History of transport in China
Since 2018, transport occupied a relatively low priority in China's national development. In the twenty-five years that followed the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, China's transportation network was built into a partially modern but somewhat inefficient system. The drive to modernize the transport system, that began in 1978, required a sharp acceleration in investment. Though despite increased investment and development in the 1980s, the transport sector was strained by the rapid expansion of production and the exchange of goods.[1]
Inadequate transport systems hindered the movement of
Bridges
In the late 1980s, China had more than 140,000 highway bridges. Their length totaled almost 4,000 kilometers. Among the best known were the Yellow River Bridge in Inner Mongolia, the Liu Jiang Bridge in Guangxi, the Ou Jiang Bridge in Zhejiang, the Quanzhou Bridge in Fujian, and four large bridges along the Guangzhou-Shenzhen highway. Five major bridges — including China's longest highway bridge, the 5,560-meter-long Yellow River Bridge at Zhengzhou — were under construction during the mid-1980s, and a 10,282-meter-long railroad bridge across the Yellow River on the Shandong-Henan border was completed in 1985.
Inland waterways
The central government set out to overhaul the inefficient inland waterway system and called upon localities to play major roles in managing and financing most of the projects. By 1984 China's longest river, the
The Cihuai Canal in northern Anhui opened to navigation in 1984. This 134-kilometer canal linking the Ying River, a major tributary of the Huai River, with the Huai He's main course, had an annual capacity of 600,000 tons of cargo. The canal promoted the flow of goods between Anhui and neighboring provinces and helped to develop the Huai River Plain, one of China's major grain-producing areas.
Maritime shipping
During the early 1960s, China's
The container ship fleet also was expanding rapidly. In 1984 China had only fifteen container ships. Seven more were added in 1985, and an additional twenty-two were on order. By the early 1980s, Chinese
The inadequacy of port and harbor facilities was a longstanding problem for China but has become a more serious obstacle because of increased foreign trade. Beginning in the 1970s, the authorities gave priority to port construction. From 1972 to 1982, port traffic increased sixfold, largely because of the foreign trade boom. The imbalance between supply and demand continued to grow. Poor management and limited port facilities created such backups that by 1985 an average of 400 to 500 ships were waiting to enter major Chinese ports on any given day. The July 1985 delay of more than 500 ships, for instance, caused huge losses. All of China's major ports are undergoing some construction. To speed economic development, the Seventh Five-Year Plan called for the construction by 1990 of 200 new berths — 120 deep-water berths for ships above 10,000 tons and 80 medium-sized berths for ships below 10,000 tons — bringing the total number of berths to 1,200. Major port facilities were developed all along China's coast.
Civil aviation
In 1987 China's
The staff of CAAC was estimated at 50,000 in the 1980s. The administration operated three training colleges to educate future
In the mid-1980s regional airlines began operations under the general aegis of CAAC. Wuhan Airlines, run by the Wuhan municipal authorities, started scheduled passenger flights to Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, and Sichuan provinces in May 1986. Xizang also planned to set up its own airline to fly to Kathmandu and Hong Kong.
In the 1980s the central government increased its investment in airport construction, and some local governments also granted special funds for such projects.
See also
- Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China
References
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Country Studies. Federal Research Division. [1]