Longest span to bridge China’s Pearl Delta dreams

Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to open the Hong Kong-­Zhuhai-Macau bridge today.

The Hong Kong-­Zhuhai-Macau bridge is built with 400,000 tonnes of steel. Picture: AP

President Xi Jinping is set to open the Hong Kong-­Zhuhai-Macau bridge today, as part of a tour of southern China designed to boost confidence in the Chinese economy belted by the trade war with the US.

While Xi’s itinerary is never revealed ahead of time for security reasons, speculation is rising that he will open the groundbreaking 55km bridge — the world’s longest sea crossing — in the southern city of Zhuhai, just over the border from Macau, this morning.

The opening of the bridge, a massive engineering feat that rook seven years to build, has the potential to transform the Pearl River Delta, which was one of China’s original economic powerhouses, supplying cheap manufactured goods to the rest of the world. But the region has been hard hit by rising domestic costs and the US trade war as factories close, with production moving to cheaper economies in Asia not subject to the new US tariffs.

In the broader economy, statistics released last Friday show economic growth this year at its lowest level since 2009 and stockmarkets have suffered heavy falls as business confidence takes a belting.

The Pearl River Delta is already in transition to a hi-tech-led economic zone with plans to rival California’s Silicon Valley. The ­region of almost 10 million people is already home to world-leading and cutting-edge companies such as Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, electric bus and car maker BYD and human genome company BGI.

The bridge itself is a massive feat of Chinese engineering built from 400,000 tonnes of steel. Its 55km length includes a 6.7km undersea tunnel a 23km portion of bridge built over the sea, as well as two artificial islands. It has been designed to withstand earthquakes as well as the typhoons which often hit the region.

It will cut the travel from Hong Kong airport to Zhuhai, a manufacturing centre with a strong focus on the aviation industry, from four hours to 45 minutes. It will also drastically improve the efficiency of travel between Hong Kong and Macau, the gambling enclave that is currently accessed from Hong Kong only by helicopter, plane or fast ferry.

The bridge opening comes only days after China’s top representative in Macau, 59-year-old Zheng Xiaosong, fell to his death on Saturday from his apartment building. A member of the ruling Communist Party’s Central Committee, Zheng was an experienced official who had been involved in talks between London and Beijing for the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. He had taken up the post of Chinese liaison officer in the former Portuguese colony, a special administrative region of China, last year.

His sudden death after moving to the gambling enclave raised questions about whether he may have feared being targeted as part of Xi’s anti-corruption program, but officials said his death followed a period of depression.

Reports from Hong Kong say the opening of the bridge was brought forward from initial expectations, with bus operators scrambling to get their plans for the cross-delta services in place.

The bridge opening is expected to be part of a broader swing through southern China by Xi that echoes a famous tour by Deng Xiaoping in 1992.

That visit helped restart the process of economic liberalis­ation, with a strong focus on private enterprise, which stalled after the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989.

The tour is also seen as part of China’s celebrations of its official 40 years of opening up to the world economically in 1978. The southern city of Shenzhen was chosen as the first free-trade zone for foreign manufacturers.

Xi is also expected to use the tour to stress his government’s support for private enterprise, which has been questioned given his strong support for state-owned enterprises. Economist Hu Xingdou has said Xi’s visit to the region could be a catalyst for a “third round of ideological emancipation” after the first round in 1978 and the second in 1992.