Starting in 2017 Panama signed on with the Chinese government’s Belt and Road Initiative. This prior deal required the Panamanian government to recognize Taiwan as part of China, which of course runs afoul of Washington foreign policy.
Beijing was alarmed when President Donald Trump hailed a deal led by US firm BlackRock to buy most of the $22.8 billion ports business of Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison. This includes assets along the historic canal. The White House under Trump has all the while been very vocal from the start about what it’s described as removing Chinese ownership.
On Tuesday Chinese leader Xi Jinping is said to be ‘angry’ about the plan, especially as BlackRock didn’t seek Beijing’s approval in advance.
The Wall Street Journal in a fresh report says, “The Xi leadership had originally planned to use the Panama port issue as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Trump administration, according to people close to Beijing’s decision-making, only to see the rug pulled out from under it.”
The apparent cooperation of Panama in Trump’s vision to ‘reassert’ American control over the vital trade waterway has been characterized in Chinese state media in recent weeks as a ‘betrayal’ of the Chinese people. […]
— Read More: www.zerohedge.com
