China’s New Bridges: Rising High, but Buried in Debt -<br />China has built hundreds of dazzling new bridges, including the longest and highest, but many have fostered debt and corruption.<br />China also has the world’s longest bridge, the 102-mile Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge, a high-speed rail viaduct running parallel to the Yangtze River, and is nearing completion of the world’s longest sea bridge, a 14-mile cable-stay bridge skimming across the Pearl River Delta, part of a 22-mile bridge and tunnel crossing<br />that connects Hong Kong and Macau with mainland China.<br />“China’s opening, say, 50 high bridges a year, and the whole of the rest of the world combined might be opening 10.”<br />Of the world’s 100 highest bridges, 81 are in China, including some unfinished ones, according to Mr. Sakowski’s data.<br />China has produced engineering coups like the world’s highest railway, from Qinghai Province to Lhasa, Tibet; the world’s largest hydropower project, the Three Gorges Dam; and an 800-mile canal from the Yangtze River system to Beijing<br />that is part of the world’s biggest water transfer project.
