Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects troops at the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Hong Kong Garrison in one of events marking the 20th anniversary of the city's handover from British to Chinese rule, in Hong Kong
- After 10 years, 420,000 tons of steel, and at a devastating cost in lives and renminbi, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is officially open.
- The announcement on Tuesday came by way of a strangely curt Xi Jinping, China's president.
- Xi gave an abrupt two-second speech that, it is fair to say, was not what everyone was expecting. "I announce the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is officially open," Xi said Tuesday.
- It was an exercise in absolute concision for a president who, almost a year ago to the day, opened the Communist Party congress in Beijing with a granular three hour and 23 minute mega-speech.
After 10 years, 420,000 tons of steel, and at a devastating cost in lives and renminbi, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is officially open - and the announcement came by a strangely curt Chinese President Xi Jinping in the port city of Zhuhai.
The opening ceremony itself was shrouded in some of the same trademark confusion that has dogged the mega-project since its inception in 2009, with the big day having only just been announced late last week.
In an unexpected and breathtaking display of brevity, Xi declared the world's longest sea crossing - a 35-mile (55-kilometer) bridge and underwater tunnel connecting Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland Chinese port city of Zhuhai as open - with a very abrupt two second speech that, it is fair to say, was not what everyone was expecting.
With these accurate, although possibly less-than-historic words, China's strongest leader since Mao Zedong caught the 700-strong audience including gathered media and dignitaries on the hop:
"I announce the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is officially open."
It was an exercise in absolute concision for a president who, almost a year ago to the day, opened the Communist Party Congress in Beijing with a granular three-hour and 23-minute mega-speech summarizing his thoughts on a new era in socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Instead, before an audience of top officials including the Vice Premier Han Zheng and Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam, Xi said his piece at the strategically located port of Zhuhai and left the podium as electronic fireworks flailed about on a television in the background.
Reporters on the ground, including Bloomberg Bureau Chief Fion Li were quick to express their surprise and disappointment.
Rhetorical revelry is a party tradition
Chinese leaders have a proud tradition of ponying up when history called for it.
Deng Xiaoping, who was diminutive in stature but a political juggernaut, made a career with pithy insights Chinese speakers around the world still quote and reexamine today.
And while Mao Zedong may have presided over some of the least poetic policies of the 20th century, the Great Helmsman could turn a phrase when he had to, like this brutal and blunt firecracker from 1957.
As General Secretary of the Central Committee of China's Communist Party, President of the State, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Xi has quickly and effectively concentrated influence into his own sphere.
And the event looked tailor-made for a long-winded reflection on China's increasingly successful exercise of soft power, its sheer engineering audacity and the political genius of building a 55-kilometer crossing that continues to grow the mainland's security apparatus and authority on both the semi-autonomous gambling enclave of Macau and the city-state financial powerhouse of Hong Kong.
But in the end, the president perhaps decided to let the massive, looming achievement speak for itself.
It's all part of the plan
The bridge is part of China's ambitious "Greater Bay Area Master Plan" to integrate Hong Kong, Macau, and the manufacturing powerhouse Guangdong Province's nine biggest cities to create a combined $1.5 trillion tech and science hub to rival even Silicon Valley.
The 55 kilometer mega-structure is a typically intimidating, awe-inspiring and slightly pointless statement of state authority and universal purpose. It rises from the Sun and Moon Bay in Zhuhai port like some giant, disoriented concrete serpent, and snakes off mercurially into the distance.
The air here is very thick too, with southern Chinese humidity and the ever-present eerie grey-brown pollution that wafts in blooms from heavy manufacturing out of the Pearl River Delta - the factory floor of the world - ensuring the mega-bridge in all its glory will be largely obscured from view year-round.
What it does provide, however is direct access to both potentially wayward semi-autonomous regions, binding the gambling enclave and the city-state tighter to the breast of the motherland. Indeed, it may be the angst of an ever-encroaching China that has tilted the president to such a rare and unexpected pithiness.
Commentators have been quick to describe the project as a white elephant, noting that the lightly traveled crossing can hardly be a push for convenience, but rather another covert expansion by Beijing as it extends its reach back into the supposedly autonomous enclaves of Hong Kong and Macau.
The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is the second major infrastructure project binding Hong Kong to the mainland opened in just a few weeks, following a new high-speed rail connection that opened in September - the first time Chinese security were stationed on and bestowed authority in Hong Kong territory.
Certainly, there is anxiety in Hong Kong, with critics fearing the increasing inroads into the special administrative region's territory by an ever-assertive mainland, while some local media has suggested that drivers on the bridge will be closely scrutinized by cameras that examine even their physical condition and how fatigued a driver is becoming.
The issues of territoriality may dominate the project for years to come, the majority of the bridge is considered mainland territory and Hong Kong vehicles and drivers, already hit by restricted access, will be traveling under the laws of the mainland, Hong Kong's transportation department has warned.
"The Hong Kong government is always out of the picture and is under the control of the Chinese government," Tanya Chan told AFP last week. Construction of the bridge began in 2009 and was targeted for completion two years ago.
According to the South China Morning Post, 10 workers died and 600 were injured in the construction of the typhoon-proof, two-way six-lane expressway bridge that the government expects to carry 29,100 vehicles and 126,000 single-day passenger trips by 2030.
But for now, the bridge is open to some traffic, including certain buses, freight, and selected permit-holding passenger vehicles.
It's also a gorgeous trip by ferry.