Guangxi is spending 70 billion to dig a grand canal from Nanning to the sea. Is it worth it?
Tight deadline and heavy tasks
In Lingshan County, Qinzhou City, Guangxi, among several quiet villages, transport vehicles are constantly driving in and out of the Madao Hub Industrial Park. During the Spring Festival this year, the Madao Hub Industrial Park was still busy. Among the more than 1,900 construction workers and operators, more than 600 stayed in the park to ensure that key processes did not stop during the holiday.
Zhang Fan is the technical person in charge of the Pinglu Canal Horse Road Hub Project of CCCC Second Harbor Engineering Company. Before the Spring Festival, he brought his family from Henan to Guangxi in advance to celebrate the New Year in the park, just like last year. “It is true that we cannot stop work during the Spring Festival because the project is now in the stage of shifting from foundation pit excavation to structural construction, and the continuity of construction needs to be maintained.”
From the day the project started, there has been no shutdown at the Madao Junction. Huang Haibo, the person in charge of the Pinglu Canal Horse Road Hub Project of China Communications Construction Company Second Harbor Engineering Company, told China News Weekly that the horse road hub project has the characteristics of many difficulties, large volume, and tight construction period. It is also a control project of the Pinglu Canal and has great impact on the entire Pinglu Canal. The construction process of the Pinglu Canal has a major impact. “The construction period of the Pinglu Canal is calculated in days. That is to say, as long as the construction period of the Madao Junction is delayed by one day, the construction period of the entire Pinglu Canal will be delayed by one day. Therefore, the pace of construction must be quick.”
In fact, “fast pace” runs throughout the entire construction process of the Pinglu Canal. As one of the first batch of builders to join the Pinglu Canal project, Cheng Yaofei, commander of the Pinglu Canal Project Construction Headquarters, feels deeply about this.
Pinglu Canal Group was registered and established on June 30, 2022. Two weeks later, Cheng Yaofei came to Pinglu Canal Group, and then on July 18, 2022, he brought a team of 12 people to Qinzhou, Guangxi to build the first line . At that time, the construction site for the Ma Dao Junction was only a mountainous area, but a mobilization meeting for the construction of the Pinglu Canal needed to be held on August 28, 2022. “And it is not just a mobilization meeting, the construction must actually start and cannot be stopped.”
Cheng Yaofei recalled that at that time, the feasibility study report of the Pinglu Canal Project had not yet been approved, and various procedures still needed to be approved. Bidding, land acquisition and other work had to be carried out. In the end, “all of this was completed in more than a month.” “.
Before coming to the construction front line of Pinglu Canal, Huang Haibo was responsible for the construction of multiple expressway projects. In his previous job, he had the experience of constructing three expressways at the same time. The work pace was fast and the production pressure was high. But later, Huang Haibo discovered that the work pace of the Pinglu Canal project was faster than any project he had been responsible for before.
Huang Haibo joined the construction of the Pinglu Canal Horse Road Hub Project in early August 2022. In just 22 days, his project excavated more than 300,000 cubic meters of earth and stone, then filled the land, built a station, and prepared to build a 2 More than 10,000 square meters of space were laid out for the mobilization meeting for the construction of the Pinglu Canal, and it took three days to build a two-story office building that is still in use today. “We transferred all the most elite people to work 24 hours a day.” .
The extremely fast pace of work is largely due to the extremely high level of attention.
Cheng Yaofei remembered that the mobilization meeting for the construction of the Pinglu Canal was a grand occasion, attended by many ministerial-level leaders, the main persons in charge of the 14 districts and cities and the relevant units directly stationed in Guangxi, as well as the relevant units and enterprises involved in the construction of the Pinglu Canal project. Everyone attended the meeting. On the day of the conference, Minister of Transport Li Xiaopeng attended and delivered a speech. He emphasized that the Pinglu Canal is a networking project to optimize and upgrade the national water transportation network and accelerate the construction of a national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network. It is of great strategic significance to the economic and social development of Guangxi and Southwest China.
