The Chinese government constructed a new bridge which was meant to help trade and traffic between North Korea and China. Except the bridge stands unused because North Korea hasn't constructed the necessary on, off ramps and access roads so the bridge can be opened to trade and traffic. Only North Korea would look at such a infrastructure project for which they paid nothing and spit in the eyes of its one and only benefactor.
The bridge was supposed to be a key link for trade and travel between China's underdeveloped northeast provinces and a much-touted special economic zone in North Korea — so key that Beijing sank more than $350 million into it.
Now, it is beginning to look like Beijing has built a bridge to nowhere.
An Associated Press Television News crew in September saw nothing but a dirt ramp at the North Korean end of the bridge, surrounded by open fields. No immigration or customs buildings could be seen. Roads to the bridge had not been completed.
The much-awaited opening of the new bridge over the Yalu River came and passed on Oct. 30 with no sign the link would be ready for business anytime soon. That prompted an unusually sharp report in the Global Times — a newspaper affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party — quoting residents in the Chinese city of Dandong expressing anger over delays in what they had hoped would be an economic boom for their border city.
The report suggested the opening of the mammoth, 3-kilometer bridge has been postponed "indefinitely."
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