Quick Facts
- The image used by VOA Chinese was taken on March 28, 2018, before the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was officially put into operation.
- Within one year of the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the average daily passenger volume has exceeded expectations. After the epidemic, the passenger flow and vehicle flow have returned to normal. During the Easter holiday and Ching Ming holiday in Hong Kong this year, the traffic volume of the Zhuhai Port of the bridge broke records several times.
- In 2023, according to Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao, in the five years since the bridge opened, 36 million people and 7.5 million vehicles have traveled to and from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao through the Zhuhai Highway Port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. Among them, the total number of Hong Kong and Macao residents entering and leaving the country reached 19.8 million, accounting for 55%.
Background to the event
On April 21, the "Voice of America Chinese Network" published an article titled "The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is still difficult to escape the fate of the 'ghost bridge' five years after its opening", which was reprinted and reported by many overseas media, and has been read nearly 500,000 times on the X (Twitter) platform. The article said that China's Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge "has been unsatisfactory since its opening in 2018" and that "the bridge still has a low usage rate, and many media even call it a 'ghost bridge'".
The cover of the article uses a profile photo from the Associated Press, which reads "Vehicles driving on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge on March 28, 2018", showing that the bridge is empty.
Screenshot of related reports
Check clearly
Empty bridges?
The image used by VOA is from the Associated Press Photo Library. According to the relevant information, this image was taken on March 28, 2018.
Screenshot from the AP photo library.
Getty Images, a well-known stock photo site, has many photos taken with the same date and similar angles. One of the captions from Bloomberg shows that March 28, 2018 was the media day for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.
Photograph taken by Bloomberg with a similar perspective.
Keyword search shows that the official opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was on October 24, 2018. In other words, when the Associated Press took the above pictures, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge had not yet been officially opened to traffic, and the traffic flow on the bridge was not the traffic flow under normal operating conditions.
Is the use of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge low?
The Voice of America article said that the use of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge after its completion did not meet expectations.
However, on October 23, 2019, "The Paper" ("The First Anniversary of the Opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge: 66,900 Passengers per Day, Exceeding the Predicted Passenger Volume") learned from the relevant person in charge of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Authority that as of October 23, 2019, the total number of passengers traveling to and from the three ports through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge totaled 24,434,500, with a daily average of about 66,900 passengers, which has exceeded the predicted passenger volume (the passenger volume is predicted to be about 48,000 passengers per day in the initial opening of the bridge).
According to data released by the Transport Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, in 2019, the total traffic flow at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge checkpoint reached 1,521,100, with a daily average of about 4,167 trips. Affected by the new crown epidemic, between 2020 and 2022, the average daily number of vehicles crossing the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge once fell to triple digits, but in 2023, this number will rise to 6,244, and the total traffic will reach 2,279,100, which is 1.5 times that before the epidemic.
Traffic vehicle statistics at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge checkpoint (as of January 2024). Source: Transport Department, The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
In October 2023, Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao reported that "in the past five years, 36 million people and 7.5 million vehicles have traveled to and from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao through the Zhuhai Highway Port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, of which 19.8 million have entered and exited Hong Kong and Macao residents, accounting for 55%. As of October 2023, the total value of import and export goods through the Zhuhai Highway Port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has exceeded 700 billion yuan (RMB), setting up a golden channel for economic and trade in the Bay Area. Driven by the policies of "Macao cars going north" and "Hong Kong cars going north" successively implemented in January and July, the Zhuhai Port of the Bridge has set a new single-day vehicle traffic record for 14 times. ”
On 1 January 2023, Macao private cars licensed from Macao can enter Guangdong from the Zhuhai Highway Port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. According to the "Macao Cars Going North" policy, Macao car owners who are at least 18 years old and hold a Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong and Macao Residents can apply for an entry and exit licence for one Macao private car registered by themselves.
From 0:00 on July 1, 2023, the policy of "Hong Kong cars going north" has also been officially implemented. Similar to the "Macao cars going north" policy, eligible Hong Kong private cars can also enter and exit Guangdong through the Zhuhai Highway Port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.
According to the information published on the website of the Guangdong Provincial People's Government, the purpose of the "Macao Cars to the North" and "Hong Kong Vehicles to the North" policy is to implement the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and further facilitate the movement of people and vehicles between Guangdong and Macao.
Statistics from the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Border Inspection Station show that from March 28 to March 31, that is, during the 2024 Hong Kong Easter holiday, the Zhuhai Port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge received nearly 485,000 passengers, of which more than 280,000 were Hong Kong passengers, accounting for nearly 60% of the total passenger flow. In terms of vehicle traffic, there were 68,000 inbound and outbound vehicles, of which 44,000 were with Hong Kong and Macao license plates.
Images of dense traffic on the bridge can be seen everywhere on social platforms, which more intuitively shows that the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is not a "ghost bridge" as the "Voice of America Chinese Network" article claims. According to a number of media reports, due to the hot "northbound tide", the traffic flow of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge hit a new high during the holiday, and even the traffic police were required to divert some sections of the road according to the situation.
"Zhuhai Special Zone Daily" video account released a video on April 1, saying, "Recently, a large number of Hong Kong tourists have gone to the mainland for vacation, and on April 1, the Zhuhai Highway Port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge will have a peak of passengers and vehicles returning from the mainland." The Zhuhai traffic police will divert some road sections according to the situation. ”
On March 29, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge boundary control measures were implemented for a time, and only one entrance and exit were allowed to enter. (The picture comes from the Internet)
On April 2, the Liaison Office of the Central Government in Hong Kong, citing data released by the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Customs under Gongbei Customs, announced that on April 1, the customs supervised more than 19,500 inbound and outbound vehicles, a record high since the opening of the port.
The record was then broken on 6 April. According to a report by Xinhua News Agency on April 7, on the 6th, the traffic flow of the Zhuhai Highway Port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge reached 19,570, setting a new record for the highest traffic flow for the third time in seven days. According to the data provided by the border inspection department, from March 28 to April 6, the total number of passenger vehicles entering and exiting through the Zhuhai Highway Port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge exceeded 1 million and 170,000, with a daily average of more than 100,000 and 17,000, a year-on-year increase of more than doubled. Among them, more than 740,000 Hong Kong and Macao passengers and nearly 110,000 Hong Kong and Macao single-plate vehicles entered and exited through Zhuhai Port, accounting for about 73% and 64% of the total passenger and vehicle flows respectively.
To sum up, the "Voice of America Chinese Network" used a photo of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge before its official opening and operation, one-sidedly collected data, and forcibly packaged the bridge as a "ghost bridge". Within a year of the bridge's opening, the average daily passenger volume has exceeded expectations. After the epidemic, the passenger flow and traffic flow have returned to normal, and the record is frequently broken. In the five years since the opening of the bridge, 36 million people and 7.5 million vehicles have traveled to and from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao through the Zhuhai Highway Port of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. Among them, the total number of Hong Kong and Macao residents entering and leaving the country reached 19.8 million, accounting for 55%.
(Source: The Paper)