February** Dynamic Incentive Program
Among the various great achievements of the "infrastructure madness", the highway project extending in all directions is definitely worthy of praise from all over the world. By the end of 2023, the total length of highways in China has exceeded 5 million kilometers, of which the mileage of expressways has exceeded 180,000 kilometers. Great projects such as the Lianhuo Expressway, the world's longest expressway, and the Beijing-Tibet Expressway, the world's highest expressway, can all show the advanced technology of China's highways. But did you know that the "world's loneliest highway" is actually in China, and it is the 37 billion yuan Beijing-Xin Expressway. So, why does no one dare to take the Beijing-Xin Expressway?
As one of the seven "capital high-speed radiation", the Beijing-Xin Expressway with a total length of 25,405 is a traffic artery connecting the capital Beijing and Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.
However, compared with those high-speed highways with rapid construction, the Beijing-Xin Expressway is a typical "good thing and many grinds": from the start of construction in 2012 to the completion of the whole line in 2019, the Beijing-Xin Expressway has been expected by people for seven years.
The technology of the "infrastructure madness" is so developed, why does the Beijing-Xin Expressway take so long to build?
First, the harsh natural environment is the biggest difficulty of the Beijing-Singapore Expressway. After the Beijing-Singapore Expressway entered the Gansu section, the engineers needed to deal with the dual challenges of the Gobi uninhabited area and the boundless desert. According to public information, the Gobi Desert in Gansu covers an area of more than 1.3 million square kilometers, and the natural conditions of hot and dry summers and severe winds and cold winters make it a "forbidden area for life".
Although it does not account for a high proportion of the total length of the Beijing-Xin Expressway, the Xinjiang section of the Beijing-Xin Expressway is 99 kilometers long, but because the Xinjiang section of the Beijing-Xin Expressway crosses the Taklamakan Desert (the world's second largest mobile desert), the builders of the Beijing-Xin Expressway must not only overcome the harsh living environment of the desert, but they must also be vigilant against the risk of quicksand burying the road.
Second, the shortage of building materials also makes it difficult to build the Beijing-Singapore Expressway quickly. The most demanded road engineering is cement, asphalt, sand and gravel and other building materials, which are not rare in the developed areas of the central and eastern regions, but are difficult to solve in the northwest region.
Are these still lacking in the desert and the Gobi? "In fact, the local sand and gravel materials in Gansu and Xinjiang simply cannot meet the requirements of road engineering.
Most of the sand and gravel in the desert and the Gobi Desert are severely weathered, and because the salinity of these areas is seriously exceeded, the strength and durability of the construction projects are difficult to meet the national standards. If the materials cannot be taken locally, they must be transported from other places, which affects the progress of the project.
Third, the complex geological conditions made the construction process difficult. According to public information, the Jinpenwan Tunnel, located in the Inner Mongolia section of the Beijing-Singapore Expressway, is a rare "V-level weak surrounding rock large-section extra-long tunnel project" in the world, and it is said that there have been more than 100 collapse accidents during the construction process.
There are many dangerous projects like the Jinpenwan Tunnel on the Beijing-Xin Expressway, and the construction team of the Beijing-Xin Expressway has to face a world-class difficult engineering problem almost every day. The reason why the Beijing-Xin Expressway cost more than 37 billion yuan is mainly because of those "world-class engineering problems".
Approaching the Spring Festival, highways across the country are facing the test of the Spring Festival rush, but the Beijing-Xin Expressway is still no different from usual. Especially after entering the Gansu section, the traffic flow of the Beijing-Xin Expressway is even more scarce. According to ** reports, the Beijing-Xin Expressway, which is unable to recover the investment in the project due to the scarcity of traffic, still relies on subsidies from the state and local departments.
However, the Beijing-Xin Expressway, which seems to have nothing to do with "making money", can actually bring three major benefits to our country.
1.It is good for the economic development of the western region. Everyone understands the principle that "if you want to get rich, you must first build roads" that the main difficulty restricting the economic development of China's western region is the poor transportation, and this is what the "little lamb skewers" living in Xinjiang have experienced most deeply. The reason why so many netizens complain about the high prices in Xinjiang is that a large part of the cost is the cost of transportation.
The Beijing-Xin Expressway has greatly shortened the road transportation time from the northwest to the central and eastern regions, and the "low to loss-making" high-speed toll standard is also very beneficial to the western economy. Compared with whether the highway makes money, it is a more meaningful policy to use the fiscal revenue taken from the people to achieve common prosperity.
2.It is good for the unity and harmony of the country. Many forces that do not want us to rise regard China's northwest frontier region as a place to "fish in troubled waters", for example, Lao Mei once accused us groundlessly by smearing "Xinjiang cotton".
