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Text | Chen Siyu and Wang Jingyi

Editor | Wang Jingyi

When it comes to canals, many people's first reaction is the Grand Canal.

The Grand Canal connects China from north to south, geographically linking the five major water systems of the Haihe River, Yellow River, Huaihe River, Yangtze River and Qiantang River, achieving large-scale allocation of social resources between the north and the south, and nurturing a series of prosperous towns along the line, such as Beijing, Yangzhou and Suzhou.

More than a thousand years after the main body of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was completed, China once again began to build an artificial canal, the Pinglu Canal. The 134.2-kilometer-long canal was started in August 2022 and will be completed by the end of December 2026, opening up a sea access channel from Nanning, Guangxi to the Beibu Gulf.

The Grand Canal in northern Jiangsu Province Source: Jiangsu Provincial Department of Transportation

In order to break through the inland difficulties, a trend of investing tens of billions of yuan to dig canals is quietly spreading in inland provinces such as Jiangxi, Hunan, Henan, Hubei, and Anhui.

"Water transport construction cannot only focus on the present, it has an important positive impact on the medium- and long-term development of a regional economy." Zhang Yongfeng, chief consultant of Shanghai International Shipping Research Center, analyzed to us, "At present, the world economic growth rate has slowed down, and the domestic economic growth has entered a period of transformation and upgrading. It is even more necessary to optimize the transportation structure and promote logistics cost reduction and efficiency improvement. The coordinated development of inland rivers is in line with the future development trend."

Connecting rivers and seas, breaking through the inland difficulties

The long and winding coastline and the unique Beibu Gulf have failed to become the engine of Guangxi's economic take-off.

Backed by the southwest, facing Southeast Asia, and adjacent to the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, Guangxi Beibu Gulf region has a flat terrain, a deep-water port, and superior location conditions. In 2006, Guangxi first proposed the concept of Beibu Gulf Economic Zone, and in 2008 it was approved by the State Council, with the determination to build the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone into the "fourth pole" of China's economic growth.

However, more than a decade later, the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta regions have continued to show strong development momentum, and "South + Coastal" has almost become synonymous with developed regions, while Guangxi's economy is still tepid. In 2023, the per capita GDP of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region was 54,005 yuan, ranking 29th among the 31 provinces (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) included in the statistics, and it is the only coastal province in the bottom ten.

With the support of policies, why has Guangxi still not reaped the benefits of being a “coastal province”?

From a geographical point of view, unlike the double deltas that are close to the sea and the river and have dense water networks, Guangxi lacks inland rivers that connect to the mainland. The coastal plains along the Beibu Gulf can only "enter the sea" but not "connect to the river". The advantages of the ocean cannot spread inland, and there are "breakpoints" in the water transport channels.

Limited by the existing water network layout and geographical conditions, Guangxi Beibu Gulf's excellent ports cannot fully utilize their advantages. Most of the goods in the southwest region that need to be shipped to the sea have to go through the Pearl River Delta instead of the nearby ones. Take Liuzhou as an example. Before being exported, a large number of local industrial products often need to be transported by land to the more distant Guigang or Wuzhou inland river terminals, and then arrive at Guangzhou Port through the Xijiang and Pearl River systems.

In order to reverse the current situation, the Pinglu Canal came into being.

The Pinglu Canal starts from the Pingtang River estuary in the Xijin Reservoir area of ​​Hengzhou City, Nanning in the north, passes through Luwu Town, Lingshan County, Qinzhou, and enters the Beibu Gulf along the Qin River. It is 134.2 kilometers long, with a construction period of 52 months and a total investment of approximately RMB 72.7 billion. It is the first canal project connecting the river and the sea since 1949.

After the Pinglu Canal is completed, Guangxi will revitalize its own ports and realize that most rivers flow into the sea in the south, shortening the distance to the sea by a full 560 kilometers. At the same time, as the highest-level inland waterway, the Pinglu Canal is expected to overcome a 65-meter water level difference and realize the continuous navigation of 5,000-ton ships.

