this video is made possible by curiosity
stream get the curiosity stream nebula
bundle deal currently on sale for just
over a dollar a month at
curiositystream.com
real life lore china is on the rise and
has been for the last several decades
economically speaking even just half a
century ago in the early 1970s
the chinese gdp per capita was on a par
with mali and haiti
at just over 100 while today it has
surpassed countries like russia and is
over ten
thousand dollars a 100 fold increase
further the economy in total ranks
second in the world behind only the
united states in terms of overall
nominal gdp
this incredible increase in the chinese
economy has brought about unprecedented
levels of prosperity
and new economic visions such as the
belt and road initiative which is aimed
at investing globally to increase trade
and develop a 21st century version
of what was the old silk road as part of
this economic vision
china has engaged something like 138
countries
and 30 international organizations and
provided funding for
large infrastructure projects across the
world like ports
railways and more one specific piece of
this vision is what is known as the
maritime silk road which covers the sea
route from china stretching across the
south china sea
over the indian ocean towards africa and
on through the suez canal
reaching europe through several main
ports on the mediterranean
essentially it's a complimentary
initiative to the main portions of the
initiative
aimed at investing and fostering
relationships with other countries
while ensuring that chinese goods can be
supplied globally
but if we zoom in on europe specifically
we can see two ports that china has
focused on more than most
the greek port of piras and the italian
port of trieste here
china has invested hundreds of millions
of dollars into infrastructure and
improvements hoping to increase capacity
and ensure that chinese goods are able
to be delivered all across europe
but there's just one problem although
these ports do
grant access to europe it's still a very
long truck or train ride across the
continent
from them to reach other major cities
and towns
not to mention that trucks and trains
are not nearly as efficient as boats and
neither are planes for that matter
of course if you do wish to continue
sailing by ship to reach the rest of
europe
geography does offer you another option
but it does require a slight detour
rather than heading straight inland
towards the heart of europe through a
port like trieste
your ships may instead turn east through
the turkish straits passing through the
dardanelles and on through the bosphorus
before entering the black sea
from here ships can continue sailing up
along the coast and
into the mouth of the danube river which
will grant your ships access to much of
europe through cities like belgrade
budapest vienna and regensburg further
with the completion of the rhine-danube
canal in the early 1990s ships can move
along this route even further than
before and reach all the way up to the
north sea if desired with access to
europe's largest port in rotterdam
but what if you could pass through the
danube and all of the cities and ports
alongside it through
maybe a more direct route well this is
exactly what china as well as several
other countries in the european region
are exploring as a direct route to the
danube from the mediterranean sea would
provide
an incredible benefit it turns out there
are actually two paths being considered
for this proposed shortcut
option one would connect the danube to
the aegean sea near greece by using two
existing rivers the morava river which
runs through serbia and the vardar river
which runs through north macedonia and
on into greece
by connecting these rivers via a canal
and widening the river at some points
there would be a clean path all the way
from thessaloniki on the coast of the
aegean sea all the way up to just east
of belgrade on the danube river
of course this option doesn't come
without its challenges as much of the
river would be required to be widened
and cleaned up
you see today much of the river is quite
narrow which would prevent the passage
of many cargo ships
and according to european canal
standards the minimum depth must be at
least four meters and the total width of
the canal must be at least 28 meters
meaning that although this route could
make use of the existing rivers there
would still be a lot of work to do
to allow full-on cargo ships to pass
through in a similar manner
option two would be to connect the
danube through to the adriatic sea near
venice
this route although still being
considered is admittedly a bit tougher
to traverse from a geography standpoint
the proposed channel would run up
through the northern part of italy and
connect through the austrian alps via an
88 kilometer long
tunnel that would then pass through
germany up through to near pasau where
access to the danube would be granted
this route like the previous one would
be approximately 700 kilometers in
length and make use of smaller existing
rivers stemming from the austrian alps
however being that this route would
require an extremely long tunnel
kilometers long it would be incredibly
difficult
but it like the first option would save
a massive amount of time for future
cargo ships
as opposed to going through the black
sea route for example while considering
the first option
the distance from the aegean sea to
belgrade via the black sea and along the
danube
is roughly 1900 kilometers compare this
to the distance that you would take
through the canal
which would be somewhere around 1 000
