THE DRAGON ON OUR DOORSTEP

Jamaica Signs Deal For China-Built Cargo Shipping Hub

Image: CIA WORLD FACT BOOK

KINGSTON,  (Reuters) - "The Jamaican government has signed a preliminary agreement with one of China’s leading construction companies for the development of a controversial transshipment hub off its southwest coast, Jamaica’s state information service said yesterday: READ THE FULL STORY.

AAB COMMENTARY: Dragons speak with forked tongues. China claims the entire South and East China Seas right into the shallows before the beaches of the Philippine main islands and the southern most islands of Japan. The Dragon wants no international waters in the China seas, arms of the Pacific open to the Pacific and Indian Ocean through many passes of varying width, some quite wide. The Dragon finds it quite inconvenient that it's sea coast faces outlying island nations often hundreds of miles across the waters. So its response is to declare the China Seas its exclusive territory in violation of international conventions that China long ago signed off on.

 Many people around the world have called the Caribbean Sea "an American Lake". But the United States Government never has. Chinese merchant ships, and on rare occasions Chinese naval ships ply these waters which the U.S. could easily militarily control undisturbed. Why? Because under international law the Caribbean Sea is not an "American Lake" and neither is the Gulf of Mexico though the United States surrounds most of it on three sides and has an approximately 200 mile wide exclusive economic zone. Despite its overwhelming naval power, the United States doesn't interfere with the sovereign rights of others even this close from our shores, even when the business deals of China directly harm the U.S. economy. As a great power, the United States restrains itself from enforcing its own apparent best economic and military interests by force of naval arms in favor of the rule of international law. Why? Because conforming to international law is in the best interest of everybody including those who are powerful enough to get away with not doing so at the moment.

 The container port hub project as designed, is planned as an addition to the existing port of Bustamante in Kingston.  The "hub port" is designed to facilitate faster distribution of container cargo, mainly from China, throughout Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean region. The Chinese construction contractor estimates the project may take five years to complete. Let's hope that within those five years the Dragon ceases its aggression against its neighbors. Continued aggression will eventually lead to an "accident",  if the Dragon fires on a U.S. ally all of that investment in Panama, Cuba, Nicaragua,and  now Jamaica will be lost in a heart beat. The United States will not tolerate potential enemy naval installations in a region within striking distance of its own shores which it can easily control. Unlike China, the U.S. would never move aggressively against these installations unless there was an actual war. China is perfectly free to pursue the maximum return on its investment, but an errant shot in the Dragon's own neighborhood may result in a dragon eradication  program in our neighborhood.

                                           



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