CHINA-TAIWAN: RAIL TUNNEL FOR PLA

 The well-informed Hong Kong Economic Journal reported on March 14, 2016, that a giant tunnel across the Taiwan Strait for an express rail link between Beijing and Taipei is listed as a key project under China’s 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020). While people in Taiwan say they have never heard of it, Wang Mengshu, one of the country’s top railway engineers, said the two sides had been discussing the plan for a decade and that Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou was aware of, and possibly facilitated, the proposal. According to Beijing, the mega project involves the construction of a 122-kilometer tunnel spanning the strait and linking Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province, with Taiwan’s Hsinchu County.Analysts are concerned that the ultra-long tunnel will give the Chinese military a shortcut to the island to deploy tens of thousands of soldiers if they can control the Hsinchu exit for just a couple of hours. Taipei is just some 80 kilometers north of the beachhead. Beijing wants the tunnel to be operational  in five years.Meanwhile, a Global Times editorial said the Taiwanese opposing the project are “cowards” and that the rail link has effectively frightened them to “urinate”.

 






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