Panama's Tocumen International Airport may be a critical American vulnerability that China can exploit during a war.
China's digital influence in Panama's air and sea transportation infrastructure is deep:
In Panama, this has included Huawei establishing a regional hub for telecommunications and logistics support, supplying backbone infrastructure that underpins government and private operations. Through Digital Silk Road initiatives, Chinese firms have bundled port-management software, biometric security systems, and surveillance equipment at Tocumen, often via commercial contracts with maintenance ecosystems that create proprietary lock-in. Despite recent U.S.-supported efforts to replace certain Huawei-linked systems, these layered maintenance and software dependencies remain difficult and costly to unwind.
In my now than two decades old essay on how China could invade Taiwan, I mentioned a shot across the bow in Panama:
First, the Chinese will want to isolate the battlefield. This will start a week before the opening shots.
The Chinese should arrange an accident in the Panama Canal that blocks the waterway quite solidly for a good two weeks. Perhaps a volatile cargo will make it too risky to move fast until all the facts are in about the cargo and what it will take to secure it before refloating the ship and getting it out of the locks. Our carriers may not be able to use the canal but smaller warships and supply vessels use it, not to mention pure civilian traffic that relies on the canal. The disruption will hinder our movement and provide a warning jolt to our economy.
China may have far more subtle means of sending a message to America to back off. Or to cut us off.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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NOTE: Image from here.
