Mega Projects that will lift China into the future. By Ines Chiu
China wants to make Beijing the centre of the world's biggest super city, by merging three provinces into one continuous megapolis, with 130 million people. This city will be called Jing Jin Ji (Beijing,Tianjin,Hebei - Ji). Jing Jin Ji will have advanced communication networks, a new high-speed subway line and improved highways, to avoid congestion on the roads. Beijing will focus on culture and technology. Tianjin will be the research base for manufacturing. Hei Bei will become the home to federal bureaucracy jobs, which will be relocated from the capital. This project has the full backing of the president, Xi Jinping.
People quote “services are bad in China, our children have over 65 more kids in their classroom, it takes us around 5 hours daily to get to work due to the congested roads, minimising our job options, to inside our region, which is not a sufficient variety of jobs” A perfect example is the community of Yang Zhao, a community with 750,000 people. They only have two small parks and no bus terminals. Why? Why do these people have such bad services? The reason is corruption. The central government does not allow cities to keep the little tax revenues they do collect. Therefore communities like Yang Zhao have no way to pay for desperately needed facilities, such as schools, roads and buses.
A vital piece of infrastructure that is currently in the works, will help solve a lot of these problems. It will be a high-speed network, with trains that hit up to 152 miles per hour. Which will prevent congestion on roads and allow people to travel all over the county in a very small amount of time.Congestion problems on the roads will be solved when the world-class high-speed rail network is up and running. This will be a step to rapid urbanisation for it will allow people to travel much further distances for work.
Megacities in the north have a shortage of water. The Chinese will soon be moving 5 billion cubic meters of fresh water (enough for 45 million people) each year from the wetter south to the drier north. The solution, as Mao Zedong first said in 1952, is to “borrow a little water from the south.” There will be three canals moving the water to the north. A concern is definitely pollution, for along with the massive canals, there will also have to be endless numbers of bridges and tunnels built throughout China. Not only that, but hundreds of thousands of villagers will be forced to move. This project could also cause the Yangtze river (the third longest river in the world) to run low on water. There is a solution to this problem, but it would include China’s neighbouring countries and might cause an international crisis.
In 2018, the world's busiest airport will be opened in China. The Beijing International Airport Terminal 1 is almost double the size of Heathrow Terminal 5 and will serve 125,000 passengers each day. The Beijing international airport will have 12 runways and will be in the shape of a star designs by Zaha Hadid.
China’s largest undersea tunnel is currently in the works. Passing from Dalian to Yantai, crossing the Bohai sea and passing close to two deadly earthquake fault zones, this tunnel must be able to withstand mega-earthquakes of a magnitude of 8.2. This seems to have inspired other foreign countries, as even connecting Russia and the US via an underwater tunnel has been proposed. China is under so much pressure to hit the China GDP economic growth and this tunnel is one of the few options that will provide many economic benefits to China.
China will also have the largest wind farm, with 20 gigawatts of power by 2020. This project won't just reduce carbon emissions, but will also keep the lights on in China. China are also trying to reduce its dependence on oil, gas and coal. Since 2013, China has also led the world in renewable energy production. China has more Co2 emissions than any other country and it is therefore good that China is using power plants and preventing the burning of coal and is coming up with mega projects to create more megawatts of clean green power!
China is growing rapidly, with mega projects that will make China an advanced city, with creative and in the past ideas, that would have been thought impossible.
Sources
The Daily Conversation. "China's Future MEGAPROJECTS (2016-2050's)." YouTube. YouTube, 09 Feb. 2016. Web. 26 Mar. 2017.
hris Weller, Robert Johnson and Vivian Giang. "30 Giant Chinese Infrastructure Projects That Are Reshaping the World." Business Insider. Business Insider, 20 June 2016. Web. 28 Mar. 2017.