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China Behind Super Highway That Targets US With Mass Migration, Economic Warfare

Posted on Monday, March 25, 2024
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by Outside Contributor
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Map of the Darién Gap and the break in the Pan-American Highway between Yaviza, Panama, and Turbo, Colombia

DARIEN GAP, Panama—The grind of heavy machinery breaks the silence of the Darién jungle, where the Pan American Highway ends at Yaviza in Panama.

Construction workers have cleared towering trees to make way for a steel and concrete bridge mighty enough to withstand flooding from the Chucunaque River.

An onsite worker for the construction company Cusa told The Epoch Times the construction project will cut 4 miles into the Darién jungle at a cost of $42 million and includes a second bridge crossing the Tuira River.

That would leave some 55 miles to finish the Pan American Highway, also known as Highway 1, through the mountainous rainforest to connect it to Turbo, Colombia.

If it’s ever completed, the Pan American Highway will stretch about 18,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina, opening up a land corridor the length of the Americas.

It has gone unfinished for decades due to American and Panamanian concerns over the environment, crime, and disease—and more recently mass migration. The dangerous, rugged terrain acts as a natural barrier to travel from South to Central America.

The bridge and road expansion will end near the town of Bocas de Cupe, in the Darién Gap. However, bridging the rivers has been considered one of the major obstacles blocking completion of the highway.

The new project has worried some who fear completing the road into the Darién Gap will be a win for China and a loss for America.

Michael Yon, a former war correspondent, has been covering mass migration through Panama for several years and has used social media to bring attention to the bridge’s construction and its implications.

China would benefit through an alternate trade route around the Panama Canal, which is essential to global trade. But for the United States, it could open the floodgates to migrants from South America, he told the Epoch Times.

Meanwhile, U.S. leaders have grown increasingly wary of the military implications tied to Chinese infrastructure projects being built in America’s backyard as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), particularly around the Panama Canal.

In 2018, Panama signed on to China’s ambitious BRI project, dubbed a modern Silk Road, after publicly recognizing Taiwan as part of China, much to the surprise and concern of the United States.

The CCP aims to utilize the BRI “to amass power and influence at the expense of the world’s democracies,” U.S. Southern Command Commander Army Gen. Laura Richardson warned in March.

She and other commanders in recent years have been sounding the alarm about China’s incursion into the Western Hemisphere.

China “seeks to supplant the United States as the world’s leading economic and military power,” Gen. Richardson noted in a written statement to the House Armed Services Committee.

Closing the Gap

Last year alone, a record 500,000 migrants traveled through the Darién Gap on their way to the U.S. southern border, documents show.

Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, believes China’s economic development in the region threatens America’s influence and security.

“If China displaces the U.S. in the Western hemisphere as the dominant economic power, then we lose our leverage,” Mr. Howell, formerly an attorney with the Department of Homeland Security, told The Epoch Times.

China is encircling the United States with infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean, Mr. Howell said.

“It’s like a boa constrictor that’s tightening and tightening around the United States,” he said.

In the 2019 book, “China’s Belt and Road and Panama: A Strategic and Prospective Scenario between the Americas and China,” author Eddie Tapiero touts the rise of China’s BRI in utopian terms.

Mr. Tapiero, a Panamanian professor and international economist who wrote his book after a BRI meeting in China, called the initiative a catalyst for “global public good,” envisioning a world where “borders no longer exist, nor do countries.”

The book includes a BRI scenario with a map titled “Globalized Belt and Road,” showing Panama and its canal connected to Colombia by rail through the Darién Gap.

On the Colombian side of the Darién Gap, Chinese companies are working to build highways and ports.

Roadwork near the Pan American Highway in Turbo is part of the “Autopistas al Mar 2” highway project.

The project will connect Colombia’s second-largest city of Medellín to ports in Urabá, including Turbo, where the Pan American Highway ends.

China’s state-owned China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), along with four local companies won the 2015 bid to build the Autopistas al Mar 2, according to the nonprofit Colombia Reports website.

The project was delayed until late 2019, when the Chinese-led consortium obtained the necessary loans from the China Development Bank.

Mr. Tapiero sees Panama, bookended by Colombia and Costa Rica, as a central hub in Latin America for the BRI. He suggests the United States could “reduce geopolitical uncertainty” if it, too, joins the BRI.

His globalized BRI map also showed rail routes slicing through the United States, to significant markets on America’s east and west coasts.

Infrastructure “connectivity” through air, land, and sea is a central theme of the book, which is playing out in Panama.

