“China Projects to Make Great Wall Feel Small”

A piece from the January 12th New York Times, “In China, Projects to Make Great Wall Feel Small” places the awe-inspiring ambition of China’s infrastructure projects in stark relief to the virtually negligible plans in the United States. While they try and foist some serious Trans-Atlantic pessimism onto the remarkable achievements of China, planned and already built, they cannot ignore the sheer volume of projects underway. While briefly reporting the international scope of China’s development (including the Nicaragua Canal and the tunnel under the Bering Strait), it focuses on their domestic construction.

“In November, the powerful National Development and Reform Commission approved plans to spend nearly $115 billion on 21 supersize infrastructure projects, including new airports and high-speed rail lines,” writes the Times.  A large coded map shows the major projects, including:

• a $36 billion tunnel from Dalian to Yantai, the world’s longest underwater tunnel, through the Bohai Sea.

• Shanghai Tower, a $2.4 billion skyscraper, at 2,073 feet is the world’s second-tallest building.

• in Dalian, a 163-mile urban transit system and the world’s largest offshore airport, a $4.3 billion development on an artificial island being created with landfill, covering more than eight square miles.

• in Gansu, the world’s biggest wind turbine farm, with a capacity of 20,000 megawatts by 2020.

• in Beijing, The New Century Global Center, the biggest building in the world, nearly three times the size of the Pentagon.

• Jiaozhou Bay bridge, the world’s longest sea-crossing bridge, 26.4 miles, with six lanes for car traffic, opened in 2011.

• Shanghai Yangshan Deepwater Port, built 20 miles out in the East China Sea, connected by one of the world’s longest bridges, making the Shanghai port system the world’s largest container shipping port.

Also included, of course, are the South-to-North water diversion, the West-to-East pipelines, and the vast high-speed rail lines, now at 12,000 km and growing.

The NYTimes wrote: