Taiwan mocks China's 100+ km Beijing-Taipei oversea link plan; says 'connect China & Moon'

Taiwan netizens and politicians on Tuesday mocked a Chinese plan to build a transportation network linking Beijing and Taipei, calling it "science fiction" and "daydreaming."

Their comments were in reaction to the Chinese State Council’s release last week of its "Guidelines on the National Comprehensive Transportation Network Plan," which include several proposed transportation links, with one map showing a line running from China’s Jingjinji Metropolitan Region (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) across the Taiwan Strait to Taipei.

"This is the Chinese leadership daydreaming again of [fulfilling its] fantasy of extending China’s transportation network to Taiwan. I suggest people regard it as science fiction," Taipei Times quoted Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu as saying.

'I suggest China look after itself'

"It is China’s ‘united front’ propaganda machine at work," he added. "[Chinese leaders] believe that by building a transportation link to Taipei, the Beijing government can claim that Taiwan falls under Chinese jurisdiction," he said.

"In Europe, they have highway and railway networks linking many countries. These transportation networks go from the UK, France, all the way to Turkey. Does it mean that people consider all EU member states connected by transportation as belonging to one country?" he said.

Taiwan already has very good road networks that provide convenient access, Wang said. "I suggest China look after itself, instead of always coveting its neighbouring country," he said. "The State Council should be more ambitious by announcing a plan to build a road linking China to the moon," he added.

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A high-speed railway linking Beijing and Taipei was proposed in the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20). The Chinese plan says the highway and railway links would be completed by 2035, with the final phase of the project connecting Fuzhou in China’s Fujian Province to Taipei through an undersea tunnel through the Taiwan Strait. Taiwanese pundits and politicians said that would be impossible given the political divide, as well as unrealistic because of the engineering, environmental and financial difficulties.

As per Chinese media reports, by 2035, a comprehensive transportation network of about 700,000 kilometres will be established.  The Chinese network will comprise about 200,000 km of rail tracks, 460,000 km of roads and 25,000 km of waterways－with 27 coastal ports and 36 inland river ports－and about 400 civil aviation airports and 80 logistics hubs.

According to the Taipei Times, some netizens said that the Beijing leadership is deluded and daydreaming. "It is propaganda for their internal consumption, designed to deceive their own citizens. Taiwanese can already see it is a hoax," one netizen who called himself Johnny wrote. "I suggest China build a trans-Pacific railway connecting Beijing to Washington in the US," a netizen surnamed Liu wrote.

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