The bridges into the Darién are part of a contract for the rehabilitation, improvement, and maintenance of the East Pan-American Highway.

It was awarded to Intervial Chile, S.A. under a public-private partnership with the government of Panama, according to government documents.

The investment for the project stands at more than $262 million as part of Panama’s Performance Standards Maintenance Program, which aims to promote agricultural, commercial, and tourist development.

Funding for the project is through the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a part of World Bank Group. China has ties with both banking establishments. In 2009, China pledged $1.5 billion to IFC to boost global trade and more recently has intensified collaboration with IFC on climate friendly bonds.

Global Choke Points

A highway through the Darién Gap stands to diminish the importance of the Panama Canal, which the United States still protects under a neutrality treaty.

The canal was returned to Panama in 1999 under a treaty brokered in the 1970s with President Jimmy Carter.

The Darién Gap by land is similar to the Panama Canal by sea as a choke point, which holds military and economic value.

China’s attempt to minimize or control the canal’s strategic importance to the United States could be significant should a conflict break out over Taiwan in terms of China’s ability to shut down sea lanes, said Andrés Martínez-Fernández, the Heritage Foundation’s senior policy analyst for Latin America.

“That’s a very concerning issue in particular,” he told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Martinez-Fernandez noted that Chinese companies have been busy building infrastructure on either end of the U.S.–built Panama Canal.

The canal has become a point of tension between China and the United States, which has retained the right to enforce operational neutrality on the Panama Canal.

The Panama Canal Authority controls the administration and maintenance of the waterway’s resources and security, independent of the Panamanian government.

Chinese businesses invested heavily in the canal zone under former Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela, but projects have been dropped or limited under the current administration of President Laurentino Cortizo.

Two of Panama’s five principal ports are controlled by China through Hong Kong-based Hutchison, with one at Balboa on the Pacific side and another at Cristobal on the Atlantic side, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

Work conducted by Chinese companies on the enormous Amador Pacific Coast cruise terminal is nearing completion.

These projects followed the China-based Landbridge striking a $900 million deal in 2016 to control Margarita Island, Panama’s largest port on the Atlantic side, to build a deepwater port.

The state-owned China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) is building the port for mega-ships. CCCC was involved in constructing China’s man-made islands in the disputed South China Sea and is part of the China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC).

In 2018, a Chinese consortium headed by CHEC and CCCC was awarded a $1.4 billion contract for the Canal’s fourth bridge.

In 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned President Varela about state-owned Chinese businesses that engaged in “predatory economic activity.”

Criticism has grown that China’s BRI is a debt trap plagued by waste and questionable loan repayment tactics. Detractors claim it allows China to control or own projects when governments cannot repay their loans.

China’s growing influence in Latin America should not be underestimated, Mr. Martinez-Fernandez said.

“So what happens in the Western Hemisphere, I would argue, has more direct impacts on the United States than in most parts of the world because of those direct ties on the avenues of migration, economy, and security,” he said.

Of the 31 nations in Central and South America, Panama was the first of 22 that have formally signed onto China’s BRI program, with Honduras being the latest.

Belt and Road

Miles Yu is director of the China Center at Hudson Institute and a former China policy adviser to Mr. Pompeo.

“The Panama Canal—China has always wanted to control that,” Mr. Yu told The Epoch Times.

That’s because canals have both military and commercial significance, said Mr. Yu, a professor of East Asia and military and naval history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Beijing is also intent on controlling the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca between Indonesia and Singapore, he said.

Controlling sea routes has always been an obsession for China because of their dual value, he said.

In the past decade, a Chinese businessman explored the idea of cutting a canal through Nicaragua to bypass the one in Panama, an idea the United States abandoned in the early 1900s.

The United States favored digging the canal in Panama because the route was shorter and it avoided a string of active volcanoes hindering the Nicaraguan route.

Deepwater ports are also an integral part of the BRI.

Currently, China is backing the construction of a massive shipping port in Peru that military experts worry could serve as a base for warships.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit Peru in the later half of 2024 to mark the completion of a $3.6 billion port near Chancay, which is financed, built, and owned by China or Chinese-backed companies.

“It will be used to ship South American copper, lithium, and other critical materials to China to further their military modernization,” House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said during the March 12 hearing on Western Hemisphere national security challenges.
Closer to home, Chinese companies with ties to the CCP are operating on America’s doorstep—in countries such as Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, Cuba, and the Bahamas.

Right above the U.S.-Canadian border, China and Vancouver’s former Premier Christy Clark signed a memorandum to build the Vancouver Logistics Park, originally dubbed the “World Commodity Trade Center.”

