b'APRIL 19 - MAY 9, 2021OCEAN CARRIER REVIEW 9PRIMARY GLOBAL MARITIME CHOKE POINTS425 71 61. Panama Canal 82. Strait of Gibraltar3. Cape of Good Hope4. Bosphorus Strait5. Suez Canal 36. Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (Red Sea) SHIPPING ROUTES CHOKE POINTS7. Strait of Hormuz Core Route 0 Primary8. Straits of Malacca (South China Sea) Secondary Secondary(CHOKEcontinued from page 8)geo-political terms. For exam-ple, the Strait of Bab-el-Man-deb (Gate of Tears in Arabic), is located between the Arabian Peninsula and northeast Africa. The narrows are considered to betheworldsfourthbusiest waterway and part of the sea routefromtheIndianOcean totheRedSeaandtheSuez Canal. Both sides of the water-way are volatile with the war in Yemen a global concern, unrest in Djibouti and ongoing strife innearbyEthiopia.Whilea complete closure of the Strait may be unlikely, the risk level to vessel traffic in the region is still high. And an episode in the Straitan act of piracy or armed attack on a commer-cial vesselcoupled with the Suez event would have been acalamitythatcouldignite into catastrophe. TheStraitsofMalacca are another of the East-West maritime choke points. While piracy has been the main issue intheStraits,thedensityof traffic poses a danger in terms of collisions and other nauti-calmisadventure.Itsesti-mated that 100,000 ships per year pass through the water-way that connects the Indian Ocean (via Andaman Sea) to the South China Sea.And the South China Sea is its own kind of choke point withvariousinterestsvying for influence. China, Vietnam andthePhilippinesalong with virtually all the other lit-toralstateshavedisputesin the South China Sea. And the U.S. has a strong interest in maintaining freedom of pas-sage through the region. Chinas buildup of island installationsandmilitialike activities in the South China Seaareanongoingconcern to neighbors like the Philip-pines,JapanandtheU.S. Andimportantly,theSouth (CHOKEcontinued on page 14)'