China Law Blog

Your query is spot on. I'm continually amazed at the massive successful projects that are completed on time and of high quality in China. Airports, subway systems, bridges, apartment complexes, you name it. Yet the simple things fall through the cracks (such as lead paint on childrens' toys).

Correct "not quite", or maybe "not quite" correct.

The Ningbo bridge is indeed the longest cross-sea span on top but not on the bottom.

The Ningbo bridge is 36 km. long but the Channel Tunnel (Eurotunnel) is 31.4 MILES long. Folkestone to Calais or Calais to Folkestone takes 35 minutes. And Paris to London (albeit not to Shanghai) takes only 2.5 hours.

More interesting and meaningful is perhaps the full story of the Eurotunnel's -at times dramatic- financial, economic and political woes compared to the relatively trouble free (but was it really?) planning, financing and execution of the Ningbo bridge.

But from an engineering standpoint the Eurotunnel -also built 15 years earlier - is the more difficult of the two feats. Not to mention "all of the internationalism" involved which was a feat in itself and through which so many "parties" learned a lot.

Perhaps if the communist party of China were to be involved in some of that kind of peer-to-peer mega-project tricky internationalism it too would become a better "learning party".

And so how about a deep sea Vactrain from Hong Kong to San Francisco with the American and Chinese boring teams meeting right under the volcanoes of Hawaii to pop open the French Champagne?

Certainly impressive, but I'd be interested to see the economic case (are these things published in China?). The bridge obviously slashes the journey time between two vibrant cities, which sounds great, but does anybody have any info on expected benefit / cost? Would be interested to find out more.

Well, the planned 150km Beijing to Taipei Expressway, to be built by 2030, will certainly trump the Eurotunnel.

Not many people know whether it's on top or at the bottom of the sea; even less people have any clue why they're so confident it can be built by 2030.

"Strong political will may have helped what one World Bank adviser calls China's “mind-boggling” pace of rail and road construction. But even the Communist Party's resolve may not suffice for what would be the most jaw-dropping project of all. A plan published by the Ministry of Communications in 2004 mentions, off-handedly, an expressway from Beijing to Taipei (target completion date: 2030). How the road would traverse the 150km Taiwan Strait is not mentioned. Nor does the document suggest how to tackle the even bigger problem of reaching agreement with Taiwan. But government maps of the completed expressway network show it. It would be unwise to rule it out."

The Economist, Feb. 14, 2008, "China's Infrastructure Splurge."
(http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10697210)

In the year 2030....and in George Orwell's 1984 (or 2084) and in etc. etc....

Let's first wait and see just how and in what sort of shape we all will "get to" 2030 (and if we even get there) before anybody starts counting their chickens and bridges and tunnels and expressways and super highways before the eggs are hatched.

Have you noticed the similarity between the Katrina Hurricane and the one that just hit Burma? (without even getting into the differences or similarities between the responses) Where will all the other even more powerful ones that are going to hit (with now mathematical certainty) between now and 2030 make landfall?

Or are all the Mandarin-speaking Australians going to immediately stop selling their billions of tons of coal to the Chinese for their thousands of brand new coal fired power plants per day (to fire their 2500% per year economic growth) and are all Americans going to stop driving their SUV's starting yesterday and demolish all of their shopping malls and suburban sprawl?

And what about all those Indians who are getting tired of walking and want to drive either Tatas or Rolls Royces to work too? (over the rural footpaths)

And will Dick Cheney get an even stronger itch than he's already got to bomb Iran into the stone age before November, now that Hezbollah has taken over West Beirut and an even better pretext is finally in place?

And what about the peaceful "development and evolution" of the "peacefully rising" Chinese Army? (and please see just below to get a feel for its "peacefulness" and its democratic institutional culture)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=564629&in_page_id=1811

And if you think all the above remarks are off the wall and a bit extreme or just plain preposterous how about this other one for you (which is even "funnier"):

In an economic pinch the Chinese can always build their new 150 km. bridge to Taipei by 2030 as a bridge without any deep sea pillars at all. (a great cost-saving measure)

Instead they can float it all with 15 ten-kilometer sections. These sections will be supported on each end by the decks of 15 U.S. Aircraft carriers armed with 10,000 nuclear missiles each permanently parked in the straits. (but please do watch out for those 500,000 Chinese submarines just under the surface)

And so let's all just keep laughing, focus on the economics and the trade, make plenty of money giving great advice, buy our own eco-friendly Rolls Royce and pray like hell (or like a snow ball's chance in hell) that all of the geopolitics will somehow sort itself out without the truly Big S. ever hitting the fan.

At least let's do this just as long as we are all still alive and continue to pray (preferably five times a day and in both a church and a mosque and a temple) (and even in the Forbidden City) that our kids will have lots of luck in living to a very ripe old age too.

This should not be a query at all. The Chinese toy manufacturer and the US quality supervising body(or the importer) both made a mistake. Then the US media put it on media weeks after weeks, which leads to the impression that Chinese cannot produce quality consumer product. China can build Beijing airport terminal 3 and the longest bridge - do the impossible quickly and well. My query: how many products you used in the US of good quality are made in China?

Brands like Colgate,Toshiba (laptop),Toyata (cars) had quality problems in China before. Does that mean American and Japanese cannot produce good consumer products? The new terminal at Heathrow barely worked for weeks, which is a big British joke. Does that mean British can not achieve good quality service?

Mm ...thought provoking.

The speed and low cost of construction of these projects is not some feat of wonder when you consider the legions of low paid, skilled migrant laborers who actually did the work.

The reduction in travel distance to 1/5 of the original is enough of a cost/benefit analysis. Remember that Beijing subsidizes pump prices to keep the economy going, and a successful "big face" project is enough of a justification alone.

As for the Beijing tunnel, the CCP is speculating that Taiwan will be completely economically dependent on China, politically isolated from the world and that China will have completely "harmonized and modernized" by 2030. I also wouldn't be surprised to see China go ahead and start boring the hole whether or not Taipei has given permission and if the Taiwanese military tries to stop the tunnel with geotechnical explosives, China would consider that an attack on China and invade Taiwan.

Ok, just to clarify my opinion on this 150km bridge from Beijing to Taipei.

I think it's a joke; the planning commission in Beijing is just trying to be "politically correct" not to leave out Taiwan in its national transportation plan (remember PRC's official stand regarding Taiwan). It's a political statement more than anything else.

Besides, does it make economic sense to build a 150km bridge? Personally I would fly instead of driving either under or above the ocean for 150km.