‘A suffocating snake’: what’s behind China’s $15bn Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge?
On 15 December 2009, diggers roared into life on the outskirts of the little-known Chinese city of Zhuhai. Hundreds of workers scurried back and forth tools-in-hand as they began to create an artificial island on the western edge of the Pearl River Delta. It was to be the first step in China’s $15 billion project to build the largest sea bridge in the world.
Snaking between Hong Kong, Macau and mainland Zhuhai, the 55km-long, Y-shaped route — which used 420,000 tonnes of steel, enough to build 60 Eiffel Towers — is a key plank in the grand development of the Chinese Greater Bay Area, already the 12th largest economy in the world before the bridge has even opened. By 2030, the plan is to catapult the region to a GDP of $4 trillion, eclipsing rivals in San Francisco and Tokyo in terms of technological innovation, and ahead of Japan as the fourth largest global exporter.
“The bridge is of great significance to maintain long-term prosperity and stability and enhance overall competitiveness in the region,” announced Li Keqiang, then vice premier of China’s state council, at the opening ceremony. “It is a move for Hong Kong, Macau and the Pearl River Delta region to cope with global economic downturn, boost investment and inspire people.”
Some see the megaproject as a metaphorical building of bridges, as Beijing loosens its policy on commerce and opens up to capitalistic enterprise, in tandem with its unprecedented $900bn Belt and Road Initiative to build trade networks across Africa, Asia and Europe. But others characterise it as a giant umbilical cord intended to leash the protest-prone Hong Kong, a special semi-autonomous region, ever closer to the motherland.
One thing not in question is the scale and ambition of this infrastructure project, hailed as a modern wonder of architecture. Designed to last for 120 years, the bridge can resist winds of up to 125 mph — successfully passing the fierce test of Typhoon Mangkhut recently — and can withstand the impact of a 300,000-tonne vessel or a magnitude-8 earthquake. Engineers had to ensure there is no disruption to deliveries from “the world’s factory” passing through one of the world’s busiest waterways, and so built two artificial islands, requiring 100 huge steel cylinders planted into the sea bed, to serve as entry points for a 6,648-meter underwater tunnel.
At the peak of construction, which took nearly a decade, there were 14,000 workers and 300 ships at work. “It was an extraordinary construction site,” says Yu Lie, the deputy director of Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge Authority.
Progress has not gone entirely smoothly, however, with delays pushing back the intended opening of October 2016 to the ire of Chinese president Xi Jinping, who had wanted to theatrically ride across the bridge in his trademark limousine on the 20th anniversary of Britain’s handover of Hong Kong. Environmental concerns have also been raised over potential harm to a white dolphin population, while worker deaths, allegations of faked concrete test reports and suspected construction flaws have marred the project.
Yet once in full-flow the bridge will carry an estimated 175,000 people and 42,000 cars, coaches and containers each day over the South China Sea’s tropical waters, according to Hong Kong’s Transport and Housing Bureau, slashing journey times between the three cities from three hours to 30 minutes. The impact on the Greater Bay Area, a 21,800 square mile region in southern China that is home to 68 million people and contains 11 cities, is set to be dramatic.
ZHUHAI
A modest city in China’s Guangdong province, Zhuhai was enshrined as one of the country’s first Special Economic Zones in 1980. These days, it’s better known a Florida-style destination, with a blend of palm trees, golf resorts and theme parks. But according to the Highways Department, the bridge will cut driving times from Hong Kong airport from four hours to 45 minutes: Zhuhai is primed for enormous economic growth.
“I think the real beneficiaries of the bridge will be the cities on the western side of the Delta,” says Kyle Jaros, a professor in the political economy of China at Oxford University. “Particularly for Zhuhai, which has struggled and been in the shadow of a lot of the other major cities in the Pearl River Delta region. This is a big economic boost and it helps speed along other development initiatives such as Zhuhai’s inclusion in the free trade zone for the area.”
The historically uneven infrastructure has led to huge imbalances between cities in the Bay Area region. “The gap is shockingly huge,” says David Dodwell, executive director of the Hong Kong-APEC Trade Policy Group. In 1990, Zhuhai’s population was 127,000 and Dongguan’s was 137,000 — by last year, they were 1.8 million and 8.3 million respectively. Shenzhen rocketed from 580,000 to 12.5 million.
