On this episode of China Uncensored,
the top 5 over-the-top Chinese engineering projects.
Hi. Welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m your host, Chris Chappell.
China is known for massive infrastructure projects.
Like the world’s highest bridge,
which looks like a lot of fun.
Or the longest subway tunnel on the planet,
which is 37 miles long.
China is the biggest country by population,
so it makes sense
that some of its infrastructure projects are big, too.
And some of these projects are not just big,
but really, really big.
And also have big problems.
So let’s take a look at 5 crazy Chinese engineering projects.
Number 5
Looking for intelligent life.
A few years back in the limestone hills of Guizhou province,
Chinese engineers were busy putting the final touches
on China’s newest gadget in the race to dominate space.
the Death Wok.
Formally known as the Five-hundred-meter
Aperture Spherical radio Telescope, or FAST.
While it may look like a great place
to cook the world’s largest stir-fry,
it’s actually the world’s largest radio telescope.
Nestled lovingly in the middle of a gorgeous mountain view.
It was built by this guy—
—chief scientist and engineer Nan Rendong.
He was so proud of his creation that
he told Science magazine in an interview
“I’m really not very interested in science,
I’m sorry to say.”
That was a joke, according to his colleagues.
Haha, science humor.
So funny.
The satellite dish started receiving signals in 2016,
but it’s currently still being calibrated,
which takes three years to finish.
They have, however, already been able
to receive signals from the Crab Nebula.
This photo is from NASA, by the way,
and not from the radio telescope.
For historical context, a thousand years ago,
astronomers in the Song dynasty used little
more than the naked eye to observe the supernova
that created the Crab Nebula.
Which proves that the Crab Nebula has been
part of Chinese territory since ancient times.
Experts say the aim of the giant telescope
is to capture radio signals from distant galaxies,
probe gravitational waves, and,
coolest of all, look for alien life!
Waaiiiit a minute.
A giant radio satellite dish in China
that’s looking for alien life,
built by an astronomer
who survived the Cultural Revolution..
are we sure we’re not living through
the plot of the Three Body Problem?
Because while that’s one of my favorite sci-fi books,
I don’t think I’d want to live there.
No sign of aliens yet, though.
As far as we know.
While we wait...stir fry, anyone?
Number 4
The Wansheng Ordovician Theme Park in Chongqing.
No science here, just fun.
Or sheer terror, 500 feet in the air.
Though you’d think on a bridge
hundreds of feet above ground
missing floor planks and no guard rails,
a touch more engineering wouldn’t kill anybody.
The theme park is home to all kinds of totally safe attractions
like this swing built over a cliff.
or the park’s top attraction, a cantilever platform
that Guiness says is the longest in the world.
With a floor made of glass.
Everybody loves it.
In fact there’s so much demand for terror-induced adrenaline kicks,
there’s a whole bunch of glass bridges in China.
Like the Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge,
which holds the record for the tallest
and longest glass bridge in the world.
This one was such a hit with audiences
it had to be closed down after less than two weeks of use
for design reinforcements.
The bridge was designed to hold up to 800 people at once,
and up to 8,000 visitors per day.
It turns out ten times the allowed limit,
so 80,000 visitors, tried to get on the bridge each day.
But officials put an end to that kind of dangerous excess
after only 13 days of use.
Number 3
The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge.
At 34 miles end to end, it’s the world’s longest sea bridge.
Construction was overdue by two years,
and more than a billion dollars over budget.
At least 19 people were killed during construction,
and hundreds were seriously injured.
The cost was high,
but at least the bridge will reduce trade barriers
between Hong Kong, Macau, and mainland China.
Except maybe it won’t.
There’s so much red tape to use it,
that the average citizen
will never be able to drive across it.
It requires three separate permits
with seperate application processes.
Plus car insurance from three separate regions.
Not to say the 34-mile long bridge isn’t impressive.
It’s just that you’re still better off taking the ferry.
Number 2
China is so dam crazy!
China has 9 of the world’s 20 largest dams.
But at top of the list is the Three Gorges Dam.
It’s both the biggest dam in the world
and the biggest hydroelectric power station in the world.
So it’s either twice the bang for your buck or double the trouble.
On the one hand,
it generates a whopping 22,500 megawatts of electricity.
To put that into perspective,
one megawatt is about 1000 people
all blow drying their hair at the same time.
