PART I

The Great Eastern Port

Although Shanghai is already the largest port in all China, as it stands it will not meet the future needs and demands of a world harbor. Therefore there is a movement at present among the foreign merchants in China to construct a world port in Shanghai. Several plans have been proposed such as to improve the existing arrangement, to build a wet dock by closing the Whangpoo, to construct a closed harbor on the right bank of the Yangtze outside of Whangpoo, and to excavate a new basin just east of Shanghai with a shipping canal to Hangchow Bay. It is estimated that a cost of over one hundred million dollars Mex. must be spent before Shanghai can be made a first-class port.

According to the four principles I set forth in Program I, Shanghai as a world port for Eastern China is not in an ideal position. The best position for a port of that kind is at a point just south of Chapu on the Hangchow Bay. This locality is far superior to Shanghai as an eastern port for China from the standpoint of our four principles as set forth in our first program. Henceforth, in our course of discussion, we shall call this the "Projected Port" so as to distinguish it from Shanghai, the existing port of Eastern China.

The Projected Port

The "Projected Port" will be on the Bay which lies between the Chapu and the Kanpu promontories, a distance of about fifteen miles. A new sea wall should be built from one promontory to the other and a gap should be left at the Chapu end, a few hundred feet from the hill as an entrance to the harbor. The sea wall should be divided into five sections of three miles each. For the present, one section of three miles in length and one and a half miles in width should be built and a harbor of three or more square miles so formed would be sufficient. With the growth of commerce one section after another could be added to meet the needs. The front sea wall should be built of stone or concrete, while the transverse wall between the sea wall and the land side should be built of sand and bush mattress as a temporary structure to be removed in case of the extension of the harbor. Once a harbor is formed there need be no trouble regarding the future conservancy work, for there is no silt-carrying water in the vicinity by which the harbor and its approaches may be silted up afterwards. The entrance of our harbor is in the deepest part of the Hangchow Bay, and from the entrance to the open sea there is an average depth of six to seven fathoms at low water. The largest ocean liner could therefore come into port at any hour. Thus as a first-class seaport in Central China our Projected Port is superior to Shanghai. See Map III.

From the viewpoint of the principle of the line of least resistance, our Projected Port will be on new land which will offer absolute freedom for city planning and industrial development. All public utilities and transportation plants can be constructed according to the most up-to-date methods. This point alone is an important factor for a future city like ours which in time is bound to grow as large as New York City. If one hundred years ago human foresight could have foreseen the present size and population of New York, much of the labor and money spent could have been saved and blunders due to shortsightedness avoided in meeting conditions of the ever growing population and commerce of that city. With this in view a great Eastern Port in China should be started on new ground to insure room for growth proportionate to its needs.

Moreover, all the natural advantages which Shanghai possesses as a central mart and Yangtze Port in Eastern China are also possessed by our Projected Port. Furthermore, our Projected Port in comparison with Shanghai is of shorter distance, by rail communication, to all the large cities south of the Yangtze. And if the existing waterway between this part of the country and Wuhu were improved then the water communication with the upper Yangtze would also be shorter from our Projected Port than from Shanghai. And all the artificial advantages possessed by Shanghai as a large city and a commercial center in this part of China can be easily attained by our Projected Port within a short time.

Comparing Shanghai with our Projected Port from a remunerative point of view in our development scheme, the former is much inferior in position to the latter, for valuable lands have to be bought and costly plants and existing arrangements have to be scrapped the cost of which alone is enough to construct a fine harbor on our projected site. Therefore, it is highly advisable to construct another first-class port for Eastern China like the one I here propose, leaving Shanghai to be an inland mart and manufacturing center as Manchester is in relation to Liverpool, Osaka to Kobe, and Tokyo to Yokohama.

Our Projected Port will be a highly remunerative proposition for the cost of construction will be many times cheaper than Shanghai and the work simpler. The land between Chapu and Kanpu and farther on will not cost more than fifty to one hundred dollars a mow. The State should take up a few hundred square miles of land in this neighborhood for the scheme of our future city development. Let us say two hundred square miles of land at the price of one hundred dollars a mow be taken up. As six mows make an acre and six hundred and forty acres a square mile, two hundred square miles would cost 76,000,000 dollars Mex. An enormous sum for a project indeed! But the land could be fixed at the present price and the State could buy only that part of land which will immediately be taken up and used. The other part of the land would remain as State land unpaid for and left to the original owners' use without the right to sell. Thus the State only takes up as much land as it could use in the development scheme at a fixed price which remains permanent. The payment then would be gradual. The State could pay for the land from its unearned increment afterwards. So that only the first allotment of land has to be paid for from the capital fund; the rest will be paid for by its own future value. After the first section of the harbor is completed and the port developed, the price of land then would be bound to rise rapidly, and within ten years the land value within the city limits would rise to various grades from a thousand to a hundred thousand dollars per mow. Thus the land itself would be a source of profit. Besides there would also be the profit from the scheme itself, i.e., the harbor and the city. Because of its commanding position, the harbor has every possibility of becoming a city equal to New York. It would probably be the only deep-water seaport for the Yangtze Valley and beyond, an area peopled by two hundred million inhabitants, twice the population of the whole United States. The rate of growth of such a city would be in proportion to the rate of progress of the working out of the development scheme. If war work methods, that is, gigantic planning and efficient organization, were applied to the construction of the harbor and city, then an Oriental New York City would spring up in a very short time.