According to the "Inland Navigation Standards", China's inland waterways are divided into seven levels according to the navigability of the river. The first-level waterway can accommodate 3,000-ton inland vessels, such as the Yangtze River Estuary. The Pinglu Canal, also a first-level waterway, can accommodate 5,000-ton ships. The loading capacity of a 5,000-ton cargo ship is approximately equivalent to 80 train carriages.

Geographical location map of Pinglu Canal

From now on, Guangxi's bulk goods such as steel, copper, aluminum and lithium batteries will no longer be troubled by complicated transportation routes and high logistics costs. Through the Pinglu Canal, these goods can be shipped southward from the Beibu Gulf Port to the sea and smoothly transported to ASEAN countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and even further to the Middle East and Europe.

It is predicted that the Pinglu Canal will save more than 5.2 billion yuan in transportation costs for the areas along the new channel each year, creating the shortest, most economical and most convenient sea access channel in southwest China.

A series of top-level designs have been released. In 2020, the Ministry of Transport issued the "Outline for the Development of Inland Waterway Shipping", proposing to "open up a major north-south cross-basin waterway transport channel and build a new Grand Canal", and coordinate the construction of the Pinglu Canal and other canal communication projects.

In 2021, the State Council issued the "National Comprehensive Three-dimensional Transportation Network Planning Outline", proposing to build a national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network with railways as the backbone, highways as the foundation, and giving full play to the comparative advantages of water transportation and civil aviation, and included the Pinglu Canal project in the "14th Five-Year Plan" and the 2035 vision goal.

A "canal boom"

In recent years, a craze for "digging canals" has been quietly spreading in the country, represented by the Pinglu Canal.

Jiangxi is expected to invest 320 billion yuan to build the Zhejiang-Jiangxi-Guangdong Canal. Once completed, its length will exceed that of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, connecting the three major national strategic regions of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and is bound to break the embarrassing situation of the "Jiangxi Economic Circle".

Hunan is expected to invest 150 billion yuan to build the Hunan-Guangxi Canal to connect the Yangtze River and Pearl River water systems, further assist in the transportation connection between Hunan and the Beibu Gulf, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, and ASEAN regions, and promote Hunan's "sea-oriented" development.

Henan plans to invest 141.6 billion yuan in the construction of 47 inland waterway transport projects, striving to integrate into the Yangtze River Delta and build an "inland waterway shipping industry cluster with international competitiveness."

Pinglu Canal Horse Road Hub Construction Site Source: Xinhua News Agency

Hubei is expected to invest 78.4 billion yuan to build the Jinghan Canal to straighten the Yangtze River, solve the "obstruction" problem in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and improve the efficiency of Yangtze River shipping.

Anhui has acted the fastest, investing more than 90 billion yuan to build the Yangtze-Huaihe River Diversion Project, which began construction in 2016. The Jianghuai Canal, one of its components, was completed and opened to navigation in 2023, changing the current situation where water transportation between the Huaihe River and the Yangtze River regions had to detour through the Grand Canal.

Except for Guangxi, the above-mentioned provinces that have carried out large-scale canal projects are all inland provinces. Under the macro background of the current transformation of economic development mode, building canals and dredging water networks seem to have become an important means for inland provinces to find new development opportunities and realize the "central coastalization".

The six provinces mentioned above have invested a total of about 850 billion yuan in canal projects, which is higher than the GDP of Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province, in 2023 (812.2 billion yuan).

Funding is one thing. Digging a canal is different from river restoration projects. It requires re-consideration of site selection and a series of tedious and complicated processes such as project planning and design, environmental impact assessment, fund raising, construction preparation and the start of construction. Regular maintenance and management are also required in the later stage.

In this process, not only is it necessary to accurately select the excavation location and minimize the negative impact on the ecological environment, but it is also necessary to solve various practical problems, such as shortage of human resources and gap in the capital chain.

