Cross-border transport links are overshadowed by political fears
Feb 13th 2016 | HONG KONG
IN HONG KONG, public trust in both the central government in Beijing and the territory’s own administration is stretched perilously thin. A seemingly routine event on February 8th—food-hygiene patrols targeted at illegal street vendors—triggered hours of rioting. Activists suspicious of the mainland’s influence in Hong Kong were among those who piled into the rampage (see article). Anxieties about the Communist Party’s sway in the territory have been whipped up recently by the disappearance of five booksellers; many believe they were arrested by agents from China’s mainland to stop the publication of a book about President Xi Jinping. It is widely thought that one of those detained was seized by a snatch squad in (supposedly autonomous) Hong Kong itself.
Resentment of the mainland is aggravated by the party’s refusal to grant the territory full democracy, as well as by a hotch-potch of other fears and prejudices. It is even affecting debate about such matters as building transport infrastructure. Work is under way on two huge projects: one of the world’s longest bridges and a high-speed railway. These are intended to improve transport links with the mainland, but critics of the schemes are legion. Some of their objections are coloured by disgruntlement with the mainland and with Hong Kong’s own government, which tends to do what the party says.
This was evident on January 1st at an annual march by anti-government groups. Protesters focused on the 40-kilometre (25-mile) road, tunnel and bridge structure linking Hong Kong with the gambling enclave of Macau and the mainland city of Zhuhai, as well as on the high-speed rail project (see map). Leading their procession was a life-size likeness of Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, sitting on a model of a white elephant. This symbolised the protesters’ view of the infrastructure projects: wasteful sops to the party’s fondness for grandiosity and for symbols of national unity.
Officials say the bridge—paid for jointly by Hong Kong, the mainland and Macau—will cut the journey time from Hong Kong to Zhuhai, a manufacturing centre in Guangdong province, from three hours to just 30 minutes. The high-speed rail service, also partly paid for by Hong Kong, will put Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, within 50 minutes’ reach of Hong Kong, compared with the present two-hour journey by conventional rail (pictured is an artist’s impression of the high-speed rail terminus being built in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district).
The projects, however, are hugely expensive and technically challenging. The bridge across mainland waters will be reached from Hong Kong by a new 19km stretch of road, part of it under the sea. Beset by engineering difficulties and rising costs, the government in November said that completion would be delayed by a year to 2017. That may be optimistic.
The bill for Hong Kong’s contribution to the bridge and the link to it had been set at HK$83 billion ($10.7 billion). Last year the government asked the Legislative Council (known as Legco) for approval to spend a further HK$5.5 billion on it. Pro-democracy legislators, who tend to be the ones least keen on close links with the mainland, tried filibustering. But the government’s supporters hold a majority in Legco. On January 30th, ahead of a government-imposed deadline, it approved the extra funds—much to the anger of pro-democracy politicians, who accused the pro-government camp of violating procedures in order to force the issue to a vote.
The rail project has already passed its target date of 2015 for completion. A new one has been set for 2018. The government also wants approval to increase the budget for this scheme by 30%, to HK$84.4 billion. If it fails to secure this by the end of the month (unlikely, given the majority backing it enjoys), work may have to stop.
As with the bridge, pro-democracy legislators are complaining. One downside they see to the rail link is that it may bring yet more mainland tourists to Hong Kong (as may a planned third runway for Hong Kong’s airport, which is also mired in controversy). Many in the territory resent the influx, blaming it for congestion on buses and subways, as well as shortages in shops, where the tourists strip shelves of lower-priced household goods. The rail project has also raised hackles because of plans to allow mainland police to check the documents of Guangzhou-bound passengers in Hong Kong itself. Especially following the disappearance of the booksellers, many in Hong Kong worry about allowing mainland security personnel to work in the territory, even in such an innocuous role.
Objectors say there are economic reasons to worry, too. Original plans for the projects did not anticipate the extent of China’s economic slowdown. This may affect the growth of demand for the new links. Tourist arrivals from the mainland are already falling, partly because the Hong Kong currency’s peg to a strengthening US dollar has made goods in the territory more expensive for mainlanders to buy. A clampdown on corruption on the mainland (see article) has also made it riskier to spend money on luxury items.
Mainland officials appear unfazed. Their dream is to create a “megacity” of more than 40m people in Guangdong’s Pearl river delta, partly by improving connections between urban centres (plans have been announced to link Guangzhou and Shenzhen, which borders on Hong Kong, by subway by 2020). They are too diplomatic to talk of folding Hong Kong into a border-spanning megalopolis: that would be too open an assault on the territory’s autonomy. But they do hope the new bridge and railway will bind the region more closely together.
http://www.economist.com/news/china/21692935-cross-border-transport-links-are-overshadowed-political-fears-over-troubled-water
