now independent nations, but the U.S. retains full authority and responsibility for defense, essentially acting as their security guarantor.

   

• If, despite such strong political, economic, and security bonds between the U.S. and FSM, Chinese presence in the latter could not be prevented by the Trump Administration, risking in the process billions of worth political, economic, and strategic investments, then there has to be accountability and heads must roll, argues naval expert Brent Sadler.

   

• He finds it unfathomable that “Interior, regional commands, and legal advisers have all failed to enforce CoFA protections, risking billions in U.S. investments and eroding America’s positional advantage in Micronesia”.

   

• Sadler demands that “Given the stakes, an investigation is needed to determine how another Chinese investment in dual-use military facilities has proceeded unimpeded for so long. Questions need to be asked about why regional legal counsels failed to contest this Chinese investment and to represent and ensure that U.S. interests were met through CoFA”.

   

• If accountability is not fixed, “U.S. leadership responsible for the region will continue to fail in identifying and addressing problematic Chinese encroachment and influence in Micronesia. The consequence of continued inaction will render years of effort and billions of dollars in military investment and planning useless”, Sadler warns.

   

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• But merchants could only travel west after Columbus had discovered America in 1492, meaning "only half the globe" had been known to Europeans, and Fugger was "at the beginning of that phenomenon" later known as global trade.

    
• with his grandfather, master weaver Hans Fugger,

• "He [Fugger] took all of those Venetian secrets, including double-entry bookkeeping, back to Germany with him. And he was the first in Germany to employ these modern methods," Steinmetz said.

    
• With meticulous records, Fugger always knew where his finances stood — unlike many rivals. He also built an intelligence network of agents across major European cities and even small German towns.

• "People would feed him with information, by courier and horses … so that he would know about things before his competitors did, and he could use that to his advantage. Information today is everything, and it was everything back then, too," Steinmetz said.
• 1510

• In return, he secured access to lucrative silver and copper operations in Tyrol and what was then Hungary. He did not own the mines outright, but held rights and stakes that proved extraordinarily profitable.

    
• Augsburg

• Europe had little to offer Asia at the time besides precious metals. "Europe wasn't exporting technology or luxury goods," Steinmetz explained. "But it had silver, gold, and copper — and that's where Fugger became indispensable."

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• said India — then technologically and economically ahead of Europe — suffered a chronic shortage of copper, which was a "stroke of extremely good luck" for the Fugger mining interests.

• And timing amplified that advantage: "Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to India in 1498, just three years after the Fuggers moved into large-scale copper mining in Neusohl [today Banska Bystrica in Slovakia]. Demand soared, and the Fuggers held the supply," said Kluger.

    
• Kluger noted that the Habsburgs and the Hungarian crown often repaid debts by granting mining rights because they lacked other means

• "The aristocracy's limited commercial knowledge worked in the Fuggers' favor," he added.

    

• "Emperor Maximilian was constantly fighting wars and had to pay mercenaries. The only one who could come up with money when Maximilian needed it quickly was Fugger."

    

• Lars Börner, a German economic history expert, believes Fugger reshaped European finance because he persuaded the pope to relax the Catholic Church's ban on charging interest, which opened the door to modern lending practices.

    
• "It's no secret that the pope also liked to pull in the highest returns possible. Interest ban or not,"

• In exchange, he said, Fugger shared in church revenues, including the controversial sale of indulgences used to fund St. Peter's Basilica in Rome — a practice that eventually sparked Protestant revolt, the Reformation.

    

• Yet Fugger's most visible legacy is situated in his Bavarian hometown of Augsburg: the so-called Fuggerei, the world's first social housing complex, founded in 1521.

    

• It still operates today, and like 500 years ago, residents pay only a nominal rent. Visitors from around the world tour the community, which remains a tangible symbol of his influence.

    
• The Fuggerei in Augsburg, where tenants today pay less than a euro rent enjoying the same privilege as generations before

• Historians estimate Fugger's total wealth at the equivalent of $300 billion to $400 billion today (€255 billion to €340 billion). In Fugger's time, this amounted to between 2% and 10% of the entire economic output of Europe — and well above the current wealth of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos in comparison to the US gross domestic product.

    

• While modern-day philanthropists such as Bill Gates work to shape their legacies through foundations, corporate historian Boris Gehlen told DW they are unlikely to match Fugger's long-term impact. "Their legacy won't be as significant as Fugger's," he said.

    

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• Despite winning a legal battle over land and mining rights more than two decades ago in Richtersveld, which is part of Namaqualand, many in the community argue that they are yet to see any benefit.

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• The diamond industry in this part of the region has declined in recent years, as most of the gems on the land are thought to have been found, leaving a trail of economic and social problems.

• "In our family, they used to teach the children to count with diamonds," says Martinus Fredericks.

• The area where they lived was annexed in the mid-19th Century by the Cape Colony – part of what is now South Africa - and then, after diamonds were found in the 1920s, the Nama were cleared from land around the Orange River.

• Nothing changed throughout the years of the racist apartheid system, or after the first democratic elections and the end of white-minority rule in 1994.

• The new African National Congress-led government maintained the earlier position that the greater good was served by sharing the diamond wealth generated in these parts with the rest of the country.

• The Constitutional Court said the Nama had an inalienable right to their ancestral land and the rights to the minerals there.

• However, four years later, Alexkor secured a deal with the Richtersveld Communal Property Association (CPA), which purportedly represented the Nama, that gave the company 51% of the mineral rights while 49% went to the community and an entity called the Richtersveld Mining Company.

• But Mr Fredericks argues that the CPA did not represent the Nama and the agreement was made without the consent of the wider community. He alleges that 20 years on they are yet to profit from the deal, or from any wealth generated over the decades despite the Constitutional Court ruling.
• In an interview with the BBC she blamed that on "maladministration and malfeasance within Alexkor".

• He added that "it also came to light that over 300m rand ($17.6m) rand has been paid over by the department and yet the people of the community did not receive anything".

• "Big companies come in, they rip up the land, they take whatever they can, and they just move off without doing the rehabilitation, leaving the receiving community to deal with the after-effects of their mining," he alleges.

• "The Nama people used to mine themselves, but they've done it sustainably, they knew how to use resources from the land but also how to fix the land after using it."

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• But elections across the Triangle have begun reshaping this landscape. Recent political shifts in Bolivia and Argentina have weakened China’s position and opened new doors for the United States, turning electoral outcomes into a wildcard with the power to alter geostrategic dynamics in the critical minerals sector. 

      

• Now, in Chile, the crown jewel of the Lithium Triangle, the results of the first round of the presidential election suggest the regional political pendulum is swinging to the right, potentially extending a trend that is increasingly unfavorable to China’s strategic interests.