Just
as Chinese influence in Latin America reaches record levels, a new novel looks at the possibility of
a Chinese take-over of the strategic Panama Canal.
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CHINESE CONTROL? A foreign cargo ship crossing the Panama Canal.
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The late Admiral Thomas Moorer, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
charged in 1999 that China plotted to take over the Panama Canal and use the
area to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. In the U.S. Senate, Trent
Lott, the then-Republican Senate Majority Leader, expressed concern that the
Chinese could deny U.S. ships passage.
Joachim Bamrud,
editor of Latin Business
Chronicle and a former Panama Correspondent for Reuters and UPI, has used
these events as the initial backdrop for
Panama Jack, a novel with a plot that takes place in Panama, China, Peru, Monaco and Miami.
The book's publication coincides
with Chinese influence in Latin America at an all-time high, thanks to a
dramatic increase in two-way trade the last few years. China is now the
second-largest export market for Brazil, Chile and Peru and is also boosting
its investments in these and other countries in Latin America. At the same
time, U.S. influence in the region has been weakened as a result of a combination
of factors, including the events of September 11, 2001 and a recent change of
several governments in Latin America that are critical, if not outright
hostile, to the United States.
"While China in many ways should be
seen as a model for Latin American countries in terms of liberalizing trade and
economic regulations, the Asian country’s international presence also raises
concerns since it remains a politically repressed country," Bamrud says.
The
Panama Canal is a key waterway
for U.S.-China cargo shipments as well as a major transit route for much of the
cargo going between the United States and other countries.
In
the novel, veteran CIA agent and former Navy diver Jack Dallas is sent to
Panama after a CIA informant in Panama with possible information on the Chinese
take-over has been killed. Dallas starts looking at the Hong Kong company that
runs the canal ports and his investigation leads him to a prominent businessman
in Shanghai, bankers in Monaco and Russian mobsters in Miami before finding out
the truth and racing to prevent a major catastrophe in the canal.
Bamrud,
the recipient of two awards from the American Society of Business Press
Editors, has covered Latin American affairs for more than 20 years for various
media, including Reuters, UPI, The Miami Herald, Christian Science Monitor,
Detroit News, Global Finance, and Latin Trade magazine (where he
worked as editor-in-chief).
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