“The ease with which Hong Kong could invest in Shenzhen and Dongguan enabled these two municipalities to leap ahead,” adds Dodwell, noting that the disparity has caused serious concern among Guangdong province officials. “Zhuhai and Zhongshan, outside the ‘three hour magic travel circle’ from Hong Kong, never attracted that investment. But with the bridge now in place, the impact will be considerable.”
Development has already accelerated into the fast lane. In 2017, Zhuhai’s economy grew 9.2% in a year — far higher than China’s flagging national average. The free trade zone of Zhuhai’s Hengqin island has registered nearly 900 Hong Kong-backed companies, according to the Pallas Athene Geopolitical Research Institute. And the number of properties sold in Hengqin has risen 154% year-on-year.
“The bridge is really making a lot of difference,” says Paul Yuen, an executive at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom Park, standing below the theme park’s impressive technicolour entrance encrusted with giant jellyfish and coral reefs. “Before our major market was only in China, over 80% of our guests come from China — north, west, or east — but we’re actually very intent to open up our market to international visitors.”
After opening in 2014, the park has nearly 10 million visitors per year. “But with the traffic problem and the visa problem, we have very big issues with drawing guests over,” he adds. “With the new policy, you can come from Hong Kong international airport, you don’t even need to go through another immigration — you can come here in 30 minutes. This is critical for us.”
Zhuhai also hopes to draw in thousands of Hong Kong workers who would prefer more affordable house prices. As of June 2018, the average price in the city centre of Hong Kong was an eye-watering $28,681 per square meter — in Zhuhai, it was a fraction of that at $3,843. Some policy manoeuvring with be needed, however, because the local government currently requires that buyers have been making social insurance payments in the city for at least five years.
The wider approach that the three governments of Zhuhai, Macau and Hong Kong, with their different governments, trade policies, legal systems and cultures, take to collaboration will be hugely significant.
MACAU
There could be few more distinctive destinations than Macau, a tiny former Portuguese colony that is now the largest gambling city in the world — with revenues four times greater than Las Vegas.
It’s also the world’s most densely populated region, with 700,000 people crammed into 12 square miles, and rated the third wealthiest by the International Monetary Fund, with a GDP per capita of $77,000 — compared with $59,000 in the US and $39,000 in the UK and $8,800 in China.
Beijing realises that if it is to successfully fold Macau back into the mainland after 2049, as stipulated during the Portuguese handover in 1999, the processes of integrating these vastly different cultures must begin now.
“This is a strategy that we see on a lot of different scales in China, from the metropolitan to mega region scale, where major infrastructure projects are the catalyst for bringing larger city regions into more tight integration.” says Oxford professor Jaros. “But because of the difficulty of economic and cultural integration of Hong Kong with the mainland, that’s where the questions remain.”
Jacky Yuk-Chow, dean of the Department of Business Administration at Macau University, believes it is an important moment for Macau’s economy, a startling 25% of which is made up by the gambling industry, to broaden its horizons. “It needs to diversify away from casinos,” he says. “And it needs to become consistent with traditional Chinese values. Just like Las Vegas, where it used to be majority gambling, but now it’s more other forms of entertainment.”
Chow argues that the project is a “win-win situation” as long as the bridge tolls are low. “Overall it depends on the price,” he says. “Because we are already able to take the ferry boat to Hong Kong in one hour.”
This too will have a knock-on effect with tourism, the other key market for Macau. In 2017, it attracted 32.6 million tourists, of which 68% were from mainland China and 19% from Hong Kong. The proximity to Hong Kong’s airport suggests that they can increase their international visitor numbers.
Pamela Chan, director at Taipa Village, a former fisherman’s village turned into a shopping district, agrees that the bridge will have a “very big impact” by reducing traffic. “Over the past 10 years, there has been a lot of economic development,” she says, proudly revealing that 6 million visitors that come to the neighbourhood every year. “But we are hoping to capture more visitors. Taipa Village is the best preserved area in the south of Taipa, it has been around hundreds of years.”
There are scant dissenting voices to the bridge in Macau, however, and by far the most opposition has stemmed from Hong Kong, the largest economy of these three cities and one that is at the heart of geopolitics in the South China Sea.
HONG KONG
In 1997, when Hong Kong was handed back to China by the United Kingdom, it was guaranteed a certain degree of autonomy for 50 years under the “one country, two systems” agreement. The territory has a free press, rule of law, a partially elected legislature and an independent judiciary, upheld by the city’s Basic Law constitution. It is dizzying metropolis and serves as one of the world’s eminent financial centres. In many ways, it could not be more different to the mainland.