kilometers from the middle of the aegean
sea to belgrade therefore
ships entering the mediterranean via the
suez canal from asia like chinese cargo
vessels
would each be saving around 900
kilometers of transportation time to
major european ports and cities like
budapest vienna and rotterdam if this
canal existed
and at an average sailing speed of 10
kilometers an hour that would be the
difference in nearly eight
days of sailing normally versus just
over four days with the canal
now of course you would have to add in
some extra time for canal locks and
possibly some traffic
but you get the point it would save a
massive amount of time and also be
way more efficient which ultimately
will save the chinese a lot of money
on the average a european class 5 barge
with a length of 109 meters and a width
of 11.4 meters can transport about 2
000 tons of goods at a time in order to
transport that same amount of goods over
land you'd either need
82 trucks or 42 train cars boats and
barges are simply more efficient than
any land-based transportation method
they require significantly less crew to
operate take up way less resources
and are much more environmentally
friendly too
and while you might think why hasn't
this been thought of sooner
well it actually has you see the origins
of connecting the danube to the
mediterranean in this fashion can be
traced all the way back to the 1840s
when the idea was originally discussed
in 1907 the united states actually
established an engineering commission to
perform a study of the proposed paths
that could connect the danube to the
mediterranean
and determine if a canal could be
reasonably built but
after a few let's say turbulent
geopolitical events in the area
over the course of the 20th century like
the balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 the
first world war the collapse of the
ottoman empire the second world war
the cold war the collapse of yugoslavia
and the yugoslav wars of the 1990s
the project was eventually put aside the
past century has been
infamously chaotic for the balkans and
chaos breeds
fear and uncertainty which are things
that outside investors generally don't
appreciate
even today a project like the canal from
the aegean up to belgrade would be
complicated by
numerous modern geopolitical factors for
example
the first option for a canal would have
to begin in greece an eu member state
and run through north macedonia and
serbia before entering the danube both
of whom
are non-eu member states serbia's
relationship with kosovo has been the
primary factor in them never being able
to join the european union
while historically both greece and
bulgaria have blocked north macedonia
from being able to join either
would all of these countries be capable
of working together to build one of
europe's largest canals
and further on how would turkey feel
about all of this
for thousands of years now the city of
istanbul and previously constantinople
has been located at one of the most
strategic locations on the planet at the
entry point between the black and
mediterranean seas
which is given the city and whoever
controls it immense
power and influence over both regional
and world affairs
if the chinese helped to fund a canal
from the danube to the aegean
it would effectively give ships moving
between the seas or between the danube
and the mediterranean
an easy way to circumvent the bosphorus
for the first time
in human history and radically alter the
geopolitical reality of the area forever
it would inevitably diminish the
strategic
location of istanbul and as a
consequence turkey might not end up
being too happy about it
however as china looks to expand her
influence abroad and
influence in global geopolitics we can
expect high dollar infrastructure
projects like this to happen
some way or another at some point in the
future and despite the project's
projected
20 billion dollar price tag it wouldn't
be too surprising seeing the thing
actually get built anyway sometime in
the next few decades
since the project is both technically
feasible with modern technology
and certainly economically justifiable
from the chinese and probably european
perspectives too
it may be the best time since 1907 to
look at altering the geography of the
balkans for
economic gain and it's definitely the
best time in history to look into buying
the nebula curiosity stream bundle 2.
as you probably know by now nebula is
absolutely
full of content from your favorite
educational creators and me
there's my nebula exclusive series ghost
towns every real life lore video goes up
at least one full day early and none of
them have any ads
my new channel bioarc has videos going
up a full week early before they do on
youtube
and i'm working on a new original series
called bioarc after dark
and with that bundle you also get access
to curiosity streams
thousands of top quality professional
documentaries like
cities of tomorrow which will take you
into a deep dive into the world of the
future across
three episodes that will explain in rich
detail what life in our cities will be
like 50 years from now
and if that isn't your cup of tea then
there's thousands of other documentaries
to choose from between subjects like
engineering
history science nature and more and
right now the nebula curiosity stream
bundle is on sale for less than fifteen
dollars for the entire year so please
make sure to head over to
curiositystream.com
real life lore get the bundle deal and
help support not only myself
and real life lore but dozens of other
educational
and thoughtful independent creators and
as always
thank you so much for watching