Shanghai as the Great Eastern Port

If only to provide a deep-water harbor for the future commerce in this part of China is our object then there is no question about the choice between Shanghai and our Projected Port. From every point of view Shanghai is doomed. However, in our scheme of development of China, Shanghai has certain claims for our consideration which may prove its salvation as an important city. The curse of Shanghai as a world port for future commerce is the silt of the Yangtze which fills up all its approaches rapidly every year. This silt, according to the estimation of Mr. Von Heidenstam, Engineer-in-chief of the Whangpoo Conservancy Board, is a hundred million tons a year and is sufficient to cover an area of forty square miles ten feet deep. So before Shanghai can be considered ever likely to become a world port this silt problem must first be solved. Fortunately, in our program, we have the regulation of the Yangtze Channels and Embankments, which will coöperate in solving the problem of Shanghai. Thus with this scheme in mind we might just as well consider that the silt question of Shanghai has been solved and let us go ahead, while leaving the regulation of the Yangtze Estuary to the next part, to deal with the improvement of the Shanghai Harbor.

There are many plans proposed by experts for improving the Shanghai Harbor as stated before, and some of them will necessitate the scrapping of all the work which has been done by the Whangpoo Conservancy Board for the last twelve years, at the cost of eleven million taels. Here I wish to present a layman's plan for the consideration of specialists and the public.

My project for the construction of a world harbor in Shanghai is to leave the existing arrangement intact from the mouth of the Whangpoo to the junction of Kao Chiao Creek above Gough Island. Thus all the work hitherto done by the Whangpoo Conservancy Board for the last twelve years will be saved. The plan is to cut a new canal from the junction of Kao Chiao Creek right into Pootung to prolong that part of the channel which has been completed by the Conservancy Work, and to enlarge the curve along the right side of the Whangpoo River and join it again, at the second turn above Lunghwa Railway Junction, so as to make the river from that point to a point opposite Yangtzepoo Point almost in a straight line and thence a gentle curve to Woosung. This new canal would encircle nearly thirty square miles of land which would form the civic center and the New Bund of our future Shanghai. Of course the present crooked Whangpoo right in front of Shanghai would have to be filled up to form boulevards and business lots. It goes without saying that the reclaimed lots from the Whangpoo would become State property and the land between this and the new river and beyond should be taken up by the State and put at the disposal of the International Development Organization. Thus it may be possible for Shanghai to compete with our Projected Port economically in its construction and therefore to attract foreign capital, to the improvement of Shanghai as a future world port. See Map IV.

Below Yangtzepoo Point I propose to build a wet dock. This dock should be laid between the left bank of the present Whangpoo, from Yangtzepoo Point to the turn above Gough Island and the left bank of the new river. The space of the dock should be about six square miles. A lock entrance is to be constructed at the point above Gough Island. The wet dock should be forty feet deep and the new river can also be made the same depth by flushing with the water, not as proposed by experts, from a lock canal between the Yangtze and the Taihu, at Kiangyin, but from our improved waterway between this part of the country and Wuhu so that a much stronger current could be obtained.

As we see that the present Whangpoo has to be reclaimed from the second turn above Lunghwa Railway Junction to Yangtzepoo Point for city planning, then the question of how to dispose of the Soochow Creek must be answered. I propose that this stream should be led alongside the right bank of the future defunct river and straight on to the upper end of the wet dock, thence joining the new canal. At the point of contact of the Creek and the wet dock a lock entrance may be provided in order to facilitate water traffic from Soochow as well as the inland water system directly with the wet dock.

As the first principle in our program was remuneration, all our plans must strictly follow this principle. To create Pootung Point, therefore, as a civic center and to build a new Bund farther on along the left bank of the new canal in order to increase the value of the new land which would result from this scheme must be kept in mind. Only by so doing would the construction of Shanghai as a deep harbor be worth while. And only by creating some new and valuable property in this fore-doomed port could Shanghai be saved from the competition of our Projected Port. After all, the most important factor for the salvation of Shanghai is the solution of the silt question of the Yangtze Estuaries. Now let us see what effect and bearing the regulating of the Yangtze Channel and Embankments have upon the question, and this we are going to deal with in the next part.