Chinese sweat and blood – not soldiers – have left their mark on Panama Canal

Donald Trump has invoked the spectre of Chinese influence to justify his expansionist ambitions for the Panama Canal. But China has already left its mark on the famous waterway – just not in the way Trump has claimed.

Trump, set to return to the role of US president on Monday, threatened last month to retake the vital waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He said the canal was being operated by Chinese soldiers – a claim Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino has denied.

However, there has been plenty of Chinese money flowing into Panama in recent years. In 2017, it became the first Latin American country to join the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s strategy to build global trade and infrastructure links.

The Chinese presence in Panama can be traced back even further, to the 1850s, when workers from China arrived to build the Panama Railway and later the canal. For over six decades, they shed sweat and blood – and thousands paid with their lives – to build the projects, the latter of which was under sole US control until the late 1970s.

Coast to coast

The California gold rush, which began in 1848, prompted a need for transport between the east and west coasts of the US. The easiest route for gold seekers to get from coast to coast was the “Panama short cut”, which involved sailing down the east coast of North America to Panama, then crossing a jungle to reach the Pacific Ocean where they would board a ship to San Francisco. Goods followed a similar route via Panama.

  

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