The Geopolitics of Infrastructure and the Unmaking of an Island: The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge

ABSTRACT

The completion of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge marks not only a record-setting achievement in engineering, but also a materialisation of ongoing efforts by the People’s Republic of China to engage in cooperative projects aimed at expanding and deepening integrative connections with the semi-autonomous Special Administrative Regions of Macau and Hong Kong. This paper explores the colonial and post-colonial social construction of Hong Kong as a political-economic island, and the implications this carries into the tensions and open conflicts that have unfolded under the One Country, Two Systems agreement. Using the bridge as a case, it critically examines the geopolitical and biopolitical dimensions of infrastructure as a practice of subnational (de)bordering. The case renders visible a contemporary moment where infrastructure occupies a central position at the conjuncture of technology, advanced governmentality and shifting geographies of sovereignty in the People’s Republic of China, within subnational city-regional development plans, as well as internationally in projects, such as the geographically expansive Belt and Road Initiative. A close examination of the Bridge project highlights the constructed and contested nature of borders, as well as the complex identities and ideologies that define them.

Acknowledgements

Partial research and writing support for this article was provided by the College of Science, National Taiwan University, and the National Science and Technology Council, R.O.C.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The national security law, officially titled the ‘Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’, was passed and put into force with immediate effect on 30 June 2020 by China’s central government. The law specified crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign organisations. It introduced new surveillance and detention authorities for enforcement of the law within and beyond Hong Kong’s jurisdiction. It has been widely criticised by the UK and other governments as a violation of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. The law has since been used to prosecute hundreds of individuals, including teachers, journalists, democracy activists, among others.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Science and Technology Council, R.O.C.