Wang Jing of China plans for canal through Nicaragua

HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. chairman Wang Jing greets youths on Monday during the start of the first works of the Grand Canal in Brito, Nicaragua. (Jairo Cajina/Presidential Palace Nicaragua via Reuters)

(1) What are the economic & geopolitical implications of Nicaragua's new canal, which is being built by China to rival that of Panama's? - Quora
The current plan, put forward by the Hong Kong-based HK Nicaragua Canal Development Group head Wang Jing, is that the 278 kilometre canal could be in place as early as 2019. That is an impossibly short amount of time, considering the huge logistical difficulties it will have to overcome, not to mention the opposition of locals who will see huge container ships and oil tankers sail through Nicaragua's largest freshwater lake, Lake Nicaragua, and have their land appropriated for the venture by a government which has lacked basic transparency in the past, plus the political opposition which has said that the concession granted to Wang Jing violates national sovereignty. It is a doozy of a deal too, giving Wang control over a huge swath of land for 100 years, not just for the canal but for ports, locks, airports and rail. 

China's 'ordinary' billionaire behind grand Nicaragua canal plan | Reuters

Wang Jing, the enigmatic businessman behind Nicaragua's $50 billion Interoceanic Grand Canal, shrugs off skepticism about how a little-known entrepreneur can be driving a huge transcontinental project, insisting he's not an agent of the Beijing government.
"I know you don't believe me," said Wang, who reckons that he's forked-out about $100 million in canal preparation work, and is burning as much as $10 million a month on the project.
"You believe there are people from the Chinese government in the background providing support. Why, in the end, is only Wang Jing out front?"
High-ranking Chinese officials including President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and former leaders Jiang Zemin and Wen Jiabao have all visited the state-connected wireless communication technologies company Wang took control of four years ago.


Nicaragua's Canal: Chinese Tycoon Wang Jing Wants to Build It - Businessweek
In a placid lagoon about a mile inland from the Atlantic coast in southeast Nicaragua, the mast of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s dredge boat rises out of the water. The railroad tycoon abandoned it along with his dream of building an interoceanic canal in the 1850s. More than 160 years and several failed plans later, Wang Jing, a 40-year-old Chinese telecommunications billionaire, has emerged as the next mogul to give it a go. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who fought the U.S.-backed contras in the 1980s, signed a 50-year concession on June 14 that grants Wang’s HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. (HKND) rights to develop a $40 billion project that includes a canal, an oil pipeline, two deepwater ports, an interoceanic railroad, and two airports.

Nicaragua canal could allow Chinese submarines to cross from Atlantic to Pacific | Daily Mail Online
A $50billion canal to be built by a Chinese tycoon in Nicaragua would be deep enough to allow submarines to pass through undetected. And there are concerns that the canal, which would be 26metres deep, would be large enough for Chinese submarines to pass from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean undetected, reports Quartz. It would be twice the depth of the Panama canal, for which it would be a serious rival and give China an effective route in to the continent and the country itself, which is listed as one of the potential states that could be the next low-cost manufacturing power house as China's economy grows and moves into new sectors.

Why is a Chinese tycoon building a $50 billion canal in Nicaragua that no one wants? - Quartz
Few shipping industry observers forecast a need for a second canal in the region, and the canal is being built to accommodate extra-large bulk cargo ships that aren’t commonly used yet, and may never be popular. As initial construction for the project gets underway, violent protests are breaking out among Nicaraguans who object to losing their land or seeing Central America’s largest freshwater lake, Lake Nicaragua, be dredged.

Why the Chinese-backed Nicaragua canal may be a disaster - The Washington Post 
The proposed canal, which is expected to take at least five years to be built, has been heavily criticized by environmental experts and campaigners, as well as activists who fear it may simply be a lucrative boondoggle for President Daniel Ortega and his allies in power. Hundreds of protesters blocked a highway leading to the capital Managua on Monday, but they were removed by what they deemed a "militarized" police response.
The Panama Canal, which marked its centennial this year, raises perhaps the most pertinent question regarding HKND's Nicaraguan pipe dream: Does the world really need it? A $5.25 billion expansion of the Panama Canal -- which, unlike the Nicaragua project, was approved after a national referendum -- is expected to be completed by 2016. By some estimates, even if the Nicaragua project managed to capture all of the Panama Canal's traffic, it would possibly take more than three decades for Wang and company to pay off their initial investment.

China's Might Driving Plan for Nicaragua Canal - China Digital Times (CDT)
In December 2014, ground broke for the Nicaragua canal project, which is being built by Chinese billionaire Wang Jing and his Hong Kong-based Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. (HKND Group). Since the project was first announced, questions about Wang Jing’s political connections and the environmental and social impact of the construction have persisted. In a five-part multimedia series for McClatchy, Tim Johnson examines the political, social, economic, and environmental ramifications of the planned canal project, which he calls, “without doubt the largest earth-moving project of the modern era”; 50,000 workers will be needed to dig a 90-foot-deep ditch across the entire country of Nicaragua.
In part two of the series, Johnson looks at protests against the canal by various groups in Nicaragua:
Part three looks at the perils faced by Nicaragua’s Rama Indians from the canal and accompanying migrants. Part four examines how many details about the canal project remain hidden from public view. In accompanying videos, McClatchy visits three towns along the canal’s proposed path: