Just Burn the Money: China's Failed Megaprojects

By Kevin Jennings

Previously on this channel, we talked about China’s South China Sea military bases that were constructed atop manmade islands. Their construction was impressive, even if it wasn’t the most practical solution to their perceived problem. However, back when that episode was written, there was one minor detail that wasn’t being reported yet: the islands are sinking. The area in which they were built is not particularly suitable for artificial islands, so the concrete has begun to crumble and the bases are beginning to sink back into the sea.

This is the fate of all too many of China’s megaprojects. They seem flashy and impressive, are constructed quickly, and are immediately used for their intended function. Once the news breaks of China’s success, everybody tends to stop paying attention as those megaprojects either start to fall apart or fail to live up to the initial hype. Today we’ll be looking at some of China’s failed and collapsing megaprojects, as well as one that never got far enough off the ground.

Transit Elevated Bus

It’s an idea we’ve all seen before in cartoons. A person is stuck in traffic, so they press a button on their dashboard that elevates the body of their car, allowing them to simply drive over the gridlock. While this cartoon version of the invention is logistically ridiculous, some designers thought there was still something to the idea. Instead of a personal vehicle, what if there was a form of public transportation that could drive on a road above other cars?

This was the idea behind China’s Transit Elevated Bus, or TEB, also sometimes referred to as a straddling bus. While ideas like this had been floated around as early as the 1960s, nobody ever tried it. That all changed in 2010 when China unveiled designs for the TEB, which Time magazine named one of the 50 best inventions of the year.

The idea itself is simple. Tracks would be built on either side of the road for the TEB to drive along, straddling the regular traffic and allowing the bus to continue moving even when everybody else was at a standstill. The body of the bus would be elevated above the road, allowing it to transport its 300 passengers to their destination. Some variations of the design even allowed for up to 1,200 passengers per bus.

It seemed really appealing to investors. A public transit system that wasn’t impeded by traffic could theoretically always run on time, and this would encourage people to use the bus rather than relying on their own cars to commute. On the surface it seemed like a brilliant idea, and the scale models that were designed to show it operating on congesting streets looked very impressive. But then, reality set in.

There were countless problems with the TEB, not least of which was that it was simultaneously too tall and not tall enough. At 4.8 meters high, the bus would exceed China’s height limit for a vehicle. This meant there was a danger of it crashing into overhead traffic lights or signs. However, the area beneath the bus’s body only had a clearance of 2.1 meters.

While that’s plenty of room for a compact car, many trucks, vans, and SUVs are taller than that. And that’s before even factoring in that freight trucks might be attempting to use the road as well.

Even if the TEB was able to successfully clear all of the traffic, it still posed other problems for drivers. They would be unable to shift lanes or turn off the current road while being straddled by the bus, and they would be unable to see any signs or traffic lights. But those are all other people’s problems, everybody on the bus should be fine, right?

As long as the bus was traveling along a straight route, then sure. But the TEB couldn’t really turn, at least not well. It required long areas of straight roads to travel, and it could only turn at a shallow angle. The major cities that wanted to utilize this form of public transportation simply didn’t have roads that would accommodate it.

They also would have needed to build large, elevated platforms for people to load onto and off of the bus, and these would have taken up a lot of space that may not have actually existed. There’s also the small matter that China’s roads may not have been able to withstand the massive weight of the TEB.

Despite all these concerns, plans went ahead and the first test model was unveiled in Qinhuangdao, where the 22 meter long bus traveled along a 300 meter track. However, that same month Qinhuangdao government officials said they knew nothing about the test that was being performed. The revelation that this was some sort of publicity stunt rather than a government authorized test of the new technology shook investor confidence. People began calling the TEB a scam and a Ponzi scheme, and by year’s end 200 investors had pulled out of the project.

And with that, China’s new public transportation megaproject that was going to revolutionize urban transit came to an end.

Duplitecture Ghost Cities

If you’ve never heard the term duplitecture before, you’re not alone. The portmanteau of “duplicate” and “architecture” is almost exclusively found in China, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. China built multiple massive cities that were meant to be exact duplicates of existing cities. Or at least parts of those cities. They may have only replicated a few square miles of each major metropolis, but they were still filled with recognizable landmarks and enough skyscrapers to house a massive quantity of people.

Why pay to travel all the way from China to Manhattan when you can visit nearby Yujiapu instead? Instead of London, just travel to Thames Town. And instead of Paris, there’s the Tianducheng, also known as the Sky City. These recreations are so faithful that Tianducheng even includes replicas of both the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, and Thames Town contains statues of both Winston Churchill and Harry Potter.

When these cities were first built, they were certainly impressive. After all, they were just copying impressive cities that already existed. However, there is one thing that these duplicate cities failed to copy from their originals, and that is the population.

One of the reasons for the creation of these cities is the way that the Chinese government handles land development. If a developer wants to acquire land from a local government, they are required to build something on it immediately. This means that developers can’t wait until the surrounding area develops to the point that it could sustain a major city like Manhattan before building. The skyscrapers had to be thrown together as soon as the land was purchased, and then all they could do was wait and hope people actually moved in.

While in some cases these ghost cities did recover to some extent, the majority of them have not. House and apartment prices are far too high for the average Chinese resident to afford, and the land owners have no interest in lowering the prices regardless of how abandoned the cities are. Because the apartment buildings are generally owned by wealthy individuals who can afford to sit on the property for years without getting a return on their investment, they have collectively agreed to just wait it out rather than lower prices to attract residents.