The Yudai River Bridge across the Grand Canal photographed in Tongzhou District, Beijing. Source: Xinhua News Agency

The Pinglu Canal was in a dilemma during its construction. Some of the bridges on the road it was building did not meet the requirements for stable passage of 5,000-ton ships. The Pinglu Canal construction team decided to demolish the bridges that did not meet the requirements for long-term considerations, and invited senior industry experts to compare the demolition plans for the old bridges many times. While the demolition work was being carried out, the bridges that maintained traffic were also being built.

Zhang Yongfeng mentioned that water transport is an important strategic and basic support for China's economic development. Under the general background of building a new development pattern of "dual circulation", water transport promotes regional circulation internally and becomes an important node for river-sea transport externally. After the inland river channel is opened in the future, it will also better develop "road-rail-water" multimodal transport and build a more complete national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network.

"In recent years, industries have shifted to inland and coastal underdeveloped areas, and regional economic growth has undergone structural changes," said Zhang Yongfeng. "The construction of the canal also complies with the surge in inland demand for raw material imports and industrial product exports in recent years, and is conducive to promoting the construction of a unified national market."

This year marks the tenth anniversary of China's successful application for World Heritage status for the Grand Canal.

Historians have found that the amount of grain transported through the Grand Canal at a given time can be used as a measure of the power and stability of the dynasty.

As an important part of China's Grand Canal, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal ensured the food supply of the capital, promoted the exchange of goods between the north and the south, and played a huge role in the prosperity of Beijing and even the country's economy. There is even a saying on the Internet that "the Forbidden City floated on the Grand Canal."

But by the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Grand Canal had lost its glory and the river channel was blocked and silted up.

So has the Grand Canal lost its transportation function?

The opposite is true. In 1950, China began restoring and repairing the Grand Canal. Today, the Middle Canal, the Inner Canal, and the Jiangnan Canal are still in operation, making important contributions to the economic development and material circulation of the eastern region. Currently, the restoration of navigation along the entire line is underway.

In 2023, the ports along the Grand Canal will handle 750 million tons of cargo, a year-on-year increase of 9.6%, second only to the Yangtze River and the Pearl River. As the "golden section", the ten cascade ship locks in the northern Jiangsu section of the Grand Canal have been opened 313,000 times, with a cargo volume of 350 million tons, setting a new record.

Image source: Xinhua News Agency

millenniumOfThe Grand Canal from Beijing to Hangzhou still carries tens of thousands of ships all year round today, fully demonstrating the important position of inland waterway shipping in China's logistics and transportation network.

Due to the limitation of passenger transport, the benefits of inland waterway transport are not as clearly perceived by people as roads and railways. However, represented by the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the advantages of inland waterway transport are beyond people's imagination. It has large transport capacity, low freight, low energy consumption, and less pollution. It is suitable for various types of cargo transportation and can meet the transportation needs of different industries and enterprises.

The "Statistical Bulletin on the Development of the Transportation Industry in 2023" released by the Ministry of Transport pointed out that in 2023, China completed 391.42 billion yuan of transportation fixed asset investment, of which 105.2 billion yuan was completed in inland river construction, accounting for 2.68%; China completed 54.747 billion tons of commercial freight volume, of which 4.791 billion tons was inland river freight volume, accounting for 8.75%.

In other words, inland waterway shipping achieved an 8% contribution rate with only about 2% investment, and the input-output ratio was 4 times.

Pinglu Canal

At present, China's water transport system has not yet formed a systematic network. Although China is one of the countries with the most rivers in the world, with more than 1,500 rivers with a basin area of ​​more than 1,000 square kilometers, the current navigable rivers are mainly concentrated in the Yangtze River and Pearl River basins, and are not interconnected, making it difficult to give full play to the water transport advantages of the central and western provinces.

Compared with developed countries, China's high-level waterways account for a small proportion of navigable waterways. By the end of 2023, China's inland waterways will have a navigable mileage of 128,200 kilometers, of which 15,400 kilometers are third-level and above waterways, accounting for 12.0%. As early as 2020, this proportion in the United States reached 61%, and in Germany it was 68%.