Phase one of the $190 million, 470,000-square-foot complex, billed as a BRI project, has been completed.

The deal was a joint venture between a Chinese state-sponsored company and a local development firm, according to trade publication Business Intelligence for BC.

The Canadian subsidiaries North America Commerce Valley Development Ltd. and Shing Kee Godown Holdings Ltd. are in partnership with local development firm Pollyco Group, according to the trade publication.

In Mexico, Chinese companies operate mines and provide 80 percent of Mexico’s telecommunications equipment. China’s CCCC is also building part of the Maya Train rail system across five states in Mexico.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s left-of-center president, has pushed the rail project that fits with the UN’s 2030 goals as a way of promoting social justice for impoverished areas.

In the Caribbean, China built a colossal embassy in the Bahamas, where the U.S. last had a permanent ambassador in 2011. Meanwhile, Chinese companies have poured billions into ports and roads  on the islands just 50 miles from the U.S. coast.

Trade and investments in sea, space, telecommunications, minerals, and energy between China and Latin American countries will match the U.S. by 2035, according to estimates from the U.S. State Department.

More troubling, China’s warships now make port visits to Venezuela, Cuba, Peru, and Chile, which are expected to mature into base agreements in 10 years.

Experts say that the U.S. needs to catch up to the challenge of Chinese influence.

At the G20 summit in 2023, the United States and its partners revealed an economic corridor linking India, the Middle East, and Europe.

Last November, President Joe Biden hosted 11 leaders from the Western Hemisphere at the first Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity Leaders’ Summit to discuss strengthening critical supply chains focusing on clean energy, semiconductors, and medical supplies.

Heads of state from Canada, Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico, and Panama attended the White House event.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and the Inter-American Development Bank will establish an innovative joint investment platform to channel billions of dollars in financing for sustainable infrastructure and critical economic sectors in the Americas.

The investments of the Americas Partnership Platform will help build modern ports, clean energy grids, and digital infrastructure, according to the White House.

Mr. Martinez-Fernandez said that while the program is a start, it lacks trade commitments and solid investments from the United States.

“That’s what regional leaders and partners are looking for,” he said.

“Certainly, for the level of risk that we’re seeing, the level of attention is not sufficient,” he said.

Darlene McCormick Sanchez reports for The Epoch Times from Texas. She writes on a variety of issues with a focus on Texas politics, election fraud, and the erosion of traditional values. She previously worked as an investigative reporter and covered crime, courts, and government for newspapers in Texas, Florida, and Connecticut. Her work on The Sinful Messiah series, which exposed Branch Davidians leader David Koresh, was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for investigative reporting in the 1990s.
 
Reprinted with Permission from The Epoch Times – By Darlene McCormick Sanchez with Contributions from Terri Wu and John Haughey
 
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
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Max
Max
8 months ago

Well, well, well. Unbelievable that China could be so defiant as to encircle the USA, I am sure that the current administration will not let this happen or even go about to correct the errors that previous administrations have made with regards to China. Wait a minute, reality check. Oh! I almost forgot that this administration and family, as well as other Elites, are in bed with this enemy, so they continue to erode our country’s freedoms and destroy the economy. Right now, there seems to be no end in sight with the course that this administration continues follow like the Titanic vs the iceberg. We, the People, are the ones suffering and most remain asleep.

Rip
Rip
8 months ago

Ch|na sure does get it’s money’s worth out of their bought, demented boy Brandon.

invictus
invictus
8 months ago

Joe Sly-den has allowed millions of illegal invaders of Chinese nationals across US borders, an act which is taking place behind the scenes and away from the eyes of border agents and the American citizenry. These Chinese-ChiComs include drug traffickers, human bondage purveyors, child molesters, rogue scientists, gun runners, drug mules and other assorted fiends. While American eyes are focused on illegals from South America, Mexico, Africa et al, the REAL and covert deal is Biden’s deliberate opening US doors to these intruders from China for the purposes of disassembling the US and continued deceiving of Americans.

Stephen Russell
Stephen Russell
8 months ago

China & UN behind Illegal alien surge

invictus
invictus
8 months ago

And behind the ChiComs is none other than Joe Sly-den to support them.

Tim Toroian
Tim Toroian
8 months ago

I cannot believe adults in this country can vote for Biden. I have lost faith in the ‘average” American and am near the point of not caring what happens to them. And if Biden is re-elected may consider the idea of assisting in executing the bad things.

