Nicaragua Gives Chinese Firm Contract To Build Alternative To Panama Canal 323
McGruber writes with this news from late last week: "The Guardian is reporting that Nicaragua has awarded a Chinese company a 100-year concession to build an alternative to the Panama Canal, in a step that looks set to have profound geopolitical ramifications. The new route will be a higher-capacity alternative to the 99-year-old Panama Canal, which is currently being widened at the cost of $5.2bn. Last year, the Nicaraguan government noted that the new canal should be able to allow passage for mega-container ships with a dead weight of up to 250,000 tonnes. This is more than double the size of the vessels that will be able to pass through the Panama Canal after its expansion, it said."
Short on details (Score:5, Interesting)
The story is short on details, the Spanish language op ed referred to in TFA indicates the canal would run through Lake Nicaragua. This route has been considered since before the US-dug canal through Panama. I could potentially be a sea-level canal, which would be a major plus, but which would radically alter the Lake. Either way, it'd be a big deal for shipping and save thousands of miles and tons of fuel for ships bigger than whatever they're calling the latest "Panamax." It seems to me the ports of New Orleans and Mobile in the US would benefit, perhaps also Atlantic ports in Europe.
Re:Competition (Score:4, Interesting)
China is already losing manufacturing jobs
Africa and the middle east is going to be the new frontier for low cost manufacturing
Re:it's too wide (Score:4, Interesting)
And as for cutting one's country in half, that's what bridges and tunnels are for.
I don't think that the Chinese will succeed for the same reasons why the French and other European nations didn't succeed initially in Panama. The Panama canal took a national interest to construct, not a corporate interest, and was driven in large part by our nation having two coasts with a whole lot of distance in between, and by our "Manifest Destiny" doctrine. Simple economic interests operated by a corporation may not be able to pull it off, especially if that corporation is there only for that purpose, as problems along the way will make it very hard to raise capital when investors don't think that their investment will pay off.
If they do manage to pull it off, great! There will be uses for the Panama Canal even if it receives less traffic than the new one, decades from now when it's finished.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
This could be good news (Score:5, Interesting)
A china that is committed to trading with the world is not waging war. This is about shipping routes from China to Europe bypassing unstable africa and an even more unstable middle east. Its also about ships such as the maersk Triple E class 165,000 tons which is too big for any US port to handle but can be easily handled by ports in china and europe. This would shock americans but the Chinese of 700 years had ships bigger than any in Europe that could travel farther and were more advanced with magnetic compasses and watertight compartments.
Re:it's too wide (Score:4, Interesting)
Nicaragua apparently doesn't even have a paved road that stretches from one coast to the other. I'm not sure how much of an issue it would be to build a $40b canal that has a few tall bridges, or those new fangled draw bridges every so often to handle what must be a huge amount of traffic in the area.
Re:The new commerce gatekeepers (Score:3, Interesting)
Like iOS, they get to set the price to move the goods around.
I'm pretty sure that you can just 'sideload' through the Strait of Magellan if you feel like it.
It's not like they're closing the Panama Canal once the Chinese build this. The new canal costs too much, people will just keep going through the old canal (tough luck for those who invested in ships too large to go through the old canal, but doing all those thousands of km through the end of South America isn't less expensive either).
I don't think the significance of this development is so much commercial as it is geo-political. Not that long ago, if the Soviets had done this, it would have caused a major shit-storm. This is a subtle but deliberate and clever provocation on part of the Chinese since they are effectively invading what the USA has regarded as it's 'sphere of influence' for about 200 years without firing carrying a single gun but still doing something of considerable military significance. I'm not sure what the PRC is trying to achieve here but between the recent hacker attacks, this and a whole lot of other pinpricks the PRC is poking a sleeping Grizzly with a stick. I'll actually be surprised if this won't eventually lead to some sort of US counter-provocation. Traditionally this would have taken the form of a couple of US carrier group steaming through the Taiwan Strait with full brouhaha and unofficial orders to Navy pilots to deliberately interpret the limits of PRC airspace rather loosely. This would then have been followed by the US congress approving a massive package of arms sales to Taiwan. Who the hell knows, perhaps approval of F-35 stealth fighter sales to Taiwan has been deliberately kept in reserve for just such an occasion?
Re:but but but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the lake is more than 100 feet above today's sea level, if it ever floods with salt water, there are not going to be many people left to worry about its ecology.
Now hitchhiker organisms riding on the bottoms of the ships or in their ballast tanks are a reasonable concern. We can assume that inspection and cleaning facilities will be set up on both sides of the Nicaragua canal, since this kind of contamination is a well known problem. I expect that the Panama Canal has been retrofitted by now-- although maybe it is being treated as a lost cause.
Re:Competition (Score:5, Interesting)
What's to stop Costa Rica or Columbia joining in?
1. Mountains
2. Water to operate the locks to get over those mountains.
Panama and Nicaragua both have relatively low hills/mountains, and large lakes at sufficient altitude to supply water for the locks.
Costa Rica and Colombia do not.
A little over three decades ago, I was a young Marine, and spent several months in Panama. We provided security for the Gatun dam and locks. It was very interesting to watch the ships step up and down through the locks. We conducted patrols in the surrounding rainforest. It was the most beautiful forest I have ever seen. There were trees almost as big as sequoias, and spots where the canopy were so dense that it was almost dark on the forest floor. The birds, butterflies and flowers all had dazzling colors. But it seemed like everything had thorns or some goo that would blister skin, and there were lots of mosquitoes, leeches, and other bloodsucking bugs.
Re:it's too wide (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Competition (Score:4, Interesting)
I hope it materialises (Score:5, Interesting)