Saturday, October 26, 2019
Surprisingly missing
Looking at the world from the North Pole helps to clarify the stupid Columbus arguments, and also clarifies why the New Silk Road is both important and efficient.
A few days ago I noticed an eye-opening map of the world emphasizing the southern hemisphere. The map showed how Brazil is shipping crops and livestock to China. When you see the world from the usual NYC to London focus, you believe the simplest route would be through the Mediterranean and Suez; or through the Caribbean and Panama. Lots of bottlenecks and war chokepoints. Why bother?
From the south-centered angle you can see clearly that South America is considerably farther south than Africa, so shipping from Rio to Singapore around Capetown is almost a straight line with no chokepoints.
Next question: Singapore has been China's port to the West for a long time. There must be a strong railroad connection from Singapore to China.
Nope.
There are several railroads in that general direction, but surprisingly none of them are fully connected. The New Silk Road is finishing those connections.
¶ 7:50 AM 
