@ Kelvin
It is of course a lot political matter involved or better said ONLY . But good that you mention the US since 50 years in that area and the chinese new. Just look around China,,all the countries in the Himalaya region and at the borders to China, Vietnam - N-Korea etc are in the hands or political clout of China. Is that for that matter better then the US in this area, hmmmm, Ask peoples south of the US if they would like to imigrate to China or US ?
So far I saw millions of them trying to get north, did not see anyone so far rattling the gates to get into China !!!!
Also when it is clear that the US don,t have the best tracking record in that area, the countries where they did something are mostly better off in general as if they were under (left influence, now China, before Russia) . Best excample: Venezuela, since taken over by Chavez and now his political party and closer and closer associated with countries like China/Russia/Iran it goes down the drain. All of that is covered of course conveniently by the oil money as well as buying the political good will in neighboring countries by means of free oil deliveries.
Also when West-Capitalism is for sure not the best form seemingly, but one thing everybody should by now realize, whereever left-wing and/or communist style countries were involved or established the general population were only in the beginning may be better off,,after that everything goes south. Half Africa went south because of it and all the countries in South and Central America which choosed , freely or not, to go that way are not really good off now either. Name one country in that area (or in the world) which thrived economy-wise while adopting a leftist government. Does not exist, incl Cuba. (Not even the germans managed it, remember the former DDR ?)
Set politics aside, the whole nicaraguan canal project has economical wise no chance to
survive or ever to make money based on the investment amounts and one day when also the chinese getting tired of paying, the nicaraguan peoples are holding the bag in the end, and most probably will be a pretty empty one at that.
For the evironmental impact, really somebody believes that any government with the tracking record in that matter like China (look african countries or their own)and leftist government like Nicaragua, I think it will be safe to say that the enviroment will not be a winner in this project.