It is one of the largest proposed infrastructure projects in the world. The feasibility study alone is set to cost $900m. And when complete, the Nicaragua Canal should lower transport costs for shipping oil from Latin America to China.

The $40bn project certainly does not lack for ambition. Neither, it seems, does Wang Jing, the public face of the newly-registered Hong Kong company, HKND Group, which this month won approval from Nicaragua’s Congress to build and operate the 50-year concession to link the country’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

The approval came despite environmentalist opposition and widespread scepticism about the economic viability of the proposed interoceanic canal. It has also raised questions about the role of the Chinese state in the project.