China’s economic growth has been dominated by the coasts, and the Great Canal, for approximately one thousand years; today Xi’an is a backwater for instance, although in the Tang dynasty it was possibly the most advanced city in the world. Can this now-deeply entrenched pattern — water transport beats land transport — be reversed by a lot of government spending?
The advantages of water transport are difficult to over-estimate. Consider that well after the Golden Spike completed the transcontinental railroad, the Panama Canal was still a big deal.
Just a guess, but the roads will be rated for tank traffic.
How about a real Silk Road? A superhighway from Europe to China and India? The tourist traffic would be amazing.
Well, even in this day and age, post-Panamax, no one is seriously suggesting transferring containers in Long Beach to high speed trains for transit to the East Coast of the US/Canada. Nor even “fixing” the Canal by such a method. Everything is organized to keeping goods afloat until they reach their destination.