3.Good for the domestic demand economy. The infrastructure investment of more than 37 billion yuan in the Beijing-Xin Expressway is not a "wasted" investment, and those migrant workers, contract foremen, transport drivers and other workers involved in the construction of the project have shared the country's infrastructure investment dividends.
Insufficient consumption power has always been a difficult development problem to solve, compared with the Western economy "money bailout", China's policy of increasing infrastructure investment to increase the income of migrant workers is more in line with the management philosophy of distribution according to work. If there is no grand project such as the Beijing-Xin Expressway, I am afraid that many workers will be even more afraid to consume.
Considering the increasingly tight financial situation, it is difficult for the Beijing-Singapore Expressway to continue to operate on state subsidies. So how do we put this "lonely highway" on the road to sustainable development?
The small permanent population in Xinjiang, Gansu and other places is the direct reason why the Beijing-Singapore Expressway is not interested, and it is difficult for us to increase the traffic volume of the Beijing-Singapore Expressway by increasing the population in the northwest region under the environment of negative population growth in the country.
As we all know, most of the northwestern provinces such as Xinjiang and Gansu have valuable tourism resources, and in Xinjiang, for example, the income growth rate of the local cultural and tourism industry will be as high as 227% in 2023. If more tourists can go to Xinjiang for consumption, it can not only directly stimulate the highway passenger transport business of the Beijing-Singapore Expressway, but also increase the scale of freight transportation of consumer materials.
Although China has applied ETC unmanned toll collection technology in all provincial toll stations, many provinces and cities still retain a large number of manual toll stations. These manual toll booths not only reduce the efficiency of vehicle traffic, but also increase the personnel cost of the highway manager.
With the help of high-tech such as Beidou and ETC, we are fully capable of building the Beijing-Singapore Expressway into an "unmanned highway", and even those sweepers and snow plows can be operated unmanned.
The loss and debt problems of the Beijing-Xin Expressway are unavoidable development realities, and relying on the strength of the state finance alone can only play a drop in the bucket.
Allowing social capital to participate in the operation and management of the Beijing-Singapore Expressway can not only improve quality and efficiency, but also allow the private economy to get more development opportunities. Today, when China has fully liberalized the restrictions on foreign investment in the manufacturing industry, foreign capital also has the opportunity to invest in highways.
Those Western ** who deny the development achievements of China's "infrastructure madness" like to grasp the problem of losing money in China's infrastructure projects, such as the Beijing-Xin Expressway, which has been smeared by many foreign media. This kind of remark that if you can't eat grapes, you will say that grapes are sour, obviously cannot stop the development and growth of China's infrastructure industry.
If we only focus on the "return on profits" of infrastructure projects, it is difficult to understand the good intentions of the state. The development strategy of a game of chess in the whole country is the main reason why China loses money on infrastructure construction. In fact, as long as the state significantly increases the toll of the national expressway, the expressway can immediately become a "money printing machine", but this practice is obviously not conducive to the real economy.
Enterprises want to develop, people want to live, and the needs of all aspects of the real economy need to be met by infrastructure projects. It is indeed difficult to be satisfied with the return on investment of the Jingxin Expressway alone, but it is undoubtedly a "road to prosperity" for the national economy.
In addition, the sense of gain of the people is more important than whether the infrastructure project is profitable. Without infrastructure projects such as the Beijing-Xin Expressway, it may be difficult for many low-income groups in the northwest region to get out of their hometowns for the rest of their lives. Even if we don't consider the problem of poverty alleviation and income increase, the frustration of life "trapped in a backward hometown" is difficult to let go.
Enabling everyone to enjoy an equal right to development is one of the important goals of national development. Allowing residents in the Gobi Desert and desert to travel to all parts of the country through the Beijing-Singapore Expressway can effectively improve the people's sense of gain, which is of great significance for us to build a harmonious China.
Resolving excess capacity is also of great significance to infrastructure investment. Accustomed to thrift, it is indeed difficult for us to understand the great harm of overcapacity to the economy. Under the influence of the cold winter of foreign trade, China's price increase last year was only 02%。
While infrastructure projects are indeed costly, they can turn unsellable raw materials and products from wasteful inventories into livelihood projects that can generate real returns. Moreover, the employment demand driven by infrastructure investment can also solve the phenomenon of insufficient consumer demand caused by overcapacity.
In China's infrastructure construction, loss-making projects similar to the Beijing-Xin Expressway are not uncommon. Although these projects that cost a lot of money still need financial support from the state, they have made important contributions to the improvement of China's engineering technology level and macroeconomic development.
Although the investment in these infrastructure projects has not yet achieved profitability, the technological innovation and development results brought by them have laid a solid foundation for the sustainable development of our country in the future. These projects are not only an economic investment, but also a catalyst to promote the upgrading of China's overall industrial structure and the improvement of innovation capabilities.
So, do you think the decision to build the Beijing-Xin Expressway was the right one? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area to discuss!