South of the Border Down Bejing Way?

Oregon's foggy and cool winter weather always gets me in the mood for some sun about this time of year, so let's head south of the border and see what has transpired since I last posted on events there.

On 7/1/09 I expressed my consternation at U.S. policy in Honduras for backing a Hugo Chavez wannabe, Manuel Zelaya, who was in the early stages of making himself El Maximo Jefe. His own party backed his ouster, as did the Legislature in general, and finally the Honduran Supreme Court. The Obama Administration cut off aid and demanded that Zelaya be reinstalled as El Presidente despite the fact that Zelaya's own vice president took over as a caretaker president and promised to leave once elections were held in November, 2009. And what happened?

Elections were held, a new President was sworn in as promised, Zelaya took off for the Dominican Republic, and Honduras went bankrupt. insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/february/02/centam-10020202.htm The U.S. has just restarted aid. What a foreign policy triumph for the Obama Administration! And those triumphs are continuing in Central and South America where we - well actually China (China?) - are having further success.

The Chinese have been very busy south of the border for some time. www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/america_bipartisan_latin_folly_diCkLLgXX4fOab8SlhHxeP
Why? Oil is one answer - think Hugo Chavez and Venezuela as one of the bigger oil producing states in the world and China one of the biggest oil consuming nations. But did you know a Chinese company that is well connected to the Chinese Army also runs the Panama Canal? archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/2/6/172958.shtml Perhaps China just wants to protect its trade routes to the U.S., which is reasonable, but why is it entrenching itself at other key shipping choke points around the world like the Straits of Hormuz that handles much of the Middle East oil being exported and the Straits of Malacca where all the oil to Asia passes? themengesproject.blogspot.com/2008/10/chinas-control-of-panama-canal.html Admiral Moorer thinks that they may be setting themselves up to bottle up our Navy and the world flow of oil in the event of a major crisis. Blackmail anyone? I have always admired the long view that the Chinese take when setting up strategy - they think in decades. As an American, however, I strongly believe that we need to understand what China is up to up to and counter with policies that are in our national interest. Not ending up on the same side in Honduras with China's boy Hugo would be a small start at easing him off the South American stage and taking some of China's influence with him.