So these articles will help. Additionally the U.S.
has retained the right to intervene militarily if they believe the canal's neutral status is threatened. China has also established a presence in the Straits of Magellan. It's pretty obvious what China is doing. Sorry about the formatting. Oh, and Trump is right.
Panama: China’s Strategic Hub
“China has turned Panama into a geographic and commercial concentration center or strategic hub for its political, commercial, and military advance in the region,” Euclides Tapia, professor at the School of International Relations of the University of Panama, told Diálogo.
*snip*
For Tapia, it was an attempt to lure Panama in what analysts have called the debt trap. “The strategy is the same one that has been successfully practiced in other countries where they indebt them until they are forced to pay with assets, as in the case of Sri Lanka, which was forced to lease the port to China for 99 years. I have no doubt that they were trying to do the same with the Canal,” Tapia said.
Nearly 6 percent of global trade and 57.5 percent of the cargo transported in container that ships from Asia to the East Coast of the United States passes through the Panama Canal. Today, this important infrastructure is the focus of great concern in political, economic, and academic sectors...
dialogo-americas.com
^^^^the article contains a wealth of FACTS about what China has been up to in Panama, as well as links to articles about China's increasing penetration of Peru.
In 1513, the Spanish maritime explorer, Vasco Núñez de Balbo, crossed the Isthmus of Panama and saw the Pacific Ocean. From that moment on, the Spanish, and then the Dutch, the French, the British and the Americans, would try to dig a canal between the oceans that would greatly shorten the...
www.eurasiareview.com
Chinese Investment Near Panama Canal, Strait of Magellan Major Concern for U.S. Southern Command.
Restrictions to the passage of traffic through the Panama Canal and the Strait of Magellan as China moves aggressively to expand its footprint across Central and South America are the top concerns of the current U.S. Southern Command head told a Senate panel.
In Panama, PRC-based companies are engaged in or bidding for several projects related to the Panama Canal, a global strategic chokepoint, including port operations on both ends of the canal, water management, and a logistics park,” according to Richardson’s written testimony.
Likewise, the Chinese have invested heavily in a space-research project in Argentina that would allow Beijing to track U.S. satellites and
also won the rights to build facilities near the Magellan Strait that would also give China access to Antarctica.
Richardson told
the panel the Beijing’s investments in Central and South American infrastructure, particularly ports, follow the pattern it developed in Africa. Right now, the “Chinese have 29 port projects” across the command, including a major one in El Salvador that has economic implications for other Central American nations.
Ports have civilian and military value.
Restrictions to the passage of traffic through the Panama Canal and the Strait of Magellan as China moves aggressively to expand its footprint across Central and South America are the top concerns of the current U.S. Southern Command head told a Senate panel. “[Those] very strategic lines of...
news.usni.org
With New Ambassador, a New Stage in Panama-China Diplomatic Relations
The first significant test for Cortizo’s China policy came in 2021, when Hutchison Ports (PPC), a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based corporate group Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., successfully applied for a 25-year renewal of the concessions it had over the ports of Balboa and Cristóbal.
These ports are strategically located at the Pacific and Caribbean sides of the Panama Canal, which gives PPC a de facto monopoly over the porting industry around the canal. Throughout these negotiations, Panama obliged most of PPC’s terms and conditions. Paradoxically, the Panamanian government did not raise a single concern over indirect control over PPC by the PRC.
China has consolidated its influence in Panama through significant infrastructure projects linked to the quintessential global supply chain tied to the canal.
thediplomat.com
Losing strategic control of the Panama Canal to the People’s Republic of China
The port decision focuses on
Hutchison Whampoa and its 25-year port concession set to expire in January 2022.
Hutchison is a Chinese multinational, Fortune 500 conglomerate with a ports and related services division operating in 26 countries. They also manage five of the 10 busiest container ports in the world. While
China does not operate the canal,
Hutchison manages the ports of Balboa and Cristobal on both sides of the isthmus and the concession for Margarita Island,
Panama’s largest Atlantic port.
Hutchison is rumored to have deep ties spanning decades with Beijing.
The canal decision centers on a 50-year concession for a new water management system. This system will address the increasingly constrained water levels caused by drought and overuse that have worried canal officials for years. Multiple PRC companies have expressed interest in this project. With these two contracts,
China would have an enormous lever of power to affect transshipment cargo operations. Beijing could use these companies as political agents to disrupt canal operations during a hot gray zone confrontation, exerting strategic control over this critical maritime chokepoint.
A growing U.S.-People’s Republic of China (PRC) gray zone skirmish in Panama could have real national security implications for the United States.
www.washingtontimes.com
Carter-Clinton Legacy: Chinese Penetration of Panama
^^^^ above article is from 1999 and predicts pretty accurately exactly what China would do and the front companies it would use. No one listened.
centerforsecuritypolicy.org
Why Greenland?
No green future without China
www.diis.dk
