All too often with China’s much ballyhooed development projects, the reality doesn’t come close to the hype. From Sarah Anderson at pjmedia.com:
Welcome to the fourth installment of my “Tracking China in the Americas” series, in which I cover some underreported stories on China’s footprint in the Western Hemisphere. I actually had something different planned for this week — a deep dive into how China is reaching out to young people in the Western Hemisphere — but when I saw this bridge fall, I knew I had to switch gears. Anything to point out what China does wrong should spread far and wide. So, check back in next week for the young people stuff. Let’s get to the Hongqi Bridge.
You may have seen it on social media, but a portion of the 2,500-foot Hongqi Bridge in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan collapsed on Tuesday. Thankfully, no one was hurt as law enforcement had closed down that portion of the highway that links Sichuan to Tibet on Monday, “after cracks appeared on nearby slopes and roads, and shifts were seen in the terrain of a mountain.” The bridge was only open for a couple of months.
You may be thinking: This happened in China. What does it have to do with the Western Hemisphere? Well, let’s just say that China’s disastrous projects don’t stay in the homeland.
When I saw the video myself, it made me think of something Marco Rubio said back in March while traveling to several Caribbean countries. He’d been on a road that the Chinese built from Guyana to Suriname and said it was so bad that it nearly gave him a concussion.
