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After ten years, 420,000 tons of steel, and a devastating cost in lives and renminbi, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau is officially open-and-quoted by Chinese President Xi Jinping in the port city of Zhuhai.
The opening ceremony itself is shrouded in some of the same marks of confusion as it has been in the world since its inception in 2009, with the big day having just been announced late last week.
In an unexpected and breathtaking display of brevity, Xi declared the world's longest sea crossing – a 35-mile (55-kilometer) bridge and underwater tunnel connecting Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland Chinese port city of Zhuhai as open – with a very abrupt two second speech that, it is fair to say, was not what everyone was expecting.
China's strongest leader since Mao Zedong caught the 700-strong audience and gathered masses on the hop:
"I announce the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is officially open."
It was an exercise in absolute concision for a president who, almost a year ago, opened the Communist Party Congress in Beijing with a granular three-hour and 23-minute mega-speech summarizing his thoughts on a new era in socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Instead, before an audience of top officials including the Vice Premier Han Zheng and Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam, Xi said his piece at the strategically located port of Zhuhai and left the podium as an electronic fireworks.
Reporters on the ground, including Bloomberg Office Chief Fion Li were quick to express their surprise and disappointment.
Rhetorical revelry is a tradition party
Chinese leaders have a proud tradition of ponying when it is called.
Deng Xiaoping, who was diminutive in stature but a political juggernaut, made a career with pithy insights Chinese speakers around the world still quote and reexamine today.
And while Mao Zedong may have presided over some of the least poetic policies of the 20th century, the Great Helmsman could turn when he had to, like this brutal and blunt firecracker from 1957.
As General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, President of the State, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xi has quickly and effectively influenced his own sphere of influence.
And the event looks tailor-made for a long-winded reflection on China's successful successful exercise of soft power, its sheer engineering audacity and the political genius of building a 55-kilometer crossing that continues to grow the security apparatus and authority on both semi-autonomous gambling enclave of Macau and the city-state financial powerhouse of Hong Kong.
But in the end, the president has decided to let the mass, looming achievement speak for itself.
It's all part of the plan
The bridge is part of China's ambitious "Greater Bay Area Master Plan" to integrate Hong Kong, Macau, and the manufacturing powerhouse Guangdong Province's largest combined $ 1.5 trillion tech and science hub to rival even Silicon Valley.
The 55 kilometer mega-structure is a typically intimidating, awe-inspiring and slightly pointless statement of state authority and universal purpose. It rises from the Sun and Moon Bay in Zhuhai port like some giant, disoriented concrete snake, and snakes off mercurially into the distance.
The air here is very thick too, with southern Chinese humidity and the ever-present gray-brown pollution that wafts in blooms from heavy manufacturing out of the Pearl River Delta – the factory floor of the world – ensuring the mega-bridge in all its glory will be largely obscured from year-round view.
What it does provide, however is possible to reach the semi-autonomous regions, binding the gambling enclave and the city-state to the breast of the motherland. Indeed, it can be the angst of an ever-encroaching China that has tilted the president to such a rare and unexpected pithiness.
Commentators have been quick to describe the project, but rather another covert expansion of Hong Kong and Macau. .
The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is the second major infrastructure project binding Hong Kong to the mainland opened in a few weeks, following a new high-speed rail connection that opened in September – Chinese security was stationed on and bestowed authority in Hong Kong territory.
Certainly, there is anxiety in Hong Kong, with increasing criticisms of the territory of the United States, while some local media has suggested that it will be scrutinized by cameras that examines even their physical condition and how fatigued a driver is becoming.
The issues of territoriality may be dominated by Hong Kong's vehicles and drivers, Hong Kong's transportation department has Warned.
"The Hong Kong government is always out of the picture and is under the control of the Chinese government," Tanya Chan told AFP last week. Construction of the bridge began in 2009 and was targeted for completion two years ago.
According to the South China Morning Post, 10 workers died and 600 were injured in the construction of the typhoon-proof, two-way six-lane expressway bridge that the government expects to carry 29,100 vehicles and 126,000 single-day passenger trips by 2030.
But for now, the bridge is open to some traffic, including certain nozzles, freight, and selected permit-holding passenger vehicles.
It's also a gorgeous trip by ferry.
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