The Taiwan Strait Tunnel Project is a proposed

undersea tunnel An underwater tunnel is a tunnel which is partly or wholly constructed under the sea or a river. They are often used where building a bridge or operating a ferry link is unviable, or to provide competition or relief for existing bridges or ferry li ...

to connect Pingtan in

Mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...

to Hsinchu in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

as part of the G3 Beijing–Taipei Expressway. First proposed in 1996, the project has since been subject to a number of academic discussions and feasibility studies, including by the

China Railway Engineering Corporation The China Railway Engineering Corporation (CRECG) is a state-owned holding company of China, which is under the supervision of the State Council. The company is the major shareholder of China Railway Group Limited (CREC), its subsidiary. Hist ...

. The route between Pingtan and Hsinchu was chosen because of its short distance (compared to other proposed routes) and its relative geological stability (in a region frequented by earthquakes). One expert from the Chinese Academy of Engineering suggested in 2005 that the Taiwan Strait Tunnel Project was one of five major undersea tunnel projects under consideration for the next twenty to thirty years.

Reception

The project is not considered viable due to a lack of interest from the Taiwanese, staggering costs and unsolved technical problems. At nearly km undersea, the proposed tunnel would be 6.4 times longer than existing

Seikan Tunnel The Seikan Tunnel ( ja, 青函トンネル, or , ), is a dual-gauge railway tunnel in Japan, with a portion under the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, which separates Aomori Prefecture on the main Japanese island of Honshu from the northern isla ...

(), nearly 4 times longer than the

Channel tunnel The Channel Tunnel (french: Tunnel sous la Manche), also known as the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that connects Folkestone (Kent, England, UK) with Coquelles ( Hauts-de-France, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. ...

() (the current longest underwater tunnel segment), and two-thirds longer than the China-lead

Bohai Strait tunnel project The Bohai Strait Tunnel or Dalian-Yantai Tunnel is a proposed undersea tunnel construction project across the Bohai Strait to connect Dalian on the Liaodong Peninsula with Yantai on the Shandong Peninsula. The official name for the project is B ...

. In addition, Taiwan is concerned about the tunnel's potential use by China in military actions. Nonetheless, in July 2013, the Chinese State Council approved plans for the project. The project, along with the Beijing–Taipei high-speed rail corridor, has been mocked in Taiwan.

References

External links

An Engineering Concept of the Taiwan Strait TunnelSocioeconomic Impact of the Taiwan Strait Tunnel
Proposed undersea tunnels in Asia Proposed transport infrastructure in China Proposed transportation infrastructure in Taiwan {{taiwan-transport-stub

Reception

See also

References

External links