The Panama Canal is an artificial canal connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, located in the Panama Strait, known as the Seven Engineering Wonders of the World.
Its existence is of world significance, why is it so, because North America and South America are connected by land, spanning the entire earth from south to north, and if the ships of the Pacific Ocean want to go to the Atlantic, they can only bypass the entire continent, and such a price is really unbearable.
With the need for a natural solution, the Panama Canal came into being, and since its opening, it has quickly become one of the world's important shipping routes, with a great impact on global trade.
But the fate of the Panama Canal is as bumpy as its own country, and where should this canal go after a hundred years of great power competition?
Construction of canals
The earliest plans to build the Panama Canal appeared in 1534, when the Age of Discovery had arrived, when sailing ships from Europe had opened colonies around the world, and the Spaniards were the first to land in Latin America, but they found that ordinary sailing ships could only reach the east coast of the Americas, and only circumnavigating the globe like Magellan could bypass the Americas and enter the Pacific Ocean, but this was too costly.
So the excavation of the canal became an urgent need, after the survey Panama is the most suitable for excavation, but the technical conditions at that time are very backward, a man-made canal requires a huge amount of manpower and funds, plus sufficient time to do.
But the colonists came to occupy territory and seize resources, no one was willing to waste time and energy on this, King Charles V of Spain was forced to abandon this plan, in fact, the Spanish Empire did not prosper for long, it was defeated by the rising British fleet.
In the course of the colonial movement at that time, no country had absolute control, so the canal plan was stranded. In addition, the biggest purpose of digging the canal was to conquer the Pacific Ocean, but the Europeans found that the Pacific Ocean was too big to cross the Pacific Ocean even if it bypassed the American continent, so that the Panama Canal remained on paper until the arrival of the French.
France later occupied Panama, as the central hub of the American continent, as long as the economic value or military value is unlimited, driven by interests, the French officer Armand found the engineer Lucian in 1877 and hired him to start designing the Panama Canal, because the French have a precedent for building the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal is progressing very smoothly.
With strong domestic support, Armand spent four years gathering funds and manpower, and on January 1, 1881, the canal officially began.
The Length of the Panama Canal is less than half of the Suez Canal, but the climatic conditions and topography here are very harsh, the rainforest is not suitable for large machinery, and the most important thing is that the chief engineer de Recep has high requirements, he insists that the terrain of the canal be level with the sea level, so that the management difficulty in the later period will be much smaller, but it is really difficult to overcome so many topographic factors.
The climate here is divided into dry season rainy season, the four months of the dry season chief engineer is on the scene to supervise, but the person in charge of the rainy season returned to China, the subordinates underestimated the rainy season, the source of the canal Water surges to 10 meters, washed away a lot of equipment, with the flooding of the river, a large number of insects, poisonous snakes everywhere, but also with yellow fever, malaria and other tropical diseases, in such a harsh environment, a large number of workers died in vain, this situation has not been alleviated, until 1884, Nearly 200 people die every month on the site.
Regardless of the situation of the workers, Recep kept sending workers and funds here, the project lasted for 8 years and cost $287 million and still could not be completed, the French authorities could only declare the project bankrupt, Recep and his son were also found to have embezzled the money for the work, sentenced to 5 years in prison, and ridiculously his sentence was overturned by the operation, and the man escaped the trial.
Sadly, 22,000 workers died, their deaths were not compensated, and 800,000 investors threw their money here in vain, but half of the canal could not be stopped, and in 1894 the new Panama Canal Company was founded, which was also a French company, and they did not rush to start construction after they took over, but took care of the project with a little manpower, waiting for the powerful buyers to appear.
U.S. admission
France is also a European country, whether it is to the Americas or Asia does not need to cross the Pacific, the significance of the Panama Canal is not so big for him, but the new economic power of the United States does not think so, they have dominated the American continent with strong economic strength, at this time the east and west of the shipping can not be navigable seriously hindered the development of the country, this matter was highly valued by the White House, so in the efforts of then President Theodore Roosevelt, the US Senate passed a proposal in June 1902, Both were building the Panama Canal, and the project cost $40 million to get it from the French.
In order to prevent problems, the White House specifically requested the formation of the Isthmus Canal Commission, which is directly accountable to the Minister of War, so that the Panama Canal is monitored by the state, notably the chief engineer of the project, or John Findlay Wallace, who was personally appointed by the president.
He found that the construction of the canal in Panama was too difficult, the pit left by his predecessor was also a little deep, repeatedly pondered to the resignation, he did not think that this was a profitable project, in June 1905 Stevens took over, he got Roosevelt's permission, any problems in the project can be reported directly to the presidential administrative team, which made the project have huge resources, the chief engineer took this opportunity to overcome many difficulties.
Two years later Stevens still resigned, his two years of work the biggest contribution is to participate in the construction of workers to provide a full living security, which also laid a good foundation for the completion of the future, the third chief engineer is a civil engineer, he graduated from the West Point Military Academy, has a wealth of experience in canal construction, Salus did not disappoint the Americans, he completed all the remaining projects of the Panama Canal, and in 1914 two years ahead of schedule, the entire project cost nearly 500 million US dollars, which can be said to be the largest engineering project in the United States. The canal was officially opened to traffic on August 15 of that year.
On the day of the opening of the voyage, a huge ship full of cargo, the Amkong, sounded a long whistle and sailed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean in full view of everyone, thus announcing that there was a faster route between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, which made the world shipping look new, but also began a century of strife, and the ownership of the Panama Canal was in contention.
