Uriel Araujo, researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts

Within the Belt and Road initiative’s framework, China is planning to link the Atlantic and Pacific coast, and not much attention is being paid to that, although this could be a game-changer with global effects - beyond enhancing the flow of goods between Latin America and Asia. According to Nadia Helmy, a Visiting Senior Researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies (Lund University, Sweden) and Director of the South and East Asia Studies Unit, Colombian President Gustavo Petro is negotiating with Beijing to build “an alternative to the Panama Channel”, and he takes the plan very seriously,

The Colombian-Chinese projects under discussion involve a “dry channel” through which the Buenaventura port in Colombia could connect to Atlantic shores (Barranquilla) via a railway crossing the country. Soon after the December 2022 election, Petro stressed the Colombian interests in advancing such projects and there are ongoing talks.

Guillermo Puyana Ramos, Colombia-China Friendship Association’s president remarks on how, albeit having both Atlantic and Pacific coasts (about 1800 and 1,500 km respectively), Colombia has failed to fully develop its Pacific Rim identity and to link up with the Asian Pacific Basin due to a number of historical reasons. It did have Japan and the Republic of Korea as partners in the 1980s and 1990s, but Ramos reminds, it was only in 2005 that an Asian country ranked among Colombia’s top five trading partners, namely China. Since then, Chinese-Colombian ties kept on expanding, with Beijing now being, for the last four years, Colombia’s main Asian investor - with a presence in energy, mining, and infrastructure. Trade between Bogota and Beijing in turn increased to $5 billion this year.

This alternative to the Panama Canal (just a plan so far) could also take place through the state of Nicaragua, and it would have the potential to integrate all countries in Latin America within the Belt and Road initiative framework - seven South American states are already part of this initiative (Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia), and Paraguay remains the only country that has diplomatic relations with Taiwan. According to Helmy, China seeks to limit US influence through the Panama Canal, which currently “serves the global trade movement between the American ports on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and the American Gulf and its trading partners in the continent of Asia.” Thus, by establishing a new Pacific-Atlantic corridor, Beijing would directly challenge the Atlantic superpower in the very region the latter considers its own “backyard”.

This new canal, if ever built, would extend to a 276 km stretch of the Panama Canal, thereby allowing the passage of more ships, including “Chinese giant tankers, such as containers and oil tankers”, directly “linking the east with the west”, unlike the Panama Canal, which only passes through the south (until it reaches the north).

Panama has also agreed to be part of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, and also entered into an agreement with Beijing for the Chinese acquisition of Panama’s largest port on “Margarita island” on the Atlantic side within the “Cowloon free trade zone”. This happens to be the largest free trade zone in the Western hemisphere.

There are of course many challenges to such projects. Building railroads across Buenaventura and Barranquilla, through wetlands and forests, would need massive technical studies, for one thing. But the political will does not seem to be lacking.

Washington still retains its hegemonic position in the American continent, but it is visibly declining. I wrote before on China’s growing presence in the Caribbean. Beyond that, Beijing of course has an appetite for the raw materials and commodities that Latin America as can offer. In exchange, it offers investments, usually imposing no condition, other than a recognition of the One China formula.  The Asian superpower traditionally has been able to turn its economic and financial presence into diplomatic influence. For instance, only eight Latin American countries recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty claims today, as opposed to all of them twenty years ago. Even the Holy See has moved closer to China - keeping in mind that we are talking about a predominantly Catholic region, and that there is often a complicated interplay between religion and politics.

Washington, in contrast, due to their different political-economic systems, simply cannot align its foreign policy goals with the policies of its companies and private banks as smoothly as Beijing and the US in fact now has no “overarching strategy” or concept to tie together all of its disparate policy challenges in the Caribbean and beyond, according to Global Americans Research Fellow Scott B. MacDonald. Thus, Chinese presence in Latin America, as I wrote, encompasses diplomatic, trade and military influence.

While so much has been said about Chinese-US competition in the Pacific, Beijing is now planning, with its Latin American partners, especially Colombia, to increase Atlantic-Pacific connectedness, as part of its Great Power competition with the US - and that may revolutionize not just trade but also the geopolitical landscape of the 21s century.