Beijing
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China has come out swinging after Panama’s high court ruled against a Hong Kong-backed company’s right to operate key ports at the Panama Canal, vowing the government will “pay a heavy political and economic price” if it did not reverse course.
The vitriol is the latest inflection point in the saga around Chinese interests in the strategic waterway, through which some 40 percent of all US container traffic transits annually, and which has become a focal point of the Trump administration’s aim to oust rival powers from the Western hemisphere.
Hong Kong-based multinational CK Hutchison operates ports across the world through its Hutchison Ports business and…