The bridge stretches 42.4 kilometres and links historic Qingdao with the city’s industrial zone Huangdao. The 9.47 kilometre tunnel also links these two cities, but at a different location (see below map).
At the time of its opening, the efficacy of the project was called into doubt by a range of commentators, who questioned: the logic of building both a tunnel and bridge simultaneously; why the bridge was built at the widest part of the bay; and why they were built when they only provide a 10 minute improvement in travel time? Concerns were also raised over the seeming lack of cost-benefit analysis attached to the project.
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In a similar vein, earlier this month China opened the world’s biggest building: a 19 million square foot (1.77 million square metre) complex with a village, shopping centres, hotels, a water park, and even its own artificial sun underneath its 100 metre high ceiling. Like the bridge and tunnel above, the building appears to have been built without regard to actual demand, with retail vacancies across China already high and increasing further still amid the rapid construction.
Now China plans to add the world’s longest, most expensive, and arguably most dangerous underwater tunnel to its list: a $US42.4 billion 76 miles (123km) long submarine tunnel linking the northern ports of Dalian and Yantai. According to Quartz, the tunnel would surpass the combined length of world’s two longest underwater tunnels—Japan’s Seikan Tunnel and the Channel Tunnel between the UK and France – and would even drill through two earthquake fault zones.
Though only 105 miles apart as the crow flies, the drive between Dalian and Yantai takes around seven to eight hours. The Bohai Tunnel would shorten that to an hour. The State Council will begin reviewing the completed blueprint for the tunnel as early as next week.
Provincial leaders of Shandong and Liaoning hope the tunnel will stimulate economic growth by connecting China’s northern rustbelt region with the upper reaches of the wealthy eastern coast. A member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering projected annual revenue of $3.7 billion, largely from freight, meaning the project would potentially pay for itself in 12 years. And if that’s not rationale enough, there’s bonus of claiming another world record (the government seems to have a fondness for superlative infrastructure).
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According to Quartz, the sheer length and depth of the tunnel, combined with the fact that it would be built on an earthquake zone (requiring it to withstand 8.0 magnitude earthquakes) also makes the project overly ambitious and potentially another sign of malinvestment.
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
