The Impact of China on the Security Environment of Latin America and the Caribbean

When the Panamanian government assumed control over that nation’s canal from the United States on December 31, 1999, one of its first major decisions was to award port concessions at both the Atlantic and Pacific entrances to the Hong Kong–based firm Hutchison-Whampoa, prompting conservative U.S. politicians to warn that a waterway vital to the movement of U.S. military forces was falling into the hands of ‘red China’ (Garvin 1999; BBC News 1999).