The construction of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor is a major decision-making and deployment made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and an important strategic task proposed in the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. As the backbone project of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor, the Pinglu Canal has received great attention from the central government. Hu Huaping told China News Weekly that the country has included the Pinglu Canal project in the “Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China and the Outline of Long-term Goals for 2035”, “National Comprehensive Three-dimensional Transportation Network Planning Outline” and “ The Master Plan for the New Western Land-Sea Corridor and other major national plans have coordinated and promoted project construction.
The National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Ministry of Water Resources, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration and other relevant ministries and commissions have strongly supported the planning and construction, scientific and technological research, and financial subsidies of the Pinglu Canal. All preliminary work has been rapidly advanced and the project has been completed. Approval of forest, sea, land and other formalities is required to ensure that project construction is legal and compliant.
Hu Huaping recalled that in particular, the Ministry of Transport provided high-standard support and guidance for the project’s policies, funds and technology. Minister Li Xiaopeng personally served as the leader of the provincial joint meeting system of the Canal Special Research Department, guiding the preliminary research and development and construction of the Pinglu Canal, and also Establish a regular investigation and promotion project model for leaders of the Ministry of Transport to jointly promote the construction of the Pinglu Canal with Guangxi.
From the perspective of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the construction of the Pinglu Canal is the number one project in the autonomous region. The project construction leading group is led by Liu Ning, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Autonomous Region, and Lan Tianli, Chairman of the Autonomous Region, and several deputy provincial leaders serve as deputy team leaders. . Since the construction of the Pinglu Canal began, leaders from the autonomous region’s party committee and government have visited the project construction site for inspections almost every month. Liu Ning, secretary of the Party Committee of the Autonomous Region, served as the chief engineer of the South-to-North Water Diversion Planning and Design Administration of the Ministry of Water Resources and participated in the construction of the Three Gorges Project. Since August 2022, Liu Ning has visited the Pinglu Canal construction front line 13 times, the most recent one being on New Year’s Eve, February 9, 2024. Lan Tianli, Chairman of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has chaired several autonomous region government executive meetings and special meetings to study and deploy the construction of the Pinglu Canal, and guide the planning of the construction of the Pinglu Canal Economic Zone and industrial layout.
Open up the “two channels of Ren and Du”
From the perspective of the Pinglu Canal’s role in promoting the development of Guangxi and the entire southwest region, it is not difficult to understand the huge attention it has received.
Although Guangxi is close to the sea and is the only western province with an outlet to the sea, due to the unique geographical environment and altitude difference, most of the rivers in Guangxi do not flow southward to the sea nearby, but flow all the way east. Since Guangxi does not have a waterway connecting the river to the sea, if goods traveling by waterway want to go to sea, they need to take a detour from the Xijiang River through the Pearl River to Guangzhou. Because of this, for a long time, goods from the west have always been “far away” when going to sea.
In fact, the Wuzhou Changzhou Water Conservancy Hub Ship Lock, the last cascade hub on the Xijiang shipping trunk line and the “throat” of the Xijiang golden waterway, has an annual throughput exceeding that of the Yangtze Three Gorges hub for at least two consecutive years. In 2021, it was 150 million tons, which is seriously overloaded. operations. An interviewee once told China News Weekly that “the boat jam here is very severe, and it is normal to be blocked for weeks at most.”
If the “golden waterway” of the Xijiang River and the Beibu Gulf port are regarded as the “two branches of Ren and Du” of Guangxi’s development, the above-mentioned interviewee said: “After the construction of the Pinglu Canal, the “two branches of Ren and Du” of Guangxi’s development will be opened. “
After the completion of the Pinglu Canal, ships in the middle and upper reaches of the Xijiang River Basin in Guangxi can go out to sea from Qinzhou Port through the Pinglu Canal. Compared with going out to sea through Guangzhou, the voyage is shortened by more than 560 kilometers.
It is understood that the Pinglu Canal will connect Guizhou and Yunnan through multiple tributaries such as the Zuojiang River, Youjiang River, Qianjiang River, Hongshui River, Liujiang River, and Duliujiang River, realizing direct connection between inland waterways and ocean transportation in southwest China. Hu Huaping said that the construction of the Pinglu Canal will help improve the transportation capacity and efficiency of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor, further improve the structural functions of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor, and realize the direct connection between the Guangxi inland waterway network, the inland waterways in parts of Yunnan and Guizhou, and ocean transportation.