Awakened
Awakened
8 months ago

America’s naiveté has done us in. Farewell the U.S. Republic in favor of the dominant, dangerous totalitarian powers who don’t give a damn about anything else.

anna hubert
anna hubert
8 months ago

Quiet Chinese has been quietly colonizing for decades Very little attention has been paid to the expansion and the activities in Africa and S.America Not to mention our institutions being flooded with “students” Only once quiet some time ago had I read about the complaint of workers in Brazil The working conditions, hours, expectations and forced mandarin classes Al management were Chinese That was in National Post Good Conrad Black

SAW
SAW
8 months ago

China’s ultimate goal, global domination…
Thanks democrats, thanks a lot.

uncleferd
uncleferd
8 months ago

All the money the Chinese have paid the Bidens was evidently well-spent. Soon, President Biden will be picking up a Chinese hat whenever he takes a tumble in DC.
These Chinese know how to suck up to weak people until they have their way.

Thinking
Thinking
8 months ago

The Chinese have bought up all the strategic ports and sea routes. Rotterdam harbor is owned by the Chinese. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they own ports here in the US. Ole Joe doesn’t care about that. He is working on no more borders anywhere. People can go anywhere in the wereld and nobody will have a culture to fall back on. And what is that, the dems think it will be the dem regime. Watch out people it is coming. Why is he fighting governor Abbott at every turn to keep these migrants out. Plus ole Joe is selling America to the Chinese, acres and acres at the time. And no objection. He can’t very well object if you are in the employ of the CCP. Who are you voting for? Where can you go in this world. Migrants are taking over country after country. America just let in enough people to occupy several states if no people were living there already. In just 4 years. And he screams we need to build more houses. You think? 15 million people are looking for a house. Besides those being sold into the sex trade and sold into the pedo trade. Big business for the dems and ole Joe.

James E Jones
James E Jones
8 months ago

Another way the communists plot and act to take down the USA. All the more reason to build an impenetrable border between the USA and our entire Southern Border and cut-off trade with any country who welcomes China’s help or any type of alliance.

Harry
Harry
8 months ago

And to think we have a Vegetable in charge in DC who probably likes China’s expansion. After all he is on their payroll the way it looks!

paul
paul
8 months ago

thank you deep state and all you gov employees and politicians when china takes over they will kill all of you traitors

PapaYEC
PapaYEC
8 months ago

Aided and abetted by Biden’s Democratic Party and Deep State.
IMO

Sydney
Sydney
8 months ago

The ultimate question: what will be done about this? How can we compel our elected representatives to take this on with bold and effective action? Simply telling US about it does nothing to stop it. What kind of country will my grandsons have in the future?

Suzy
Suzy
8 months ago

This is not the time! It will open the door to more immigrating into the US.

Ken Paul
Ken Paul
8 months ago

‘Tis incredible how far we’ve fallen. What expectations are there for our president to uphold the Monroe Doctrine when he won’t even enforce our own border?!?!

Ken Paul
Ken Paul
8 months ago

Great article. It ought to be an addendum to Peter Schweitzer’s recently released book, “Blood Money.”

Ol1
Ol1
8 months ago

We – the USA – give it ALL in

appeasement, and in return nothing,

but grief, and more hands out!

Concerned
Concerned
8 months ago

I wonder why we, the United States of America, are allowing China to purchase so much farm land here in the US of A? Why are borrowing so much money from China due to our out of this world Government spending? I understand that we are actually sending financial aid to China, money that is then borrowed to give away to others. We, the tax payers then get to pay the interest on these funds. From what I hear, we spend more than one trillion dollars a year on the interest for our loans. I am not sure if all of this is totally correct, but from what I hear on the news, etc., these things seem to have a high degree of correctness or truth. What are we doing as a country?

Bob Chase
Bob Chase
8 months ago

Way too much information for slow joe. He can see votes coming our way. Demise of our country? Not his problem!

Jim
Jim
8 months ago

A highway for Armor (tanks)).

Dr Sam Adams
Dr Sam Adams
8 months ago

Why are my comments on this subject awaiting approval, Censorship perhaps?

Dr Sam Adams
Dr Sam Adams
8 months ago

It was former nitwit President Jimmy Carter who gave the Panama Cannel to a two-bit dictator The Torrijos–Carter Treaties are two treaties signed by the United States and Panama in Washington, D.C., on September 7, 1977, which superseded the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903. The canal eventually fell into the control of Communist Chinese hands and we can see the mischief these devils are up to.
Thank you Jimmy Nitwit for your service to our enemies.

Robert Zuccaro
Robert Zuccaro
8 months ago

Since they’re already selling us out to China, I suppose next they’ll let China’s Xi hold onto our nuclear football/launch codes as well.

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