They Called China Crazy for Building This ¥37 Billion Desert Highway

China spent approximately ¥37 billion constructing critical sections of the G7 Beijing–Ürümqi Expressway through some of the country’s most isolated desert terrain. The 2,540-kilometre route crosses vast stretches of the Gobi, connecting Beijing with Xinjiang and shortening an important freight corridor. Engineers faced shifting dunes, violent sandstorms, extreme temperatures and hundreds of kilometres without established infrastructure. Critics questioned whether such an expensive road through largely empty land could ever be justified. But China was building for more than existing traffic. The highway was designed to strengthen trade, logistics and economic links between the country’s eastern cities and western frontier. Was the G7 an infrastructure gamble, or a road built decades ahead of demand? Subscribe to Scale & Steel for documentaries about the machines, megaprojects and industrial systems reshaping the modern world. Note: ¥37 billion means 37 billion Chinese yuan, approximately US$5 billion, not US$37 billion. #China #Megaprojects #Engineering #Infrastructure #G7Expressway #fyp