Abstract

TURZI, Mariano. LATIN AMERICAN SILK ROAD: CHINA AND THE NICARAGUA CANAL. rev.relac.int.estrateg.segur. [online]. 2017, vol.12, n.2, pp.163-178. ISSN 1909-3063.  https://doi.org/10.18359/ries.2308.

The building of the Panama Canal by the US in 1914 proved definitively the ascent of the US to regional hegemony. Shortly after, World War I would lead the US to global primacy. The canal was much more than the construction of a shipping route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; it meant that America was a power capable of and willing to reshaping the Western Hemisphere in its way to becoming a world power. A century later -in 2014- China announced it would begin a similar enterprise in Nicaragua. What are the geopolitical implications for Latin America? Is this signaling a more assertive Chinese foreign policy seeking - by ambition or by necessity- to challenge the US in the Western Hemisphere? Is this geographic reshaping also politically reflecting the emergence of a world power?

Keywords : Latin America; China; United States; geopolitics; Panama.

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