It’s all about land. Ultimately, even cyberspace is geography.
Recently, Denmark decided to fund a large airport project for Greenland which is part of Denmark but self governed. The project had been unsettled until China started to make progress with a plan to fund and help build an international airport with the possibility of adding a Chinese military base. When this became apparent, U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis entered into the scene and a hasty meeting between him and Danish officials quickly had Greenland overruled by stating the matter was national security and eliminated any further Chinese involvement. The project will be funded by Denmark with some unusual aid from the United States. It is interesting how a domestic infrastructure project in another country became a U.S. security issue.
When it comes down to it, the control of real estate dominates just about everything. To understand how much, let’s examine the nature of the “cloud”. It is a very misleading term. Information travels thru the cloud in seconds and then lands in a computer server which sits in a data center which has a street address like any other building. That’s where the information is most of the time. Some of these locations may be vulnerable to various hazards and hackers. The whole enterprise is much more physical than you would imagine. So who physically controls the transmission system, who controls the servers and who controls the data centers, control the “cloud”.
A recent TV interview from Beijing was interrupted (blacked out) several times by Chinese authorities who did not like the topic of discussion. So much for free airwaves. Internet use is tightly controlled by many nations like China, Russia and others. Some European countries demand that digital information produced there, stays within their country. it is regulated and must be stored in data centers within their country.
The ubiquitous Facebook and Apple must conform their operations to the rules of the country where they want to do business. Usually those countries have access to their systems or transmissions and data centers. Again, it’s not all about technology, it’s real estate. A tiny patch of land, not much bigger than a neighborhood lot can launch a missile capable of hitting another country or a satellite in space.
China is well aware of the importance of territory. They have been developing real estate all over the world for several years. They recently dumped some extra sand on some atolls in the South China Sea and turned them into military bases. For a second time in the past few months, a U.S. Navy warship, sailing thru what used to be international waters, was chased off by a Chinese warship claiming territorial rights.
Real Estate Developments:
ISIL had captured a large swath of land to become its Caliphate.
The Middle East and North Africa are in strife over land.
Venezuela is in turmoil over who controls the land.
Russia is encroaching Eastern Ukraine after taking Crimea.
England and Europe are hung up over a stretch of land in Ireland.
The President is worried about the border with Mexico.
Climate change may make the Polar Regions the next Gold Rush.
Across the world, conflicts over territory are heating up and will get worse.
Investment implications abound!