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On the Panama Canal's Centennial

Aug 15, 2014

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal, an event that (post WWI) helped launch the globalized economy we prosper from a century later. It also extended America's strategic reach farther into the Pacific, a critical development after victory in the Spanish-American War and the rise of Japanese power.

Much of today's news coverage seems unnecessarily jaundiced: Canal expansion too limited, boosters oversell project, Chinese pondering Nicaraguan canal. All legitimate issues, but how about first celebrating human progress?

From The Prelinger Archives (a wonderful resource of historical films and shorts), a 7-minute  documentary about construction of the Panama Canal.

And from the U.S. Ambassador to Panama, Jonathan Farrar, a tweet:

Now, some news coverage, jaundiced and otherwise ...

Associated Press, "Panama Canal turns 100 as expansion hits snags," those being "cost overruns, strikes and the threat of competition from rival projects." Still ...

The construction of the 77-kilometer (48-mile) ship canal across the Isthmus of Panama a century ago transformed international trade, greatly reducing travel time between the Atlantic and the Pacific by eliminating the need for ships to go around the tip of South America. The construction claimed the lives of an estimated 30,000 workers, many from diseases like malaria and yellow fever.

As part of the $5.25 billion expansion project, wider locks with mechanical gates will reduce congestion and be able accommodate post-Panamex vessels, which are as long as three football fields and have the capacity to carry about 2.5 times the number of containers than held by ships currently using the canal.

Canal administrator Jorge Quijano acknowledges he would have liked to finish the expansion in time for Friday's centennial. "But we knew from the beginning a project as complex as this wouldn't necessarily be done" on time, he said.

The Economist, "Now for the next 100 years":

Now, with the canal soon to complete its first expansion in a century, there are again hopes that it will transform interoceanic trade. Yet canals are worse than buses: wait 100 years and three come along at once. On the eve of the anniversary of the Panama Canal’s opening on August 15th, the Egyptian government has announced a plan to upgrade the Suez Canal for the first time in its 145-year history. Nicaragua has endorsed a 278km (173-mile) route for a $40-billion canal linking the Atlantic to the Pacific, the quixotic-sounding dream of a little-known Chinese magnate and the country’s Sandinista government.

Causing further intrigue, on August 8th a delegation of Chinese businessmen from the state-owned China Harbour Engineering Company visited Panama to explore the idea of building and financing a fourth set of locks—even before the third set, part of the existing expansion plan, are in place. As 100 years ago, numerous commercial and geopolitical interests are at play.

Nicaragua? Remember these intrigues from the first maneuvering over a Central American canal?

Wall Street Journal, "Port Cities Prep for Wider Panama Canal: Expansion Could Break West Coast's Hold on Trade With Northeast Asia":

When Panama in 2006 approved plans to modernize its 100-year-old canal to allow for bigger ships carrying 2.5 times as much container cargo, it threatened to break the West Coast's hold on trade with Northeast Asia.

Today, more than 70% of U.S. container traffic from Asia passes through Pacific ports, and as much as a third of those containers travel through Los Angeles and Long Beach by truck and train to consumers in the eastern half of the nation.

But once it is completed in early 2016, a wider canal will give shippers the option to bypass those ports and their more-expensive overland supply routes, and go directly to ports in New York, Baltimore, Norfolk, Miami and elsewhere.

Mas ...

 

 

 

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