China's influence in North America has reached the point that Canada, the United States and Mexico all are proposing new super-ports to accept mega-ships loaded with thousands of containers of goods from the exporting nation. Now it's reaching into Central and South America as well.
The BBC is reporting that the Panamanian National Assembly has approved a plan to make teaching Mandarin obligatory, "in recognition of China's growing importance in the world economy."
The report said the bill's supporters believe boosting the number of people who speak Chinese will help boost the economic competitiveness Panama offers the global economy.
At this point, China is the single biggest user of the Panama Canal, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Supporters of the plan say that while English now is the international language of business, Mandarin soon will be required for significant progress.
The two nations already have trade estimated at $1 billion a year.
The Panamanian legislative proposal, while not yet final, would establish a deadline of 10 years for Mandarin to be among subjects in all of the nation's school's.
Since Panama took full control of the U.S.-built canal from the United States in 1999, traffic has grown by more than 30 percent. Officials say it's been spurred particularly by the expansion of China's exports to the rest of the world, and the traffic now is dominated by containers holding electronics, textiles and other goods.
Panama also is expanding the canal in order to allow the so-called post-Panamax ships to use its locks, which at the present time are too small.
Another report by the World Tribune also notes that Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, has announced he will not renew with the United States a contract that expires in 2009 for operations at the Manta Airport, instead offering the facility to China.
The airfield, one of the last outposts in South America for the U.S. military, would be leased to Beijing if Correa has his way, according to a report on the nation's presidential website.
Correa reported that the airport is part of a plan for his nation to become a "doorway" that would give China access to Latin America.
The company that already is running Manta's seaport and government officials have had discussions about a Chinese investment in a rail system, too, the report said.
As WND has reported, Canada is in the North American competition with a proposal for a mega-port on its western coast that would allow such super cargo ships to dock, and deliver goods that then would be carried by rail and truck throughout North America.
Mexico already has several plans for such ports on its Pacific Coast, and Texas even has proposed such deepwater docking facilities on its Gulf Coast, to service ships that would need to pass through the Panama Canal.
The expansions all are to handle those consumer goods being gobbled up around the world. U.S. international trade grew from 13 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product in 1990 to 24 percent in 2000, with projections of 30 percent by 2010, according to Andrew Goetz and Sutapa Bandyopadhyay, transportation economists at the University of Denver.
But the experts noted for now, most of the foreign trade enters the U.S. through containers delivered to West Coast ports, including Los Angeles and Long Beach, with the containers "transferred to rail cars and trucks for distribution to inland load centers and eventually to wholesale and retail outlets throughout North America."
They suggest that the transportation infrastructure soon will look vastly different, with deep-water ports in Canada and Mexico and advanced truck-train options throughout the continent.
WND previously reported plans to deepen and widen the Panama Canal so post-Panamax container ships can access U.S. ports such as New Orleans, Houston and Corpus Christi.
In 2005, the largest container ships carried an average of less than 2,500 containers. Today, megaships containing 9,500 containers are in operation. The Emma Maersk, one of the largest container ships, is over four football fields long (1,300 feet) and capable of handling 12,500 containers, stacked in 22 rows across its deck.
A YouTube.com video showing the Emma Maersk at sea gives an idea of the megaship's magnitude.
According to the foreign trade statistics maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. imbalance of trade with China is in the billions and growing every year, from a deficit of approximately $162 billion in 2004, to $202 billion in 2005, and $233 billion in 2006.
China now holds $1.3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, 80 percent of which is held in U.S. dollar assets, the largest amount of foreign exchange currency ever held by any country in the world, officials report.
But as WND reported, repeated visits of top Bush administration bureaucrats, including Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, have failed to get China to eliminate unfair trade practices, including subsidizing its currency.
Alan S. Blinder, a Princeton University economist who was former Federal Reserve Board vice chairman, told the Wall Street Journal in an interview reported March 28 that the U.S. was at risk of 40 million jobs being shipped out of the country to outsourcing in the next decade or two.
China Calling Shots in Central, South America Now
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