Title disputes
Because the Panamanian state is too weak and has historically been a colony of the major powers, so the United States has control over the canal after building the canal, which the people dare not say, in fact, from the legal point of view, the United States only signed a contract with France, but without Panama's consent, it was illegal from the beginning, but the reality is so.
After world war II, with the establishment of various sovereign states, the national liberation movement in Latin American countries intensified, when some people with lofty ideals began to question the ownership of the canal in the United States, this statement caused a huge response at home, the long-standing anger quickly burned, first in the student group appeared radicals, they launched demonstrations, on the street to call on the people to join the protests, the United States had to send more troops in order to stabilize the situation.
If you think about it, how can a sovereign country allow other countries to station troops, and the Panamanian government does not dare to say anything more in front of the United States.
It did not take long for the Suez Canal to erupt in crisis, because Egypt wanted to regain sovereignty over the canal, but the canal was controlled by Britain and France from the beginning of the excavation, so there was a large-scale protest march in the local area, and the United States mediated the crisis as an intermediary, but his way of dealing with it was to force Britain and France to hand over control, which could anger the Panamanians, since you respect the power of the canal countries elsewhere, why flaunt your might in Panama.
On January 9, 1964, the demonstrations in the country reached their peak, 20 Panamanians were killed by the Us military in the conflict, and 5 American troops were killed.
The two negotiations on sovereignty over the canal expired on September 7, 1977, with the entry into force of the Panama Canal Treaty in the presence of the leaders of both sides, which stipulated that the two countries established a canal management committee to jointly administer the Panama Canal, and the institutions of the canal zone began to gradually transfer, and since then the United States has ceded some of its rights, but the real controller is still the United States.
In 1989, after seeing through the tricks of the Americans, Panama's military dictator Noriega was no longer willing to go against the will of the people and warned the United States that if the treaty was not fulfilled, the canal would be destroyed.
In order to calm the anger of the entire Latin American region, the White House sent a negotiating team to start public relations, and they put forward the most important condition for Panama, that is, when the United States withdrew, no country or institution would be allowed to manage the canal, only Panama itself, and it would be guaranteed to be open forever and absolutely neutral.
He was worried that he would not be able to use the canal at will in the future, which the Panamanian government could guarantee, after all, angering the United States was not a good option. In 1995, the two sides again reached an agreement that the handover process would proceed as usual.
December 31, 1999 is a historic moment, in the presence of the world's media, the United States returned all the ownership of the Panama Canal to the Panamanian government, which has become one of the most important revenues of the country, but the discerning people know that the US military regards Panama as its own canal, as long as there are problems in the future, it will make a comeback.
The United States has benefited a lot
Having said all that, why does the United States attach so much importance to the canal? Why didn't he care so much about the Suez Canal, but the Panama Canal care so much?
In fact, this is also from a geographical point of view, after the opening of the canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the route from the east coast of the United States to the west coast has been shortened by 7,000 to 8,000 nautical miles, and the route to Asia and Europe has also been shortened by 4,000 to 5,000 nautical miles. Behind such a big change is huge economic interests and military value.
For example, since the canal opened to the world in 1920, the United States has earned as much as $45 billion in fees from passing ships in just 60 years, and poor Panama has only received $1.1 billion, not even a fraction.
Not only that, the Canal Zone has become a colony with U.S. troops, the law of the United States is run here, the Panamanian government has no sovereignty, and at most there are more than 60,000 soldiers in it, which is a completely independent kingdom.
Under such circumstances, the Americans are still unreasonable, occupying nearly a hundred years before they are reluctant to hand over to the real masters, such hegemony surprised the world, but they still continue to run amok in the name of democracy.
The Republic of Panama tasted the sweetness of the canal and proposed an expansion plan in 2006, the purpose of which was to widen the river channel and allow larger tonnage cargo ships to pass, because at the time of construction, limited by the volume of cargo ships at that time, the width of the Panama Canal was designed according to the largest warship of the US military, and the navigable cargo ships could not exceed 80,000 tons, which was too far away from the huge ships that were hundreds of thousands of tons.
And over the years, the riverbed has deposited a lot of sediment, and the depth of the canal has been shrinking, and it can only pass 50,000 tons of cargo ships before the expansion, and no matter how big it is, it has to go around.
The expansion project is very large, mainly concentrated at both ends of the canal, and a three-stage lock is built to raise the height, because the water of the canal comes from Gatun Lake, which is 26 meters higher than the sea level, so the locks on both sides need to raise the boat to this height.
The biggest difficulty in the whole project was the design and construction of the gate, the Panamanian company did not have this strength, had to seek the help of European companies, and soon the design came out.
The entire Panama Canal system is equipped with 12 locks, which can allow incoming and outgoing ships to rise and fall in the shortest possible time, which greatly improves the efficiency of navigation, and also increases the buoyancy of the canal, and large ships can easily pass through.
The technical principle can refer to the mainland's Three Gorges Locks, and after the expansion was successfully completed, it was found to have a significant effect according to the data provided by the Panamanian government. An average of 17,000 ships pass through here every year, and the cargo volume has increased from the previous 300 million tons to 600 million tons.
By the 100th anniversary of the expansion in 2014, the Panama Canal had more than doubled its annual revenue and was one of the country's three pillars of the economy.
With the passage of time, this century-old waterway is still playing a huge role, not only on the Americas, but also on the world has a positive impact, as a national treasure of the Panamanian population, he ended the humiliating colonial history and opened a new life belonging to the Panamanian people.