According to relevant research results, the completion of the Pinglu Canal can save more than 5.2 billion yuan in transportation costs in areas along the New Western Land-Sea Corridor every year.
The shortened sea mileage will not only effectively improve the current situation of “Guangxi’s goods do not go through the Beibu Gulf Port”, but also attract more cargo flows from the western inland provinces, making Guangxi a hub for goods from the western inland provinces to travel across the state, province and ocean. The first choice, thereby further activating the economic development of Guangxi and even the development of western China.
Hu Huaping said that the Pinglu Canal can transform the resource advantages along the route into economic development advantages, promote the optimization and adjustment of industrial layout, form a canal economic belt, enhance the economic belt along the river, and accelerate economic development toward the sea.
In addition to Guangxi, the development of the central and western regions can also benefit from this. Lei Xiaohua, deputy director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies at the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences, once said in an interview with China News Weekly that the essence of the canal is transportation. Logistics promotes trade, trade promotes investment, and investment promotes industrialization.
He believes that after the Pinglu Canal is completed, it will have the greatest impact on the industrial radiation in the central and western regions. International raw materials, capital, talents and other factors reach the western region through large-scale transport, playing a strategic supporting role in the central and western regions. The central and western regions can get basic guarantees of lower-cost production factors, and the product market can also have lower logistics and transportation costs.
Lei Xiaohua said that the south-flowing river brings not only the flow of logistics and people, but also the gathering of various elements in the Beibu Gulf, thereby leveraging the development of western China and making the Beibu Gulf form a new hub for China’s coastal development. One pole.
In addition to economic benefits, Hu Huaping said that the construction of the Pinglu Canal will also bring comprehensive, lasting and significant social, ecological and open benefits. Taking the benefits of opening up as an example, the construction of the Pinglu Canal will open up a convenient water transportation channel for trade between my country and ASEAN, and promote the comprehensive development of economic and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN countries. “We look forward to the Pinglu Canal opening up a ‘way’ for regional cooperation, bringing a ‘sea’ to economic development, and promoting the cities along the middle and upper reaches of the Xijiang River to develop and strengthen towards the sea.”
According to relevant research results, it is expected that the GDP driven by Pinglu Canal transportation services will reach 45 billion yuan and 77 billion yuan in 2035 and 2050, and the new GDP driven by industrial development will reach 32 billion yuan and 173 billion yuan; it is expected that in 2035 and 2050 The total cargo volume of the Pinglu Canal reached 95.5 million tons and 120 million tons respectively.
In the eyes of the outside world, the planning and construction of the Pinglu Canal has accelerated significantly since 2019.
In August 2019, the “Master Plan for the New Western Land-Sea Corridor” was approved by the State Council, clearly proposing to promote the research and demonstration of the Pinglu Canal connecting Xijiang, Guangxi to Beibu Gulf Port. Cheng Yaofei pointed out that one of the most important opportunities for accelerating the planning and construction of the Pinglu Canal is that it is included in the country’s plan for the New Land-Sea Corridor in the West.
However, the story of the Pinglu Canal actually begins a hundred years ago.
When it comes to utilizing waterways, people have always not just walked along natural water systems, but also looked for shortcuts. As early as 1915, the “Guangdong River Management Office”, an agency specializing in the management of Pearl River water conservancy at that time, had conducted survey and planning work for the Pinglu Canal. Sun Yat-sen also proposed the idea of opening the Pinglu Canal through the Pearl River, Xijiang River and Beibu Gulf in his “National Founding Strategy”.
According to an article on the construction of the southwest sea channel by Weng Changpu, a hydropower expert and chief engineer of the original planning committee of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in 1953 after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Guangxi People’s Congress proposed the development of the Pinglu Canal. In 1958 and 1959, the shipping and water conservancy departments of Guangdong Province conducted topographical surveys of the entire canal and proposed the “Preliminary Draft of Pinglu Canal Planning Report.” From 1960 to 1962, the Guangdong Provincial Shipping Department, together with the Guangxi Transportation Department, conducted another survey and proposed the preliminary design of the “Canal Excavation Project” and the “Pinglu Canal Planning Report.” In 1975, the Guangxi Transportation Bureau reorganized previous materials and proposed the “Pinglu Canal Planning Report.”
