Chuseok dreams : tunnels between Korea, China, and Japan

I remember, before the construction of the Channel Tunnel between France and England, how images of earlier projects would resurface, including those from Napoleon era (early 1800s), where horse coaches would travel on paved road under the sea, tall brick chimneys reaching for the surface every mile or so to help people and animals breathe... The 50.45 km long "Chunnel" is now a reality, changing forever the face of European transports, London becoming almost a suburb of Paris*.

On this Chuseok day, the Chosun Ilbo mentions* 3 undersea railway projects under investigation between Korea and its neighbors. It's not the first time we hear about them, but things seem to be getting more serious.

The shortest project is 3 times longer than the Chunnel : it would connect Jeju-do with the mainland at Mokpo, putting Jeju only 2:26 hours away from Seoul by KTX. Sounds great but a bit disproportionate : I like Jeju very much, but the island only boasts half a million inhabitants. Even boosting the traffic (already millions of tourists every year) wouldn't make the concept viable.

Linking Korea with Japan makes much more sense, Busan-Fukuoka remaining the most likely axis (1 hour and 222.6 km according to the plan). But the connection should then continue across the archipelago far beyond Kyushu, and I wonder if it could be seismically sustainable.

What to say of the third project, a 341 km / 95 mn link between Incheon and Weihai (Shandong), with an artificial island in the middle ? A very ambitious project, but the shortest way if you put North Korea out of the equation, which is precisely the aim of the game : China would easily control major entry points to the peninsula for people and freight, and make reunification less a necessity.
Seoul Village 2010


* those darn Brits would turn the sentence around - after all, they dared chose Waterloo, the symbol of Napoleon's fall, as their main station for the Eurostar bullet train ! Mercifully, the new St Pancras Station is less an embarrassment for French visitors.

** see "개통땐 서울~제주 KTX로 2시간 26분… 국토해양부 "타당성 조사중"

7 zones

LEE Myung-bak's government is facing big hurdles these days but at least something seems relevant : grouping provinces and big cities around 7 economic zones, and accelerating bullet train projects at the national level. I hope this won't alter the "cluster" approach but boost each region.

The 5 major zones will be :

- Central metro : Seoul + Incheon + Gyeonggi-do - major : finance & hi tech
- South East : Busan + Ulsan + Gyeongsangnam-do - major : heavy industries
- Daegu / Gyeongbuk : Daegu + Gyeongsangbuk-do - major : electronics, textile, energy
- Chungcheong : Daejeon + Chungcheongnam-do + Chungcheongbuk-do - major : science, R&D, education
- Gwangju / Jeolla : Gwangju + Jeollabuk-do + Jeollanam-do - major : tourism

Two provinces remain on their own :

- North East : Gangwon-do - major : tourism and medical
- Jeju : Jeju-do - major : tourism

Not a dramatic change for Jeju but some hope for Gangwon, now a segment of one potentially more advertized overseas. Splitting Gyeongsang is an even smarter move. Jeolla remains untouched and focused on tourism, but a "Sun Belt" Economic Zone is also planned from Mokpo to Busan along the South Coast in order to rival Seoul and accelerate the demographic and economic development of Mokpo area. Top chaebols will be invited to open vice-national HQs in the new zone. Preferably not in the Busan area, already a major hub by itself.

If new administrative levels could limit the intranational competition between self proclaimed Asian hubs, they are not necessarily good news - poorly handled they would even destroy value everywhere. I also suspect some potential cannibalization / coopetition with Korea's existing cluster strategy.