Between Busan, in the south of the Korean peninsula, and Kyushu, in Japan, there is a distance of about two hundred kilometers, a small strip of sea dotted by the Japanese islands of Tsushima and Iki. Seen on the map it seems a little narrow pass between the seas of Japan and East China, a remote point of the Pacific Ocean with no more importance than so many other straits scattered throughout Asia.
That at first glance, of course.
For more than a century, it has been with its ups and downs. an ambitious project of infrastructure that would make it possible to bridge the strait and, more importantly, create a new and powerful internal communications channel in Asia, expanding relations with South Korea and opening up to Japan a valuable direct link that would allow him to strengthen his influence on the continent.
The origins of the project go back to 1917, when the Japanese military Kuniaki Koiso proposed the connection of Japan with the rest of Asia through a large underwater tunnel. The other possibility of connection, a huge bridge that would link both nations —explains the popular youtuber Kento Bento—, never came to be valued firmly given the intense flow of boats in the strait.
An idea with tradition
Since the days of Koiso the idea has experienced fluctuations, incorporating itself into the rail expansion plans of Asia, surviving the convulsive years of the Second World War and gaining some strength from the 1980s. With greater or lesser emphasis and intermittently, its defenders highlight its strategic advantages. As they already pointed out in 2008 academics and businessmen, “the tunnel can contribute to the process of northwest asia integration”.
At least then it was estimated that an infrastructure between Japan and South Korea could serve the more than 20,000 people who traveled daily between the two countries, would channel million tons of cargo and would generate billions of dollars thanks to its logistical advantages.
For the inhabitants of both countries it would also mark a revolution. bento points that if it were accompanied by a high-speed train, the two countries would be connected in just under an hour and a valuable link would be provided between the cities of Tokyo and Seoul. Japan would see its influence strengthened on the continent and Korea would gain a corridor with the third richest country in the world.
What characteristics would the infrastructure have?
Since the first half of the 20th century they have been put on the table Different alternatives which, basically, start from the south of Korea and connect in Japan with the areas of Fukuoka and Karatsu.
in 2018 The International Highway Foundation (IHF) pointed that the route would connect Busan and Geojedo, in South Korea, with the Japanese city of Karatsu, in Kyushu, through Tsushima. Its total length —explains the agency on its website— would be between 209 and 231 kilometers, with an underwater section that would add approximately between 128 and 145 kilometers. Along its route, as the maps published by IHF show, it would connect with the islands of Iki and Tsushima.
In 2009 the Busan Development Institute published a report on the infrastructure with a route proposal that left the infrastructure in about 223 kilometers.
The precise figure fluctuates from one source to another, as does the estimated cost of the works. Recently The Asashi Shimbun she spoke of the 235-kilometre connection between northern Kyushu and southern South Korea and pointed to overall costs of $71 billion. Other sources, bento either IPU, indicate higher figures; and there is someone, What indicates a lower investment.
More recently, a Japan-Korea undersea tunnel more than 200km long (longest in the world) has been proposed. It would facilitate travel and trade between the two countries, but nationalists on both sides are opposed and the plan remains on the drawing board. pic.twitter.com/hcbl29KrfU
— Spencer Wells (@spwells) July 28, 2020
Is the project limited to paper and calculations? Nope.
In the south of Japan, the works to open the submarine tunnel with the south of Korea began. The infrastructure was promoted by the Unification Church, founded in the 1950s by Sun Myung Moon. “The project was based on Moon’s belief that Japan should stop being an island nation when connecting with South Korea”, explains a former official from the IHF to The Asashi Shimbun.
The conduit was dug in Karatsu and in 2007, specifies the Japanese newspaper, its managers had already opened an inclined shaft six meters in diameter and about 540 meters long. The works were suspended when reaching the limits of the land of the organization itself.
The controversy that arose over the church’s methods of collecting donations after the recent assassination of Shinzo Abe —his killer accused the religious organization of having dragged his mother into bankruptcy and allegedly shot Abe, believing he had helped expand their influence— have further cooled the project. So much so that some authorities have marking distances. “I think the vision is quite absurd,” the minister came to point Tetsuo Saitō.
As noted AsashiIn 2014, the church estimated that, along with donations from its supporters, it allocated more than 10 billion yen — $70 million — to the IHF project.
Over the last few years, the truth is that the project has had the support of politicians, technicians Y leaders. The subject would have been put on the table even in meetings at the highest level between representatives of Japan and South Korea. The infrastructure, however, faces challenges that range beyond its technical complexityalready partially leveled by other underwater infrastructures of depth, such as Eurotunnel of the English Channel or Seikan’sopened in Japan itself.
Its promotion requires resolving the challenge of financing and, aside from technical or economic issues, the misgivings that a new link between Japan and Korea arouses in certain areas, territories that have maintained a turbulent relationship in the past, including much of the 20th century.
Images | The International Highway Foundation Y Peter Enyeart (Flickr)
