Why panama and not nicaragua

The Chinese government has remained resolutely silent on the Nicaragua canal, which has concerned scientists because of the environmental damage they say it would cause. The Proposed Nica Canal is either an economic or political statement for China.

In a most simple analysis an basic evaluation, neither makes sense to the common man of the world — or Nicaragua. While on the otherhand, clean water and saving the environment makes all the more sense.

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View author publications. Rights and permissions Reprints and Permissions. About this article. Cite this article Chen, J. In a rare interview in the Financial Times last June , he described himself as "a very ordinary Chinese citizen" who lives in Beijing with his mother, younger brother, and daughter.

His profile on the HKND website states that he is on the board of 20 companies, doing business in 35 countries. He is described as having made his pile in telecommunications.

While his domestic ventures appear robust, his companies' projects overseas have met with "spotty" success , according to a story published in the South China Morning Post not long after he signed the deal to build the canal. There were no other bidders. How a firm with no proven record in heavy engineering, let alone experience with a project of this scale and complexity, could have been awarded the canal concession, and why such a multibillion-dollar public works project was not put out to open tender, are questions economists, engineers, and environmentalists are asking.

By any reckoning, Wang Jing and his backers—widely believed to be the Chinese government—have landed a sweet deal. Under the agreement, HKND has exclusive rights to build and operate the canal for 50 years, extendable for another The company can keep all the income, will be exempt from taxes for a century, and will enjoy a breathtaking degree of legal immunity.

The Nicaraguan government assumes liability for any cleanup costs for environmental damage and irrevocably waives its own sovereign immunity, which means HKND is free to sue for any loss or damages.

The terms of the deal are so generous and far-reaching that parts of Nicaragua's constitution had to be rewritten to allow for them. In exchange for all this, HKND agreed to give the Nicaraguan government a one percent shareholding in the canal for each year of operation. HKND will have carte blanche to put the canal anywhere it sees fit, acquire any land needed for the project by right of eminent domain, and hold rights to whatever minerals are found during construction. Normally by law you would have to produce a full environmental impact assessment to proceed with such a project, and go through the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

But with this, it all rests in the hands of the Canal Authority [the local body charged with overseeing construction]. Instead of commissioning an independent environmental study of its own, the Nicaraguan government will rely on one contracted out by HKND to a U.

HKND is under no obligation to make public the results. Neither HKND nor Environmental Resources Management responded to requests for interviews, but HKND says on its website that the company "is committed to explore this area with great care and to adhere to international standards of environmental responsibility as it proceeds. They called for an independent assessment of the project by an international panel of experts. They're also not known for being particularly good guardians of the environment.

The reserve contains the second largest rain forest in the Western Hemisphere, after the Amazon Basin forest. The San Juan itself would need to be dammed to regulate the water needed to operate the locks in the canal. Mangroves and sea turtle nesting sites on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts would be bulldozed, coral reefs destroyed, and the migratory corridors of jaguars and other animals interrupted. The lives of indigenous people, such as the Rama, Garifuna, Miskito, and Ulwa, would be undermined or destroyed, with hundreds of villages evacuated to make way for the canal and its accompanying infrastructure.

And then there's Lake Nicaragua, known locally as Cocibolca. Whichever route the canal takes, it will certainly include the expanse of Lake Nicaragua. At Nicaragua, on the other hand, the Atlantic terminal is unsatisfactory, because of the enormous quantities of sand emptied into the sea by the San Juan River, and carried across the proposed mouth of the canal by the trade winds.

The harbor on the Pacific will also have to be artificially constructed. Furthermore, two additional harbors wilf be necessary at the entrance and exit of the canal at the great inland sea of Lake Nicaragua. Were the two canals both finished and open to traffic, the time of transit by the mile Panama Canal would be only twelve hours, whereas by the mile Nicaragua Canal the time of transit will be thirty-three hours.

This article was originally published with the title "Nicaragua or Panama" in SA Supplements 52, supp, December Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue.

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