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rgentina controls the farthest tip of Strait of Magellan at Tierra del Fuego. This is the point natural passage connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This is what many in our government fear China will eventually control. But this isn’t the only South American passage that China is investing in.
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 communication that must be kept open,” said Army Gen. Laura Richardson in a Thursday hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
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.
“We have a lot of ground to make up” with the government of Panama in investing in projects important to [Panama] as Beijing has done, she added. Richardson cited a Corps of Engineers major water project as a step in the right direction.
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.
