If the much-ballyhooed canal across Nicaragua from the Atlantic to the Pacific is ever built, we are told, it will be one of the great engineering projects of our age. But, then again, we have heard that before. The dream has been around since the days of the conquistadores in the 1500s.
The current project is supposed to cost $50 billion, financed by a mysterious Chinese businessman named Wang Jing who is backed, almost certainly, by the Chinese government behind the scenes.
What more spectacular way for Beijing to establish itself in the back yard of the United States than to dig an enormous ditch through it?