[ad_1]
After 10 years, 420,000 tons of steel, and at a devastating cost in lives and renminbi, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is officially open – and the announcement was announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping, strangely severe, in the port city of Zhuhai.
The opening ceremony itself was surrounded by the same brand confusion that governed the mega-project since its inception in 2009, the big day having only been announced towards the end of last week. .
In an unexpected and breathtaking show of shortness, Xi declared the longest sea crossing in the world open: a 55-km bridge and underwater tunnel connecting Hong Kong, Macao and the port city of Zhuhai on the mainland Chinese, with a very steep opening. Two seconds of speech which, it is fair to say, was not what everyone expected.
With these exact words, perhaps less than historical, China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong has attracted an audience of 700 people, including media and dignitaries gathered:
"I announce that the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is officially open."
It was an exercise in absolute conciseness for a president who, almost a year ago to the day, opened the Communist Party Congress in Beijing with a granular mega-speech of three hours and 23 minutes summarizing his thoughts on a new era. of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
In front of an audience of senior officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Han Zheng and Hong Kong Executive Director Carrie Lam, Xi said that his intervention took place in the strategically located port of Zhuhai before leaving the podium. while electronic fireworks paraded in the background on television.
Reporters on the ground, including Fion Li, head of Bloomberg's office were quick to express their surprise and disappointment.
Rhetorical festivities are a holiday tradition
Chinese leaders have the proud tradition of being ponies when history asks them.
Deng Xiaoping, who was a small but politically heavyweight, had a career with mellow ideas, but Chinese people around the world are still citing and reexamining today.
And although Mao Zedong presided over some of the least poetic politics of the twentieth century, the Great Helmsman could change his sentence when he should, like a brutal and brutal firecracker of 1957.
As Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, President of the State and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xi quickly and effectively focused his influence on himself.
The event seemed to be tailor made for a long reflection on the increasingly successful exercise of soft power in China, on its technical audacity and on the political genius of building a border post of 55 kilometers that continues to develop the security apparatus and the authority of the mainland. Macau semi-autonomous gambling enclave and financial center of the Hong Kong city-state.
But in the end, the president may have decided to let talk about this mbadive and imminent feat.
All this is part of the plan
The bridge is part of China's ambitious "Big Bay Area Master Plan" aimed at integrating Hong Kong, Macao and the nine largest cities of Guangdong Province, a powerful manufacturing center, to create a $ 1.5 trillion scientific and technological hub that can compete with Silicon Valley.
The 55-kilometer mega-structure is a universal authority and goal statement that is generally intimidating, impressive and slightly useless. He rises from the Sun and Moon Bay in Zhuhai Harbor as a disoriented and giant concrete snake, and mercurially removes himself in the distance.
The air is very thick too, with the humidity of the southern part of China and the sinister pollution still gray-brown emanating from the heavy manufacturing plants of the Pearl River Delta – the floor of Factory of the world – guaranteeing the mega-bridge in all its glory will be largely obscured all year.
However, it provides direct access to both potentially confusing semiautonomous regions, linking the gaming enclave and the city-state more closely to the heart of the homeland. In fact, it is perhaps the concern of an ever more invasive China that has pushed the president to such rare and unexpected poverty.
Commentators quickly described the project as a white elephant, noting that the less traveled crossing can hardly be a search for convenience, but rather another secret expansion of Beijing, which will extend its reach into the so-called autonomous enclaves of Hong Kong and of Macao. .
The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is the second major infrastructure project linking Hong Kong to the open continent in just a few weeks, following a new high-speed rail connection opened in September – the first time that Chinese security was installed and empowered on the territory of Hong Kong.
While worries are rife in Hong Kong, critics fear increasing breakthroughs in the territory of the special administrative region, while some local media have suggested that drivers on the bridge are closely monitored by cameras that examine even their physical behavior. condition and how tired the driver is.
Territorial issues are likely to dominate the project in the coming years, with the majority of the bridge being considered as mainland and Hong Kong vehicles and drivers, already subject to access restrictions, will move under continental legislation. announced the Hong Kong Transport Department. warned.
"The Hong Kong government is still out and under the control of the Chinese government," Tanya Chan told AFP last week. The construction of the bridge began in 2009 and was to be completed two years ago.
According to the South China Morning Post, 10 workers have died and 600 have been injured in the construction of the bidirectional typhoon-proof fast track bridge, which is expected to carry 29,100 vehicles and 126,000 day trips. from here 2030.
But for the moment, the bridge is open to certain types of traffic, including certain buses, goods and some licensed pbadenger vehicles.
It is also a wonderful trip by ferry.
[ad_2]
Source link