In 1992, the Guangxi Department of Transportation prepared the “Project Establishment Report on the Preliminary Work of the Pinglu Canal Project Construction”. In 1993, the State Council approved the “Pearl River Basin Comprehensive Utilization Plan”, in which the Pinglu Canal was listed as a long-term construction project, attracting attention.
However, due to the large scale of the project, the wide range of projects involved, and the large amount of investment, these surveys that were carried out in the last century only remained in the general planning stage.
A more recent investigation took place in 2009. In that year, the Western Scientific Research Project of the Ministry of Transport established the “Guangxi Pinglu Canal Strategic Planning Research”. The expert team went to Nanning and Qinzhou to conduct special investigations, and later completed the “Pinglu Canal Strategic Planning Research”. “Study on the Strategic Planning of the Pinglu Canal” and proposed a preliminary plan for the construction of the Pinglu Canal.
Compared with previous surveys and surveys, the Pinglu Canal shipping planning and technical research project initiated by the Guangxi Department of Transportation in 2019 has taken a big step forward in breadth and depth. The Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region government mentioned in a reply to the proposal of members of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference that the research provided a solid, comprehensive and objective foundation for the development and construction of the Pinglu Canal.
CCCC Water Transport Planning and Design Institute Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Water Planning Institute”) was entrusted by the Guangxi Department of Transportation to undertake the research work on this topic. Wu Peng, the former chief engineer of the Institute of Water Resources Planning, told China News Weekly that the study can be called a substantial preliminary study and lasted for more than a year. In addition to Pinglu Canal shipping planning, it also included surveying and survey topics, There are a total of 5 technical topics: research on the overall route and cascade layout plan, research on comprehensive utilization of water resources, research on key navigation technologies for estuary channels and river-sea combined transport ports, and research on navigation technical standards and navigation ship types.
Wu Peng said that the Pinglu Canal shipping planning and technical research has several clear conclusions. In summary, the Pinglu Canal has a huge demand for freight. In addition, there are no restrictive environmental issues along the Pinglu Canal. The overall route and cascade layout have been initially concluded, and a comprehensive water resources utilization project can be built. “That is, it is a Whether the project is necessary to be constructed, what the construction standards and scale are, and what its feasible options are, we all have basic conclusions at this stage.”
It is worth noting that Wu Peng said that this stage of work determined that a “water-saving ship lock” must be built, and the water-saving rate is relatively high. Subsequently, at the end of 2020, the Guangxi Department of Transportation commissioned the Water Resources Planning Institute and other units to prepare a proposal for the Pinglu Canal project, including 6 topics, including research on water-saving ship lock technology.
Why is water conservation so important? Cheng Yaofei mentioned that in the survey and research on Pinglu Canal in the past few decades, “water resources” has actually been the focus of the argument.
The construction of the Pinglu Canal will allow water from the Xijiang River to flow into the Beibu Gulf, and the Xijiang River is the main water system in the Pearl River Basin. During the dry season, it is necessary to ensure that a certain flow of water from the Xijiang River flows into the Pearl River to prevent seawater from intruding into the river in the Pearl River Delta and affecting the domestic water supply of residents in coastal areas. Therefore, for a long time in the past, the demand for salt water in the Pearl River Delta was the main constraint on the construction of the Pinglu Canal.
In recent years, with the construction of Baise, Xijin, Laokou and other water conservancy hubs, the regulatory storage capacity during dry periods has increased. Wu Peng said that after repeated demonstrations, the water conservancy authorities approved the Pinglu Canal to divert 24 cubic meters/second of water from the Yujiang River. Due to the lack of water along the coast of Guangxi, there is already a water diversion project that diverts 20 cubic meters per second of water. This means that only an additional 4 cubic meters per second of water diversion is needed to meet the navigation needs of the Pinglu Canal. Require.
