From South China Morning Post

 

 

After years of debate, Chinese scientists are close to a consensus on the design for what would be the world’s longest undersea railway tunnel, connecting the mainland to Taiwan.

 

If realised, shuttle trains could be whizzing through a 135km (84 mile) undersea section of the tunnel at up to 250km/h (155mph) by 2030.

 

The ambitious undertaking would include a multi-billion-yuan engineering and technical “warm-up” project, according to plans the scientists have sent the Chinese government, the South China Morning Post has learned.

 

Despite this technological progress, rising political tensions between the self-ruled island and Beijing, which regards it

 

However, some researchers said it was possible that Beijing would start work on the project in a unilateral, and largely symbolic move.

 

Continues with pics and video

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2158271/strait-ahead-how-beijing-planning-worlds-longest-rail-tunnel-link

I can understand Beijing’s desire to bring itself closer to Taiwan. But a tunnel? And one of that length? With so many non-stop flights between the mainland and Taiwan and so many Taiwanese companies employing tens of millions of mainland Chinese in their factories and businesses, I fail to see any logic. Besides, I trust the engineers have factored in the many earthquakes that hit Taiwan fairly regularly. Some like the one in 1999 are devastating. Taiwan expects a magnitude 7 earthquake or above every 4 or 5 years.