Oct. 9 (EIRNS)—An enormous tunnel, over 125 miles long, could be built under the Yellow Sea between the west coast of Korea and the Shangdong region of China, bringing huge benefits to the countries in the region. A study by the Gyeonggi Research Institute (GRI), under the sponsorship of China's Shandong Academy of Social Sciences, identifies potential benefits of about $240 billion.
The primary benefit would come from linking express railways in the two countries. The tunnel would shorten travel from Seoul to Shanghai to 5 hours and 31 minutes, and to Beijing to 4 hours and 26 minutes, he said. This could result in creating a huge economic sphere, linking about 24 million people in the Seoul area with some 272.1 million in the Beijing and Shanghai regions.
GRI vice president Cho Eung-rae said that if the tunnel is built, it will produce economic benefits worth $99 billion for Korea, $134 billion for China, and $7 billion for Japan.
Xu Yunfei, a senior engineer with the Shandong Research Institute of Communications and a participant in the study, said, "If a Korea-China tunnel turns out to be a success, the construction of a Korea-Japan tunnel could also be pushed. If these tunnels link overland railways in Central Asia afterwards, it could create a modern version of the Silk Road."
The benefits of a China-Korea tunnel were calculated without including the vast synergetic effects of extending the link east to Japan and west to Europe. Were such a route to utilize maglev technology rather than standard high-speed rail, the benefits to the region would be multiplied many times over.