So the dam makes enough power for
22 and a half million Chinese people
to blow-dry their hair all at the same time.
But that’s still only one-and-a-half percent of
the country’s electricity needs.
And all it took was the forced relocation of 1.4 million people,
the destruction of more than 2000 archeological sites,
catastrophic flooding in some places,
and crippling droughts in others.
Plus, when the dam closes to fill its reservoir
with about ten trillion gallons of water,
the enormous weight of the huge body of water
causes mudslides and landslides.
Fun fact: the massive weight of the reservoir
caused the Earth to rotate a bit slower, too,
so each day is now zero point zero zero
zero zero zero zero zero six seconds longer.
Water in the reservoir also submerged hundreds of factories,
mines and waste dumps,
creating a festering bog of industrial pollutants and garbage.
There are garbage islands so thick that people can stand on them.
On the plus side,
fishermen can make extra money by collecting the garbage.
See, it’s creating jobs!
And finally...
Number 1
The water displaced by the Three Gorges Dam
is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to
the number one most insane engineering project in China,
the South-North Water Transfer Project.
Despite what you may have heard about pollution
being China’s worst environmental threat...
there’s something worse:
Drought.
China is drying up, and water is running out.
Chinese people on average have around
half of what is internationally defined as water stress,
the point where there’s not enough water to go around.
But the bigger problem is that
four fifths of China’s water mis in the south.
That makes the north of China pretty much a desert.
Especially now that it has so many huge cities.
A recent report called “China’s Looming Water Crisis”
says that unlike any other of China’s problems—
like mounting debt or housing bubbles—
the scarcity of water in the north threatens to cause
severe economic disruption or even outright collapse.
But the report says that instead of solving the problem
by regulating industrial water consumption,
implementing reforms to make agriculture more efficient,
or letting experts instead of communist party officials
manage the water shortage,
the Chinese Communist Party has adopted
a plan straight out of Mao Zedong’s playbook.
I mean they literally took Mao at his word
when he said “the south has plenty of water,
the north much less.
If possible, the north should borrow a little.”
Just in case anybody needs a reminder that
taking Mao at his word is never a good idea,
remember his big economic development idea,
the Great Leap Forward?
Yeah, that killed more than 40 million people.
But I’m sure the South-North Water Transfer Project,
which will use three different routes to divert water
from tributaries of the Yangtze River in the south,
and transfers that water to the north,
will have no unintended consequences.
Like half the water evaporating along the way.
And all it took was drilling 2000 miles of canals and,
as usual, ignoring the potentially devastating
environmental consequences.
I mean what could possibly go wrong?
Ok, so it forced nearly 400,000 people to relocate,
and needed the construction of
a whole bunch of new dams to control water flows,
with each dam sparking its own set of mudslide
and landslide type issues.
And for all that effort,
and a cost of 48 billion dollars and counting,
the two out of three sections of the project
that have been opened so far
can only divert 25 billion tons of water annually.
That’s barely 4% of China’s total water consumption.
Worst of all, according to The Economist,
“The project diverts not only water
but money and attention from China’s real water problem:
waste and pollution.”
According to government statistics,
half of all China’s lakes and reservoirs are polluted
beyond what’s safe for human consumption.
But when has the Chinese Communist Party
ever rejected an idea just because it’s bad?
So what do you think about China’s
insane engineering projects?
Leave your comments below.
And before we go, it’s time for me to answer
a question from one of our supporters on Patreon.
Shane Butler asks:
“Is Jiang Zemin the number 1 target
in the anti-corruption campaign?”
Good question, Shane.
Yes, former Chinese leader and toady Jiang Zemin
is the final target in Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign.
And for those of you who are new here,
it’s not really an anti-corruption campaign.
It’s a political purge.
But even after being out of power for more than a decade,
Jiang Zemin still holds a lot of sway behind the scenes.
And in Chinese Communist Party politics,
Xi has to take down
all of Jiang’s supporters and cronies first.
Basically, Jiang Zemin is the final boss,
and Xi Jinping needs to clear all the previous levels,
and rack up enough experience points,
to be able to defeat him.
But unlike a video game,
this one will just end in the main character
becoming the final boss himself.
Thanks for your question, Shane.
And thanks to all of you who support China Uncensored
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Your support is what keeps the show going.
Thanks for watching China Uncensored.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
See you next time.