The silk route

email from JKS Weerasekera

The designs of China is mainly reflected in the future of shipping :

Today clearly China is the manufacture and supply depot of the world. Everything conceivable in USA to Down under is manufactured in China, which has become the Worlds 2nd largest economy. Its still climbing.

As it is and well in to the future, China is going to need 2 things to keep this going:

1) Energy

2) Raw Material  

China's own supplies are limited. So it ships in both from South America, Africa and Middle East (as continents). What happens in the Atlantic is not our concern. But what happens in the Indian Ocean IS.  We sit right in the mid way point between China AND Africa/Middle East.

To facilitate this supply route China is taking 2 strategies, called the String of Pearls. 1 is a sea route, going through the straights of Malacca.



The Strait of Malacca is a narrow, 805 km (500 mi) stretch of water between the Malaysian Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.  The strait is the main shipping channel between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean,where over 94,000 vessels pass through the strait each year, carrying about one-fourth of the world's traded goods.

The maximum size of a vessel that can pass through the Strait is referred to as Malaccamax. For some of the world's largest ships (mostly oil tankers), the Strait's minimum depth (25 metres or 82 feet) isn't deep enough. 

A typical Malaccamax tanker can have a maximum length of 333 m (1,093 ft), beam of 60 m (197 ft), draught of 20.5 m (67.3 ft), and tonnage of 300,000 DWT. Similar equivalent in DWT of container carriers. 

But to China, Malacca is a bottleneck and a security threat. Its entire supply line depends on the Straits. An alternative is the Sunda straits and to a degree Lombok. But these can't even accommodate the capacities of MalaccaMax. So shipping via this route requires smaller vessels.

On the other hand China is heavily dependent on Middle East Oil AND carting it through Malacca.  The Middle East can suddenly stop supplies, or the Malacca strait can be blockaded. 

However, risk can be mitigated, if it can be stored somewhere neutral and friendly. Some Place that can be easily defended, navally. And an alternate land line is an urgent requirement!

Enter Sri Lanka AND Bangladesh. 

Security and alternate route vise, Ship anything to Bangladesh/Myanmar and it can be hauled to China (or piped) over land.

Sri Lanka is the Mid point between African/Middle Eastern Supply of Energy/Raw Material to Demands of China. It is also the Midpoint of Supply of Manufactured goods from China/Taiwan/Thailand/Korea/Malaysia/Japan to Demands of India/Pakistan/Middle East/Europe (via Suez)/Africa.....

Sri Lanka is the ideal transshipment hub and storehouse for China. 

1) Sri Lanka is an independent economy (which status is hotly contested by West/India and China) and cannot covertly be approached by any fleet Naval or Air, without ample observation time. The entire Chinese naval fleet can be parked in Trinco. A single monitoring and surveillance vessel parked off the southern tip of Sri Lanka will give ample warning. Thus it is easily Defendable and Dependable.

That is why the West wants a lackey lick RW in power to cow-tow with them.... MR observed, hesitated, then chose- that choice was to align with China and the Asia Resurgence.

However their exists a delicate symbiotic relationship between China and the West. Without Chinese goods and money the western economies crumble. So there is unlikely to be an open war between the systems.... only long drawn coldwar type stale mates.

2) Thus any goods and Oil stored in Sri Lanka is safe.  And if sufficient quantities are stored it can be a wonderful stockpile to feed off until whatever such stalemate runs out of time, and self resolves. 

3) The theory of economics (as well as geographic restrictions) of Shipping and Ship Size by DWT.

On the one hand we saw that there are 2-3 bottle necks in the Shipping routes between China and Europe. (USA/Australia/New Zealand no issues)  That is SuezMax and MalaccaMax.  This constriction is geographic in nature. No vessel bigger thatn SuezMax can sail through the Suez canal, no vessels larger than MalaccaMax can sail through the straits of Malacca. 

The typical deadweight of a Suezmax ship is about 160,000 tons and typically has a beam (width) of 50 m (164.0 ft). Also of note is the maximum head room—"air draft"—limitation of 68 m (223.1 ft), resulting from the 70 metres (230 ft) height above water of the Suez Canal Bridge. Suez Canal Authority produces tables of width and acceptable draft, which are subject to change. From 2010, the wetted surface cross sectional area of the ship is limited by 1006 m², which means 20.1 metres (66 ft) of draught for ships with the beam no wider than 50.0 m (164.0 ft) or 12.2 metres (40 ft) of draught for ships with maximum allowed beam of 77.5 metres (254 ft).

The largest size of ship capable of fitting through the 25-metre-deep (82 ft) Strait of Malacca where bulk carriers and supertankers have been built to this size, and the term is chosen for very large crude carriers (VLCC). A typical Malaccamax tanker can have a maximum length of 333 m (1,093 ft), beam of 60 m (197 ft), draught of 20.5 m (67.3 ft), and tonnage of 300,000 DWT.

This is a classification by TEU and sailing economics.