As early as the beginning of the 20th century, Mr. Sun Yat-sen completed the book "The Strategy of National Construction", in which he proposed the idea of ​​opening up the Pearl River, Xijiang River and Beibu Gulf and opening the Pinglu Canal.

Building canals, especially high-grade canals, will connect China's existing shipping areas into a network and enable the central region to break free from the difficulties of being landlocked.

The inland rivers are not enough.

The construction of the canal has never been just a simple engineering project, but has also been influenced by many factors such as economic and political situations and changes in national policies.

The level of technology in ancient times was limited, and the construction of the canal had to deal with complex geological and hydrological conditions, resulting in a long construction period. In addition, uncontrollable factors such as the change of dynasties and frequent wars in history would also affect the progress of the project, and even cause the project to be interrupted or delayed.

The Grand Canal is about 1,794 kilometers long. It was started in 486 BC and has undergone continuous construction and expansion during the Spring and Autumn Period, Sui, Tang, Yuan and other dynasties. It took a total of more than 1,700 years to become what we see today.

The Panama Canal is about 81.3 kilometers long and was planned to be built in 1880, but the actual construction started in 1904. During the long construction process, it experienced the challenges of regime change, difficulty in raising funds, the spread of epidemics and labor problems, and was finally completed in 1914.

Even in today's advanced science and technology, the time and economic cost required to build a new canal from planning to completion is difficult to estimate easily.

The Grand Canal in northern Jiangsu Province Source: Jiangsu Provincial Department of Transportation

The Pinglu Canal was first included in the national plan in 1986. After decades of preparation, construction did not officially begin until August 28, 2022. This shows the country's cautious attitude towards canal construction.

Given so many uncertainties, why should we build the canal?

Today, China has become one of the world's largest logistics markets. However, as He Liming, president of the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, said, compared with developed countries, China is not yet a "logistics powerhouse" and its overall logistics efficiency is still low.

County Road X375 Baotong Bridge Source: Qinzhou Release

In 2023, the scale of China's logistics market reached 2703.5 billion US dollars, and the total logistics costs of the whole society accounted for 14.4% of GDP. In developed countries, the average proportion of total logistics costs of the whole society to GDP is usually lower, usually around 7% to 10%.

As the cheapest and most convenient form of transportation in the world, judging from the data, there is still room for development in China's inland waterway shipping.

The Ministry of Transport's "Outline for the Development of Inland Waterway Transport" issued in June 2020 plans to increase inland waterway freight turnover to 9% by 2035. In 2023, China's total freight turnover will reach 24,064.6 billion ton-kilometers, of which inland waterway freight turnover will be 2,077.3 billion ton-kilometers, accounting for 8.6%.

In addition, considering the complementary and co-prosperous relationship between coastal port construction and inland waterway transportation, inland waterway construction is conducive to improving the transportation system of existing hub ports. Today, China accounts for seven of the top ten ports in the world.

Zhang Yongfeng believes that the capacity building of China's coastal ports is basically matched with the current import and export demand. Some regions have tight terminal resources and some regions have excess port capacity. Strengthening the professional and large-scale construction of inland waterways and terminals is an important direction. "The connection of high-grade inland waterways is currently a major shortcoming."

Economic development starts with logistics. The People's Daily commented that logistics is the "muscles and veins" of the real economy, connecting production and consumption, domestic trade and foreign trade, effectively reducing logistics costs, and making the economic "muscles and veins" and circulation smoother.

The word "yun" in "canal" has rich meanings and has long surpassed the simple meaning of "transportation". It means "exchange", "encounter", and also represents the "charm" of culture.

If the Pinglu Canal, the Hunan-Guangxi Canal, the Zhejiang-Jiangxi-Guangdong Canal and other projects are completed in the future, the well-connected water network will not only become a link to help China's high-quality economic development, but also a cultural symbol of the new era. Just like the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, which has been integrated into the daily life of residents along the route for thousands of years.

Today, China is entering the canal era.

Editor: Wang Yi