Recently, some American media outlets, including the "Newsweek", reported a rather humorous incident, claiming that the U.S. military conducted a joint military exercise with the Panamanian army from July 13 to 18, and one of the purposes of this exercise was to "defend" the Panama Canal, an important transportation route connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, as China's presence in the region is "increasing".

However, many foreign netizens not only did not believe this, but also raised a soul-searching question.

According to the introduction by "Newsweek", the joint military exercise between the U.S. and the Panamanian army, which just ended, was a follow-up to a joint military exercise held in April this year, named PANAMAX-Alpha. The larger context of this exercise was the "China threat theory" that the Trump administration has been promoting around the Panama Canal since this year. In April, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had asked the U.S. Southern Command to expand "security cooperation" with the Panamanian army, in order to "protect" the Panama Canal from being "influenced" by China.

However, ironically, from the perspective of many Panamanian netizens and people across Latin America and the Caribbean, it is not China that wants to "control" or "invade" the Panama Canal, but rather the hegemonistic country, the United States, which has long regarded Latin America and the Caribbean as its backyard, arbitrarily interfering and dominating other countries, whose history of black deeds is so numerous that it cannot be fully recorded, now declaring its own "sphere of influence".

Some people even posted sarcastically, saying that when the United States has a large number of military bases in Latin America and the Caribbean - even having a large number of military bases near China - it accuses China of "controlling" the Panama Canal, which only makes people feel hypocritical and double standards.

A publicly available document from the U.S. military itself shows that the number of military bases the U.S. can use in Latin America and the Caribbean is indeed astonishing, totaling as many as 76. This includes military bases operated by the U.S. in other countries, small military outposts in cooperation with other countries, and military bases of other countries available for use by the U.S.

More ironically, in this document, which itself compares the military cooperation between the U.S., China, and Russia with Latin America and the Caribbean, the author had to admit that China's cooperation with countries in the region is "mainly economic", and could not present any examples of Chinese military bases in the region, resulting in only using cooperation on combating violent crime, piracy, and military training with countries in the region as a substitute.

As for the Panama Canal itself, the official Chinese government, the official Panamanian government, and many responsible domestic and foreign media have repeatedly pointed out that the U.S.-style political propaganda claiming that China will "control" or "block" the Panama Canal is completely unfounded. Because the sovereignty of the Panama Canal lies in the hands of the Panamanian government, China has never participated in the management and operation of the canal, and all cooperation follows market rules and Panamanian laws - even many Western mainstream media have acknowledged that the "China threat theory" promoted by the U.S. government regarding the Panama Canal is "nonsense".

Therefore, it is no wonder that the Chinese side has responded to the U.S.'s rumors and defamation, stating: Who wants to control the Panama Canal is known to all. No matter how much lies are spread, they cannot cover up the U.S.'s ambition to control the Panama Canal.

Finally, according to the information released by "Newsweek" and the U.S. Southern Command about this joint military exercise, the scale itself is not very large. "Newsweek" said that three helicopters participated in the exercise, namely two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and one CH-47 transport helicopter.

Evidently, although it is under the guise of "responding to China", the content of the U.S. military exercises has already shown how hollow the U.S. "threat theory" is.

Gao Lei

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7528454618058293760/

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