Many people have not noticed the global significance of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.
Building one of the world’s longest sea-crossing bridges on one of the busiest routes in the world, it is so difficult that it is pushing the limits of human technology. For example, there are two artificial islands. The design of China is to implant 120 steel cylinders into the seabed, but each cylinder is more than 20 meters in diameter, 50 meters high and weighs more than 500 tons. The volume is equivalent to a dozen layers building. For example, undersea tunnels, each immersed tube weighs 75,000 tons, which is equivalent to the weight of an aircraft carrier. How to overcome the obstacles of meteorology, currents, silt and buoyancy, accurately docking 33 giant immersed pipes in the seawater of 46 meters deep, and keeping the error within 2.5 cm. Century Engineering requires century technology, and the Chinese project team continuously develops new materials, new processes, new equipment, and new technologies to overcome difficulties. Before this bridge, Chinese engineers had never done a ”outside sea” immersed tunnel. To this end, they had turned to a Dutch company for help, but the company had issued more than 1 billion sky-high consulting fees, and negotiations could only end in rupture. At that time, the whole world asserted that this submarine tunnel with a length of 5664 meters is the most complicated project of mankind to date, and the Chinese are definitely not finished. Who can think that China has really captured this “Mount Everest”. Internally, this may open the prelude to the Chinese infrastructure to conquer the ocean era. In recent years, although China has opened its way in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, it can only be said to be the king of the mainland, the right to speak in the ocean is weak.
In the 13th Five-Year Plan Outline announced in 2016, the central government planned the Beitai High-speed Railway. The earlier “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” planned the “Jingtai Expressway.” This cross-sea passage is to be built sooner or later. Because this is the need to bridge the cross-strait national split for decades, and the need to integrate Taiwan into the mainland economic circle. Its political significance and historical significance are the highest-level landmark projects in the 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization. But it is easy to build this cross-sea passage that spans 80 nautical miles (about 130 kilometers). It was said to be a fantasy every few years ago. Today, with the springboard of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, China can successfully enter the era of marine infrastructure, because China has gained experience and has a foundation. Once the Taiwan Strait Passage is completed, the entire cross-strait pattern will be rewritten. Externally, this is probably the beginning of the Chinese infrastructure to conquer the world. The success of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge marks a historic turning point in China’s infrastructure level from 0 to 1. The world will open its doors and invite Chinese engineering and technical teams to cooperate, and China can also open a huge international market.