Taipei: A Chinese man and woman have been accused of plotting to form a micro-state in the Marshall Islands amid Beijing’s push to expand its influence in the region.

Cary Yan, 50, and Gina Zhou, 34, are said to have attempted to establish a semi-autonomous region similar to Hong Kong, in the Rongelap atoll.

They are accused by the US Justice Department of bribing officials and enticing investors to the islands which were seized from Japan by America during World War II.

Although the country gained independence in 1986 Washington maintains “full authority and responsibility” for the defence of the pro-Taiwan islands.

The Rongelap is a scarcely populated ring of islands devastated by US nuclear testing in the Pacific in the 1940s and 1950s. Rates of stillbirths and thyroid cancer soared and in 1985, the entire population of Rongelap was evacuated to another island.

The pair are accused of posing as officers linked to an NGO in New York and attempting to bribe Marshall Islands officials and politicians into backing the creation of the “Rongelap Special Economic Zone”.

Their NGO also allegedly sent the officials to Hong Kong on an all-expenses-paid trip.

Yan and Zhou, who were arrested in Thailand in November 2020 and extradited to the US on Friday, denied money laundering and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.