China opens world’s longest sea bridge and tunnel to connect Hong Kong and Macau to the mainland

abcnews.com - Chinese President Xi Jinping inaugurated China’s latest mega-infrastructure project on Tuesday: The world’s longest sea crossing.

The 34.2-mile bridge and tunnel that have been almost a decade in the making for the first time connect the semi-autonomous cities of Hong Kong and Macau to the mainland Chinese city of Zhuhai by road.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge spans the mouth of the Pearl River and significantly cuts the commuting time between the three cities. The previously four-hour drive between Zhuhai and Hong Kong will now take 45 minutes.

One section of the crossing dives underwater into a 4.2 mile tunnel that creates a channel above for large cargo ship containers to pass through.

The project came in over budget -- with Hong Kong alone investing $15 billion in it -- and delayed, as it was originally slate to open in 2016.

At the opening ceremony, Han Zheng, the top Chinese official who oversees Beijing’s at-times tense relationship with Hong Kong, proclaimed that the bridge marked the first time that Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland had jointly cooperated on a major infrastructure project.\

The bridge will help Hong Kong and Macau become more integrated with mainland China, he said.

But for some in Hong Kong, which maintains a separate legal system from China's, the bridge is the just the latest example of Beijing exerting more influence on them. Just in September a high-speed rail-link connected the heart of Hong Kong directly to China’s vast railway network.

Hong Kong lawmaker Claudia Mo has given multiple interviews this year likening the new bridge to a symbolic umbilical cord tethering Hong Kong to the motherland. ContinueReading