Since the days the marauding white men invaded the world in the name of conquest, colonialism, imperialism and saving the subhumans, controlling maritime choke points have been their main strategic priority. Gibraltar, Suez, Hormuz, Singapore, Cape of Good Hope, the Panama Canal, the two straits of Turkey were fully in their control. Controlling Singapore is controlling the Strait of Malacca.
The contest for waterways and choke points is gaining intensity today with Russia and a rising China. America is still the dominant hegemon with its fleets of aircraft carriers, the game changer against any challenger. But things are changing. China is building its own fleet of aircraft carriers and at the same time making the American aircraft carrier obsolete with their aircraft carrier killer missiles. The Americans are finding their holds on the international choke points and waterways slipping away. It is now not necessary to have aircraft carriers to control choke points. Oops, Chinese aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Thailand can control the Strait of Malacca.
Drone technology and precision missiles are now proving as effective as aircraft carriers to control choke points. Iran is effectively in control of the Strait of Hormuz. And the rag tag militia of Yemen, the Houthis, are in effective control of the Strait of Bab Al Mandab, which also means they are in control of the ships transiting the Suez and the Red Sea. The Chinese have a base in Djibouti overlooking the Strait.
Russia indirectly controls the Dardanelles and Bosphorus Straits through its friendly relations with Turkey. Cape of Good Hope is in South Africa, a founding member of BRICS. The Americans may be in control of the Strait of Malacca through Singapore, but Russia and China are also moving in. And China has invested in 129 ports around the world with majority interest in 17 of them and growing.
China and Russia are now in the race for maritime security to protect their supply chains. Controlling Bab - Al Mandab is an equivalent to controlling the Malacca Strait. The maps of maritime trade and trade routes are changing, no longer a western or American monopoly. And China has regained full control of the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
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Control of the Suez Canal also depends on control of entry and exit into the Red Sea. The Houthis control Bab al-Mandab Strait that provides the gateway towards the Suez Canal. Who therefore controls the Suez Canal is the question if we look at the reality before us.
China has not made much of the issue of the Suez Canal, as the BRI is an alternative route to Europe, all through friendly countries of Central Asia, thanks to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This has been the long- term plan of China to bypass both the Straits of Malacca and the Suez Canal. The USA can block the Isthmus of Kra project and China is unfazed.
Russian oil going by pipelines to China is already in place, with Europe salivating for cheap Russian energy now gone forever. Iranian oil now also goes to China by rail paid for with Chinese investments in infrastructure and basically going towards barter trade, dispensing with the US$ for good. The development of the Gwadar Port by the China in co-operation with Pakistan will open up another link for Middle East oil just in case the Straits of Malacca is blockaded in times of conflict.
The Chinese port in Peru, Chancay Port, also opened up trade between South America and China, bypassing the Panama Canal, another choke point cultivated by the USA that is being dismantled. China is also exploring developing an alternative waterway in Nicaragua that will make the Panama Canal obsolete with water availability problems now killing its operation.
In all these developments, China can trade with Europe using the BRI and South America using Port of Chancay, with Pakistan playing another role in the Middle East energy movements. Those choke points can continue to choke ownself in time to come.
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