Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
quality not just intrinsically but hierarchically; in other words, suzhi is
understood to be higher in the city than in the country, in Han areas than in
minority areas, and in the economically advanced areas than in “backward”
regions. (h is spatial hierarchy is not unique to China; it echoes Lenin.)
On the international level, the CCP policy is to increase and improve the
“quality” of the Chinese people. Both government policy and the popular
perception in China is that peasants' anti-market position and their tradi-
tional feudal consciousness are symbols of low quality that simultaneously
constrain their economic development.
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In this context, Dongtan's focus on
uplifting rural lives through technology and engineering aims to increase
the economic activity on Chongming Island as well as its quality, through a
moralistic discourse of improvement and increased engagement with the
market and modernity, best represented by Shanghai.
islands: isolation or idyll?
Based on its own development plans, Shanghai city is improving and chang-
ing Chongming in direct and literally concrete ways, most obviously in
October 2010 with the opening of the Changjiang Tunnel-Bridge Express-
way, the world's longest bridge and tunnel connecting the Pudong area of
Shanghai to eastern Chongming Island (near Dongtan). h at bridge and tun-
nel is an engineering marvel—consisting of an 8.9 kilometer (5.5 mile) tun-
nel between Shanghai's Pudong area and a small island, followed by a 10
kilometer (6 mile) cable-stayed bridge to Chongming Island (see fi gure 2). It
was built with a cost of 12.6 billion yuan (1.85 billion U.S. dollars). Interna-
tional bridge and tunnel afi cionados celebrated the opening, joining the
o' cial State celebration that included dancers, bright balloons, numerous
statues of Haibao (the Shanghai World Expo's mascot), and requisite smiling
politicians.
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h e tunnel boasts the world's largest diameter of its kind, but
this epic project is not unique within China, home to four of the world's
longest-span cable-stayed bridges.