To a certain extent, how much water can be used determines how the lock should be built. Wu Peng said that under the premise of water shortage, the Pinglu Canal must build water-saving ship locks, and the research on the water-saving ship lock technology of the Pinglu Canal will go from the stage of project proposal preparation to the project feasibility study stage, and then It continues to deepen until the preliminary design stage of the project.
The Madao hub, Qishi hub, and Youth hub under construction are the three cascade hubs of the Pinglu Canal. All of their hub locks are water-saving locks. Taking the Madao Junction as an example, Huang Haibo said that a three-level provincial pool is set up next to the ship lock. When the ship lock needs to lower the water level and move downward, part of the water will be discharged into the provincial pool. When a ship sails from downstream to upstream, the water in the provincial pool is first recycled and funneled into the lock, and then part of the upstream water is replenished until the water level in the lock is level with the upstream. Through the interconnection of the sluice chamber and the three-level provincial pool, a water saving rate of 63% can be achieved and the full and intensive utilization of water resources can be achieved.
According to data from the Pinglu Canal Group, the three major hubs of the Pinglu Canal are expected to save more than 1 billion tons of water annually, which is approximately the annual water consumption of 8 million families of three.
After the project proposal preparation stage, as the feasibility study of the Pinglu Canal project was carried out, the planning and design of the Pinglu Canal became increasingly clear. One of the major changes was the cascade arrangement of the Pinglu Canal.
There is a drop of about 65 meters between the water surface at the starting point of the Pinglu Canal and the sea level at the mouth of the terminal. Therefore, it is necessary to build a cascade hub on the canal and divide the canal channel into several steps to adjust the water level difference.
Wu Peng said that the cascade layout of the canal is an important topic. It was first studied with six cascades, and then compared different plans of six cascades, five cascades, four cascades, and three cascades. With one step, the amount of waterway engineering will increase, but the cost of the step project will be saved.”
The four-step plan was once considered very competitive, once surpassing the three-step plan. This was because the project cost of four steps was calculated to be relatively lower. However, with more cascades, the time for ships to pass through the lock will be extended, and the cost of annual maintenance of the cascade hub will also increase, and the cost will rise again. “We can’t just look at the level of project investment, we should also consider the comprehensive benefits.” Wu Peng said that after detailed demonstration, the three-tiered plan was finally selected.
In July 2022, the feasibility study report of the Pinglu Canal Project was approved. More than a month later, the construction of the Pinglu Canal officially started, and the pilot project was launched first. In January 2023, the preliminary design of the Pinglu Canal project was approved. On May 23, 2023, construction of the entire Pinglu Canal started.
Solve many problems
As an expert in engineering survey and design, Wu Peng has presided over and participated in more than 120 engineering design and scientific research projects over the past thirty years. He pointed out that looking across the country, the technical difficulty of the Pinglu Canal is second to none among all water transportation projects.
Wei Dejian, deputy general manager and chief engineer of Pinglu Canal Group Company, told China News Weekly that the Pinglu Canal is the grand canal with the highest level of navigation, the largest navigable ship, and the country’s first inland river ship that can directly reach the seaport since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The Madao Junction and Qishi Junction ship locks have created three “world’s best” projects: the world’s largest inland river water-saving ship lock, the world’s highest water-saving ship lock, and the world’s fastest running water-saving ship lock. “There is no precedent in the country”, the project The construction technology requirements are high, and there are many key core technical problems that need to be solved in the construction of the project.
In fact, many of the difficulties faced in the construction of the Pinglu Canal are “new”.
The excavation and utilization of earth and stone is a big problem. The Pinglu Canal project is extremely large. It is expected that the total amount of earth and stone excavation for the entire project will reach 339 million cubic meters, which is equivalent to the excavation volume of three Three Gorges ship locks. For the Ma Dao Junction alone, the earth and rock excavation volume reached approximately 41.43 million cubic meters, making it the project with the largest earth and rock excavation volume at a single point along the canal. Since the start of construction in August 2022, the Madao hub has been focused on earth and stone excavation for more than a year.
How to dispose of such a large amount of earth and stone after excavation? Huang Haibo mentioned seven major utilization directions, including land reclamation, park backfill, land reclamation, land reclamation (offshore), project self-use, green building materials, ecological restoration of mines, etc.
