"There is absolutely no Chinese interference or involvement in anything that has to do with the Panama Canal," Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino said at a press conference on the 26th of last month. "There are no Chinese at the canal, no Chinese nor any other world power at the canal."

"There is not a single Chinese soldier in the canal," he added.

Mulino was responding to Donald Trump. On December 25, the president-elect posted this on Truth Social: "Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal."

It's true there are no uniformed People's Liberation Army soldiers now stationed in the Canal Zone. That's not the end of the story, however. Almost certainly there are Chinese operatives and military personnel in civilian garb there. The Panama Canal is a chokepoint that Beijing seeks to control—and undoubtedly close off—in the moments before the next global war.

Trump was right, therefore, to highlight the issue in his Christmas greeting to China's atheists.

"Panama has a giant pork chop around its neck," war correspondent Michael Yon, now in the canal zone, told me this month. "It's called the 'Panama Canal,' and some hungry beast will want to........

© Newsweek