The “long-haul” ship ran aground in the Suez Canal, causing a major traffic jam, Bloomberg Information commented that the flow of goods by sea accounted for 70% of global trade, such as the Suez Canal has always been the choke point of international conflict and power struggle, the current U.S.-China confrontation intensified, the canal chaos can give the world a taste of the “new Cold War”.
Bloomberg columnists Ficklin and Wendy Chui write that the world’s maritime choke point is an economically vulnerable weak point, and if blocked or interrupted, it will cause economic paralysis and has always been a place of power struggle.
As the confrontation between Beijing and Washington expands, many experts and scholars believe that the U.S. and China are moving toward a “new cold war,” and the competition between the two countries in the sea lanes is also one of the factors that make the situation higher.
In retrospect, the Persian-Greek War in the fifth century B.C. was partly over control of the Black Sea trade route. When the Portuguese traveler Pierce visited Malacca, on the west coast of Malaysia, in 1512, he wrote, “Whoever controls Malacca has a stranglehold on Venice.”
About two-thirds of international Crude Oil and 80 percent of petroleum products are currently transported by sea. By the numbers, the Suez Canal remains one of the most important trade routes, especially between Asia and Europe. in 2019, nearly 19,000,000 cargo ships crossed the Suez Canal, carrying 1.25 billion tons of cargo.
Locals watch the successful extrication of the Changci ship on the 29th.
The sea lanes are a unique weakness of the Chinese Communist Party. Unlike the United States, which is already a net exporter of crude oil, the Chinese Communist Party imports nearly three-quarters of its crude oil needs and about four-fifths of its iron ore, and a large number of its exports also go by sea.
As a result, the blockade or interdiction of sea lanes is a major weakness for China, with the Straits of Malacca and Singapore in East Asia, and the quasi-straits between the South China Sea lanes, as well as the Bus Strait separating Taiwan from the Philippines and the waters between Japan’s Okinawa islands and China, all of which are highly vulnerable to blockade in the event of international conflict.
Even the Chinese Communist Party’s pressure against Taiwan has an economic element lurking behind it. Half of the CCP’s freight is transported between domestic coastal ports, much of which crosses the Taiwan Strait.
To overcome these weaknesses, the CCP has been aggressive over the past decade, with Chinese-owned companies holding nearly 65 percent of the world’s busiest ports and the “Belt and Road” policy aimed at, among other things, reducing the CCP’s dependence on the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, including an infrastructure corridor through Pakistan, an oil pipeline through Myanmar, and a rail link through the Malay Peninsula. a rail link through the Malay Peninsula. Similarly, the CCP’s sovereignty claims over the South China Sea are motivated by the same strategic considerations.
Recent Comments