Taking land reclamation as an example, Huang Haibo explained that the area around the horse road junction was originally mountainous, and eucalyptus trees were mainly planted. The economic benefits were not high. The excavated earth and stone can be used to raise the land by filling, and then the original top soil can be paved. , became cultivated land. Through the comprehensive utilization of earth and rock, the potential for new cultivated land is expected to be 835.7 hectares.
How to achieve efficient water delivery and water saving in ship locks is another big problem. To put it simply, to improve the operating efficiency of ships passing through the lock, it is necessary to achieve efficient water delivery, which requires the design of complex and clever water delivery corridors and fast opening and closing ship lock valves. At the same time, the Pinglu Canal’s hub lock must also save water. Meeting these requirements at the same time requires extremely high technical requirements.
Previously, the Hohai College of Chongqing Jiaotong University and the National Inland Waterway Regulation Engineering Technology Research Center had conducted research on key technical issues such as water-saving ship locks and efficient water delivery systems under the guidance of relevant experts from the Institute of Water Resources Planning. Yang Shengfa, dean of the Hohai College of Chongqing Jiaotong University, told China News Weekly that in order to break through the technical problems of the efficient water delivery system of the water-saving ship lock, it is necessary to design a water delivery model in the laboratory according to a ratio of 1:30, which is divided into mathematical models. and physical models, then conduct simulations, and continuously optimize the solution. Yang Shengfa said that this work lasted for three or four years in total, and more than 20 teachers and 50 or 60 doctoral and master’s students from the Hohai College of Chongqing Jiaotong University participated in this work.
Even though breakthroughs have been made in efficient water delivery and water saving technology for large ship locks, the actual construction is still a huge problem.
Among the three major hubs of the Pinglu Canal, the ship lock is huge, so the scale of concrete pouring is also huge. As for the Madao hub, Zhang Fan said that its ship lock concrete pouring volume is about 3.47 million cubic meters, which is 10 times the volume of conventional ship lock projects. During the peak period, the daily concrete pouring volume will reach 10,000 cubic meters.
Mass concrete construction will bring about a series of problems that need to be solved. One of the typical problems is how to control the temperature of concrete and prevent cracking. Zhang Fan said that in order to solve this systemic problem, research needs to be carried out from various aspects such as ship lock structural design, concrete proportions, construction equipment, and temperature control throughout the entire process of concrete production, transportation, and construction.
In addition to key core technical and construction problems, as a super project, the Pinglu Canal will also face project scheduling and management problems during the construction process.
The main construction content of the Pinglu Canal includes 134.2 kilometers of 5,000-ton waterway, 3 double-line ship lock shipping hubs, 27 new and reconstructed bridges, and supporting projects. The project construction requires the completion of permanent land acquisition of 31,100 acres, house demolition of 2,875 households, and earth and stone excavation of 3.39 million acres. billion cubic meters and 12.9 million cubic meters of concrete poured. The construction period of the Pinglu Canal is 52 months. It is a huge challenge to complete so much construction content within 52 months.
Create standards and export experience
The Pinglu Canal is a special project on many levels.
Huang Haibo graduated from a water conservancy-related major and had many years of experience in road and railway construction. After coming to Pinglu Canal, he could clearly feel the similarities between road and railway projects and water conservancy projects. However, there are still significant differences between the Pinglu Canal and other projects.
In recent years, the standardization of highway construction and railway construction has continued to increase. Huang Haibo said that for example, in highway construction, the drawings for producing steel bars are almost universal, and the drawings for tunnels on highways are also almost universal. The high degree of standardization allows experienced construction companies to get started quickly when receiving a new highway project.
“However, there were no standards for the Pinglu Canal before, so standards must be created.” Huang Haibo said that for the Pinglu Canal, construction standards related to various civil engineering projects such as roads, water transportation, and bridges are now combined to create higher and more stringent standards. standard.
