Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
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Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday inaugurated a 55-km bridge that will deepen the integration of Hong Kong and Macao with the rest of China. The world’s longest sea-crossing bridge will be at the heart of an integrated Greater Bay Area (GBA) covering 11 major neighbouring cities, which include Hong Kong, Macao, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The giant GBA comprising 68 million people is expected to rival the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S., as well as the Tokyo Bay Area of Japan. From a passenger clearance building of the Zhuhai Port in mainland China, President Xi announced the opening of the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai Bridge (HMZB). Leading officials from the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions as well as from the neighbouring Guangdong province, the industrial heart of China, attended the 9 a.m. ceremony. The opening of the bridge docks with the start of a bullet train last month between Hong Kong and Guangzhou, the gateway to the rest of mainland China by high-speed rail. Analysts see the opening of the HMZB as a symbol validating the One country-two systems formula, which allows Hong Kong and Macao substantial political autonomy, while remaining part of China. The bridge has been built to withstand super-typhoons, a magnitude 8 earthquake, as well as hits by super-sized cargo ships. A 6.7 km underground sea tunnel to allow uninterrupted flow of shipping above, along the super-busy Pearl River Delta, is also part of the bridge’s design. In the end, it will cut the travel time between the three cities from three hours to just 30 minutes. It took about a decade to build the $20 billion bridge.
