The world's largest man-made canal

The world's largest artificial canal project

The 135km-long Binh Luc Canal starts from the Tay Tan reservoir on a tributary of the Pearl River, near the capital Nanning of Guangxi province, connects with the southern port of Qinzhou and flows into the Gulf of Tonkin, marking the first time in 1,400 years that China has built a large-scale canal.

The canal, with a total investment of 72.7 billion yuan (10.1 billion USD), is a typical project in the trade corridor from the mainland to the sea of western China towards the Gulf of Tonkin and the East Sea.

Upon completion, this will be the world's largest river-sea canal, with a total excavation volume of more than 339 million m3, three times that of the Three Gorges Dam.

Construction site of Binh Luc canal project

At that time, the journey from the inland provinces of the West to the sea will be shortened by more than 560km.

The canal can accommodate ships with a capacity of up to 5,000 tonnes and has the potential to save annual shipping costs of more than 5.2 billion yuan ($725 million).

This is also the route to transport 108 million tons of goods/year by 2035 and 130 million tons/year by 2050.

The capillary connecting China with Southeast Asian countries

One of the important potentials of this route is to bring Beijing closer to Southeast Asian countries.

According to expert Gao Zhengdong, a veteran consultant who helps many Chinese companies seek investment opportunities in Southeast Asian countries, this canal worth more than 10 billion USD will create more "capillaries" to more closely connect the Chinese market with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Beijing has stepped up bilateral cooperation with an annual dialogue mechanism, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the 15-member Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which includes China, ASEAN plus South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Infrastructure connectivity is seen as one of the top priorities, reflected in the BRI and the Beijing-headquartered Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

He said the two-way flow of goods through here will increase because “this waterway will help save a lot of costs”. According to estimates, the canal will help reduce the shipping distance from Guangxi to Southeast Asian countries by 800km when it comes into operation.

It will allow container ships or cargo ships to leave Nanning for Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries within weeks.

China wants to strengthen its infrastructure because, according to Huang Yonghui, senior advisor of the Guangxi Development and Reform Commission, the country needs a denser logistics network to ensure closer bilateral supply chains, as well as closer economic and trade exchanges.

“The international situation is so serious that Chinese enterprises should cooperate more closely with ASEAN. Then the ports will have great prospects in the future,” he said.

The Pinglu Canal will improve bilateral infrastructure connectivity, allowing Guangxi to have comprehensive links with neighboring Southeast Asian markets via road, rail, shipping and aviation.

Currently, goods from western China must go to Guangzhou and Hong Kong via the Xijiang and Pearl Rivers.

However, besides the expectations that this canal will facilitate foreign trade, some public opinion has questioned whether this is just a “white elephant” project (a useless asset) due to concerns about supply chain and environmental factors.

The environmental impact assessment report said the canal would pass through five drinking water protection zones, occupy 849.18 hectares of agricultural land, 16.56 hectares of non-commercial forest and 13.9 hectares of mangrove forest and would impact aquatic ecosystems.

Panoramic video of the construction project of the world's largest Binh Luc canal (Source: CGTN)