Since its construction, many innovative measures have been taken in the construction of the Pinglu Canal. Wei Dejian said that during project construction, Pinglu Canal Group always uses new technologies, new equipment, new materials, and new processes to solve practical problems in the project. Taking new technologies as an example, in 2023, a total of 49 new technologies will be developed and introduced for the main canal project. “With the advancement of scientific and technological research, there will be more breakthroughs in key technologies in the future.”
The innovations in the construction of the Pinglu Canal are also exporting experience for similar water transportation projects in the future.
In February 2021, the “National Comprehensive Three-dimensional Transportation Network Planning Outline” was issued, and cross-basin water transport channels such as Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Han, Hunan and Guangxi were included in the main skeleton layout of the national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network. According to the plan, after the Zhejiang-Jiangxi-Guangdong canal is completed, it will connect the two major water systems of the Yangtze River and the Pearl River, and can also connect the Huaihe River, Yellow River, Haihe River, Qiantang River and other water systems.
Driven by the promotion of all parties, new news has repeatedly spread about canal projects such as the Zhejiang-Jiangxi-Guangdong Canal in recent years. A more recent development occurred just a few months ago. In October 2023, the Transportation Bureau of Quzhou City, Zhejiang Province organized an expert review meeting for early-stage related research projects on the Zhejiang-Ganxi Canal. The special research project related to the early-stage Zhejiang-Ganxi Canal compiled by the Water Resources Planning Institute successfully passed the review. This is a great development for Jiangxi and Zhejiang. The province has laid the foundation for accelerating the preliminary research on the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Canal.
Wei Dejian said that there was no mature experience to draw from before the construction of the Pinglu Canal, and many aspects needed to be researched and innovated. In the future, the Pinglu Canal is also committed to becoming an exporter of complete canal construction solutions.
Huang Haibo is from Anhui. After coming to Guangxi to participate in the construction of the Pinglu Canal, during his contacts with the local people, he found that some people did not understand the Pinglu Canal. Not many people know that goods from Guizhou or Yunnan will flow southward into the sea along this canal in the future, and not many people are aware of the changes that the Pinglu Canal may bring to their lives.
However, these changes are bound to happen.
The construction of the Pinglu Canal Economic Belt is accelerating, and cities along the route have already begun taking action. Qinzhou is on the front line of the Pinglu Canal and is a city that is passed through by the Pinglu Canal. Qinzhou Mayor Wang Xiongchang said in January 2024 that with the accelerated construction of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor, the development of Qinzhou’s seaward industry has entered the “fast lane.” Strength has accelerated the development of port-facing industrial clusters and promoted the development of county industries towards the sea.”
Last year, Qinzhou Petrochemical Industrial Park became the first 100-billion-level professional chemical park in Southwest China, and some cross-border industrial chain projects started construction and operations. In terms of foreign trade, Qinzhou Port is transforming and upgrading from a logistics port to a trading port. The number of foreign trade containers throughout the year exceeded one million TEUs for the first time.
Wang Xiongchang said that in 2024, Qinzhou will focus on 12 pilot projects and 200 key supporting projects, vigorously carry out investment promotion, and strive to reach cooperation with powerful enterprises.
There is no doubt that this idea, which has been advocated by many knowledgeable people for more than a hundred years, is becoming a reality.
Weng Changpu once served as the chief engineer of the Southwest Hydropower Engineering Bureau and the president of the Guangxi Hydropower Survey and Design Institute. He participated in the construction of the Yellow River Sanmenxia Project, the Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Demonstration, and the Southwest Redwater River Basin Planning. In March 1994, Weng Changpu reviewed the past history of surveying and demonstrating the Pinglu Canal in a letter discussing strategic issues in the construction of the southwest sea channel, and emphasized that the Pinglu Canal would have huge economic and social benefits for the southwest region.
At the end of the letter, Weng Changpu attached a poem “Moon over the Xijiang River” composed by himself: “Facing Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States, leaning on Guangxi, Shu, Yunnan and Guizhou, the Leiqiong Islands form a screen for the feudal vassal, and the wind and waves are gentle. I recall Feng Gong’s victory over the invaders. The Han Dynasty combines with the pearls of Pu, and the strategic planning channel fights with Yixian. How can a person be poor and have short ambitions?!”
Original title “Rebuilding a century canal with 70 billion!” Is it worth it?
