Last week wrote about how much does the Suez Canal make in a year? Can you feed a country? Let's talk about the Super Canal today.
The Suez Canal and the Panama Canal are recognized as epic achievements in the length of human shipping (99% credit goes to nature and 1% to human construction). They have greatly shortened the transportation distance of bulk goods between oceans and continents, promoted economic globalization, and profoundly changed the world economic map. However, there are two sides to everything, a few happy families have a few sorrows, not all countries and regions have benefited from the two canals, and some are even "victimized". According to some opinions, it makes sense to say that the two super canals "locked" the development of the southern hemisphere.
The location of the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal is heavenly-chosen and breathtaking! The Suez Canal is located at the junction of the old continent of the world - Asia, Europe and Africa, opening up the shortest distance between East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and Europe and North Africa, saving seven or eight thousand kilometers compared with the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, and since its opening in 1869, it has greatly promoted the prosperity of trade between the East and the West.
The Panama Canal, a long and thin isthmus between North and South America, was dug in 1914 at its narrowest point, greatly shortening the navigation time from the east coast to the west coast of the Americas, and becoming an important hub in international trade and military strategy. The completion of these two canals is said to be a feat of human engineering, and I don't think it's very difficult for today's infrastructure maniacs, but I think it's a miracle of nature - God made such a good location and such a suitable isthmus. They have played an immeasurable role in the process of global economic integration.
Polarization on the planet is getting worse! Many people have noticed the gap between developed and developing countries, between Europe and the United States, between the West and the East in Asia...... Didn't pay much attention to the even greater gap between the northern and southern hemispheres. The southern hemisphere has a small land area and a much smaller population than the northern hemisphere, and there are no developed economies other than Australia and New Zealand. Even Australia and New Zealand have degenerated into mineral, agricultural and tertiary economies, and the entire southern hemisphere has gradually moved away from the frontiers of industrialization and technology. South America was once wide, and South Africa was once a developed country, but now it is lonely. The southern hemisphere has been reduced to the planet's agricultural and raw material producers. Only Australia, which has a small population and rich resources, has a very small number of islands. Countries in the southern hemisphere have a limited voice in the global economic system, and they lag far behind the northern hemisphere in all aspects.
The view that the Super Canal is detrimental to the countries of the southern hemisphere – southern Africa and South America – is mainly due to the marginalization of many countries and regions on these two continents, and the disadvantages include but are not limited to the following:
1. The flow of people and logistics in coastal areas is not prosperous. It turns out that between Asia, Europe and Africa in the Old Continent, and even North America, a coastal country in the India Ocean, the route has to go around the east and west coasts of Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, and many of them go from the Suez Canal; Originally, ships between the east and west coasts of North America, and even East Asia to the east coast of the Americas had to bypass the east and west coasts of South America, and the Strait of Magellan at the top had many of them gone through the Panama Canal. These places are originally located on the edge, and there are basically no people from other continents on the land route, and the sea route is cut off again, and the logistics and popularity are even more withered, affecting development.
The construction of the Pinglu Canal may allow Guangxi to divert the logistics of the Pearl River Delta and go directly to the sea from the Beibu Gulf; Hubei is preparing to build the Jinghan Canal to straighten the Jingjiang waterway, which will affect the popularity and ship gas of Chenglingji Port in Hunan...... It's the same thing, but the proportions of the impact are different.
2. The transportation distance is relatively longer. South America and southern Africa, from the middle of the route, went to the edge. Other people's transportation costs have decreased, and your transportation distance and cost have increased relatively, weakening the competitiveness of these countries and regions' export products in the international market, while the increase in import costs has also inhibited domestic consumption and industrial upgrading. Coupled with the economic dependence formed in history, it is often difficult for South American countries to get rid of the label of "raw material exporters", and their economic development has fallen into a vicious circle.
It should be emphasized that it is too absolute and simplistic to say that "two super canals lock up the development of the southern hemisphere", and the rationale for this view is only to emphasize that there are two sides to everything, and that the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal have promoted global economic integration while exacerbating the marginalization of the southern hemisphere. We can't just look at the good and not the bad; Location is very important, and it is also a vivid example of the impact of geography on development.