But the bridge marks a blurring of those lines and perhaps is part of a long-term shift in policy across the region. “There’s a gradual drift of ‘one country, two systems’ to ‘one country, one mixed system’,” according to Sonny Lo, a politics professor at the University of Hong Kong. “This year is a historical moment in infrastructure. The bridge signals the Xi Jingping era of using Hong Kong and Macau as chess game to show to Taiwan that there will be economic fruits of closer integration.”
Whether it is indeed being used as a pawn in escalating tensions with Taiwan remains to be seen. But after decades of massive economic growth, China no longer relies on Hong Kong as it once did. It is now equivalent to less than 3% of China’s gross domestic product, compared with 21% in 1993. Meanwhile its container port has fallen down the rankings to sixth busiest in the world, under pressure from the likes of Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Eric Gnock Fah, co-founder of Hong Kong-based travel company Klook, believes the bridge is an opportunity that the city must snatch. “For business people, it’s very encouraging because you can expand your business even more seamlessly into bigger markets like China and Macau. With tourism, it will become more popular,” he says.
He plays down the political and human rights concerns, adding: “You here some voices [of criticism]. But we should look at Asia as a whole — how do we become more interconnected?”
Others are more cynical about the motives behind the bridge. “The whole thing is politically oriented,” argues Claudia Mo, a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council. “It’s intended to contain Hong Kong, to blend and disappear Hong Kong into mainland China. It’s a suffocating snake.”
She says the traffic estimates are “figures pulled out of a hat” and calls the project, one in which Hong Kong pays the most but benefits the least, “horrendously expensive”.
Initial investment by Hong Kong totalled $1.38bn, compared with $1.43bn from Zhuhai, $0.43bn from Macau and $4.32 in shared bank loans, according to the authority controlling the bridge. But Hong Kong’s Transport and Housing Bureau says it spent an additional $4.57 billion on its border crossing facility, and $3.19 billion on a 12km, 6-lane road from the main bridge to the boundary crossing. Despite that a spokesperson for Transport and Housing Bureau insists the bridge will “play an important function of fostering the smooth flow of people, capital, technology” and make better use of the city’s airport and container port.
Other roadblocks include the mainland’s maximum tax rate of 45% — more than twice the level in Hong Kong, which will certainly deter some from business. And the competitive impact of a Shenzhen to Zhongshan bridge, more centrally located and planned to open in 2024, has caused the bridge’s opening traffic predictions to be revised down by as much as 26%.
Like many cities, Hong Kong also has a mixed record when it comes to infrastructure projects. A survey of major Hong Kong transport projects by University College London found that although the airport express train, which opened in 1998, has been very popular, the undersea Western Tunnel connecting Hong Kong Island and Kowloon has been used less than its older rival to the east because of higher tolls.
Subsidies with be key, according to Alexander Budzier of Oxford University’s Said Business School. “If you just shift jobs around the country that doesn’t create jobs, what creates jobs is if they actually make a different offering,” he adds, praising the success of Spain’s heavily subsidised train network.
Laszlo Gere, a senior researcher at the Pallas Athene Geopolitical Research Institute, sees similar cases in the Øresund bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark and the Bosphorus Bridge in Turkey, connecting Europe and Asia. “These are perfect examples to prove how the flow of people and goods boomed thanks to the physical connection,” he says.
But Jonathan Sullivan, director of China programs at Nottingham University’s Asia Research Institute, suggests that the bridge need not be financially viable in order to achieve its goals. “The Chinese strategy on infrastructure sometimes looks like ‘build big, build everywhere’,” he says. “The result is sometimes cities in the desert, bridges to nowhere and white elephant stadia, but there are often political and strategic compensations. One can frame this, as the government does, as an economic project, or one can see it as a harbinger of the further erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy.”
The Greater Bay Area — and the entirety of China — has changed almost beyond recognition since the idea for this grandiose project was conceived by Hong Kong tycoon Gordon Wu in 1983. The combination of China’s industrial strength, Hong Kong’s capital markets and Macau’s special wealth could jet-propel growth in the region for many years to come. But as shown with the launch of the Hong Kong’s link to China’s high speed network last month, which had Chinese police controversially deployed on the city’s soil for the first time, there will be a socio-political struggle.
“What the Chinese government want is an umbilical cord linking Hong Kong to the mainland,” says legislator Mo. “But umbilical cords are supposed to severed once you’re born.”
