The completion of one of the world’s longest bridges stands as the biggest monument to China’s success in reuniting its colonial-era concessions. Overcoming the political divide may prove much harder.
The 55 kilometer (34 mile) span – eerily deserted as crews prepared for a ribbon-cutting expected later this year – connects the former European outposts of Hong Kong and Macau for the first time and ties them both to southern China. It’s tipped to carry some 29,000 cars and trucks daily over blue tropical waters formerly patrolled by three navies, and across borders the People’s Liberation Army once guarded mostly to keep defectors from leaving.
The $15 billion bridge is only one piece of President Xi Jinping’s sweeping plan to knit the region into a high-tech megalopolis to rival Silicon Valley in California.
This so-called Greater Bay Area – with 67 million residents – would boast a trillion-dollar economy and eclipse Japan as the world’s fourth-largest exporter, according to HSBC Holdings Plc.
While the project envisions a better marriage between China’s industrial might, Hong Kong’s capital markets and Macau’s casinos, it also risks...
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