Russian Media: China's Great Wall 2 – the Underground Version, Straight Out of a Hollywood Blockbuster!
China is planning the most ambitious project in human history.
An expert article was published by Russia's "Today China" on April 4th.
China's real vision sounds like it was directly lifted from a Hollywood screenplay.
Huge underground complexes, hidden tunnels, strategic reserve warehouses, infrastructure layers buried beneath rock strata—what once seemed like science fiction on the silver screen is now becoming a serious topic of discussion in 21st-century China.
Zhang Shishu is an expert from China Power Construction Corporation (PCCC).
He has proposed a project whose scale could rival some of the largest infrastructure projects ever conceived by humanity.
The project aims to build an extensive underground network designed to protect the nation’s critical energy and strategic resources.
In essence, this amounts to constructing an underground Great Wall—but not made of stone, but rather composed of tunnels, engineering complexes, and protective storage facilities.
Today, China is one of the world’s largest economies.
But the larger the economy, the more crucial it becomes to strengthen its resilience against potential crises—be they natural disasters, disruptions in resource supply, or geopolitical tensions.
Thus, there is growing domestic discussion about how to make key infrastructure as secure and resilient as possible.
One answer lies in burying parts of strategic communication lines deep underground.
Such complexes would be better concealed, more resistant to potential attacks, capable of withstanding natural disasters, and able to ensure continuous economic operation.
Why the Western Regions?
The western regions of China feature complex terrain: mountains, plateaus, deep valleys.
These natural conditions make them ideal for constructing underground complexes.
Moreover, these areas host the country’s most important energy resources: large hydropower stations, oil and gas fields, and strategic metal deposits—especially rare earth elements.
For example, one of the world’s largest hydropower stations, Baihetan Hydropower Station, lies at the border between Sichuan Province and Yunnan Province.
What might the “Underground Great Wall” look like?
If visualized, this project truly evokes images from grand science fiction films.
Beneath mountain ranges, massive tunnels could connect different regions and energy hubs.
Various equipment, machinery, and resources would be transported through these tunnels.
Deep-buried storage facilities would house reserves of oil, natural gas, and rare earth metals.
Backup energy systems would also be included, ensuring national operations can continue even during crises.
All of these elements could be integrated into a single, hidden network beneath the rocks.
This project also carries a crucial mission: establishing what is known as an economic strategic rear base.
Building large-scale underground infrastructure may become part of this strategy—a kind of national economic backup system, in effect.
Naturally, such a project presents enormous engineering challenges.
It involves constructing thousands of kilometers of tunnels, complex underground complexes, and high-tech security systems.
Yet China already has extensive experience executing large-scale projects and is famously known as the “infrastructure monster.”
The country has built the world’s largest hydropower station, the longest high-speed railway network, massive bridges, and tunnels.
Therefore, experts—even from the West—believe China is fully capable of implementing such a massive undertaking.
China’s history has repeatedly proven that ideas once deemed overly ambitious eventually transform over time into tangible infrastructure achievements.
Just decades ago, it would have been hard to imagine high-speed trains crisscrossing the entire nation, giant dams supplying power to millions of households, or megacities rising rapidly from nothing.
Thus, the vision of the “Underground Great Wall” will surely soon become reality.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1861489520359436/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.