Of course, even if somebody could afford to live in Yujiapu or Thames Town, there wouldn’t be much to do. Since the houses and apartments are all empty, so too are most of the stores. These cities were built with the expectation that hundreds of thousands or even a million people would reside in each, but in most cases the population has never exceeded 10% of the initial estimate.

It’s unclear what the future holds for these ghost cities, but hopefully something will happen. Due in no small part to China’s glut of ghost cities like these, the nation has about 65 million empty houses and apartments. That’s enough empty residences to house the entire population of France. But hey, at least the cities looked really cool when they were first built.

One Belt One Road

Not all of China’s megaprojects have been built within their own borders. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, known domestically as the One Belt One Road, is a series of megaprojects built around the world, particularly in developing nations. China lends large sums of money to nations to fund megaprojects which are often also built by the Chinese. The projects have drawn sharp criticism as being a form of economic neocolonialism and a form of debt-trap diplomacy, though such claims remain a matter of debate.

But regardless of whether or not China has such nefarious intentions in lending money, these projects are often deemed failures. Usually it’s because, just like China’s ghost cities, these megaprojects serve no actual purpose and stand alone as monuments to nothing. However, sometimes the failure is much more tangible than squandering time and money.

One of those most well known examples is the Coca Codo Sinclair Dam, built along the Coca River in Ecuador. The dam was built by China’s state owned Sinohydro Corporation for a price of $2.25 billion, and it was part of a larger $19 billion loan for various construction projects across Ecuador.

When the Chinese government offered to build Ecuador its new hydroelectric dam, they were likely thrilled with the idea. It was seven years after China’s Three Gorges Dam opened, and Three Gorges has remained the world’s largest and most impressive dam. Construction on the Coca Codo Sinclair Dam lasted for six years, and in 2016 it was finally ready to open. But in 2014, long before it opened, a number of cracks were noticed in the dam’s generator hall and surrounding equipment.

Of course, that’s not necessarily anything to worry about. Three Gorges Dam was reported as having 80 hairline cracks in it shortly after opening, but it was still deemed to be of good quality construction by experts. However, the problem at Coca Codo was much worse than 80 hairline cracks.

In late 2018, two years after the dam had become operational, there were 7,648 cracks discovered. It was a combination of small and large cracks, and is certainly cause for concern. That’s almost certainly not all of the cracks in the dam, either. In order to do a full investigation to find all the cracks, it would require them to deconstruct parts of the dam which is too cost prohibitive. The dam hasn’t failed yet, at least not in the sense of the walls bursting, but there have been other disastrous consequences.

Because the dam releases water that’s free of sediment, it results in exceptionally high levels of erosion downstream from the dam. This erosion has destroyed Ecuador’s largest waterfall, is in the process of destroying the village of San Luis, and is believed but not confirmed to be the direct cause of two oil spills. Once in 2022 and once in 2023, oil pipelines that ran along the river slipped off the bank and into the river, allegedly because of the erosion the dam has caused. The two spills resulted in a combined 16,200 barrels of oil being spilled into the Coca River.

Not only is it believed that further erosion will continue to undermine the infrastructure of the oil pipelines, but it could undermine the stability of the dam itself.

Goldin Finance 117

If you ever look at a picture of the Xiqing District skyline, you’re likely to see one distinct building towering over the rest. That building is Goldin Finance 117, a property owned by Goldin Financial Holdings Limited. In 2008, China State Construction Engineering Corporation began construction on the ambitious project.

The proposed skyscraper was going to have 128 stories above ground, giving it a total height of 597 meters (1,957 feet). It was going to be a mixed use building, with 117 of the floors used for a combination of housing, hotels, and commercial space, hence the name. The luxury building was meant to cater exclusively to the super wealthy, which led to concerns about whether or not the project was actually going to be economically viable. But before those concerns could be silenced, they’d need to finish construction and open the building first.

And maybe someday they will.

Originally Goldin Finance 117 was slated to be completed in 2014 after 6 years of construction. However, thanks to the Great Recession, construction was halted in January of 2010. Over a year later construction finally resumed, but this time the completion date was pushed back to 2019, an additional four years of work compared to the original estimate.

For a few years things were going great. Construction continued as scheduled, and by September of 2015 the building was topped out. The top 40 or so floors weren’t even close to being completed, but at least the skyscraper’s framework was finished. Once it was topped out, it became the fifth tallest building in the world at the time. It has since been knocked into sixth place by two meters.

Unfortunately for the future of this building, Goldin Financial fell into financial difficulties following the 2015 Chinese stock market crash. They were forced to suspend construction just a few months after the building was topped out, and it has yet to resume. For the past eight years Goldin Finance 117 has remained empty with a crane perched atop the building’s framework. Following this and other failed skyscrapers, the Chinese government eventually cracked down on such overambitious projects.

The government placed a ban on the construction of any buildings over 500 meters in height.

Goldin Finance 117 may not go down in history as one of China’s most successful megaprojects, but it is currently in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s tallest unoccupied building. They must be thrilled.

Key Takeaways

• China’s South China Sea military bases are sinking due to unsuitable island construction.
• The Transit Elevated Bus (TEB) project failed due to impractical design and lack of government support.
• Duplitecture ghost cities in China remain largely uninhabited due to high prices and lack of amenities.
• The Coca Codo Sinclair Dam in Ecuador has caused significant environmental damage and structural issues.
• Goldin Finance 117, once a record-breaking skyscraper, remains unoccupied due to financial difficulties.

Sources

• Original Side Projects video: Just Burn the Money: China’s Failed Megaprojects
• Hero image source by Arne Müseler / openverse, by-sa.

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